Propertius

Very little information is known about Propertius outside of his own writing. His praenomen "Sextus" is mentioned by Aelius Donatus,^[5] a few manuscripts list him as "Sextus Propertius", but the rest of his name is unknown. From numerous references in his poetry^[6] it is clear he was born and raised in Umbria, of a well-to-do family at or near Asisium (Assisi).^[7] His birthplace is generally regarded as modern Assisi, where tourists can view the excavated remains of a house thought to have belonged at least to the poet's family, if not to the poet himself.^[8]

During Propertius' childhood, his father died and the family lost land as part of a confiscation,^[9] probably the same one which reduced Virgil's estates when Octavian allotted lands to his veterans in 41 BC. Along with cryptic references in Ovid^[10] that imply that he was younger than his contemporary Tibullus, this suggests a birthdate after 55 BC.

After his father's death, Propertius' mother set him on course for a public career,^[11] indicating his family still had some wealth, while the abundance of obscure mythology present in his poetry indicates he received a good education. Frequent mention of friends like Tullus,^[12] the nephew of Lucius Volcatius Tullus, consul in 33 BC, plus the fact that he lived on Rome's Esquiline Hill^[13] indicate he moved among the children of the rich and politically connected during the early part of the 20s BC.

Propertius published a first book of love elegies in 25 BC, with the character 'Cynthia' as the main theme; the book's complete devotion gave it the natural title Cynthia Monobiblos. The Monobiblos must have attracted the attention of Maecenas, a patron of the arts who took Propertius into his circle of court poets. A second, larger book of elegies was published perhaps a year later, one that includes poems addressed directly to his patron and (as expected) praises for Augustus. The 19th century classics scholar Karl Lachmann argued, based on the unusually large number of poems in this book and Propertius' mention of tres libelli,^[14] that the single Book II actually comprises two separate books of poetry conflated in the manuscript tradition, an idea supported by the state of the manuscript tradition of "Book II." An editor of Propertius, Paul Fedeli, accepts this hypothesis, as does G.P. Goold, editor of the Loeb edition.

The publication of a third book came sometime after 23 BC.^[15] Its content shows the poet beginning to move beyond simple love themes, as some poems (e.g. III.5) use Amor merely as a starting point for other topics. Book IV, published sometime after 16 BC, displays more of the poet's ambitious agenda, and includes several aetiological poems explaining the origin of various Roman rites and landmarks.

Book IV, the last Propertius wrote, has only half the number of poems as Book I. Given the change in direction apparent in his poetry, scholars assume only his death a short time after publication prevented him from further exploration; the collection may in fact have been published posthumously. An elegy of Ovid dated to 2 BC makes it clear that Propertius was dead by this time.

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Praenomen

Praenomen

The praenomen was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the dies lustricus, the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the birth of a boy. The praenomen would then be formally conferred a second time when girls married, or when boys assumed the toga virilis upon reaching manhood. Although it was the oldest of the tria nomina commonly used in Roman naming conventions, by the late republic, most praenomina were so common that most people were called by their praenomina only by family or close friends. For this reason, although they continued to be used, praenomina gradually disappeared from public records during imperial times. Although both men and women received praenomina, women's praenomina were frequently ignored, and they were gradually abandoned by many Roman families, though they continued to be used in some families and in the countryside.

Aelius Donatus

Aelius Donatus

Aelius Donatus was a Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric.

Assisi

Assisi

Assisi is a town and comune of Italy in the Province of Perugia in the Umbria region, on the western flank of Monte Subasio.

Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars consider his authorship of these poems as dubious.

Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso, known in English as Ovid, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists. Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus banished him to Tomis, a Dacian province on the Black Sea, where he remained a decade until his death.

Tibullus

Tibullus

Albius Tibullus was a Latin poet and writer of elegies. His first and second books of poetry are extant; many other texts attributed to him are of questionable origins.

Lucius Volcatius Tullus (consul 33 BC)

Lucius Volcatius Tullus (consul 33 BC)

Lucius Volcatius Tullus was a Roman politician who was elected consul in 33 BC.

Esquiline Hill

Esquiline Hill

The Esquiline Hill is one of the Seven Hills of Rome. Its southernmost cusp is the Oppius.

Karl Lachmann

Karl Lachmann

Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann was a German philologist and critic. He is particularly noted for his foundational contributions to the field of textual criticism.

Propertius' fame rests on his four books of elegies, totaling around 92 poems (the exact number cannot be known as over the intervening years, scholars have divided and regrouped the poems, creating doubt as to the precise number). All his poems are written using the elegiac couplet, a form in vogue among the Roman social set during the late 1st century BC.

Like the work of nearly all the elegists, Propertius' work is dominated by a figure of a single female character, one he refers to throughout his poetry by the name Cynthia. She is named in over half the elegies of the first book and appears indirectly in several others, right from the first word of the first poem in the Monobiblos:

Whilst Apuleius^[16] identifies her as a woman named Hostia, and Propertius suggests^[17] she is a descendant of the Roman poet Hostius, modern scholarship indicates that the creation of 'Cynthia' is part of a literary convention in Roman love elegy; scripta puella, a fictionalised 'written girl'.^[18] Propertius frequently compliments her as docta puella 'learned girl',^[19] and characterises her as a female writer of verse, such as Sulpicia.^[20] This literary affair veers wildly between emotional extremes, and as a lover she clearly dominates the life of the poet's voice at least through the publication of the third book:

It is difficult to precisely date many of Propertius' poems, but they chronicle the kind of declarations, passions, jealousies, quarrels, and lamentations that were commonplace subjects among the Latin elegists. The last two poems in Book III seem to indicate a final break with the character of Cynthia (versibus insignem te pudet esse meis - "It is a shame that my verses have made you famous"^[21]). In this last book Cynthia is the subject of only two poems, best regarded as a postscript. The bi-polar complexity of the relationship is amply demonstrated in a poignant, if amusing, poem from the final book. Cynthia's ghost addresses Propertius from beyond the grave with criticism (among other things) that her funeral was not lavish enough, yet the longing of the poet remains in the final line inter complexus excidit umbra meos. - "Her shade then slipped away from my embrace."^[22]

Book IV strongly indicates Propertius was planning a new direction for his poetry. The book includes several aetiological poems which, in reviewing the mythological origins of Rome and its landmarks, can also be read as critical—even vaguely subversive—of Augustus and his agenda for the new Rome. The position is currently a subject of debate among modern classicists.^[23] The final poem^[24] is a touching address by the recently deceased Cornelia consoling her husband Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus and their three children. Although the poem (given Cornelia's connection to Augustus' family) was most likely an imperial commission, its dignity, nobility, and pathos have led critics to call it the "queen of the elegies", and it is commonly considered the best in the collection.

Propertius' style is marked by seemingly abrupt transitions (in the manner of Latin neoteric poetry) and a high and imaginative allusion, often to the more obscure passages of Greek and Roman myth and legend. His idiosyncratic use of language, together with the corrupted state of the text, have made his elegies a challenge to edit; among the more famous names who have offered criticism of and emendations to the text have been the classicist John Percival Postgate and the English classicist and poet A. E. Housman.

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Elegiac couplet

Elegiac couplet

The elegiac couplet is a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than the epic. Roman poets, particularly Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, adopted the same form in Latin many years later. As with the English heroic couplet, each pair of lines usually makes sense on its own, while forming part of a larger work.

Apuleius

Apuleius

Apuleius was a Numidian Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He lived in the Roman province of Numidia, in the Berber city of Madauros, modern-day M'Daourouch, Algeria. He studied Platonism in Athens, travelled to Italy, Asia Minor, and Egypt, and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the attentions of a wealthy widow. He declaimed and then distributed his own defense before the proconsul and a court of magistrates convened in Sabratha, near ancient Tripoli, Libya. This is known as the Apologia.

Hostius

Hostius

Hostius was the author of an epic poem, Bellum Histricum, which was at least two books long. It is uncertain which Istrian war was the subject of this poem, but scholars generally consider the second war is more likely, as the first (178–7) had already been treated by Ennius in his Annales. Only seven fragments of Hostius' poem survive, but it was probably in the panegyric style which was common in the Hellenistic period.

Sulpicia

Sulpicia

Sulpicia was the author, in the first century BCE, of six short poems written in Latin which were published as part of the corpus of Albius Tibullus's poetry. She is one of the few female poets of ancient Rome whose work survives.

Augustus

Augustus

Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Principate, which is the first phase of the Roman Empire, and is considered one of the greatest leaders in human history. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult as well as an era associated with imperial peace, the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta. The Roman world was largely free from large-scale conflict for more than two centuries despite continuous wars of imperial expansion on the empire's frontiers and the year-long civil war known as the "Year of the Four Emperors" over the imperial succession.

John Percival Postgate

John Percival Postgate

John Percival Postgate, FBA was an English classicist, professor of Latin at the University of Liverpool from 1909 to 1920. He was a member of the Postgate family.

A. E. Housman

A. E. Housman

Alfred Edward Housman was an English classical scholar and poet. After an initially poor performance while at university, he took employment as a clerk in London and established his academic reputation by publishing as a private scholar at first. Later Housman was appointed Professor of Latin at University College London and then at the University of Cambridge. He is now acknowledged as one of the foremost classicists of his age and has been ranked as one of the greatest scholars at any time. His editions of Juvenal, Manilius, and Lucan are still considered authoritative.

The text contains many syntactic, organizational and logical problems as it has survived. Some of these are no doubt exacerbated by Propertius' bold and occasionally unconventional use of Latin. Others have led scholars to alter and sometimes rearrange the text as preserved in the manuscripts.

A total of 146 Propertius manuscripts survive, the oldest of which dates from the 12th century. However, some of the poems in these manuscripts appear disjointed, such as I.8, which begins as a plea for Cynthia to abandon a planned sea voyage, then closes with sudden joy that the voyage has been called off. This poem has therefore been split by most scholars into a I.8a (comprising the first 26 lines) and I.8b (lines 27–46). More complicated organizational problems are presented by poems like II.26, a confusing piece in which Propertius first (1) dreams of Cynthia being shipwrecked, and then (2) praises Cynthia's faithfulness. Following this, he (3) declares that she plans to sail and he will come along, (4) shifts to the couple together on the shore, and then (5) quickly has them back on board ship, ready to face the potential dangers of the sea. The images seem to conflict logically and chronologically, and have led different commentators to rearrange the lines or assume some lacunae in the text.

More modern critics^[25] have pointed out that all the proposed rearrangements assume Propertius' original poetry adhered strictly to the classical literary principles as set down by Aristotle, and so the apparent jumble is a result of manuscript corruptions. Another possibility is that Propertius was deliberately presenting disjointed images in violation of principles such as the Classical Unities, a theory which argues for different unifying structures in Propertius' elegies. This interpretation also implies that Propertius' style represented a mild reaction against the orthodoxy of classical literary theory. However, although these theories may have some bearing on issues of continuity in the other three surviving books of Propertius, modern philological scholarship tends toward a consensus that the extant text "Book Two" in fact represents the conflated remains of what were originally two books of poems.

Propertius himself says he was popular and even scandalous in his own day.^[26] Horace, however, says that he would have to "endure much" and "stop up his ears" if he had to listen to "Callimachus...to please the sensitive stock of poets";^[27] Postgate and others see this as a veiled attack on Propertius, who considered himself the Roman heir to Callimachus.^[28] This judgement also seems to be upheld by Quintilian, who ranks the elegies of Tibullus higher and, while accepting that others preferred Propertius,^[29] is himself somewhat dismissive of the poet. However, Propertius' popularity is attested by the presence of his verses in the graffiti preserved at Pompeii; while Ovid for example drew on him repeatedly for poetic themes,^[30] more than on Tibullus.^[31]

Propertius fell into obscurity in the Middle Ages, though the 12C summoned him and Cynthia to a Love Assize,^[32] but was rediscovered during the Italian Renaissance along with the other elegists. Petrarch's love sonnets certainly show the influence of his writing, and Aeneas Silvius (the future Pope Pius II) titled a collection of his youthful elegies "Cinthia". There are also a set of "Propertian Elegies" attributed to the English writer Ben Jonson, though the authorship of these is disputed. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1795 collection of "Elegies" also shows some familiarity with Propertius' poetry.

Propertius is the lyrical protagonist of Joseph Brodsky's poem "Anno Domini" (1968), originally written in Russian. His relationship with Cynthia is also addressed in Robert Lowell's poem, "The Ghost. After Sextus Propertius", which is a free translation of Propertius' Elegy IV 7.

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Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his Odes as just about the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."

Callimachus

Callimachus

Callimachus was an ancient Greek poet, scholar and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works in a wide variety of genres, most of which did not survive. He espoused an aesthetic philosophy, known as Callimacheanism, which exerted a strong influence on the poets of the Roman Empire and, through them, on all subsequent Western literature.

Quintilian

Quintilian

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman educator and rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quintilian, although the alternate spellings of Quintillian and Quinctilian are occasionally seen, the latter in older texts.

Tibullus

Tibullus

Albius Tibullus was a Latin poet and writer of elegies. His first and second books of poetry are extant; many other texts attributed to him are of questionable origins.

Pompeii

Pompeii

Pompeii was an ancient city located in what is now the comune of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, was buried under 4 to 6 m of volcanic ash and pumice in the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso, known in English as Ovid, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists. Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus banished him to Tomis, a Dacian province on the Black Sea, where he remained a decade until his death.

Assizes

Assizes

The courts of assize, or assizes, were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes exercised both civil and criminal jurisdiction, though most of their work was on the criminal side. The assizes heard the most serious cases, most notably those subject to capital punishment or later life imprisonment. Other serious cases were dealt with by the quarter sessions, while the more minor offences were dealt with summarily by justices of the peace in petty sessions.

Petrarch

Petrarch

Francesco Petrarca, commonly anglicized as Petrarch, was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists.

Pope Pius II

Pope Pius II

Pope Pius II, born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 August 1458 to his death in August 1464. He was born at Corsignano in the Sienese territory of a noble but impoverished family.

Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson

Benjamin Jonson was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox, The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. "He is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour. He is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language, his work having a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political, and philosophical thought from the late 18th century to the present day.

Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky

Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky was a Russian and American poet and essayist.

In the 20th century Ezra Pound's poem "Homage to Sextus Propertius" cast Propertius as something of a satirist and political dissident,^[33] and his translation/interpretation of the elegies presented them as ancient examples of Pound's own Imagist theory of art. Pound identified in Propertius an example of what he called (in "How to Read") 'logopoeia', "the dance of the intellect among words." Gilbert Highet, in Poets in a Landscape, attributed this to Propertius' use of mythic allusions and circumlocution, which Pound mimics to more comic effect in his Homage. The imagist interpretation, the poet's tendency to sustain an interior monologue, and the deeply personal nature of his poetry have made Propertius a favorite in the modern age. Three modern English translations of his work have appeared since 2000,^[34] and the playwright Tom Stoppard suggests in his best-known work The Invention of Love that the poet was responsible for much of what the West regards today as "romantic love". The most recent translation appeared in September 2018 from Carcanet Press, and was a Poetry Book Society Autumn Recommended Translation. The collection entitled Poems is edited by Patrick Worsnip with a foreword by Peter Heslin.

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Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and his 800-page epic poem, The Cantos (c. 1917–1962).

Imagism

Imagism

Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism is sometimes viewed as "a succession of creative moments" rather than a continuous or sustained period of development. The French academic René Taupin remarked that "it is more accurate to consider Imagism not as a doctrine, nor even as a poetic school, but as the association of a few poets who were for a certain time in agreement on a small number of important principles".

Gilbert Highet

Gilbert Highet

Gilbert Arthur Highet was a Scottish American classicist, academic writer, intellectual critic, and literary historian.

Tom Stoppard

Tom Stoppard

Sir Tom Stoppard is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society. Stoppard has been a playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation. Stoppard was knighted for his contribution to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.

The Invention of Love

The Invention of Love

The Invention of Love is a 1997 play by Tom Stoppard portraying the life of poet A. E. Housman, focusing specifically on his personal life and love for a college classmate. The play is written from the viewpoint of Housman, dealing with his memories at the end of his life, and contains many classical allusions. The Invention of Love won both the Evening Standard Award (U.K.) and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award (U.S.)

• Emil Baehrens, Bibliotheca Teubneriana, 1880
• John Percival Postgate, Cambridge, 1894
• E.A. Barber, Oxford Classical Text, 1953 (2nd ed., 1960)
• W.A. Camps, Book 1, Cambridge, 1961
• L. Richardson, Jr., Lawrence, Okla., 1977
• Rudolf Hanslik, Bibliotheca Teubneriana, 1979
• Paolo Fedeli, Bibliotheca Teubneriana, 1984
• Paolo Fedeli, Book 3, Bari, 1985
• G.P. Goold, Loeb Classical Library, 1990
• Robert J. Baker, Book 1, Warminster, 2000
• Paolo Fedeli, Book 2, Cambridge, 2005
• Giancarlo Giardina, Rome, 2005
• Simone Viarre, Collection Budé, 2005
• Gregory Hutchinson, Book 4, Cambridge, 2006
• S. J. Heyworth, Oxford Classical Text, 2007

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Bibliotheca Teubneriana

Bibliotheca Teubneriana

The Bibliotheca Teubneriana, or Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, also known as Teubner editions of Greek and Latin texts, comprise one of the most thorough modern collection published of ancient Greco-Roman literature. The series consists of critical editions by leading scholars. They now always come with a full critical apparatus on each page, although during the nineteenth century there were editiones minores, published either without critical apparatuses or with abbreviated textual appendices, and editiones maiores, published with a full apparatus.

John Percival Postgate

John Percival Postgate

John Percival Postgate, FBA was an English classicist, professor of Latin at the University of Liverpool from 1909 to 1920. He was a member of the Postgate family.

Loeb Classical Library

Loeb Classical Library

The Loeb Classical Library is a series of books originally published by Heinemann in London, but is currently published by Harvard University Press. The library contains important works of ancient Greek and Latin literature designed to make the text accessible to the broadest possible audience by presenting the original Greek or Latin text on each left-hand page, and a fairly literal translation on the facing page. The General Editor is Jeffrey Henderson, holder of the William Goodwin Aurelio Professorship of Greek Language and Literature at Boston University.

Collection Budé

Collection Budé

The Collection Budé, or the Collection des Universités de France, is an editorial collection comprising the Greek and Latin classics up to the middle of the 6th century. It is published by Les Belles Lettres, and is sponsored by the Association Guillaume Budé.