PROPELLER. See SCREW-PROPELLER.
Sextus, Latin poet; b. Assisium, Umbria, about 50 'Lc; d. Rome, between 15 and 2 ac. He is ranked by many as the greatest elegiac poet of Rome. Comparatively little is known regarding his life. He was deprived of his estate in the course of the agragrian confiscation and reduced to com parative indigence. Nevertheless he acquired a good education and was urged to take up the profession of advocate, but seems to have pre ferred devoting his energies to light literature and affairs of the heart, in which his love for the woman in his poems called 'Cynthia>) (her real name was Hostia), finally gained the ascendant and is reflected in much of his best writing. Propertius numbered among his friends Virgil and Ovid and engaged the patronage of Macenas. With Horace his re lations do not appear to have been friendly. He was of a delicate constitution, pale and thin in person and of an emotional temperament in which melancholy seems to have had a large share, particularly in his late years. It is said of him that he was very careful about his per sonal appearance, almost foppish in his atten tion to dress and gait. The poems of Proper tius consist of a collection of elegies usually divided into four books, though some com mentators claim that they ought to be divided into five. All existant manuscripts, however, contain many gaps and have been in some in stances more or less disfigured by corruptions. They are in their outward form modeled some what after the manner of the Alexandrine poets Callimachus and Philetas. He excels in the presentation of quiet description and emo tion, ea fine and almost voluptuous feeling for beauty of every kind, and pleading and almost melancholy tenderness' English translations have appeared by Palmer, Paley and Postgate. The best texts are those by Hertzberg (1843 45) ; Keil (1850); and Haupt (1885). There are now no manuscripts in existence of his works that date earlier than the 12th century. The best and most complete manuscript is the so-called Codex Neopolstanus, now at Wolfen biittel (12th century). Others are Codex
Vossianus at Leyden (14th century) ; Codex Laurentianus at Florence (15th century) ; Codex Daventriensis at Deventer (early 15th century); Codex Holkhamicus at Holkham (1421) ; Codex Urbinas in the Vatican (15th century). The first edition was published in Venice (1472). Other editions of importance are by Passerat (Paris 1608); Lachmann (Leipzig 1816; Berlin 1829) •,, Hertzberg (Halle 1843-45) ; Paley (London 1872) ; Bahrens (Leipzig 1880) ; Pal mer (Dublin 1880) ; Postgate (London 1894); Rothstein (Berlin 1898); Haupt-Vahlen (Leipzig 1904) ; Butler (London 1905) ; Phillimore (Lon don 1911) ; Hosins (London 1912). English translations have been made by Kelly (London 1854) ; Moore (Oxford 1870) ; Cranstown (London 1875) ; Phillimore (Oxford 1906), and Butler (London 1912). There are also transla tions into German, French, Italian and other modern languages. Consult Davis, J.
Tibullus and Propertius' (Philadelphia 1876) ; Gruppe, 0. F.,
Romische Elegie' (2 vols., Leipzig 1838) ; Havet, L.