SEX. AURELIUS PROPERTIUS, an Umbrian, from Mevania, Ameria, Assisi, or Hispellum, it is not certain which, was born 58 B.C. or according to others 49 B.C., and lost his father and his estate in the same year (41 B.C.) under Octavius's second assignation of land to the soldiers. He seems to have begun life at the bar, which he soon deserted to play the cavalier to Hostia (whom he celebrates under the name Cynthia), a lady endowed with learning and wit as well as beauty, to whom our poet remained constant for five years. The chronology of his love-quarrels and reconciliations has been the subject of warm disputes between Nobbe, Jacob, and Lachmann; but even if it were of any importance, it is impossible to ascertain it with certainty. He unquestionably belonged to Maecenas's following, but was not admitted into the inner circle of his intimates. Some have thought that the troublesome acquaintance who besought Horace to introduce him was no other than Propertius. The man, it will be remembered, expresses himself willing to take a humble place: [23] "Haberes Magnum adiutorem posset qui ferre secundas Hunc hominem velles si tradere. Dispeream ni Submosses omnes." And as Propertius speaks of himself as living on the Esquiliae, [24] some have, in conformity with this view, imagined him to have held some domestic post under Maecenas's roof. A careful reader can detect in Propertius a far less well-bred tone than is apparent in Tibullus or Horace. He has the air of _a parvenu_, [25] parading his intellectual wares, and lacking the courteous self-restraint which dignifies their style. But he is a genuine poet, and a generous, warm-hearted man, and in our opinion by far the greatest master of the pentameter that Rome ever produced. Its rhythm in his hands rises at times almost into grandeur. There are passages in the elegy on Cornelia (which concludes the series) whose noble naturalness and stirring emphasis bespeak a great and patriotic inspiration; and no small part of this effect is due to his vigorous handling of a somewhat feeble metre. [26] Mechanically speaking, he is a disciple in the same school as Ovid, but his success in the Ovidian distich is insignificant; for he has nothing of the epigrammatist in him, and his finest lines all seem to have come by accident, or at any rate without effort. [27] His excessive reverence for the Alexandrines Callimachus and Philetas, has cramped his muse. With infinitely more poetic fervour than either, he has made them his only models, and to attain their reputation is the summit of his ambition. It is from respect to their practice that he has loaded his poems with pedantic erudition; in the very midst of passionate pleading he will turn abruptly into the mazes of some obscure myth, often unintelligible [28] to the modern reader, whose patience he sorely tries. There is no good poet so difficult to read