Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/836

Rh 812 PROPEKTIUS Pcrusinum from its only important incident, the fierce and fatal resistance of Perugia, deprived the poet of another of his relations, who was killed by brigands while making his escape from the lines of Octavian. The loss of his patri mony, however, thanks no doubt to his mother s providence, did not prevent Propertius from receiving a superior educa tion. After or, it may be, during- its completion he and she left Umbria for Rome ; and there, about the year 34 B.C., he assumed the garb of manly freedom. He was urged to take up a pleader s profession ; but the serious study went against the grain, and, like Ovid, he found in letters and gallantry a more congenial pursuit. Soon afterwards he made the acquaintance of Lycinna, about whom we know little beyond the fact that she subsequently excited the jealousy of Cynthia, and was subjected to all her powers of persecution (vexandi). This passing fancy was suc ceeded by a serious attachment, the object of which was the famous &quot; Cynthia.&quot; Her real name was Hostia, and she was a native of Tibur. She was a courtezan of the superior class, somewhat older than Propertius, and seems to have been a woman of singular beauty and varied accom plishments. Her own predilections led her to literature ; and in her society Propertius found the intellectual sym pathy and encouragement which were essential for the development of his powers. Her character, as depicted in the poems, is not an attractive one; but she seems to have entertained a genuine affection for her lover. The inti macy began in 28 and lasted till 23 B.C. These six years must not, however, be supposed to have been a period of unbroken felicity. Apart from minor disagreements, an in fidelity on Propertius s part excited the deepest resentment in Cynthia; and he was banished for a year. The quarrel was made up about the beginning of 25 B.C.; and soon after Propertius published his first book of poems and inscribed it with the name of his mistress. Its publication placed liim in the first rank of contemporary poets, and amongst other things procured him admission to the literary circle of Maecenas. The intimacy was renewed ; but the old enchantment was lost. Neither Cynthia nor Propertius was faithful to the other. The mutual ardour gradually cooled ; motives of prudence and decorum urged the dis continuance of the connexion ; and disillusion changed in sensibly to disgust. Although this separation might have been expected to be final, it is not certain that it was so. It is true that Cynthia, whose health appears to have been weak, does not seem to have survived the separation long. But a careful study of the seventh poem of the last book, in which Propertius gives an account of a dream of her which lie had after her death, leads us to the belief that they were once more reconciled, and that in her last illness Cynthia left to her former lover the duty of carrying out her wishes with regard to the disposal of her effects and the arrange ments of her funeral. Almost nothing is known of the subsequent history of the poet. He was certainly alive in 16 B.C., as some of the allusions in the last book testify. And there are two passages in the letters of the younger Pliny in which he speaks of a descendant of the poet, one Passennus Paullus. Now in 18 B.C. Augustus carried the Leges Julix, which offered inducements to marriage and imposed disabilities upon the celibate. It would seem therefore at least a natural conclusion that Propertius was one of the first to comply with the provisions of the law, and that he married and had at least one child, from whom the contemporary of Pliny was descended. Propertius appears to have had a large number of friends and acquaintances, chiefly literary, belonging to the circle of Maecenas. Amongst these may be mentioned Virgil, the epic poet Ponticus, Bassus (probably the iambic poet of the name), and at a later period Ovid. He does not eom to have come across Tibullus ; and his relations with Horace were not particularly friendly. Horace may have regarded him as an interloper in the favour of Maecenas, though there is nothing in the poems of Propertius to warrant the supposition. In person Propertius was pale and thin, as was to be expected in one of a delicate and even sickly constitution. He was very careful about his personal appearance, and paid an almost foppish attention to dress and gait. He was of a somewhat voluptuous and self-indulgent temperament, which shrank from danger and active exertion. He was anxiously sensitive about the opinion of others, eager for their sympathy and re gard, and, in general, impressionable to their influence. His over-emotional nature passed rapidly from one phase of feeling to another; but the more melancholy moods predominated. A vein of sadness runs through his poems, sometimes breaking out into querulous exclamation, but more frequently venting itself in gloomy reflexions and prognostications. He had fits of superstition which in healthier moments he despised. It must be added that the native weakness of his character was no doubt con siderably increased by his infirm and delicate constitution. The poems of Propertius, as they have come down to us, consist of four books containing 4046 lines of elegiac verse. The unusual length of the second one (1402 lines) has led Lachmann and other critics to suppose that it originally consisted of two books, and they have placed the beginning of the third book at ii. 1 0, a poem addressed to Augustus. This theory, somewhat modified, has been powerfully advocated by Th. Birt (Das Antike Buchivesen, pp. 413-426). He divides the poems into two parts, a single book (lib. i.), published separately and called Cynthia Monobiblos, as in the MSS. and the lemma to Martial (xiv. 189), and a Tetrabiblos Syntaxis, a collec tion of four books, published together, consisting of the remainder of his poems. If this view is correct, the greater part of the first book of the Syntaxis must have been lost, as ii. 1-9 only contain 354 lines. The first book, or Cynthia, was published early in the poet s literary life, and may be assigned to 25 B.C. The date of the publication of the rest is uncertain, but none of them can have been published before 24 B.C., and the last, at any rate, was probably published posthumously. The subjects of the poems are threefold : (1) amatory and personal, mostly regarding Cynthia seventy-two (sixty Cynthia elegies), of which the last book contains three ; (2) poli tical and social, on events of the day thirteen, including three in the last book ; (3) historical and antiquarian six, of which five are in the last book. The writings of Propertius are noted for their difficulty; and this has undoubtedly prejudiced his reputation as a poet. His style seems to unite every element by which a reader could be deterred. Not to speak of the unequal quality of his workmanship, in which curtness alternates with redundance, and carelessness with elaboration, the indistinctness and discontinuousness of his thought is a serious strain upon the attention. An apparently desul tory sequence of ideas, sudden and often arbitrary changes of subject, frequent vagueness and indirectness of expres sion, a peculiar and abnormal Latinity, a constant tend ency to exaggeration, and an excessive indulgence in learned and literary allusions, all these are obstacles lying in the way of a study of Propertius. But those who have the will and the patience to surmount them will find their trouble well repaid. In power and compass of imagination, in freshness and vividness of conception, in truth and originality of presentation, few Roman poets can compare with him. If these qualities are seldom eminent for long together, if his flights are rarely steady and sustained, this is matter for regret rather than cavil or even astonishment. Propertius was essentially incapable