It is a panegyric or praise-poem apparently written to celebrate the installation to the consulship of Tibullus's patron the Roman aristocrat Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus in 31 BC.
The poet says he speaks from experience, as the Iapydians, Pannonians, and long-lived Arupini (peoples in the region of Croatia whom Messalla has conquered) can bear witness.
Even after his death, whether his life is short or long, or whether he is metamorphosed into a horse, a bull, or a bird, he will never stop singing Messalla's praises.
[8] There is, however, praise of Valgius Rufus, a poet who was of the same age and social class as Messalla and a member of his circle (he was to become suffect consul in 12 BC).
William Smith (1851) writes: "The hexameter poem on Messala, which opens the 4th book, is so bad that, although a successful elegiac poet may have failed when he attempted epic verse, it cannot well be ascribed to a writer of the exquisite taste of Tibullus".
He sees an "abyss" between the terseness and expressive eloquence of Tibullus and the clumsy, obscure, over-allusive style of the Panegyricus.
He points out that between 30 and 26 BC triumphs were celebrated in Rome over six of the areas mentioned in the poem as being suitable (or, in Schoonhaven's interpretation, unsuitable) for Messalla to conquer; about this time also Cyrenaica had had a political settlement and an embassy had been received from India.
[19] Maltby (2021), however, disagreeing with Bright and Duckworth, and believes that on metrical and stylistic grounds the poem could not date from the time of Tibullus.
[17] The parts of the Panegyricus which seem particularly to echo the Metamorphoses are lines 18–23 ("let another poet write a work describing the formation of the world from the four elements")[21] and the end (204–211), which seems to refer to the doctrine of the metempsychosis (reincarnation) of souls.
Ovid's Metamorphoses begins with a description of the creation of the world, and much of the last book (15.66–478) is taken up with a long speech of the philosopher Pythagoras discussing the transmigration of souls.
"[26] Maltby suggests that the poem might have been composed to honour one of Messalla's descendants, such as Lucius Valerius Catullus Messalinus, consul in AD 73, a counsellor of the emperor Domitian.
For example, Bright suggests that the blinding of Polyphemus in 57 may be picked up by the 'dense shadow' of the polar regions mentioned in line 154, and that the phrase gelida ... irrigat unda 'irrigates with cold water' in 60 corresponds to unda ... riget ... in glaciem 'the water freezes into ice' in lines 155–6, where the verbs irrigat and riget have different meanings but similar sounds.
[30] Thus Messalla's achievements in civic life and warfare, which the poet has already compared to weights in the two scales of a balance, are shown in fact to be equal, in an interesting and learned way.
[31] Another scholar, Ceri Davies (1973), calls it "a turgid piece, full of rhetorical embellishment and strained mythological reference".
[32] Maltby (2021), however, sees it as entertaining and humorous, parodic in quality: "The often overblown style, inappropriate digressions and irrelevant mythological examples ... all have a role to play in the creation of humour within such a rhetorical context."
An example of its exaggerated rhetorical praise is the following (lines 29–32): Another characteristic of the poem is its fondness for suggesting alternatives, often introduced by seu ... seu "whether ... or..." or by vel ... vel "either ... or", sometimes to parodic effect, as in the following lines (24–27): Noticeable here is also the alliteration: par poterunt ... certeque canent ...hoc tibi nec tanto ... careat charta.
In a long passage (82–105) he lists all the skills needed by a general, from choosing a suitable camp site to training troops and cavalrymen and drawing up an army for battle.