Tibullan impersonation and Callimachean influence in the Messalla Panegyric ([Tib.] 3.7)

This chapter asks how a hexameter panegyric found its way into an elegiac collection by various authors that has come down to us as the Appendix Tibulliana . Peirano (2012) makes a good case for the poem being a Tibullan impersonation and this chapter takes the argument further, suggesting that some of the peculiarities of the panegyric are derived from its connection with Callimachean epinicion, also a feature of Tibullus 1.7. The similarity in the positioning of the Messalla Panegyric as seventh in its book, following a group of six love elegies, exactly parallels the position of Tibullus 1.7. The Callimachean features of both poems deserve further investigation; these throw light on the poem’s links with Catalepton 9 and the Laus Pisonis . In conclusion, it is suggested that the poem could have been deliberately placed seventh in the collection by its author, who may well have edited the whole book.

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