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ALBIUS TIBULLUS
mythological or otherwise, he is very well read, especially in Alexandrian
authors. 1 Of course he knows Virgil and Horace, and his Book 2 may already
reflect Propertius' Books 1 and 2. He has a charming sense of humour (not the
biting kind which is Propertius' speciality), and the glimpses of real life which
he gives us are welcome: the farmer's tipsy return, on his cart, with wife and
children, after a country festival (1.10.51— 2); the old grandfather playing with
the baby (2.6.93—4); the invitation to the god Apollo to attend Messallinus'
inauguration in his best attire (2.5.7—10).
Often, it seems as though he lets his mind, his imagination, wander from
theme to theme; thus 1.1 begins with the praise of the simple but secure life
of a poor farmer (11. 1—44), continues with the theme of happy love (45—58),
followed by a vision of the poet's death and funeral (59—68), recalls the enjoyment
of life and love (69—74) and ends with the contrast of war and peace,
wealth and poverty (75—8). There is a unity of mood and feeling; and the last
two sections clearly echo the first two, but in a more concentrated form.
Scholars have attempted to transpose couplets and whole passages, especially at
the beginning of Book 1, to establish a more 'logical' order; but none of these
transpositions is convincing, and careful interpretation usually reveals the
poet's intention and his art.
5. SEXTUS PROPERTIUS
Propertius is, perhaps, the most difficult of the Roman elegiac poets, but also
the one who appeals most to the modern taste. His tempestuous love affair
with a woman he calls Cynthia (her real name was Hostia) fills most of the
four books of elegies he wrote. The affair itself seems to have lasted five years
(3.25.30) but whether a period of separation (3.16.9) was counted or not, is
unknown. We may assume that the earliest poems of Book 1 were written in
29 B.C., and Book 3 with its emphatic farewell to Cynthia (3.24 and 25) was
probably published in or shortly after 23 B.C. This would allow us to fit the five
(or six) years conveniently between 29 and 23, but fact and fiction are so closely
intertwined that no straight answer can be given. It should be said, however,
that 3.20 tells of a new liaison with an unknown woman whom Propertius
may have married; this elegy gives us no further information about Cynthia.
In Book 1 we meet some of the poet's friends in Rome: Tullus, a wealthy
young man about to embark on a political career, the poets Ponticus and
Bassus. He does not mention Ovid, though we know from Tristia 4.10.45—8
that they were all friends, sodales, and that Propertius used to read his love
poems to Ovid. These might be some of the elegies now included in Book 2;
Ovid was probably too young to have heard those of Book 1.
1 Bulloch (1973) 85ff.
413
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