Lygdamus
Sign in to saveLygdamus (probably a pseudonym) was a Roman poet who wrote six love poems in Classical Latin. His elegies, five of them concerning a girl named Neaera, are preserved in the Appendix Tibulliana alongside the apocryphal works of Tibullus. In poem 5, line 6, he describes himself as young and in 5.18 gives his birth year as the year "when both consuls died by equal fate" (that is, 43 BC). This line, however, is identical to one in Ovid's Tristia from AD 11, and it has been much debated by scholars. One suggestion, supported by the numerous features of vocabulary and style shared between Lygdamus a
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Top works
- Lygdami Carmina
- Las Elegías Del Tibulo
- Las Elegías De Tibulo
- Albius Tibullus und Lygdamus
- Les Élégies de Tibulle, Lygdamus et Sulpicia
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Quotes
- “Carmine formosae, pretio capiuntur avarae: gaudeat, ut digna est, versibus ilia novis.”
- “A crudele genus nec fidum femina nomen! a pereat, didicit fallere si qua virum.”
- “Nescis quid sit amor, iuvenis, si ferre recusas immitem dominam coniugiumque ferum.”
- “Ei mihi, difficile est imitari gaudia falsa, difficile est tristi fingere mente iocum.”
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~12 min read
Article
13 sectionsContents
- Lygdamus and Neaera
- The poems
- Poem 1
- Poem 2
- Poem 3
- Poem 4
- Poem 5
- Poem 6
- Date and authorship
- Metre
- Style
- Editions
- References
Lygdamus (probably a pseudonym) was a Roman poet who wrote six love poems in Classical Latin. His elegies, five of them concerning a girl named Neaera, are preserved in the Appendix Tibulliana alongside the apocryphal works of Tibullus. In poem 5, line 6, he describes himself as young and in 5.18 gives his birth year as the year "when both consuls died by equal fate" (that is, 43 BC). This line, however, is identical to one in Ovid's Tristia from AD 11, and it has been much debated by scholars. One suggestion, supported by the numerous features of vocabulary and style shared between Lygdamus and Ovid, is that "Lygdamus" is merely a pen name used by the young Ovid. Some more recent scholars, however, have argued that Lygdamus lived much later than Ovid and imitated his style. No other author mentions Lygdamus, making the mystery of his real identity all the more difficult.
Unlike Tibullus's Delia and Nemesis, Neaera appears not to have been a courtesan, but is described by the poet as his wife, who left him for another man.