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Propertius, Cleopatra and Actium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Robert J. Baker
Robert J. Baker*
Affiliation:
The University of New England
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Extract

Essential to a recent interpretation of Propertius iii 11 are the ideas that ‘the opening verses … establish clearly an erotic context for the rest of the poem’, and that ‘the statement that, with Augustus, Rome had nothing to fear from Cleopatra personally (55) can have nothing to do with her military resources … The victory celebrated here is that of Augustus over Cleopatra as over an enchantress, powerful in love.’ These assessments are based on the opinion, several times repeated, that Propertius' introduction of himself as the elegiac lover in vv. 1-8 necessitates our viewing everything in the poem thereafter as coloured by this fact.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 10 , 1976 , pp. 56 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1976

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References

1 Nethercut, W.R., ‘Propertius 3.11’, TAPA 102 (1971), 411-43, at 437Google Scholar. (Hereafter Nethercut.)

2 Nethercut, 426.

3 Nethercut, 428, 433, 438. I hope to demonstrate that Nethercut's own warning (428) that ‘we must be cautious in interpreting the whole of 3.11 using but one portion of the elegy as our key’ is applicable to this view.

4 Despite Nethercut to the contrary, 423.

5 Diodorus Siculus ii 6.7-10.

6 Cf. Nethercut, 423: ‘mention of Medea and the transportation of the golden fleece to the home of Jason's father (Aesonias domos, 12) pinpoint the occasion and the people involved in it clearly.’

7 Nethercut, 424.

8 See Suet, . Div. Aug. 69.Google Scholar Cf. Scott, K., ‘The Political Propaganda of 44-30 B.C.’, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 11 (1933), 39–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Cf. Nethercut, 424: ‘In victory he [Julius] proved susceptible to the charms of the defeated – just as had happened with Achilles and Penthesilea.’

10 Nethercut, 426 n. 24.

11 Cf. Dio li 14.6:

12 Diodorus Siculus gives one version at ii 6.9-10, and another quite distinct version at ii 20.3.

13 Nethercut, 424.

14 For the use made of this pair as an illustration of the servitium amoris theme bv both the Alexandrian poets and the Roman elegists see Copley, F.O., ‘Servitium amoris in the Roman Elegists’, TAPA 78 (1947), 285–300.Google Scholar

15 Nethercut, 423.

16 On this latter point cf. Dio li 15.4:

17 Nethercut, 426.

18 Cf. Baker, R.J., ‘Miles annosus: the Military Motif in Propertius’, Latomus 27 (1968), 335 f.Google Scholar

19 Nethercut, 428.

20 Nethercut, 440f.

21 For regna in this erotic sense in Propertius cf. i 8.32; iv 7.6, 50.

22 The word regnum as a term of Roman political invective to denote the harm done to libertas by one's political opponents scarcely requires illustration. See, e.g. Syme, R., Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939), p. 155Google Scholar; also Rawson, E., ‘Caesar's Heritage: Hellenistic Kings and their Roman Equals’, JRS 65 (1975), 156-8Google Scholar, for a selection of references to Roman attitudes to regnum in the first century B.C.

23 Baker, loc. cit. (above n. 18).

24 i 3.16.

25 i 7.2; ii 1.18, 35; ii 34.63; iii 1.7; iii 3.40; iii 9.47.

26 i 6.29; ii 25.5; ii 27.12; iii 4.1; iii 5.12,47; iii 9.19.

27 This would have particular point for the national leader. It had been the father of Augustus (Julius Caesar) who restored the memorials of Marius on the Capitol: see Suet, . Div. Iul. 11Google Scholar and Plut, . Caesar 6.Google Scholar

28 Camps, W.A., Propertius, Elegies Book III (Cambridge, 1966), p. 2.Google Scholar

29 Ibid. p. 104. I note now that Camps supports my earlier view about the turning point in nostra arma at v. 29. See his comment on v. 29 (p. 107): ‘From here to the end the elegy is concerned with Cleopatra and Rome. Propertius has in fact moved from love to a national theme.’

30 Nethercut, 438.

31 Nethercut, 439.

32 Nethercut, 428.

33 Cf. Lonie, I.M., ‘Propertius and the Alexandrians’, AUMLA 11 (1959), 25-6.Google Scholar

34 Baker, op. cit. (above n. 18) 329.

35 Camps, op. cit. (above n. 28) p. 109.

36 Nethercut, 439. Cf. similar references at 428 (‘running away to the trembling waters of the Nile’), 429 (‘we now see her routed in flight’),440 (‘one who ran in trembling fright’).

37 Dio 1 33.2-3; Plut, . Antony 66.3–5.Google Scholar

38 So e.g. Hor, . Odes i 37.16 ff.Google Scholar, Vergil, , Aen. viii 706 ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. Prop, iv 6.63: ilia petit Nilum cumba male nixa fugaci; also Hot, . Epodes 9.7 ffGoogle Scholar.

39 See Tarn, W.W., ‘The Battle of Actium’, JRS (1931), 173-99, esp. 187 ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. Syme, (op. cit. (above n. 22) p. 297.

40 For this condition see Val. Max. ii 8.1 (cf. Gellius v 6.21).

41 I am indebted to my colleague Mr. A. Treloar for the suggestion that vix una sospes navis ab ignibus at Hor, . Odes i 37.13Google Scholar might be a comparable attempt to suggest that Cleopatra's withdrawal was the result of a defeat more creditable to Augustus than the actual turn of, events at Actium.

42 Camps, W.A., Propertius, Elegies Book IV (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 28, 110Google Scholar. The correction is also approved – though not adopted – by Butler, H.E. and Barber, E.A., The Elegies of Propertius (Oxford, 1933), p. 357.Google Scholar

43 So Postgate, J.P., Select Elegies of Propertius (London, 1884), p. 216.Google Scholar

44 On the first point cf. Res Gestae 25.2: iuravit in mea verba tota Italia sponte sua, et me belli quo vici ad Actium ducem depoposcit. On both points see Ramsay, G.G., Selections from Tibullus and Propertius (Oxford, 1887), p. 352Google Scholar: ‘The scandal was that a royal fleet should venture into Latin waters; and that too when Augustus was princeps.’

45 For a recent reappraisal of Propertius iv 6 as genuinely intended Augustan eulogy see my article ‘Caesaris in nomen (Propertius 4.6)', forthcoming in Rheinisches Museum für Philologie.