Poetry Commons^™

The Political Properties: Pro- And Anti-Augustan Readings Of Propertius Book Four, Matthew Angelosanto

Honors Theses

Propertius was a Roman elegist writing during the early years of Augustus’ reign as emperor. His fourth and final book of elegies has long confounded scholars due to its drastic shift in subject matter from love elegy to aetiology. So, too, did the poet’s political stance seem to change: vehemently anti-Augustus in his earlier books, a number of poems in his fourth seem to extol both the sociopolitical climate of Augustan Rome as well as the emperor himself. But should we take the poet’s words at face value? In light of his inexplicable change in political allegiance, this thesis examines …