Propertius

Sextus Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet born in 50 BC in or near Mevania, who died between 15 BC and 2 BC.

Like Virgil and Ovid, Propertius was also a member of the poetic circle of neoteric poets which collected around Maecenas. He became a close personal friend of Ovid, and spent most of his life in Rome. Little more is known of his life.

Propertius's surviving work consists of four books of Elegies.

Propertius is considered, by some, to have been subversive in his poetry. In Elegies I-III he typifies the 'stay-at-home' mentality of many Romans who wished to enjoy peace after three generations of civil war. While he admired chastity, on other counts he went contrary to Augustus' moral legislation. In II.vii, he stridently asserts his right to live out of wedlock with his lover: "Cynthia, I love only you, may you love only me; Such love is worth even more than fatherhood." The Julian Laws of 18 BC, in the air throughout the 20s, asserted that equites such as Propertius should marry and have children, and for those who did not comply there were heavy penalties.

Many critics have sensed a change of tone in Elegies IV, his final work, published in 15 BC. In IV.i he subverts the intention of the famous scene of Evander's 'Rome' in Aeneid VIII, where Virgil deftly intertwines a description of the few huts that constitute Evander's Rome with the 'Eternal City' that Augustus has built. In the middle of his description he writes, "Where yonder house of Remus rises up on steps, One hearth was once the brothers' whole domain." Remus, Romulus' murdered brother, was a real skeleton in the cupboard, an unwelcome reminder that the man Augustus so closely associated himself with was in fact a fratricide.

IV.vi, an ostensible celebration of Augustus' victory at Actium in 31 BC, becomes another opportunity for Propertius to display his forensic wit. He notes the logical fallacy in Augustan propaganda, that Cleopatra could not be both a weak woman and a worthy enemy: "(Cleopatra having killed herself) Thank Heaven! A fine Triumph one woman would have made on the streets where once Jugurtha paraded!"

Finally, in IV.ix, describing how Hercules founded the Ara Maxima, he uses the Hercules-Augustus paradigm created by Horace and Virgil to alert his more astute and well-read readers to a fairly damming parallel with a bumbling, oafish and sacreligious Hercules. Many historians of Roman religion, in particular Beard, North, Purcell and Feeney, have seen far more innovation than renovation in Augustus' attitude to religion and one wonders whether perhaps Propertius is here indicating what educated opinion thought of Augustus' actions.

An enigmatic poet, he should not be simply labelled a subversive, but rather appreciated for being an original. Highlights of his work include the 'queen of elegies', otherwise known as Cornelia's elegy (IV.xi), in which the dead Cornelia speaks from beyond the grave to her husband Paullus and her children. In one of the most touching passages in Roman poetry, she counsels Paullus thus on how to be a good father to their children, "And if ever you grieve don't let them see, but when they come deceive their kisses with dry cheeks! Be satisfied with weary nights spent missing me and frequent dreams in which you seem to see my face. And when you speak in private to my portrait, make each remark believing I'll reply" (79-84).

His tumultous love affair with the fiery Cornelia is of course the great theme of his work and give us some of his most famous lines. In I.xix it is not death he fears, but in dying losing Cornelia - "no love is ever long enough". In II.i he describes how his muse inspires him to write: "Suppose she steps out glittering in silks from Cos, Her Coan gown speaks a whole volume...Or if she closes eyelids exigent for sleep I have a thousand new ideas for poems. Or if, stripped of her dress, she wrestles with me nakes, Why then we pile up lengthy Iliads. Whatever she may do, whatever she can say, A saga's born, a great one, out of nothing" (5-16).

The Date of Propertius' Death

From internal evidence it is clear that Propertius died some time after 15 BC. The Cornelia elegy of IV.xi was the sister of the Consul for 16 BC, Cornelius Scipio, and according to Hallett the poem may even have been commissioned for the occasion. Elegies IV seems to have been published in 15 BC. Then, Ovid, in a description of dead love poets including Callimachus, Philetas, Tibullus, Sappho, Anacreon and the living exception, himself, mentions Propertius too (Remedia Amoris 764, "Who could have read unscathed the songs of Tibullus, or thine whose work was Cynthia alone?"). This would suggest Propertius is by now dead, but as to quite when between 15 BC and 2 BC it is impossible to say.

External links

Sources

Propertius, 'The Poems' (Oxford World's Classics) - see especially Lyne's introduction
D.Feeney, 'Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs'
M.Beard, J.North & S.Price, 'Religions of Rome'
J.North, 'Religion and Politics: from Republic to Principate' in Journal of Roman Studies 76
D.C.Braund, 'Augustus to Nero: A Sourcebook' for the Ludi Saeculares
J.Hallett, 'Queens, princeps and women of the Augustan elite: Propertius' Cornelia elegy and the Res Gestae Divi Augusti' in R.Winkes (ed.) 'The Age of Augustus'