It is only in comparatively recent years that critics have come to realize the extent of humour that is to be found in Propertius. The view of Postgate (1881), ‘Occasionally he shows a vein of humour we should not have expected’, is still that of Butler and Barber in 1933: ‘It [iv. 8] is his one humorous poem, and surprisingly successful.’ But by 1966 Eckard Lefèvre could write a whole book on Propertius Ludibundus, who was in this respect, as in so much else, the inspirer of Ovid: ‘In accordance with the principles set out the present study is an attempt at a contribution to the understanding of Roman love-elegy, in that it seeks to establish the achievement of Propertius as the decisive step in the development of the humorous element in elegy before Ovid set that particular stamp on it’ (p. 20).