her health declining recalled her ancient lover, and he remembering only her kindness and forgetting her faults, softened by time and absence, came once more to help her in her need, and stood by the sick bed as in the olden time. But what are we to say of the contents of the poem? Can we pretend that it is pure poetic fiction, that the persons who crowd it, Chloris, Petale, Nomas, &c., its detail of circumstance, its air of life and reality are, after all, mere phantasmagoria and as shadowy as the vanishing Cynthia herself? Better say that the poem is a fictitious account of an imaginary occurrence, and that Cynthia did not die nor Propertius celebrate her death'. But, on the other hand, can we give unquestioning belief to the voice from the tomb? Shall we suppose that Propertius had sought a new mistress, ere the ashes of the first were cold in their urn, to occupy her place in her house and to tyrannize over her faithful slaves, that he had neglected the poor ceremonies which custom claimed for the dead, and demanded from an heir, nay that he had suspected that there was poison in her death and had not tracked the odious suspicion? Then, in spite of the preceding history, we shall have no scruple in believing Cynthia when she solemnly avers that she has kept her faith to Propertius (vv. 51-54). If we would rightly estimate the meaning of this poem, we must keep several considerations before us. First we must allow for that propensity to exaggeration in Propertius, which is always leading him to overstate and overcolour, and of which we shall speak anon. Again we must bear in mind that he is presenting 1 This would at least be more in keeping with the Propertian genius whose ordinary tendency is to make the circumstantial vague and not vice versa. We may account for the difference in this and some other cases by supposing that the vividness and singularity of the events had photographed their smallest details upon his memory. Cynthia's case, and realizing it vividly and poetically. Lastly we must deduct something for the self-upbraidings of grief and bereavement, and we must remember that in such a case it is in large measure true that qui s'accuse s'excuse. To sum up, I think we may fairly state the circumstances of this poem as follows. Cynthia had died shortly before it was written, from an illness whose origin was obscure1, leaving to Propertius the disposal of her effects and the arrangements for her burial. In the prostration of his grief he seems not to have superintended the execution of his instructions for the funeral and to have allowed a certain Chloris, otherwise unknown, to usurp an unauthorised authority over the household. And this poem is an expression of contrition and an earnest of reparation. Thus ended an intimacy which is for us by far the most important incident of Propertius' life. Without the stimulus of his love and without the sympathy and encouragement of his beloved his genius might never have broken the crust of lethargy which covered it. He himself says that his love stood him in the stead of genius; and with the proper interpretation this confession is true'. With its extinction decayed his poetical activity, and it is no accident that the only poems which can be assigned to a later date, viz. v. vi. and v. xi., were written for special occasions and at the request of others. 'His Muse,' as Hertzberg says, 'sank to silence with his love.' And his own words proved more prophetic than he intended: CYNTHIA PRIMA FVIT, CYNTHIA FINIS ERIT. And here too the records, the meagre records which we have been endeavouring pain fully to spell, break off: and a chasm opens Later life. 1 This is probably what the charge of poison means. in the life of the poet which we cannot see beyond. We know that he was alive at the end of B.c. 16, because v. 6 was written to commemorate the celebration of the ludi quinquennales, and in v. 11. 66 allusion is made to the consulship of P. Cornelius Scipio in 16. Besides this we have two passages of the younger Pliny which throw a solitary and uncertain gleam upon this period. Epist. 6. 15 Passennus Paullus, splendidus eques Romanus et in primis Passennus eruditus, scribit elegos. gentilicium hoc illi: Paullus. est enim municeps Properti atque etiam inter maiores suos Propertium numerat. is cum recitaret ita coepit dicere 'Prisce iubes.' ad hoc Iauolenus Priscus (aderat enim ut Paullo amicissimus) 'ego uero non iubeo.' cogita qui risus hominum, qui ioci. &c. 9. 22 Magna Ine sollicitudine adfecit Passenni Paulli ualitudo et quidem plurimis iustissimisque de causis. uir est optimus honestissimus nostri amantissimus; praeterea in litteris ueteres aemulatur exprimit reddit; Propertium in primis a quo genus ducit, uera soboles eoque simillima illi in quo ille praecipuus. si elegos eius in manum sumpseris, leges opus tersum molle iucundum et plane in Propertii domo scriptum. The natural, though I admit not the only possible, explanation of these passages is that Passennus Paullus or C. Passennus Sergius Paullus Propertius Blaesus (as we learn from an inscription found at Assisi' was his full name) was a lineal descendant of Propertius: and that he lived in the family mansion at Assisi. From this it would follow that Propertius married and had at least one 1 The inscription runs c. PASSENNO (Hertzb. has PASSENNIO, while the undoubtedly corrupt reading of the name in Pliny's MSS. is Passienus) C. F. SERG PAULLO 'ROPERTIO BLAESO. Hertzberg explains his numerous names by assuming adoption, 'Propertius Blaesus qui a C. Paullo adoptatus in gentem Passenniam et Sergiam tribum venit.' It may be added that the passages in Pliny refer to events which happened between A.D. 105 and 110. son. There is certainly nothing that conflicts with this supposition. Indeed there is one consideration which is distinctly in favour of it. As already said, the poet was alive in B.C. 16. Now two years before in 18 Augustus carried the Leges Iuliae whose object was the same as the proposals referred to above (p. xxi.). Now we have already seen that even in B.C. 27, when Propertius was in the heyday of his youth and in the first blush of the Cynthia attachment, he would not have resisted the imperial will; and in the poem which refers to the enactment of that year he uses expressions which shew that he regarded the separation as a real danger. How much less likely was he to resist it nine years later when he was now past thirty, when his ancient love was in her grave, and age and memory and authority were at one in urging him to a soberer walk of life? There is nothing more to tell. Perhaps, as a reward for his poetical services and his submission in a matter which the emperor had near at heart, Augustus restored him to his paternal estates; and he returned to the hills and streams of Umbria to see his children grow up around him and to sink from placid day to day into an old age which was 'not inglorious,' though it lacked the lyre'.' It is not impossible. In modern times, even within our own experience, we have seen the flame of poetry die out with youth: we have seen poets who have outlived their inspiration and become a wonder to themselves. Perhaps after all-and possibly this may be considered as the more likely supposition -the poet's own forebodings were realized; and though he did not go before his Cynthia, he may have followed her at no long distance to the grave, so that it was death, not desuetude, that stilled the Umbrian Muse. But this is fruitless speculation. Beyond the year 16 there 1 Hor. Od. 1. 31. 19. 2 Compare p. xxxvi. and nn. is not a shred for conjecture to lay hold of, and the obscurity which wraps so much of the poetry of Propertius sinks, like a pall, upon his life. But we must not let the absorbing interest of the Cynthia drama blind us to the fact that The friends there was another side to the poet's life at and patrons of Rome. It would have been a marvel if Propertius. his social inclinations and literary tastes had not drawn him to one or other of the two circles of writers which clustered round the patronage of Maecenas and Messala, and if the success of his first book had not secured him admission. Of the two influences that of Maecenas proved the more potent, and to that statesman are addressed the first elegy of the second book and the ninth of the fourth. His relations to his patron were doubtless far less intimate than those of Horace; but there is not the slightest authority for the suspicion which Dean Merivale has promulgated that "the assiduity of Propertius was perhaps too officious, and it was necessary to repel without offending him. Like all his unfortunate class (sic), he could not understand how, with his undoubted talents and acknowledged industry, his pursuit of the great was through life a failure, while that of his rivals, who seemed so much less eager in it, was crowned with such distinguished rewards'." The poems referred to shew the very opposite. It is Maecenas who urges him to celebrate the events of the day, and the poet who is reluctant, shielding himself under the plea of the inferiority of his own genius and the example of his patron. And the terms in which he addresses Maecenas are suggestive of friendly and sympathetic relations, not of importunate officiousness on the one side judiciously avoided on the other3. Chief among 1 Rom. Hist. IV. p. 599. 2 II. 1. 71-78, Iv. 8 (9). 57–60. He stood at a much greater distance from Augustus, as |