Sexti Properti Elegi
Heyworth, S. J. (Bowra Fellow and Tutor in Classics, Wadham College, Oxford)
Propertius is a poet of the Augustan period, a successor of the great Hellenistic elegiac poets Callimachus and Philitas, and a precursor of Ovid. His account of his fictionalized affair with his beloved alter ego Cynthia is the purest expression of the spirit of love elegy, setting them as a pair against war, epic and (apparently) Augustus himself. The treatment of their love is tender and at times delightfully macabre, in pursuing their love...