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HISTORY
The Life And Works Of Propertius
The Augustan poet, who joined Maecenas' circle after gaining notoriety, followed the suit of many distinguished poets, both Roman and Greek.
By Will Street
Jul. 25, 2019, 11:30 AM
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Introduction
The Augustan poet, Propertius, was not as renowned as some poets of his age, yet has left behind a collection of Elegiac poems that have lasted the test of time. The man, whose full name was Sextus Propertius, was born roughly around the time of 50 BC and was the son of an Umbrian landowner who lived near Assisi, in northern Italy.
Yet, much to the plight of their family, the collection of them most probably supported the losing side in the civil war. This is surmised from the fact that their family’s land was confiscated in 41 BC to provide settlements for Octavian’s veterans (in the same way as that of Virgil’s). Nonetheless, the sprightly young poet was able to discard advocacy or military careers, instead devoting himself proudly to his literary career. In fact, he published his first collection of poems in 29 BC.
And, precisely, it was the poetry of Catullus that he opted to posit a continuation onwards. In the love poetry of Catullus, the poet ends with a tormented effort to free himself of a morbid infatuation with Lesbia, his chosen audience. Propertius notably subverts the poetry of Catullus in a guise to express his continuation of the theme, for instance where Catullus offers Lesbia eternal friendship (amicitia), Propertius offers Cynthia his willing slavery (servitium). Further, Catullus had equated love with life, whereas Propertius held it “praiseworthy to die for love” (laus in amore mori).
He similarly advanced up the career ladder with his poetry. By 27 BC, after Augustus had begun his principate, he was a member of Maecenas’ circle along with Virgil and Horace. Yet unlike the former two, Propertius refrained from writing in praise of Augustus, claiming that as for himself as a poet, he was incapable of writing an epic. He lacked the guise and will to offer something like Virgil did with his Aeneid. Indeed, once having written his Elegies, in Book 4, he appears as a Roman Callimachus - illustrating that his position towards Augustus had always been ambivalent.
However, what of the nature of this poet on the outskirts of the Augustan revival? Following the suit of the literary tradition from Greece, how and what does he express in his poetry and whose lineage does he follow? In the analysis below, I seek to answer those questions and explore the life and works of Propertius as a whole.
Propertius' Life
The nature of one of the most fundamental events of his childhood - the confiscation of his father’s lands - is elucidated in Book 4 of Propertius’ Elegies. Here he states you “were yourself reduced to hard-up Lares. // Though many were the steers that ploughed your country estate // the ruthless rod annexed your landed wealth.” (IV. I. 127-30).
However, in a very much contrasting way to that of Horace, Propertius and his family were left far from penury. In fact, his family were equestrian during the majority of his career, even senatorial by the next generation and it is clear that Propertius was never burdened by the need to make money. Such a factor can, indeed, be observed in his poetry - his esprit is naturally independent and irreverent but has a gloss noticeably supported by the benefits of money and class.
Yet with wealth and class comes a difference. Unlike Virgil, who, in The Eclogues, addresses patrons both actual and potential, it seems, conversely, that Propertius had no need of a patron. Where, by 39 or 38 BC Virgil is under the protection of the Augustus’ minister, Maecenas (dedicating his Georgics in the patron’s honour) - both for financial and publicity reasons - or where Horace dedicates his Satires, Epodes and Odes I-III to Maecenas, Propertius addresses his first book, published in roughly 29 BC, to the nephew of the proconsul of Asia, Volcacius Tullus. And with it comes as sense of equality. In a similar way to Catullus’ introductory poem, Propertius’ poems to Tullus are that of one friend to another. They are clearly not the poems of a subject to a patron - The Volcacii were of similar social status to the Propertii.
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While Propertius addressed no patron in the first of his books (nor does he preach to an economic patron ever), he changes to address Maecenas in Book 2. However, it is not a full-blown dedication in a similar way to other Augustan poets. Maecenas’ name is only mentioned in tandem with some funny and sensuous lines regarding Cynthia as Propertius’ Muse (II. 1. 17). In fact, what follows in Book 2 is a refusal to do what Propertius claims Maecenas requested him to do and that is to write an epic on Augustus - a poem eagerly wanted by the princeps.
So, with great evidence of Propertius’ desire not to align himself with Augustus (for instance including in his poems occasions unfavourable to Augustus from the princeps’ childhood), why did he bother getting involved with Maecenas at all? The answer most probably is that he was simply enjoying the circle of Maecenas’ entourage and wanted to participate in the Augustan revival of literature. The way this then most probably occurred was through the notoriety he gained after Book 1, promoting him to the sphere of Maecenas and subsequent relationship.
And we can most probably surmise that he joined with Maecenas not for money but, rather, for something that could provide wider publicity of the poet’s works. That was the salon society. Indeed public recitals were an important precursor to the publication of an author’s literature. The grand palace of the superfluously rich Maecenas was a place where poets could increase or acquire their fame and popularity existentially. It’s enormous glamour (the greatest of Rome) would have been ample to seduce and entice any up-and-coming poet.
Yet, with it, for Propertius, came a constant badgering from Maecenas to produce an epic. Amongst the hardy relationship between the two figures, that was never produced, yet the friendship between Maecenas and Propertius would continue until the late 20s BC, lasting the so-called “First Augustan Period”. At a time when the princeps was less eager to stamp his authority, under Maecenas’ patronage poets such as Propertius, along with Horace and Virgil, all blossomed and, equally relied upon the patron to elucidate the mysteries of their works to the Emperor.
Propertius' "Elegies"
One of the first questions you would ask about Propertius’ poetry is whether his writings were pro-Augustan - how and in what way? Indeed, that is a subject particularly unique and interesting about Propertius. Opening the poem with a description of Perusia - his former home land that had been confiscated by Octavian - his position towards the calamities is both ambivalent and unattached to either side. This is at first immediately evident from poem I. 22 and I. 23.
Nonetheless, His grandee, Cynthia, in fact has reminisces of Cleopatra and Propertius openly condemns Cleopatra in Book 2 with the words: “the harlot queen forsooth of incestuous Canopus.” The reminisces of Cleopatra are used to evoke Mark Anthony’s domination by her, in the same way Propertius is enslaved by his love to Cynthia.
Undoubtedly, however, a poet such as Propertius would have been at the foot of Augustus’ ministers who guarded against instability and profanity. Albeit a member of the Equestrian class, Maecenas was ready to ensure his poets didn’t offend Augustus to reprimand rebuke.
Yet by the 20s BC, Maecenas had fallen from political power. From henceforth the trio of the likes of Virgil, Horace and Propertius no longer fell under the umbrella of Maecenas but rather the direct guise of Augustus. Naturally, the poets had profited from the new Augustan regime and thus still remained pro-Augustan, yet what they faced from now onwards was a different political milieu. They found themselves, however, with no intermediary patron between themselves and Augustus - a feature that would have dramatic results upon their poetry.
And it is, despite the debate over whether Propertius looked to Callimachus for his refusal to write an epic, by the fourth book of Propertius’ “Elegies” the flavour is undeniably focused on the themes of Callimachus - pungent irreverary. In effect, it is a notable way Propertius can mediate his stance and that is by offering his views (and criticism) regarding Augustus only in literary parallels with other authors.
This is evident in the treatment by Propertius of Hercules in his poems. In iv.9 Propertius explores the cause of women’s exclusion from Hercules’ rites at the Ara Maxima. In his account, he degrades the ardent figure of Hercules somewhat humorously. Augustus had made no parallel between himself and Hercules during his life and there was no mythological tradition connecting the two. However, it is precisely readers of poetry that will remember both Horace and Virgil who treated the mythological character in their poems.
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Horace was the first of the two. In “Odes” III. 14 he compared Augustus, who had returned heroically from Spain, to Hercules returning similarly in Spain after he had defeated the monster Geryon. Next up was Virgil who continued the story with Hercules’ next obstacle being at the site of future Rome, where Cacus stole cattle Hercules had won after conquering the monster Geryon, for which he arraigns him. Being in Book 8 of “The Aeneid” the paradigm of Augustus as being a fighting Hercules is again present.
Here is where Propertius picks up the storyline. He relates that Hercules, after slaughtering Cacus, was beset with immense thirst, which the maiden servants of the Bona Dea refused to help him with, consequently bringing about their exclusion from the Herculean rites. The tale is told jocosely with puns on the word “thirst” and fun at the expense of Hercules - which, if you have followed the literary paradigm from Horace and then Virgil - equates to a ridiculing of Augustus himself.
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However, let us now assess the nature of Propertius’ love poetry. All of his poetry is addressed to a female character, named Cynthia. Ultimately she is the Propertian version of Catullus’ “Lesbia”. The genre of elegy had, in fact, been first orchestrated by Catullus who wrote about his devoted love to his mistress, Lesbia, in a series of poems. His “Lesbia” was most probably in fact Clodia, wife of the nobleman Q. Metellus Celer, consul in 60 BC.
Essentially, the genre is a compelling art form that grew around art stimulated from art and poets widening the scope and boundaries of the means of expression. Poet after poet adopted the technique, whether it be Cornelius Gallus and Cytheris, Propertius and Cynthia, Tibullus and Delia and others.
The progression from one poet to another is highly fluid. Each seemed to be struck in adoration of their grandee. Reading the texts of Propertius, the poet leaves us with a firmer picture of Cynthia than the discreet image of Lesbia from Catullus. Precisely, she is described in Book 2 as possessing, “red-gold hair, long hands, big build - she moves like // Juno” (ii. 2) and on another occasion as possessing a fair complexion (highly esteemed by Mediterranean Romans). Further, she has “well groomed hair rippling” over “her smooth neck” and “star-like eyes. (II. 3.9). She is also a tease and tigress as a love-maker (ii. 15).
Contrasting Propertius with Catullus, Propertius understands the merits of the imagination and wonder, however arrives past Catullus’ delicacy and minimalism in his own adoration of Lesbia.
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Some questions arise over this woman, Cynthia. Who is she? And Why could Propertius not marry her? Delving into the social status of Cynthia has also proved much of an enigma. The immediate obvious answer is that Cynthia was already married and perhaps quite a grand lady in a similar way to Lesbia. Alternatively, the proposed legislation in contemporary Rome forbade marriage of free Romans to freedwomen, which she could have been. However, to these antithetical theories, two factors seem to preclude both. Firstly, a law was passed in 18 BC that specifically allowed Romans to marry freedwomen out of an impetus from Augustus to get young Romans into marriage. Secondly, the image of Cynthia as a dancing, singing and sexually liberated female appears more as a young freedwoman than a lady. Ultimately, Cynthia has the same evocative guise as Sallust’s “Sempronia” or Catullus’ “Clodia” in whatever case. Most definitively, Cynthia was part of a class of sexually emancipated females who came across as emphatically desire-able to young Roman men.
Nonetheless, immediately within the first book, Propertius seems utterly infatuated by Cynthia to the point of madness. Indeed it begins rather with the infatuation rather than an aim to fall in love, in a similar way to Catullus’ Poem 76. However, he is even more obsessed with Cynthia than Catullus’ love and describes his “agony”. He does accept his irrational romanticism - that his poems represent - yet goes all out with the fierce extent of his love, be it in an inflammatory demonstration of his emotions. Yet other emotions such as humour and mythology are included in his trappings and manifest themselves among the deluge. These combine altogether into an empowering literary arsenal, all of which is utilised to seduce the legendary Cynthia.
Conclusion
Judging from an elegy of Ovid, dated to the 2nd BC, which makes clear that Propertius was dead at the time, the elegiac poet must have most probably passed away in the late 1st Century BC. To some he was viewed as being scandalous and enthralling, whereas others, such as Horace, condemned his continuation of the tradition of Callimachus. Where his popularity is attested is in the ancient site of Pompeii, where graffiti of his verses have been found. Falling into obscurity, his works would eventually be rediscovered by Italians during the Renaissance. As a writer who conjured up emotions unparalleled among others of the age, and drew on a pungent array of material with which to express himself, the lengthy span of his career blessed the Romans and the world with a masterclass of poetry. This, among other reasons, is why I hope you’ll join as at Zowcha in saluting the poet, Propertius.