A divorce had probably taken place, as she was not entitled to wear the distinctive dress of the Roman matron; i. 6, 67,
‘Sit modo casta, doce, quamvis non vitta ligatos
impediat crines nec stola longa pedes.’
Nemesis was a meretrix; ii. 4, 14,
‘Illa cava pretium flagitat usque manu.’
She appears to be the ‘immitis Glycera’ of Hor. Od. i. 33, 2, addressed to Albius (so Kiessling ad loc.). Both Delia and Nemesis are represented by Ovid as present at the funeral of Tibullus. Amor. iii. 9, 53,
‘Cumque tuis sua iunxerunt Nemesisque priorque
oscula nec solos destituere rogos.’
Tibullus was on friendly terms with Horace, who addressed to him Od. i. 33 and Ep. i. 4. Horace was doubtless attracted by the frank nature of Tibullus (Ep. i. 4, 1, ‘Albi, nostrorum sermonum candide iudex’), and by the community of taste which led them both to imitate the classical Ionic rather than the Alexandrian elegy. Horace corroborates the statement of Life i. (‘insignis forma cultuque corporis observabilis’) that Tibullus had a fine presence; ibid. 1. 6,
‘Non tu corpus eras sine pectore: di tibi formam,
di tibi divitias dederunt artemque fruendi.’
Ovid had met and admired him, and has numerous imitations of him in his poems; but the difference of age and the early death of Tibullus prevented any long acquaintance; Ovid, Tr. iv. 10, 51,
‘Nec amara Tibullo
tempus amicitiae fata dedere meae.’