PROPERTIUS, SEXTUS (fl. 30-15 B.c.), the greatest of the elegiac poets of Rome, was born of a well-to-do Umbrian family at or near Asisium (Assisi), the birthplace also of the famous St. Francis. We learn from Ovid, that Propertius was his senior, but also his friend and companion; and that he was third in the sequence of elegiac poets, following Gallus, who was born in 69 B.C., and Tibullus, and immediately preceding Ovid himself, who was born in 43 B.c. We shall not then be far wrong in supposing that he was born about 5o B.C. His early life was full of misfortune. He lost his father prematurely; and after the battle of Philippi and the return of Octavian to Rome, Propertius, like Virgil and Horace, was deprived of his estate to provide land for the veterans, but, unlike them, he had no patrons at court, and he was reduced from opulence to com parative indigence. The widespread discontent which the con fiscations caused provoked the insurrection generally known as the bellum perusinum from its only important incident, the fierce and fatal resistance of Perusia, which deprived the poet of another of his relations, who was killed by brigands while making his escape from the lines of Octavian. The loss of his patrimony, however, thanks no doubt to his mother's providence, did not prevent Propertius from receiving a superior education. After, or it may be, during its completion he and she left Umbria for Rome ; and there, about the year 34 B.C., he assumed the garb of manly freedom. He was urged to take up a pleader's pro fession ; but, like Ovid, he found in letters and gallantry a more congenial pursuit. Soon afterwards he made the acquaintance of Lycinna, about whom we know little beyond the fact that she subsequently excited the jealousy of Cynthia, and was subjected to all her powers of persecution (vexandi). This passing fancy was succeeded by a serious attachment, the object of which was the famous "Cynthia." Her real name was Hostia, and she was a native of Tibur (iv. 7, 85; iii. 20, 8). She was a courtesan of the superior class, somewhat older than Propertius (ii. 18, 2o) but, as it seems, a woman of singular beauty and varied accom plishments. Her own predilections led her to literature ; and in her society Propertius found the intellectual sympathy and encour agement which were essential for the development of his powers.
Her character, as depicted in the poems, is not an attractive one; but she seems to have entertained a genuine affection for her lover. The intimacy began in 28 and lasted till 23 B.C. These six years must not, however, be supposed to have been a period of unbroken felicity. Apart from minor disagreements an infidelity on Proper tius's part excited the deepest resentment in Cynthia ; and he was banished for a year. The quarrel was made up about the beginning of 25 B.c. ; and soon after Propertius published his first book of poems and inscribed it with the name of his mistress. Its publi cation placed him in the first rank of contemporary poets, and amongst other things procured him admission to the literary circle of Maecenas. The intimacy was renewed; but the old enchantment was lost. Neither Cynthia nor Propertius was faith ful to the other. The mutual ardour gradually cooled ; motives of prudence and decorum urged the discontinuance of the con nection ; and disillusion changed insensibly to disgust. Although this separation might have been expected to be final, it is not cer tain that it was so. It is true that Cynthia, whose health appears to have been weak, does not seem to have survived the separation long. But a careful study of the seventh poem of the last book, in which Propertius gives an account of a dream of her which he had of ter her death, leads us to the belief that they were once more reconciled, and that in her last illness Cynthia left to her former lover the duty of carrying out her wishes with regard to the disposal of her effects and the arrangements of her funeral. Almost nothing is known of the subsequent history of the poet. He was alive in 16 B.C., as some allusions in the last book testify. And two passages in the letters of the younger Pliny mention a descendant of the poet, one Passennus Paullus. Now, in 18 B.C. Augustus carried the leges Iuliae, which offered inducements to marriage and imposed disabilities upon the celibate. Propertius then may have been one of the first to comply with the new enactments. He would thus have married and had at least one child, from whom the contemporary of Pliny was descended.