“HIS TURN TO CRY:” TIBULLUS’ MARATHUS CYCLE (1.4, 1.8 AND 1.9) AND ROMAN ELEGY

Abstract

This article rcsituates the Marathus cycle, unique in Roman elegy for its focus on homoerotic love, within its wider elegiac context, arguing that the poems may he read as an encapsulation of elegy as a whole. It focuses on the interchangeability of male and female roles to illustrate how the characters that populate these elegies both typify and reinforce the norms of Latin love elegy while nonetheless retaining the centrality of elegy’s male speaker.