The paper investigates the use of etymologising in the Appendix Tibulliana and concludes that its purpose to link the probably late first-century AD author of this work with the great elegists of an earlier generation, namely Propertius, Ovid and, in particular, Tibullus. This etymologising takes place at the level both of common nouns and of proper names, with plays on the fictitious character names Lygdamus, Neaera and Cerinthus. In both cases the practice is firmly anchored in the literary techniques of Tibullus and the other elegists. The manipulation of earlier elegiac etymologising and of the previous literary identities of these character names provides the whole work with a structural unity and a specific chronological focus, and so lends weight to arguments for a single unitary author.
