Editing Tibullus (section)

===''Panegyricus Messallae''===
{{main|Panegyricus Messallae}}
Poem 3.7, unlike all the other poems in the Tibullan collection, is written in [[dactylic hexameter]]s. It is a panegyric of [[Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus|Messalla]] (consul 31 BC), 212 lines long. There is no indication of the author, although, like Tibullus (1.1.41–43), the author complains that his family was once very wealthy but that their estate has been reduced to a small farm (3.7.181–191). It is thought by some scholars that the poem itself was probably written in 31, the year of Messalla's consulship, or soon afterwards.<ref name=Bright>Bright, D. F. (1984). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20538833 "The Role of Odysseus in the ''Panegyricus Messallae''"]. ''Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica'', 17(2), 143–154.</ref> Other scholars, however, view it as a [[pseudepigrapha|pseudepigraphical]] work written many years later.<ref>e.g. Fielding, I. (2015). [https://www.academia.edu/33427568/The_poetic_afterlives_of_the_Panegyricus_Messallae "The poetic afterlives of the ''Panegyricus Messallae''"] (Paper presented at Oxford University)</ref>

Although many scholars have criticised the style of the poem,<ref>"By common consent the least successful work in the {{lang|la|Corpus Tibullianum}}": Bright (1984), p. 143.</ref> it has also been called "brilliant, though excessively rhetorical".<ref>Radford R. S. (1926). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/282770 "The Ovidian Authorship of the Lygdamus Elegies"]. ''Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association'', Vol. 57, (1926), pp. 149–180.</ref> Among its features are two long digressions, one (lines 48–81) detailing all the wanderings of [[Odysseus|Ulysses]] (Odysseus) up to his arrival on the island of Phaeacia, and the other (lines 151–176) describing the five climatic zones of the world. F. S. Bright demonstrates how these two digressions are in fact related and how both have relevance to Messalla.<ref name=Bright />