Sextus Propertius

Sextus Aurelius Propertius

Oliver Lyne

Fellow Guy Lee

Of all the Greek and Latin love poets, Propertius (c.50-10 BC) is one of those who perhaps holds most immediate appeal for the twentieth century reader. His helpless infatuation for the sinister figure of his mistress Cynthia forms the main subject of his poetry, and is analysed with a tormented but witty grandeur in all its changing moods - from ecstacy to suicidal despair. The son of an Umbrian landowner who fought on the wrong side in the Civil War after Caesar's murder, he lost his father and most of his family estate in boyhood and was brought up by his mother. He was able nevertheless to reject a legal or military career and to devote his life to the art of poetry, in which he is a far more self-conscious practitioner than most of the other Latin poets. His modern popularity was furthered in particular by Ezra Pound's Homage to Sextus Propertius (1919).

The Poems

Propertius

A radical new edition of the Augustan poet Propertius, based on the latest research into the manuscript tradition. The English preface contains important comments on the way texts are edited and read. Some important emendations discovered in the papers of A. E. Housman are published here for the first time.

Elegos

ad fidem veterum membranarum sedulo castigati

Elegiarum libri quatuor

codicibus partim denuo collatis, partim nunc primum excussis recensuit, librorum MSS. Groningani, Guelferbytani, Hamburgensis, Dresdensis, Vossiani, Heinsiani, editionis Regiensis, excerptorum Puccii, exemplaris Perreiani discrepantias integras ; addidit, quaestionum Propertianarum libris Tribus

Aurelii Propertii Elegiarum libri quattuor

Sex. Aurelius Propertius Umber

Sextus Aurelius Propertius

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