Propertius among the Poets

Abstract

The dissatisfaction which orderly-minded schoolboys generally feel when they first attempt to read the works of Propertius all too often persists among more mature readers who turn to the elegies in search of genuine literary experience. After tasting the immediate attraction of the other Augustans, whether the inexhaustible richness of Virgil and Horace, the brilliance of Ovid, or the gentle music of Tibullus, the reader continually turns away frustrated from Propertius. What, after all, is one to make of a poet whose words simply do not make sense by any accepted standard; who cries aloud for textual emendation, but never has enough of it until he has been utterly transformed by transpositions and by marks of long lacunae, as in Richmond's edition, or whittled away into something like a pedestrian Ovid; who describes a society which interests us intensely, yet hardly ever succeeds in transmitting to the reader any sort of direct experience of the life he lived and the sights he saw; who continually invites the reader by the overpowering emotion of the opening of a poem, often with some particle to indicate that we are arriving in the middle of a pre-existing train of thought, and then tails off into that artificial Alexandrianism which he plainly thought so admirable, but which we can appreciate only as an odd historical phenomenon? After considering these characteristics, one is more than ever convinced that Horace was speaking of Propertius, and speaking justly, when he criticized the pretensions of the self-styled ‘Roman Callimachus’.

Sextus Empiricus Against Aelius Aristides. The Conflict Between Philosophy and Rhetoric in the Second Century A.D.

“…25 Certainly, there is a difference between the two terms which is important in some Stoic contexts, especially ethical ones, but not in all of them. 26 Furthermore, we have Quintilian's testimony that both Chrysippus and Cleanthes defined rhetoric as a science, though scientia recte dicendi, the science of speaking rightly. 27 In this connection we must mention Quintilian's own definition of rhetoric, according to which 'rhetoric is the science of speaking well', and which, as Quintilian himself says, ultimately has the same meaning as Chrysippus' definition.…”

“…After the proem to his DRhet., in which Aristides stresses that it is the truth of views which attaches value to them and not their origin with some persons who preceded us in time (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20), and a presentation of the basic accusations found in the Gorgias (21-22), the author implicitly reveals that he is conscious of the fact that he is entering a quarrel which is not always honest and declares his decision to be upright and use proofs, not slander (23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31). Then he sets out to refute criticisms levelled at rhetoric by Plato.…”

“…But since it is not true that such acts are καθήκοντα, and since there are no apprehensions of false things (11), rhetoric is left with no system of apprehensions, and the logical consequence of this is that rhetoric is not an art or, rather, that it does not exist at all. 26 Sextus obviously takes it for granted here that the rules of rhetoric are of this kind and of no other and it is also clear that the rules he quotes as examples are referred to the forensic activities of rhetoric.…”

“…But, at any rate, the sense is not essentially affected. 25 See also Hermogenes' introduction to the On Staseis (28 Rabe) in which the rhetorician ac cepts this Stoic definition of art and applies it to rhetoric; πολλών όντων και μεγάλων, d την ρητορικήν συνίστησι και τεχνην ποιεί, καταληφθεντα τε εξ αρχής δηλαδή και συγγυμνασθέντα τω χρόνω, σαφή τε την ώφέλειαν παρεχόμενα τω βίω κάν rais βουλαΐς κάν τοις δικαστηρίοις και πανταχού, μεγιστον είναι μοι δοκεΐ τό... 26 Both in Rhet. 10 and 11 Sextus' conclusion is that rhetoric does not exist.…”

“…ΠΙ, p. 101-102, Wendland); see also Long-Sedley (1987), 1263. 26 Science as such differs from art as such in that science is a disposition, διάθβσι?, which by definition does not admit of degrees, while art is a state, a 'tenor', ίξις, which does; Long-Sedley (1987), I 263-264. As Long-Sedley exemplify it: 'One doctor can be more exact than another; but one virtuous man cannot be more virtuous than another, since virtue, being sci entific knowledge, is a state of intellectual perfection.'…”