author
Sulpicia
A rare surviving voice from ancient Rome, Sulpicia wrote intimate Latin elegies about love, desire, jealousy, illness, and independence. Her brief poems offer an unusually personal glimpse into the life and emotions of a Roman woman.
1 Audiobook
The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius Literally translated into English prose, with notes, chronological tables, arguments, &c.
by Juvenal, Gaius Lucilius, Persius, Sulpicia
About the author
Sulpicia is believed to have been a Roman poet of the first century BCE and one of the few women from ancient Rome whose poetry survives. She is tentatively identified as the granddaughter of Servius Sulpicius Rufus and a member of a well-connected family associated with the literary patron Messalla Corvinus.
Her surviving work consists of six short elegiac poems preserved in Book 3 of the Corpus Tibullianum, once attributed to the poet Tibullus. Addressed to a figure named Cerinthus—probably a pseudonym—the poems trace a passionate love affair through separation, jealousy, illness, reconciliation, and regret.
Scholars continue to debate the authorship and dating of the poems, but Sulpicia’s direct, emotionally open style has made her an important figure in the study of women’s writing and Latin love elegy. The poems’ compact form and personal voice have helped keep her work central to modern discussions of ancient women poets.