In the name of Tibullus. [Tib.] 3, 19 and Horace

Elegy 3, 19 of the so-called Appendix Tibulliana depicts the passionate and typically elegiac love for an unnamed woman by a poet who in v. 13 identifies himself with Tibullus. For this reason, several scholars have accepted, even recently, that the elegy is his work. However, several elements contradict this hypothesis, such as the fact that the authentic Tibullus only names himself in imagined inscriptions. It is more likely that [Tib.] 3, 19 is an instance of Tibullan impersonation: it seems to be constructed from the references to Tibullus found in Hor. epist. 1, 4 (his retreat into the siluae salubres) and carm. 1, 33 (his painful love for a bold and unfaithful woman). The author of [Tib.] 3, 19 thus creates an elegy that prefigures what Horace says in his texts addressed to Tibullus and assumes his authorial mask in an allusive literary game.