¹ Stahl, H. P., Propertius: ‘Love’ and ‘War’ (1985), 140–55Google Scholar; Lyne, R. O. A. M., The Latin Love Poets (1980), 77–8Google Scholar; Cairns, F., ‘Propertius on Augustus' marriage law’, GB 8 (1979), 185–204Google Scholar.

² Baker, R. J., ‘Miles annosus: the military motif in Propertius’, Latomus 27 (1968), 322–49Google Scholar; Boucher, J. P., Études sur Propèrce (1965), 135–6Google Scholar; Camps, W. A., Propertius: Elegies Book 2 (1967), 97.Google Scholar

³ ‘Roman poetry and anti-militarism’, in Rich, J. and Shipley, G. (eds), Warfare and Society in the Roman World (1993), 113–38.Google Scholar

⁴ Whatever its nature may have been; most recently, it has been argued that it was not in fact a piece of Augustan legislation, but an earlier law repealed by Octavian (along with other Triumviral measures of dubious legality) in 28 B.C. (See Badian, E., ‘A phantom marriage law’, Philologus 129 (1985), 82–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.) Badian's theory is dealt with in more detail below.

⁵ See esp. Kennedy, D., ‘“Augustan” and “anti-Augustan”: reflections on terms of reference’, in Powell, A. (ed.), Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus (1992), 26–58Google Scholar; cf. also Sharrock, A. R., ‘Ovid and the politics of reading’, MD 33 (1994), 97–122Google Scholar.

⁶ For more detailed discussion, see Spies, A., Militat omnis amans. Ein Beitrag zur Bildersprache der antiken Erotik (diss. Tübingen, 1930Google Scholar; repr. 1978); Thomas, E., ‘Variations on a military theme in Ovid's Antores’, G&R n.s. 11 (1964), 151–65Google Scholar; Murgatroyd, P., ‘Militia amoris and the Roman elegists’, Latomus 34 (1975), 59–79Google Scholar; Lyne, op. cit. (n. 1), 71–8.

⁷ e.g. Anacreon, frs 27 and 46 (and cf. Sappho, fr. 1.28 and Theognis, fr. 1285–6 for the metaphor of erotic pursuit as warfare); Aesch., P.V. 649–51; Soph., Ant. 781, Trach. 497–8; Eur., Hipp. 392–3, 530–2, and 727.

⁸ e.g. A.P. 5.176–8; 12.23, 37, 45, 50, 76, and 144.

⁹ e.g. Ter., Eun. 59–61 (lovers' quarrels); Pl., Trin. 239 and Ter., Hec. 65 (the mistress plunders her lover); Pl., Cist. 300 (the war against love); Pl., Pers. 231–2, Truc. 230 (love as militia). In Greek new comedy, by contrast, the metaphor is strikingly rare: Alexis, fr. 234K is an isolated example. The language of warfare or conquest should also be distinguished from gymnastic metaphors (e.g. ‘wrestling’ as a euphemism for sex); a particularly striking example is Apuleius, Met. 2.17, as compared with [Lucian], Onos 9 (the lover in Apuleius' version is clearly figured as a soldier doing battle rather than as an athlete).

¹⁰ op. cit. (n. 1), 72.

¹¹ e.g. Carm. 1.6.17, 3.26, 4.1.1–2 and 16. Cf. also Cat. 37.3 and 66.13–14.

¹² There is some evidence that the conceit was employed by Gallus, however: see Virgil, Ecl. 10.44–5 and 69, with Coleman's commentary, ad loc.

¹³ Both Spies, op. cit. (n. 6), 72–3, and Murgatroyd, op. cit. (n. 6), 77, are aware of the double-edged nature of the topos; but neither fully brings out the ironies which result from the tension between acceptance and rejection.

¹⁴ These attitudes are most clearly exemplified by Cicero's treatment of Caelius' relationship with Clodia in the Pro Caelio: Caelius' behaviour is defended on the grounds that he was never deeply involved, and that in due course he gave up the affair in order to devote himself fully to a public career.

¹⁵ See 2.13.1–2, 2.30.31, and the more developed working out of the image in 2.12.9–24.

¹⁶ 2.1.14 and 49–50, 2.3.32–40, 2.6.16, 2.8.29–40, 2.9.16, 2.13.37–8, 2.14.1–2, 2.15.13–14, 2.20.1–2, 2.22.29–34.

¹⁷ Indeed, it might be argued that Ovid's more explicit elaboration in Am. 1.9 functions as a kind of commentary on Propertius 2. Like Propertius, Ovid self-consciously applies the comparison in a number of different ways: in ll. 4–8, the mistress plays the role of general, with the lover as her soldier; in 9–16 and 19–20, the mistress is the object of the lover's militia; in 17–18 and 21–8, the lover is at war with his rivals, or the mistress' husband or custodes; and in 33–8, Ovid introduces figures from the Trojan War as exempla. Cf. also Otis, B., ‘Propertius’ single book’, HSCP 70 (1965), 1–44Google Scholar, which raises the possibility of reading Book One as a ‘working out’ of the theme of servitium amoris through a series of contrasts and symmetries between poems. My analysis of Book Two is rather similar.

¹⁸ This kind of self-mockery also occurs in Roman comedy (e.g. Plaut., Most. 85–156), where the ‘reprobate’ lover laments his own downfall. The humour here is derived from the young man's application to himself of the kind of language conventionally directed against the follies of love by the moralists.

¹⁹ On the paradoxical interplay between weakness and strength characteristic of the Callimachean recusatio, and its relationship to the self-abasement of the elegiac lover, cf. Sharrock, A. R., ‘The drooping rose: elegiac failure in Amores 3.7’, Ramus 24 (1995), 152–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ See esp. 2.3.32, 2.6.16, 3.8.32.

²¹ cf. P. Veyne, Roman Erotic Elegy (trans. D. Pellauer, 1988), esp. 97–100. Veyne, however, sees elegiac discourse as entirely humorous: ‘the Roman elegists smile about what they are talking about — love, heroines, Ego — but they are absolutely serious about the rules of the genre’ (99). This is, I think, an over-simplification. Although, as I have argued, Propertius' self-irony makes it difficult to take his anti-conformist stance at face value, neither can we take him to mean exactly the opposite of what he seems to be saying. If the elegiac ideal of love, fidelity, otium, and freedom from the demands of society is shown to be unattainable and in some ways absurd, that does not alter the fact that the elegists are, on one level, putting it forward as an ideal. The fact that Propertius constantly undercuts his ‘rebellious’ stance does not prevent his poetry from being provocative. The complexity of elegiac irony makes it possible either to take the poems straight, or to read them as a joke; but both approaches are, in my view, equally partial. For a critique of Veyne, see Conte, G. B., Genres and Readers (trans. Most, G. W., 1994), 158–60Google Scholar, n. 19; cf. also the reviews by Wyke, M., JRS 78 (1988), 166–70Google Scholar and Fowler, D. P., G&R 37 (1990), 104–6Google Scholar.

²² This interpretation assumes that the MS reading ‘pocula’ is accepted; most recent editors prefer Fontein's conjecture ‘proelia’.

²³ Much the same could be said of the reference to Antony which some critics (e.g. J. Griffin, Latin Poets and Roman Life (1985), 35) have seen in 2.15. If the allusion in one sense aligns the poet with Augustus' rival, it also undermines itself by accepting the anti-Antonian propaganda which portrayed him as a drunkard.

²⁴ See 1.7.11–24,2.13.11–12.

²⁵ cf. 2.9.9–16, 2.10.1, 2.22.29–30. Penelope's exemplary loyalty is similarly invoked in 2.9.4–8 and 3.13.24. Galinsky's term reductio ad amorem (coined to describe Ovid's allusions to the Aeneid) could equally well be applied to Propertius, who can often be shown to have anticipated traits which are usually thought of as peculiarly Ovidian.

²⁶ cf. Il. 1.280: εἰ δὲ σὺ καρτερός ἐσσι, θεὰ δὲ σε γείνατο μήτηρ.

²⁷ The Iliadic theme is taken up again briefly in Book Three (see especially 3.1.25–6 and 3.8.29–32). The Homeric poems again act as a kind of foil in Book Four, where the two Cynthia poems, 4.7 and 4.8, can be read as parodic versions of episodes from the closing sequences of the Iliad and Odyssey respectively (cf. M. Hubbard, Propertius (1974), 149–55). Cynthia's ghost in Poem 7 has strong affinities with the ghost of Patroclus as it appears to Achilles in Il. 23 (cf. esp. ἦ ῥά τίς ἐστι καὶ εἰν ’Αΐςαο δόμοισι І ψυχὴ καὶ εἰδωλον … παννυχίη γάρ μοι Πατροκλῆος δειλοῖο І ψυχὴ ἐϕετήκει (Il. 23.103–6) with 'sunt aliquid Manes … Cynthia namque meo visa est incumbere fulcro’ (Prop. 4.7.1–3); more generally, 4.7.5–6 ˜ Il. 23.62–4; 7–8 ˜ Il. 23.66–7; 13–14 ˜ Il. 23.69–70; both ghosts issue instructions relating to their burial; 93–4 ˜ Il. 23.91–2; and 96 ˜ Il. 23.99–101). In Poem 8, the ‘rout’ of Phyllis and Teia, the punishment of the disloyal slave Lygdamus, the purification of the house, and the conclusion ‘toto solvimus arma toro’ recall the sequence of events in Odyssey 22–3 (rout of the suitors, punishment of disloyal slaves, purification, and reunion between Odysseus and Penelope). As in Book Two, the implicit comparison between the heroic and elegiac milieux contains a great deal of irony and humour (especially in 4.8). In neither poem do the protagonists live up to the characters of their Homeric models: in 7, the spite and vindictiveness of Cynthia's ghost contrast with Patroclus' pathetic pleas, and Propertius' apparent disloyalty to her memory with Achilles' devotion. The gruesome details of 7–12 and the evocation of contemporary ‘low-life’ in Cynthia's speech also mark the distance between this almost sordid world and the glamorous life and death of the Homeric heroes. There may also be a further example of creative ‘misreading’ of Homer in Propertius' use of the relationship between Patroclus and Achilles as a model for his own erotic connection with Cynthia. In 4.8, neither character has the fidelity of Homer's Penelope (though there may be an ironic echo of her resistance to the suitors in Propertius' assertion that Phyllis and Teia proved unable to arouse him because his mind was on the absent Cynthia); and there is further irony in the fact that Propertius casts himself in the feminine role, while Cynthia plays the avenging Odysseus.

²⁸ e.g. 2.2.1–2, 2.9.37–40, 2.12, 2.13.1–2.

²⁹ There is an obvious echo of Catullus 5 here, but the difference in tone is instructive. In Propertius' version, defiance of conventional morality is played off against the idea that Amor is a tyrannical conqueror who will not let his victims escape (31–2, and cf. Poem 30A — although most editors regard this as a separate poem, the juxtaposition is still significant).

³⁰ cf. La Penna, A., L'integrazione difficile: un profilo di Properzio (1977), 135–6Google Scholar an d 170 on the ‘incoerenza’ of Propertius' ideology. Cf. also Boucher, op. cit. (n. 2), 24–35 and Sharrock, op. cit. (n. 19).

³¹ cf. Camps, op. cit. (n. a), ad loc; Sullivan, J. P., Propertius (1976), 57–8Google Scholar; Stahl, op. cit. (n. 1), 164–7.

³² Note especially the paradoxical condemnation of contemporary immorality and luxuria in passages like 2.6.35–6, 2.9.3–18, 2.16.15–22, and 3.13, which recall the Augustan moralizing of Horace or Virgil.

³³ The text is taken from Camps, except for the reading ‘<e> more’ in 1. 8, on which see n. 47 below.

³⁴ For reasons of space, I have omitted detailed consideration of Cairns' generic argument: the poem is based, he suggests, on the rhetorical progymnasma devoted to the criticism of legislation, but Propertius has drawn attention to the inadequacy of his own critique by using only one of the four standard headings under which the law should be discussed. Again, this argument relies on a particular view of the audience's expectations; and it is not clear to me that even a contemporary audience would have expected a full working-out of the rhetorical model in a short, personal poem.

³⁵ I am not, of course, claiming to approach the poem without any preconceptions of my own; I hope, however, that, by emphasizing the openness of the poem to differing interpretations, I have produced a reading which is more satisfying than the univocal interpretations I have discussed.

³⁶ See Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Propertiana (1956), ad loc.Google Scholar

³⁷ Stahl's reading of the Aeneid as fully in sympathy with the ideals of the new regime is worked out in more detail elsewhere (‘Aeneas — an unheroic hero?’, Arethusa 14 (1981), 157–77Google Scholar and ‘The death of Turnus: Augustan Vergil and the political rival’, in K. A. Raaflaub and M. Toher (eds), Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and his Principate (1990), 174–211). In both articles, Stahl sets himself firmly against readings based on the ‘two voices’ theory of the so-called Harvard school. His view of Propertius as a ‘truly independent’ poet is an obvious corollary to his interpretation of ‘Augustan Virgil’ as unambiguously imperialist.

³⁸ e.g. Meleager, , A.P. 12.101 (also the model for the opening of Prop. 1.1).Google Scholar

³⁹ I am obviously assuming here that the poems should be read in the order transmitted by the manuscripts; contrast, for example, S. J. Heyworth, ‘The Elegies of Sextus Propertius: towards a critical edition’ (unpub. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1986), 126–39. Heyworth argues that our Book Two originally consisted of two separate books (cf. also Hubbard, op. cit. (n. 27), 41–4), and that serious dislocation has also taken place in the ordering of the poems. 2.10 was the last poem of the original ‘Book Two’, while 2.13 opened a new book (2.11 and 2.12 belong elsewhere). My analysis of the cycle stretching from 2.3 to 2.13 provides an alternative explanation for what I would see as ‘false’ closural features in 2.10, and for the new beginning in 2.13; and I have already suggested that the whole book as we have it is unified by the recurrence of references to militia amoris and to the Iliad. It is true that the book is exceptionally long; but the total number of lines (1,362) is still surpassed by Lucretius 5 (1,457 lines), and the books of other Augustan poets vary considerably in length. On tres libelli in 2.13.25, see Camps, op. cit. (n. 2), ad loc.

⁴⁰ cf., for example, 2.15.29–36.

⁴¹ Both Cairns and Stahl are aware of the exaggeration here. We do not, of course, know the terms of the lex, but judging from the legislation of 18 B.C. and A.D. 9, the worst that could have happened to Propertius would have been to lose out on certain public privileges (such as special seats in the theatre), and the right to inherit property from relatives not within the sixth degree, or from unrelated benefactors.

⁴² e.g. 2.1.74–7.

⁴³ Cairns, op. cit. (n. 1), 195, n. 27, aptly compares 4.3.13f. and 4.11.46.

⁴⁴ cf. Tib. 1.5.67–74. Note also the references to limina/ianuae in Prop. 2.6.37, 2.16.6 and 3.25.9–10. The tears of the departing lover in the renuntiatio amoris, 3.25, also recall the ‘uda lumina’ of 2.7.10.

⁴⁵ The ‘wasted’ marriage torches perhaps also recall the very common idea that the lover ‘wastes’ his patrimony on his mistress: cf. OLD s.v. perdere § 6.

⁴⁶ cf., for example, Cat. 61.79–82 and 62.20–4.

⁴⁷ On ‘nuptae more’ see Williams, G., ‘Some aspects of Roman marriage ceremonies and ideals’, JRS 48 (1958), 16–29Google Scholar. Williams argues for the reading ‘<e> nuptae … more’, which he interprets as ‘a very condensed form of ut qui ex more nuptae viverem (or more archaically ut qui nuptae morigerus essem), meaning “in living a wife's life”’ (28). Propertius, he suggests, assumes ‘that married life would consist in his being morigerus to his wife and not the reverse’. This is certainly more convincing than the alternatives: Butler and Barber and Camps retain the manuscript reading, translating ‘at the whim / behest of a bride’ (but the parallels cited by Camps are unconvincing, and ‘nuptae more’ would surely have to mean ‘in the manner of a bride’); Enk prefers ‘amore’ (but, as Shackleton Bailey points out, there is surely no question of Propertius loving his hypothetical bride); Shackleton Bailey suggests ‘in ore’, which makes very little sense after ‘perdere faces’. Propertius depicts himself in a similarly feminine role in 1.11.23–4, where he paraphrases Andromache's famous speech in Iliad 6: his dependence on Cynthia has reduced him to playing the woman's part. Cf. also 4.8 (discussed in n. 27 above); and 2.1.48 and 2.13.36, which (as Hubbard points out, op. cit. (n. 27), 101) entail a similar role reversal, recalling the ideal of univiratus, which was frequently celebrated in the epitaphs on women's tombs.

⁴⁸ The meaning of ‘vera“ is also disputed: Camps and Shackleton Bailey take it to mean ‘the right kind“ or ‘the only true soldering’, while Butler and Barber and Enk translate ‘if it were real warfare’. The latter interpretation is defended by Stahl, op. cit. (n. 1), 150, n. 26.

⁴⁹ Cloud, op. cit. (n. 3), compares Hor., , Carm. 3.5.2–4Google Scholar, Virg., , Aen. 6.794–5Google Scholar, and Prop. 2.10. On the topos of ‘world-wide fame’, see further Nisbet and Hubbard on Hor., , Carm. 2.20.14Google Scholar. A similar parallelism between the ‘conquests’ of poet and princeps can be seen in the proem to Georgia 3: cf. V. Buchheit, Der Anspruch des Dichters in Vergils Georgika (1972), 92–159.

⁵⁰ See Adams, J. N., The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (1982), 165–6Google Scholar. The metaphor is usually used as a euphemism for the ‘female superior’ position, but for a more general sense, cf. Lucr. 4.1195–6, Ovid, A.A. 2.726 and R.A. 429–30, and esp. Mart. 7.57 (where the reference to Castor and Polydeuces probably has a sexual reference: see Adams, op. cit., 166, n. 3). Castor's horse Cyllarus is mentioned by several classical poets: see especially Sen., Phaedr. 811, where Cyllarus is specifically associated with heroic prowess.

⁵¹ The speaker of the first part of 1. 5 is either an anonymous objector (of the kind common in oratory and diatribe) or Cynthia herself; but Propertius does not deny Caesar's claim to greatness in the military sphere.

⁵² op. cit. (n. 4). Something of a critical consensus against Badian's theory seems to be forming, however: see, for example, S. Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (1991), 59–60 and n. 91.

⁵³ Badian argues that the ancient sources which are usually cited as mentioning the law are in fact referring either to later legislation or to legislation unconnected with the issue of marriage.

⁵⁴ ANRW 2.13 (1980), 278–339Google Scholar, at 295–6: ‘Augustus’ legislation concerning marriage, procreation, love affairs and adultery’.

⁵⁵ See especially Sat. 2.7, where Davus' moralizing turns out to be derived at second-hand from a second-rate philosopher's door-keeper. At the same time, Horace ‘proves’ Davus' point, not only by his own past behaviour, but also by losing his temper at the end of the poem. On Horace's persona, see also K. Freudenburg, The Walking Muse: Horace on the Theory of Satire (1993), 3–51: Freudenberg argues that the persona of the ‘diatribe satires’, 1.1–4, is based on the doctor ineptus of comedy, and is thus not to be taken seriously. His underlying assumption that humour and parody are incompatible with serious moral reflection needs some qualification however: cf. Fowler, D. P., ‘Postmodernism, romantic irony and classical closure’, in De Jong, I. J. F. and Sullivan, J. P. (eds), Modern Critical Theory and Classical Literature (1994), 231–56.Google Scholar