Te quoque Virgilio comitem non æqua, Tibulle, Mors juvenem campos misit in Elysios, Ne foret, aut elegis molles qui fleret amores, Aut caneret forti regia bella pede. The poems commonly ascribed to Tibullus consist of four books, but only two are genuine, and of these, the second was published posthumously. Two lines in the third book, which fix the date of the poet’s birth in the consulship of Hirtius and Pansa,[718] have generally been considered as spurious, because such a date is inconsistent with the rest of the chronology; but Voss rejected the whole of that book; and there is no question but that the spirit and character of the elegies, as well as the harmony of the metre, are very inferior to those of the preceding poems. The same inferiority marks the fourth also, with the exception of the smaller poems, which bear the names of Sulpicia and Corinthus. These, as Niebuhr correctly observes, display greater energy and boldness than Tibullus possessed, and are the productions of some poet much superior to him. That elegant scholar and judicious critic, Muretus,[719] has well attributed to him, as his chief characteristics, simplicity, and natural and unaffected genius:—“Illum (_i. e._ Tibullum) judices _simplicius_ scripsisse quæ cogitaret; hunc (_i. e._ Propertium) diligentius cogitasse quæ scriberet. In illo _plus naturæ_, in hoc plus curæ atque industriæ perspicias.” SEXTUS AURELIUS PROPERTIUS. Very little is known respecting the life and personal history of Propertius beyond the few facts which may be gleaned from his poems. He was a native of the border country of Umbria, and was probably born not earlier than A. U. C. 703,[720] or later than 700.[721] This period will sufficiently agree with the statement of Ovid respecting their relative ages.[722] His family had not produced any distinguished member, but possessed a competent estate. Like Virgil and Tibullus, he was a sufferer by the consequences of war; for the establishment of a military colony reduced him from comfort to straitened circumstances.[723] Like most young Romans of genius and education, he was intended for the bar;[724] but poetry had greater charms for him than severe studies, and he became nothing more than a literary man. He inhabited a house in the now fashionable quarter of the Esquiline, and was on intimate terms with Gallus, Ovid, Bassus, and Virgil. Cynthia, his amour with whom inspired so large a portion of his elegies, was not only a beautiful but an accomplished woman. She was his first love; and it appears to have been some time before she yielded to his solicitations,[725] nor was she even then always faithful to him.[726] She could write verses and play upon the lyre,[727] and was a graceful dancer.[728] She owed to him, says Martial, her immortality; whilst he owed to his love for her the inspiration which immortalized himself:—