A translation of the elegies of Roman poet Sextus Propertius, with extensive commentary and analysis by scholar John Percival Postgate. These elegies explore themes of love, loss, and the contradictions of human emotion, with a focus on Propertius' turbulent relationship with his lover Cynthia. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The erotic elegy of Propertius reveals the work of a consummate artist, one who deftly weaves public themes into the emotional experiences of a first-person narrator. The poems in this selection reflect an evolution from a private focus on erotic love to more public and political themes, charting a gradual if ambiguous accommodation to the interests of the Augustan regime. Compelling portraits of passion are entwined with varied features of Rome’s momentous historical transition from republic to empire: the trauma of recent civil wars, nostalgia for an irrecoverable past, the stirrings of social legislation, and the opulence of foreign luxuries from trade and conquest. Selections also display Propertius’s innovative treatment of gender and the psychology of desire, and provide insight into the origins of Western attitudes toward erotic feeling. Bowditch’s commentary aims to make Propertian elegy—with its challenging syntax, wide-ranging use of myth, and novel use of diction—accessible to more readers, and reveals Propertius as a poet who defined a uniquely Roman genre of literature. Special Features • Introduction to Propertius, his style, and his elegy’s social and political context and its place within the genre • 606 lines of unadapted Latin text of eleven complete Propertian elegies from all four volumes of his work: 1.1, 1.3, 2.1, 2.10, 2.16, 2.31, 2.32, 3.3, 3.11, 4.8, 4.9 • Notes at the back and complete vocabulary • Two maps and five illustrations • Suggested reading