SOURCE: "The Religious Life of Tibullus as Reflected in His Elegies," The Classical Weekly, Vol. XXII, No. 16, Whole No. 600 February 25, 1929, pp. 121-26.

In the following essay, Burriss outlines Tibullus's religious beliefs and describes them as practical in nature and unsophisticated.

Tibullus was a poet, and so his attitude toward the gods is colored by the fancy of the poet.¹ Against this we must set the fact that he was a farmer who knew at first hand the ritual of the country festival, and that he was reverent toward the gods of his country.

That he was an unsophisticated believer in the gods is evident; this is strange in view of the fact that he lived in an age when scepticism was rampant among cultured people. When his duties called him into the fields, he would pause in worship at a garlanded tree trunk or an ancient boundary stone...