The three chief elegists are Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid. Of Ovid, the youngest and most voluminous, and one of the most gifted among the Augustan poets, it will be better to treat in a separate chapter. [Sidenote: Cornelius Gallus.] Somewhat older than Tibullus and Propertius was Cornelius Gallus, whose elegies were greatly admired by his contemporaries, but of which hardly a trace remains. Gallus was born at Forum Julii (Fréjus), in 70 B. C. He was a schoolmate of Augustus, commanded some troops in the war against Antony, and held the town of Parætonium when Antony attacked it. He was afterwards prefect of Egypt, but indulged in offensive remarks about Augustus, and showed his pride by setting up statues of himself in various places in Egypt, and having his name carved upon the pyramids. When he was recalled in disgrace by Augustus his creditors brought suits against him, he was condemned to exile, and his property was confiscated. Unable to bear his troubles, he committed suicide at the age of 43 years. His greatest claim to remembrance is his friendship for Virgil, who expressed his gratitude to him in the sixth and tenth _Eclogues_, and, perhaps, in the original ending of the _Georgics_. The elegies of Gallus, in four books, were addressed to Lycoris, an actress of low birth and loose morals, whose stage name was Cytheris. In addition to his elegies, Gallus wrote translations from the Greek of Euphorion. [Sidenote: Valgius.] Another writer of elegies was Gaius Valgius Rufus, a friend of Horace, who was _consul suffectus_ in 12 B. C. Of his elegies on a boy named Mystes little remains, but they are spoken of by Horace and admired by the author of a panegyric on Messalla. Valgius also wrote some learned works, among them a treatise on medicine and a translation of the rhetoric of Apollodorus. [Sidenote: Tibullus.] Albius Tibullus was born near Pedum, in Latium, probably about 54 B. C., and was, if the “Life of Tibullus,” contained in the best manuscripts of his works, is to be trusted, of equestrian rank. He inherited a large property, but lost the greater part of it, perhaps in the confiscations of 41 B. C. Apparently it was restored to him by Messalla, of whom he speaks with great affection. He followed Messalla to the East soon after the battle of Actium, but was detained by illness at Corcyra. He also accompanied Messalla in his campaign in Aquitania. Nothing further is known of his life, except his love for Delia, who appears to have been a married woman of low birth (_libertina_), and for Nemesis, who is apparently identical with the Glycera mentioned by Horace (_Od._ I, xxxiii, 2). Tibullus died about 19 B. C. He was a friend of Horace and was admired by Ovid, but there is no evidence that he and Propertius knew one another.