28. Ter quinos.—In Roman reckoning, fourteen days: he was, therefore, suffering from a twenty-one days' fever.-Celebranturque. With many others, are now visiting.'

30. Facilis. lenta. The yielding wave, with pliant arm.'

...

32. Fuisse. The ancients avoided naming death, as a word of ill omen: hence, when Cicero announced to the people that the confederates of Catiline were dead, he used the term 'vixerunt,' 'they have ceased to live.'-Nigras pecudes. Black cattle were the proper victims to the underearth deities.

168

NOTES ON PROPERTIUS.

ELEG. I. From verse 7 of the next Elegy it appears that the Gallus who is here supposed to address a flying comrade, was a kinsman (propinqui) of Propertius.

1. Consortem... casum.-A lot similar to mine,' viz. death at the hand of a pursuer or a bandit.

2. Etruscis... aggeribus.-The walls of Perusia (Perugia), where Lucius Antonius defended himself against the three armies of Octavius, Agrippa, and Salvidienus, in B.C. 41. Famine, so severe as to be commemorated long after as the Perusina fames,' compelled Antonius to surrender. But though his own life, and the lives of the principal Roman nobles on his side were spared, the town itself was given up to plunder, its principal citizens were put to death, and finally Perusia itself, by accidental conflagration, was burnt down, B.c. 40. It was restored and repeopled by Augustus, and became again, by virtue of its strong position, and of its convenience as the border town between Umbria and Etruria, an important place, as numerous inscriptions attest. The modern Perugia contains 15,000 inhabitants, and is the capital of a province of the Roman States. Gallus had been one of the garrison during the siege, and may have escaped when L. Antonius attempted unsuccessfully to break through the Roman lines.

3. Quid... torques.-Quid torques lumina turgentia (fletu, lacrymis) ad nostrum gemitum.

4. Pars ego... militiæ.-' Late I was your comrade.'

5. Sic te servato.-' May you escape, and your parents rejoice; and may my sister learn my fate (acta) from your tears;' implying, 'My parents will never welcome me again: my sister, if you escape not, will never know how and where I fell.'

7. Per medios = inter medios.-Propertius uses per for inter in, among others, the following passages. Eleg. iv. 1. 4:

v. 4. 20:

'Itala per Graios orgia ferre choros.'

'Pictaque per flavas arma levare jubas.'

8. Ignotas... manus.-The hands of banditti.

10. Montibus

Etruscis. "
-

My bones are scattered over the mountain passes, not mingled with the bones of those who fell in battle.'

ELEG. II.-2. Semper. Tullus had often repeated the question,

'Qualis et unde genus, qui sint mihi, Tulle, Penates?'

1:3

3. Patriæ.-'Of your own countrymen, who were slain and buried at Perusia.'

4. Duris temporibus.-The evil times of the civil war, B.c. 40-41.

6. Sit mihi. Sit mihi dolor præsertim propter te, pulvis Etrusca,' i. e. 'terra Etrusca,' where the bones of my kinsman Gallus are bleached in the wind and sun, unburied: 'tu nullo miseri contegis ossa solo.'

9. Umbria.-A very large portion of Umbria is mountainous; whence it is called by Martial, Epig. iv. 10, montana Umbria;' but on the west the highlands terminate abruptly on the edge of a broad plain, which extends from the neighbourhood of Spoleto to Perugia: hence Propertius writes, 'Proxima contingens Umbria campo,' hills abutting on the champaign (supposito) beneath it. The birth-place of Propertius was probably Asisium (Assisi) in the vicinity of the Clitumnus and Mevania. Many of the Umbrian, as well as the Etruscan towns, were built on rocky eminences (Eleg. v. 1. 65: 'Scandentes si quis cernet de vallibus arces;' and ib. 125: Scandentesque Asis consurgit vertice murus'). Comp. Virgil, Georg. ii. 156: Tot congesta manu præruptis oppida saxis;' and Macaulay's Ballad of 'Horatius :'

'From many a lonely hamlet,

Which, hid by beech and pine,

Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest
Of purple Apennine.'

Uberibus.—'Well irrigated by streams flowing down from the hills.' The name of Umbria is sometimes derived from oußpoi, a land well watered and liable to rain; and Mevania, in the neighbourhood of Propertius's birth-place, was called the moist Mevania, nebulosa' (Eleg. iv. 1. 123).

ELEG. III. Mæcenas appears to have been urging Propertius to treat of 2, some higher theme than Love. He pleads inability to deal with wars of gods or men, old or recent, and says (v. 44) that every poet should keep to the path marked out for him by his proper temperament or genius.

2. Mollis... liber.-A poem of gentle mood, i. e. on Love.--In ora. To the lips and tongues of men; like 'virum volitare per ora,' Georg. iii. 9. 3. Calliope, the muse of Epic poetry.—Cantat, ' dictates.' 5. Sive.-Supply 'vidi' from v. 7.-Cois . . coccis. From the silk produced by the looms of Cos, an island in the Myrtoan sea, were woven the light transparent dresses called Coa vestes, and which are mentioned by nearly all the Augustan poets. They were often dyed with the fine purple, also a product of the island, and adorned with stripes of gold tissue. Coccis, from coccum, is a dye extracted from an insect that breeds on the Quercus coccifera, or Kermes oak, and it rivalled in the brilliancy of its tints the Tyrian scarlet, which was derived from the Murex and Helix ianthina. Martial (Epig. iv. 28) combines both Coan and Tyrian dyes. In this passage coccis is the stola dyed with coccum. Propertius frequently refers to his mistress's splendid appearance (fulgentem) in this dress; e. g. i. 2. 2; ii. 3. 15, etc. etc.

I

10. Faciles.-Pliant, skilful. 12. Causas.-Sc. canendi.

15. Tantum.-Sc. ingenium. Had fortune assigned me so high a vein of verse that I could "sing of old great houses and fights fought long ago," I should not have chosen for my theme wars of gods and giants, or tales of Thebes and Troy, but I should have sung of Cæsar's exploits and your share in them, O Mæcenas.'-Heroas manus, bands of heroes. copias heroum.

Sc.

18. Impositum.-Agrees with 'montem,' implied in 'Ossam.' Ossa, Olympus, and Pelion, are usually combined in passages alluding to the wars of the Titans with the gods: e. g. Ovid, Fast. i. 307: Sic petitur cœlum non ut ferat Ossan Olympus.' Summaque Peliacus sidera tangat apex,' iii. 441. Comp. Virgil, Georg. i. 280; Odyss. xi. 314. The geographical relation of these mountains was-Ossa is separated from Olympus by the vale of Tempe, and Pelion rises to the south of Ossa. Ossa is conical in form, and has only one summit; Olympus has a broad summit and precipitous sides and spurs. Pelion has an extended ridge, and two summits with a hollow space between them, so as to give it in some respects the appearance of a saddle-backed mountain.

19. Nomen Homeri.-Whence, i.e. from the war of Troy, Пéрyaua Tpoíns, Homer derived his fame.-Bina vada. The sea on either side of Mount Athos, which Xerxes joined by cutting a canal through its base. Herod. vii. 21.

22. Cimbrorum... Mari.-The Cimbri invaded Italy in в.c. 101, and were defeated by Marius at Vercellæ in the summer of that year.-Benefacta. Perhaps in this word is implied a contrast between the services of Marius as a soldier, and the mischief he did as a politician, to the commonwealth. By his victories over the Cimbri and Teutones he rolled back for three centuries the tide of northern immigration from Italy and the civilized world.

25. Mutinam.-By breaking up the siege of Mutina, Octavius rescued Decimus Brutus and the republican party from M. Antonius, and then by joining his forces to those of the Cæsarians, Lepidus, Antonius, etc., he crushed the faction of Brutus and Cassius.-Civilia busta. Philippi, where so many of the noblest citizens of Rome were slain and buried. So 'patriæ sepulcra,' supra, ii. 3.-Classica bella. Naval wars.' The allusion is to the final defeat of Sextus Pompeius by Augustus, off the coast of Sicily, B.C. 36.

27. Eversos focus, etc.—The siege of Perusia. See note on Eleg. I. 2. supra.

28. Phari.-The Pharos was the celebrated light-house of Alexandria. Originally Pharos was the name of a long narrow island fronting the port of that city. Ptolemy Soter, the first king of the Ptolemæan dynasty, B.C. 320-19, joined the island to the mainland by a stone mole nearly three-quarters of a mile long, called the Heptastadium, of which the light-house formed the northern extremity.-Tractus in urbem. An image of the Nile in chains seems to have been carried before the triumphal car of Augustus, after his capture of Alexandria in B.c. 29. Comp. Ovid, Fast. i. 286: Tradiderat famulas jam tibi Nilus aquas.'-Septem aquis. Septem

ostia Nili.

32. Sacra... via.-The Sacred Way' formed a portion of the road along which the triumphal processions at Rome proceeded from the Porta

Triumphalis to the Capitol. The name Sacra was, however, derived from the religious purposes to which the Via was applied. By it the augurs descended from the arx, when, after observing the heavens, they proceeded to inaugurate anything in the city below. Up this road also sacrifices were borne to the arx.-Actia rostra. The beaks of the ships destroyed in the battle of Actium, or, more probably, representations of them, were carried (currere) at the triumph of Augustus.-Caput. Faithful stay and prop of the state in peace or war.' 'Caput' (pars pro toto) is a man, a person, even an animal. Horace, Carm. i. 24. 1: Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus Tam cari capitis,' i. e. Quintilius Varus. Siquidem hoc vivet caput,' sc. ego,' Plaut. Pseudol. ii. 4. 33.

་

35. Theseus.-The poet now passes to striking examples of ancient friendship, e. g. Theseus and Pirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, insinuating a compliment to the illustrious friends Augustus and Mæcenas.

37. Phlegræos, sc. campos.-The headland of Pallene in Chalcidice, where the gods and Titans fought.—Angusto pectore. Callimachus had not breath enough for heroic themes, neither have I, his disciple and imitator. See Eleg. iv. 1. 1 ; v. 1. 64. Comp. Eleg. iv. 1. 59:

'Hei mihi, quod nostro parvus in ore sonus,

Sed tamen exiguo quodcumque e pectore rivi
Fluxerit, etc."

39. Versu (here and v. 64) is the dative case, contracted from versui; versus, versuis, -ús; -ui, ú. So manu, Eleg. i. 11, 12; Tacit. Ann. iii. 30, vi. 23.-Duro. Epic, contrasted with elegiac (molli) verse. Mollis liber, supra, 2. So tristis and lenis are put in opposition to each other, Eleg. i. 9. 12:

'Carmina mansuetus lenia quærit Amor. I, quæso, et tristes istos compone libellos.'

40. Condere. To store up, to trace back and deposit Cæsar's name among his Trojan ancestors.

49. Tarda crura.-' -The lingering wound of Philoctetes. Machaon was one of the surgeons who accompanied the Greeks to Troy.-Cheiron, wisest and most just of all the Centaurs (Il. xi. 831), was skilled in many arts, in medicine among them.- Deus Epidaurius. Esculapius. The restoration of Androgeus, son of Minos, is mentioned by Propertius alone. Eschylus (Agam. 990) says that he revived Hippolytus, with whom Ovid, Fast. vi. 759, agrees, and that Æsculapius was struck by Zeus with thunder for his skill.

'Jupiter exemplum veritus direxit in illum
Fulmina qui nimiæ moverat artis opem.'

For Androgeon and his worship in Attica, see note on Catullus, supra, s. v.
-Mysus juvenis. Telephus, wounded by the spear of Achilles, was cured
by the rust of it. Hence incurable wounds are called proverbially Tŋλépeia
Tраúμаτα (Paul. Ægin. iv. 46).

55. The man who can cure me of love will find nothing else impossible, he can put apples in the hand of Tantalus, fill the urns of the Danaides, unbind Prometheus,' etc.