Cicero De Re Publica

authors of the Sulpicia-poems, comparing them with Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid. This examination makes it difficult to believe that Tibullus wrote iv. 2-6. Although there are certain striking similarities, there are also many significant differences. For example, Tibullus never elsewhere uses the familiar or prosaic expressions si sapis, crede mihi, pone metum, erit aptius, or the supine, or -ne . . . -ne as double interrogatives, or the Greek words lampas and pelagus. Again there is a series of common words used in these poems in a sense not found in Tibullus: ignis and calere as part of the erotic vocabulary, superbus (3 times) in a good sense, candidus ' kindly', uestigia ' feet'. In many of these points the poems differ not only from Tibullus but also from Propertius, which makes chance a less likely explanation; but the usages are in every case Ovidian, and often typically Ovidian. In these circumstances it is worth while to notice that most of the unusual words and usages in the Sulpicia poems are also to be found in Ovid: indago, plaga, restituo (restore to life), subsequor. There are other features that recall Ovid: the irreverent address to Mars, the antiquarianism of Mane Geni and ter tibi fit libo, or such epigrammatic lines as