The history of Propertius's life, so far as it is known to us, is the history of his amours, nor can it be said how much of these is fiction. He was, what has been called in modern times "a man of wit and pleasure about town ;" nor in the few particulars of his life which he communicates in the first elegy of the fourth book, does he drop the slightest hint of his ever having been engaged in any serious or useful employment. He began to write poetry at a very early age, and the merit of his productions soon attracted the attention and patronage of Maecenas. This was most probably shortly after the final discomfiture and death of Antony in B. C. 30, when, according to the computation adopted in this notice, Propertius was about one-and-twenty. This inference is drawn from the opening elegy of the second book (5.17. &c.), from which it appears that Maecenas had requested him to describe the military achievements of Octavianus. At that important epoch it formed part of that minister's policy to engage the most celebrated wits of Rome in singing Caesar's praises; his object being to invest his master's successes with all those charms of popularity which would necessarily prove so conducive to the great object which lay nearest to his heart --the establishment of Caesar's absolute empire. This is also evident from the works of Horace. That poet was a republican; yet, after the battle of Actium, Maecenas succeeded in inducing him to magnify Caesar, with whom there was nobody left to contest the world. These considerations, by the way, lead us also to the conclusion that there must have been at least a difference of eight years, as stated above, in the ages of Ovid and Propertius. The latter poet was already known to fame when it suited the political views, as well as the natural taste, of Maecenas to patronise him. Ovid, on the contrary, was then a mere boy; and his reputation would have been just bursting forth, when the faithful minister of Augustus was dismissed by his ungrateful master. An earlier, and perhaps more disinterested, patron of Properties was Tullus, the nephew, probably, of L. Volcatius Tullus, the fellow-consul of Octavianus, in B. C. 33. Tullus, however, seems to have been much of the same age as Propertius, as may be inferred from the conclusion of 3.22 ; and they may, therefore, be in some degree looked upon as sodales.

It was probably in B. C. 32 or 31, that Propertius first became acquainted with his Cynthia. He had previously had an amour with a certain Lycinna, and to which we must assign the space of a year or two. This connection, however, was a merely sensual one, and was not, therefore, of a nature to draw out his poetical powers. In Cynthia, though by no means an obdurate beauty, he found incitement enough, as well as sufficient obstacles to the gratification of his passion, to lend it refinement, and to develope the genius of his muse. The biographers of Propertius make him a successful lover at once. They neither allow time for courtship, nor assign any of his elegies to that period. It is plain, however, from several passages, that his suit must have been for a length of time an unsuccessful one (see especially 2.14. 15), and several of his pieces were probably written diuing its progress; as the first of the first book (which Lachmann refers to the time of his quarrel with his mistress), the fifth of the fourth book, and others. Cynthia was a native of Tibur (4.7. 85), and her real name was Hostia. (Appuleius, Apolog. ; Schol. in Juven. 6.7.) As Propertius (3.20. 8) alludes to her doctus avus, it is probable that she was a grand-daughter of Hostius, who wrote a poem on the Histric war. [HOSTIUS.] She seems to have inherited a considerable portion of the family talent, and was herself a poetess, besides being skilled in music, dancing, and needlework (i 2. 27, 1.3. 41, 2.1.9, 2.3.17, &c.). From these accomplishments Paldamus, in the to his edition of Propertius, inferred that she was a woman of rank; and some have even absurdly derived her genealogy from Hostus Hostilius. But the truth seems to be that she belonged, as Hertzberg thinks, to that higher class of courtezans, or rather kept women, then sufficiently numerous at Rome. We cannot reconcile the whole tenor of the poems with any other supposition. Thus it appears that Propertius succeeded a lover who had gone to Africa for the purpose of gain (3.20), perhaps after having been well stripped by Cynthia. Propertius is in turn displaced by a stupid praetor, returning from Illyricum with a well-filled purse, and whom the poet advises his mistress to make the most of (2.16). We are led to the same conclusion by the fifth elegy of the fourth book, before alluded to, as written during his courtship, which is addressed to Acanthis, a lena, or procuress, who had done all she could to depreciate Propertius and his poems with Cynthia, on account of his want of wealth. Nor can we draw any other inference from the seventh elegy of the second book, which expresses the alarm felt by the lovers should be separated by the Lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus, and the joy of Cynthia at its not having been passed. What should have prevented Propertius, then, apparently a bachelor, from marrying his mistress ? It was because women who had exercised the profession of a courtezan were forbidden by that law to marry an ingenuus. There was no other disqualification, except that libertinae were not permitted to marry a man of senatorial dignity. The objection raised might, indeed, be solved if it could be shown that Cynthia was a married woman. But though Broukhusius (ad 2.6. 1) has adopted that opinion, he is by no means borne out in it by the passages he adduces in its support. That she had a husband is nowhere mentioned by Propertius, which could hardly have been the case had such been the fact. The very elegy to which Broukhusius's note is appended, by comparing Cynthia to Lais, and other celebrated Grecian courtezans, proves the reverse. Nor can the opinion of that critic be supported by the word nupta in the twenty-sixth line of the same piece. That term by no means excludes the notion of an illicit connection. Such an arrangement, or conditio (2.14. 18), as that between Propertius and his mistress, did not take place without some previous stipulations, and even solemnities, which the poet has described in the twentieth elegy of the third book (5.15, &c.), and which he does not hesitate to call sacra maria.

The precise date and duration of this connection cannot be accurately determined. Properties' first success with his mistress must have been after the battle of Actium, from 2.15. 37 and 44; and as it was in the summer time (3.20. 11, &c.), it should probably be placed in B. C. 30. The seventh elegy of the fourth book seems to show that the lovers were separated only by the death of Cynthia. See especially the fifth and sixth verses : -- Cum mihi somnus ab exequiis penderet amoris,Et quererer lecti frigida regna mei.

That Propertius married, probably after Cynthia's death, and left legitimate issue, may be inferred from the younger Pliny twice mentioning Passienus Paulus, a splendidus eques Romanus, as descended from him. (Ep. 6.15, and 9.22.) This must have been through the female line. The year of Propertius's death is altogether unknown. Masson placed it in B. C. 15 (Vit. Ovid. A.U.C. 739), and he has been followed by Barth and other critics. Masson's reasons for fixing on that year are that none of his elegies can be assigned to a later date than B. C. 16; and that Ovid twice mentions him in his (3.333 and 536) in a way that shows him to have been dead. The first of these proves nothing. It does not follow that Propertius ceased to live because he ceased to write; or that he ceased to write because nothing later has been preserved. The latter assertion, too, is not indisputable. There are no means of fixing the dates of several of his pieces; and El. 4.6, which alludes to Caius and Lucius, the grandsons of Augustus (1. 82), was probably written considerably after B. C. 15. (Clinton, F. H. B. C. 26.) With regard to Masson's second reason, the passages in the by no means show that Propertius was dead; and even if they did, it would be a strange method of proving a man defunct in B. C. 15, because he was so in B. C. 2, Masson's own date for the publication of that poem !

Propertius resided on the Esquiline, near the gardens of Maecenas. He seems to have cultivated the friendship of his brother poets, as Ponticus, Bassus, Ovid, and others. He mentions Virgil (2.34. 63) in a way that shows he had heard parts of the Aeneid privately recited. But though he belonged to the circle of Maecenas, he never once mentions Horace. He is equally silent about Tibullus. His not mentioning Ovid is best explained by the difference in their ages; for Ovid alludes more than once to Propertius, and with evident affection.