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Propertius and Livy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Towards the start of the elegy which prefaces his third book, Propertius rejects lengthy, martial epic in favour of slender poetry (3.1.7–8): it is on account of the latter that fame (fama) elevates him above the earth, his Muse triumphant (9–10); accompanying him in the triumphal chariot are his Amores (11), and following the wheels is a crowd of writers (12 ‘scriptorumque meas turba secuta rotas’). The latter, in the race for glory, rival the poet to no purpose (13–14). Many writers will praise Rome (15 ‘multi, Roma, tuas laudes annalibus addent’) and sing of future conquests (16), but Propertius’ pages, a special delivery from the Muses' mount, are the perfect peace-time reading (17–18).
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References
1 F. Cairns argued that both poets were drawing on ‘traditional Alexandrian material’ (‘Catullus I’, Mnemosyne 22 [1969], 153–8, at 155); T. P. Wiseman defended the reading arida … pumice in Catullus' poem by maintaining that the poet was drawing attention to a Greek model (Clio's Cosmetics [Leicester, 1969], pp. 167–8). On the latter point see now R. Renehan, ‘On gender switching as a literary device in Latin poetry’, in P. Knox and C. Foss (edd.), Style and Tradition: Studies in Honor of Wendell Clausen (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1998), pp. 212–29, at pp. 224–7. An alternative scenario is that Propertius alludes directly to Catullus (cf. P. Fedeli, Properzio: Il Libro Terzo delle Elegie [Bari, 1985], ad loc.).
2 Heyworth S.J., ‘;Some allusions to Callimachus in Latin poetry‘, MD 33 (1994), 51–79, at 71.
3 The Livy parallel is mentioned neither by the commentators nor by Shackleton Bailey D. R., Propertiana(Cambridge, 1956), p. 295 or Fletcher G.B.A., ‘Propertiana’, Latomus20 (1961), 85–92, at 85, ‘Further Propertiana’, Latomus48 (1989), 354–9, at 357. An electronic search reveals no other parallel.
4 Ramsay G. G. describes tantum operisas ‘a common phrase’ but quotes no parallels (Selections from Tibullus and Propertius[Oxford, 1900], 271); Postgate J. P. quotes Plaut. Men.435 and Liv. praef.13 (Select Elegies of Propertius2[ London, 1884], p. 153), the latter repeated by Rothstein M. (Propertius Sextus: Elegien* [repr.Dublin and Zurich, 1966 ]) and Fedeli (n. 1 above) ad locIn addition to Prop. 3.11.70, which some commentators also quote, the phrase is revealed by an electronic search to recur elsewhere in pre-Propertian literature only at Cic. / / Verr.1.147, where tantumis correlative with quantum.