Introspection and Engagement in Propertius

Propertius re-invents Latin love-elegy in his third collection. Nearly a decade into the Augustan principate, the early counter-cultural impulse of Propertius'' first collections was losing its relevance. Challenged by the publication of Horace''s Odes, and by the imminent arrival of Virgil''s Aeneid, in 23 BCE Propertius produced a radical collection of elegy which critically interrogates elegy''...