author
Sextus Propertius
A master of Roman love elegy, this Augustan poet wrote intense, artful poems that circle around desire, jealousy, myth, and the uneasy pull between private passion and public life. His voice still feels strikingly personal, even across two thousand years.
1 Audiobook
Sexti Properti Elegiarvm: Liber Primvs
by Sextus Propertius
About the author
Born in Umbria, probably near Assisi, sometime around 50–45 BCE, Propertius lived through the turbulent early years of Augustus's rise to power. Much of what is known about him comes from his own poems, so some details remain uncertain, but ancient and modern reference sources agree that he became one of the central Latin elegists of his age.
His surviving work consists of four books of Elegies. The first book, often associated with the name Cynthia, made him famous and linked him with the literary circle around Maecenas. In these poems, love is rarely calm or simple: Propertius writes about obsession, quarrels, longing, and memory with unusual intensity, while also weaving in mythological and political echoes from Rome's changing world.
He is often grouped with Tibullus and Ovid as one of the great poets of Roman elegy, and many readers have seen him as one of the genre's boldest and most inward voices. Very little about his later life is certain, but he seems to have died not long after 15 BCE, leaving behind poetry that is both highly crafted and emotionally immediate.