Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/837

Rh PROPERTIUS 813 of self-criticism, constitutionally intolerant of the slow labour of the file. His work is ever best when done under the urgency of a supreme and rapid excitement, and when, so to say, the discordant qualities of his geniu are fused together by the electric spark of an immediate inspiration. Two of his merits seem to have impressed the ancients themselves. The first is most obvious in the scenes of quiet description and emotion in whose presenta tion he particularly excels. Softness of outline, warmth of colouring, a fine and almost voluptuous feeling for beauty of every kind, and a pleading and almost melan choly tenderness such were the elements of the spell which he threw round the sympathies of his reader, and which his compatriots expressed by the vague but expres sive word blanditia. His facundia, or command of striking and appropriate language, is more noticeable still. Not only is his vocabulary very extensive, but his employ ment of it extraordinarily bold and unconventional. New settings of use, idiom, and construction continually sur prise us, and, in spite of occasional harshness, secure for his style an unusual freshness and freedom. His handling of the elegiac couplet, and especially of its second line, deserves especial recognition. It is vigorous, varied, and even picturesque. In the matter of the rhythms, caesuras, and elisions which it allows, the metrical treatment is much more severe than that of Catullus, whose elegiacs are comparatively rude and barbarous ; but it is not bound hand and foot, like that of the Ovidian distich, in a formal and conventional system. It only now remains to call attention to the elaborate symmetry of construction which is observable in many of his elegies. Often indeed the correspondence between different parts of his poem is so close that critics have endeavoured with more or less success to divide them into strophes. Propertius s poems bear evident marks of the study of his predecessors both Greek and Latin, and of the influ ence of his contemporaries. He tells us himself that Callimachus and Philetas were his masters, and that it was his ambition to be the Roman Callimachus. We can trace obligations to Theocritus, Apollonius Rhodius, and other Alexandrines, but above all to Meleager, and amongst earlier writers to Homer, Pindar, ^Eschylus, and others. Amongst Latin writers he had read with more or less care the works of Ennius, Lucretius, the dramatists, and Catullus. We find coincidences too close to be for tuitous between his poems and those of Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus his contemporaries ; but it is very possible the influence was reciprocal. Propertius s influence upon his successors was considerable. There is not a page of Ovid which does not show obligations to his poems, while other writers made a more modest use of his stores. Among these may be mentioned Manilius, Juvenal, Martial, Statius, Claudian, Seneca, and Apuleius. The works of Propertius have come down to us in a far from perfect condition. Some of the poems have been lost ; others are fragmentary ; and most are more or less disfigured by corruptions. The manuscripts on which we have to rely are late and in several cases interpolated ; and these circumstances, combined with the native diffi culty of the poet s writing, make the task of his restora tion and interpretation one of peculiar delicacy and diffi culty. Donatus (or Suetonius) in his life of Virgil, 30 (45), is the autho rity for the full name of Propertius. &quot;Aurelius&quot; and &quot;Nauta,&quot; which are added in the MSS. , are due to confusion with Prudentius, and a corrupt reading of iii. 19, 22 (Miiller), (ii. 24, 22, Palmer). On the Propertii, see Mommsen in TTermes, iv. p. 370 ; Haupt, Opusc., i. p. 282. Besides the Propertius Blsesus (the Passennus Paullus of Pliny), we hear of a C. Propertius who was triumvir capitalis and proconsul in the time of Augustus, and a Propertius Celer, a poor senator under Tiberius. Inscriptions of the Propertii have been found at Assisi, cf. Hertzberg, Prop., i. pp. 10-12. Propertius tells us himself that his family was not &quot;noble,&quot; iii. 32 (ii. 34), 55, 6, and iii. 19, 1. c. Mevania (Bevagna) and Hispellum (Spello) have been put forward as the birth-place of Propertius, but the poet s own expressions are decisive for Asisium. Apart from the question of reading in v. (iv.) 1, 125 (MSS. Asis.), the climbing walls of his town (scandentes arces, scandens murus, v. (iv. ), 1, 65 and I.e.), its nearness to Perugia, and its position close above the plain (i. 22, 9, 10) are altogether unsuitable to Spello and Bevagna. Ovid thus assigns Propertius his place : successor fuit hie (Tibullus), tibi, Galle : Propertius illi (Tibullus) : quartus ab his serie temporis ipse fui (Tr., iv. 10, 53, 54) ; and again (ib., ii. 467), his (to Tibullus and Propertius) ego successi. For Ovid s friendship with Propertius see below. v. 1, 121 sq. is the chief authority for the earlier events of his life. For the premature death of his father and the loss of his property, see 127 sq. : ossaque legisti non ilia aetate legenda patris et in tenues cogeris ipse Lares, nam tibi cum multi uersa- rent rura iuuenci abstulit excultas pertica tristis opes. Else where he says that he is non ita diues (iii. 19 (22), I.e.), and that he had uulla domi fortuna relicta, iii. 32, 55, I.e. Indirect evi dence, such as his living on the Esquiliue, iv. (iii. ), 23, 24, points to a competence. For the death of his kinsman, generally supposed to be the Callus of i. 21, see i. 22, 5-8. Propertius s mother is mentioned in ii. 8, 39 ; iii. 13, 15; and in very affectionate terms in i. 11, 21. She was dead when iii. 13 (11) was written, i.e., six months after the publication of the first book. For the quality of Propertius s education, the poems themselves are the only, but a sufficient, testimony. For Lycinna see iv. 14 (iii. 15), 3-10, 43. Cynthia, or Hostia (Apul., Apol., p. 415) of Tibur (v. (iv.), 7, 85), was the granddaughter (iv. 19 (iii. 20), 8) of L. Hostius, who wrote a poem on the Illyrian war of 178 B.C., of which some fragments are preserved. She was much older than Propertius (iii. 10 (ii. 18), 20). That she was a meretrix is clear from many indications her accomplishments, her house in the Subura, the occurrence of scenes like those in i. 3, iii. 27 (ii. 29), the fact that Propertius could not marry her, &c. For descriptions of her beauty see ii. 2, 5 sq., and 3, 9 sq. ; iii. 3 (ii. 13), 23, 24 ; her poetry, ii. 3, 21 ; and other accomplishments, i. 2, 27 sq., iv. 19 (20), 7, 8. In char acter she was fickle (i. 15, ii. 6, &c.), greedy (iii. 8 (ii. 16), 11, 12, Cynthia non sequitur fasces, nee curat honores: semper ama- toruni ponderat una sinus), and fond of finery (ii. 3, 15, 16) ; her temper was violent, iv. 7 (iii. 8), &c., and led her to slander those who had offended her (i. 4, 18 sq., &c). For the five years, see iv. (iii.) 25, 3, quinque tibi potui seruire fideliter aunos ; and for the year of separation, iv. 15, 11 (iii. 16), 9, peccaram semel, et totum sum pulsus in annum. The second separation is vouched for by the two last elegies of book iv. The evidence which v. (iv.) 7 furnishes in favour of a reconciliation is analysed by Postgate (Prop., Introd., p. xxv. sq.). v. 6 commemorates the celebration of the ludi quinquennales, and v. 11, 66 alludes to the consulship of P. Scipio in 16 B.C. For Passennus Paullus (or as an Assisi inscription calls him C. Passennus Sergius Paullus Propertius Blsesus), see Pliny (Ep., vi. 15), municeps Properti atque etiam inter maiores Propertium numerat ; (9, 22), in litteris ueteres aemulatur exprimit reddit : Propertium in primis a quo genus ducit, uera soboles eoque simillima ill. in quo ille praecipuus, si elegos eius in manum sumpseris, leges opus tersum molle iucunduin et plane in Properti domo scriptuin. ii. 1 and iv. (iii.) 9 are addressed to Maecenas, iii. 1 (ii. 10) to Augustus. Virgil is spoken of in the highest terms in iii. 32 (ii. 34), 61 sq. Other poems are addressed to Ponticus (i. 7, 9), Bassus (i. 4), Lynceus a tragic poet (iii. 32, ii. 34). Volpi con jectured (in his edition of Propertius, i. pp. xv. sq. ) that the inquisitive, fellow of Horace, Sat. , i. 9 ; but the conjecture is generally rejected on grounds of chronology. It has recently been re-discussed and rejected by Prof. A. Palmer in his edition of Horace s Satires, i. 9 (notes), p. 219. In Ep. ii. 87 sq., how ever, Horace seems to make a direct attack on Propertius. On Propertius s personal appearance, see i. 1, 22, 5, 21 ; pallorem nos trum. . . cur sim toto corpore nullus ego. A likeness of him has possibly been preserved in a double Hermes in the Villa Albani and the Vatican, which represents a young beardless Roman, of a nervous and somewhat sickly appearance, in combination with a Greek poet, possibly Callimachus or Philetas (Visconti, Iconograph. Romana, plate 14, 3, 4 ; see E. Brizio, Annal. dell inst. arch., 1873, 105 ; C. Robert, Arch. Zeit., 38, 35, cited by Teuffel). Ill health is proved, as well by the specific allusion of i. 15 as by the frequent references to death and burial i. 19; ii. 1, 71 sq. ; iii. 5, 1 (ii. 13, 17) sq. For his care about dress and the like, see ii. 4, 15, 16, (5, 6), nequiquam perfusa meis unguenta capillis ibat et expenso planta morata gradu. His character is mirrored in his poems. In particular it has had a great deal to do in moulding his vocabu lary (Postgate, Introd., p. xxxvi. sq.). For want of courage and energy, especially, see ii. 7, 14 ; iii. 12 (ii. 19), 17-24 ; and for superstitious leanings iii. 23 (ii. 27) ; ii. 4, 15, (25) ; v. (iv.) 5, 9, sq. The numbering of the books is one of the most vexed questions of Propertius ; but it is not unlikely that Birt s conclu sions will be ultimately accepted. The dates of the several poems