The Singer and his Audience: The Opening Lines of Propertius' Four Books

The four opening couplets of each of Propertius' books (as we have them today) display an interesting progression. In each case the presumed audience addressed by the book grows in size or importance. This pattern, as is the case with any pattern discernible within a poetic corpus, has the potential to reveal telling details about the poet, his programmatic statements and, in the case of Propertius, perhaps even the text. This article argues that the posturing of the poet-speaker in the opening verses of each book is important for understanding the poetry, since it is through this posturing that a more authoritative voice is created for the later books with their greater concern with political themes. It is with this in mind that the third and, especially, the fourth books should be understood as attempts by the poet to participate in the construction of a Roman identity for a radically new social and political environment.