The , also known as the ("Praises of Messalla"),Although the title is more commonly used, the main manuscript has , and the latter is also preferred by Maltby (2021). The title is reported by Scaliger to have been used in a now lost manuscript belonging to Jacques Cujas, the so called (Maltby 2021, §2.2.2). is a 212-line Latin poem in dactylic hexameters included in the 3rd book of the Roman poet Tibullus's collected works. It is a panegyric or praise-poem apparently written to celebrate the installation to the consulship of Tibullus's patron, the Roman aristocrat Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus in 31 BC. The poem is numbered 3.7 in the Tibullus collection. It follows the six elegiac poems of "Lygdamus" and is followed by the five elegiac poems known as the Garland of Sulpicia.
Like most of the 20 poems in the 3rd book of Tibullus, its date and authorship are disputed, with scholars disagreeing whether it was written by Tibullus or another member of Messalla's circle around 31 BC, or whether (as many scholars think) it is a piece of pseudepigrapha written by an anonymous author many years later.
The poem has received different critical reactions. According to one scholar, it is "by common consent the least successful work in the ".Bright (1984), p. 143. But it has also been called "brilliant, though excessively rhetorical".Radford (1926), p. 151.
Summary of the poem The poem has 212 lines.The lines are numbered up to 211. The confusion arose since the Plantin Press edition of 1569 followed a manuscript which omitted a line after 112. It is the only poem in the Tibullan corpus to be in hexameters rather than elegiac couplets.
1–17 The poet expresses how impossible it is to praise Messalla sufficiently, and how inadequate he is for the task. He gives the examples of Bacchus and Hercules, who deigned to be entertained by humble people.
18–38 Let others make poetry about the construction of the universe. He will sing of how Messalla will outdo even the achievements of his illustrious ancestors. The poet hopes to beat all competition in this.
39–81 Messalla's achievements in warfare and in the forum are equally balanced. He can quieten a crowd and win over a hostile judge. Not even Nestor and Ulysses were as skilled in speaking. – The poet now lists all the adventures of Ulysses up to his landing on Phaeacia and says that though Ulysses' travails were greater, Messalla's eloquence is greater.
82–117 Messalla's prowess in warfare is as strong as his eloquence. The poet enumerates in detail all the different tasks which Messalla has had to perform as general. The poet says he speaks from experience, as the Iapydians, Pannonians, and long-lived Arupini (peoples in the region of Croatia whom Messalla has conquered) can bear witness.Cassius Dio (49.38.3) states that the campaigns were carried out by Octavian, but it is likely that Messalla was also involved: Schoonhoven (1983), p. 1685.
120–134 He predicts that Messalla will achieve even greater things; he calls to witness the unusually sunny and calm weather on the day of Messalla's inauguration, when Jupiter himself appeared on his chariot to hear Messalla's prayers.The poet here appears to be describing the phenomenon of "Halcyon days", a period of unusual calm which is said to occur sometimes in midwinter.
135–150 Gaul, Spain, Cyrenaica, Egypt, Parthia, Central Asia, India, Thrace, and the Cimmerian Bosporus will not detainScholars are divided as to whether the phrase ("will not detain you") should be interpreted as meaning that these countries will be easy for Messalla to conquer (so Funaioli 1952 and Maltby 2021), or that there will be no need for him to conquer them (so Cartault 1909 and Schoonhoven 1983); see Funaioli (1952), p. 102. Messalla, but Britain and the southern hemisphere are waiting for Messalla to conquer them.
151–176 The poet describes in detail the five climatic zones of the earth, and says that Messalla alone will be famous in both hemispheres of the world.
177–189 The poet says that the wealthy poet Valgius will praise Messalla better than he can. He complains that he, the author, was once wealthy and had leisure but that his fortune is now much reduced.
190–211 Nonetheless, he will devote himself to Messalla and would be willing to cross the stormy seas, stand in battle, or even throw himself into Mount Etna for him if only Messalla will notice him. Even after his death, whether his life is short or long, or whether he is metamorphosed into a horse, a bull, or a bird, he will never stop singing Messalla's praises.
Date and authorship Scholars have expressed differing views on the date and authorship of the Panegyricus. Some believe it to date from 31 BC or shortly after, while others, especially some more recent critics, believe it is a work written in the persona of Tibullus, but from a much later period.
31 BC? The ostensible date of the poem is usually taken to be 31 BC. The poet apparently describes the day of Messalla's consular inauguration on January 1 of that year and his earlier campaigns of 35–33 BC in Illyria, but there is no mention of the battle of Actium in September 31 BC, in which Messalla led a squadron, or of Messalla's subsequent campaign in Aquitania, commemorated in Tibullus 1.7. There is also no mention of Octavian (the later emperor Augustus), who was the other consul in 31 BC.Schoonhoven (1983), p. 1687. There is, however, praise of Valgius Rufus, a poet who was of the same age and social class as Messalla and a member of his circle (he was to become suffect consul in 12 BC).See Maltby (2021) on line 180.
Although the poem is included with the works of Tibullus, and addressed to Tibullus's patron Messalla, and the complaint about his family's poverty is reminiscent of Tibullus's similar complaint in 1.1.19–22, most scholars do not think it is by Tibullus. William Smith (1851) writes: "The hexameter poem on Messala, which opens the 4th book, is so bad that, although a successful elegiac poet may have failed when he attempted epic verse, it cannot well be ascribed to a writer of the exquisite taste of Tibullus".Smith (1851), s.v. "Tibullus, Albius". Funaioli (1952) also argues strongly that the work cannot be by Tibullus. He sees an "abyss" between the terseness and expressive eloquence of Tibullus and the clumsy, obscure, over-allusive style of the Panegyricus.Funaioli (1952), p. 104.
However, Luigi Coletta (1984) disagrees and argues that the work is indeed by Tibullus. According to Coletta, the difference in style between this and the elegiac poems of books 1 and 2 is due to the fact that the poems are of completely different genres, with the Panegyricus closely imitating the style and wording of Greek hymns such as the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. Coletta also finds a close stylistic similarity between elegy 1.7.9–12 and Panegyricus 106–112, where in both places in similar language the writer claims to have taken part in Messalla's campaigns.Coletta (1984), p. 234. According to Coletta's chronology, Tibullus, as befitted a young man of equestrian family, from the age of about 20 accompanied Messalla on various campaigns: to Illyria in 35–33 BC (as described in the Panegyricus), possibly to Actium in 31 BC, to the East in 29 BCKnox, P. E. (2005). "Milestones in the Career of Tibullus". The Classical Quarterly, 55(1), 204–216, however, argues that the campaign in Aquitania took place earlier than Messalla's trip to the east to take up the governorship of Syria. (when Tibullus was left behind on the island of Corcyra due to illness), and finally to Aquitania in 28 BC, celebrating Messalla's triumph in 27 BC in elegy 1.7. Coletta sees no contradiction in the chronology or in the poet's attitude towards Messalla that rules out Tibullus as author.
27/26 BC? Schoonhoven (1983), while supporting an early date, argues for a date a few years after 31 BC. He points out that between 30 and 26 BC triumphs were celebrated in Rome over six of the areas mentioned in the poem as being suitable (or, in Schoonhaven's interpretation, unsuitable) for Messalla to conquer; about this time also Cyrenaica had had a political settlement and an embassy had been received from India. He argues therefore that the poet evidently had these countries in mind when he wrote the Panegyric, and was hinting that Messalla would be a suitable commander for the conquest of Britain, which Augustus was proposing to invade in 27 or 26; Schoonhoven thus proposes a date for the poem of late 27 or early 26 BC. He views the poem as written for the occasion of Messalla's triumph in September 27 BC rather than his inauguration on January 1, 31 BC.Schoonhaven (1983), p. 1690. Another consideration pointed out by Schoonhaven is that lines 117–134 appear to echo and invert Virgil's Georgics 3.491–555, which was not published until 29 BC.Schoonhaven (1983), p. 1695. Other scholars, however, have not accepted the idea that the poem commemorates Messalla's triumph. Among other reasons, the unusually calm and sunny weather described seems more appropriate to January than to September.
Radford (1923), who believed that both the Panegyricus and the poems of "Lygdamus" which precedes it are the work of the youthful Ovid, also placed the Panegyricus a few years after 31.In 31 BC, Ovid would have been only 13. An evident problem with ascribing the poem to Ovid, however, is the section (177–189) where the poet complains that his estate has been much reduced from its former size: this is reminiscent of similar complaints in Tibullus 1.1.19–22 and Propertius 4.1.127–30,Fielding (2015), p. 3. but less appropriate to Ovid, whose family are not known to have lost any property in the confiscations after the civil war. The author of the Panegyricus also claims to have taken part in the Illyrian campaign, for which Ovid, born in 43 BC, would have been far too young.
From a metrical point of view, Bright (1984) points out that there are six lines in the poem in which the beginning of the fifth foot does not coincide with a stressed syllable, which suggests an early date for the poem, since from the time of Virgil onwards such lines were very rare.Bright (1984), p. 144. Duckworth (1966) compares the metrical style of the Panegyricus to the anonymous Ciris, which he places in the republican period.Duckworth (1966), p. 95.
Late date? Maltby (2021), however, disagreeing with Bright and Duckworth, and believes that on metrical and stylistic grounds the poem could not date from the time of Tibullus.Maltby (2021), §2.2.2.
Maltby and other recent scholars, such as Holzberg (1998), Peirano (2012), and Fielding (2015), take the view that the Panegyricus, as well as other works in volume 3 of the , are pseudepigrapha, written by an anonymous author or authors many years after the time of Messalla. Fielding (2015), for example, argues that because the author apparently refers to Ovid's Metamorphoses, it could not have been written earlier than c. AD 8, and perhaps not until the 2nd century AD.
The parts of the Panegyricus which seem particularly to echo the Metamorphoses are lines 18–23 ("let another poet write a work describing the formation of the world from the four elements")However, as Maltby points out in his commentary, the same theme also occurs in earlier poets such as Lucretius. and the end (204–211), which seems to refer to the doctrine of the metempsychosis (reincarnation) of souls. Ovid's Metamorphoses begins with a description of the creation of the world, and much of the last book (15.66–478) is taken up with a long speech of the philosopher Pythagoras discussing the transmigration of souls.Fielding (2015), pp. 4–5. There are also verbal correspondences, e.g. (Panegyricus 151) resembles (Ovid, Met. 1.12).Funaioli (1952), p. 106. Maltby also finds echoes of 1st century AD poets such as Manilius, Statius, and Juvenal in the poem.Maltby (2021), § 2.2.2.