Women like Cynthia were not in any degree conspicuous among their contemporaries; they were nothing more than ciphers in the estimation of those great ladies who took a part in the game of politics. They are only known to us because their names chanced to be embalmed in the writings of the men whose companions they were; but from this distance, whence the names of the women of Rome may be seen as divested of that fictitious glory which was a mere accident of their birth, a Cynthia gains more interest from her connection with a poet than does a Julia from her relation to an emperor.
These women look out at us from the insulæ in which were massed the common people. We catch glimpses of their fair faces and hear somewhat of their sportive talk, but unfortunately we know little of their lives. History has not individualized the woman of the common people; literature has dressed her up in all her finery, and has posed her in natural but unusual situations. Delia, Nemesis, and Neaera, women whose love and whose loss Tibullus sang in such passionate strains, though human enough, as is attested by their fickleness, are credited with those charms which have their existence only in the imagination of a poet and in a lover's fancy.
Tibullus, unlike Horace, took his love affairs too seriously; consequently, owing to the character of the women to whom he became attached, they brought him more grief than pleasure. The first object of his affection was Delia, whose real name, according to Apuleius, was Plania. "She belonged," says Milman, "to that class of females of the middle order, not of good family, but above poverty, which answered to the Greek hetaeræ." Tibullus longed to retire with her to the undisturbed seclusion of the country. For her sake he rejected a flattering offer from his great patron Messala, who desired the poet's companionship on a martial expedition. "The bonds of a fair girl hold me captive, and I sit like a gatekeeper before her obdurate door. I care not to be praised, my Delia; only let me be with thee, and I am content to be called slow and spiritless." It would have been very surprising if the poet had been able to retain the fidelity of Delia by such arguments as these. The time had not yet come when the women of Rome did not love soldierly valor; the time never came when they were not influenced by the hope of a participation in the spoils of conquest. Shortly after the rejection of Messala's offer, the poet seems to have been obliged to leave the city; and when he returns, he finds that Delia has married; upon which, in the imagery of poetic numbers, he drowns his grief in wine. However, he soon recalls to his mind the fact that a husband is not necessarily an insurmountable barrier between himself and the lady. She must be taught how to elude observing eyes. He pretends--the wish probably being father to the thought--that he has a magic which will render them invisible. "Chant thrice, spit thrice after reciting the charm; your husband will be unable to believe the testimony of his own eyes." But Delia could not remain faithful even to such a pertinacious lover. What a moving scene is that in the fifth elegy of the first book! It is worthy of quotation, if for no other reason than that in it the poet recites the efficacious means which he has employed for the recovery of Delia, who has been ill.
"What can atone, my fair, for crimes like these?
I'll bear with patience, use me as you please.
Yet, by Love's shafts, and by your braided hair,
By all the joys we stole, your suppliant spare.
When sickness dimmed of late your radiant eyes,
My restless, fond petitions won the skies.
Thrice I with sulphur purified you round,