Page:Propertius - tr. Butler - Loeb 1912.djvu/18



know little of Propertius, save for what we can gather from his own poems and a few references to him in later Latin writers. His name was Sextus Propertius. The majority of the MSS., with the important exception of the Codex Neapolitanus, style him Sextus Aurelius Propertius Nauta. Nauta is demonstrably absurd. Propertius expresses the liveliest terror of the sea in his poems, and the name is accounted for by the absurd reading of the MSS. in II. . 38, ''quamvis navita dives eras. Aurelius'' is equally impossible. Both Aurelius and Propertius are nomina gentilicia, and such names were not doubled at this period.

His birthplace was Assisi. The position of that town suits the indications given in I. . and IV. . 61–66 and 121–126. The name Asis in the two latter passages (where some, following Lachmann, read Asisi), though not found elsewhere, seems pretty conclusive, while in the "Umbrian lake" mentioned in IV. . 124 we have a reference to a shallow lake in the plain below Assisi, which existed till the Middle Ages. Finally, Pliny the Younger in two of his letters (. 15 and 22) mentions a certain Passennus Paullus, a descendant of Propertius and a citizen of the same town. An inscription bearing his name has been found at Assisi.

Propertius was born in all probability between vii