A Commentary on Propertius, Book 3 [Hardcover]

The most passionate, individual, and controversial of the Latin love elegists, Propertius in Book 3 covers a broad range of subject matter and a vast geographical reach. After books focused on his mistress Cynthia, he maintains his elegiac role but expands his range to provide a lover's commentary on life, discussing luxury, nudity, art, the empire, and the dangers of travel for profit and war. This detailed commentary uses the text recently published in the Oxford Classical Texts series, and sets out to build on the richness of the material in the book by providing clear introductions to the genres the poems explore - the Greek elegy of Callimachus, epic, tragedy, hymn and epigram - and to topics such as patronage, philosophy, and the images of love as slavery and as warfare.

Introduction
Book 3: Text
Commentary

The authors are generous to students, not only in the wealth of material they provide (including translations of all passages quoted in the commentaries), but in their assessment of what the students need. The grammatical notes are clear and helpful everywhere --exemplary, in fact. --Bryn MawrClassical Review

A detailed, well-organized, and lucid commentary that combines explication with overall interpretation based largely on the authors' views but acknowledging alternatives. Further assistance is provided by an appendix of Greek and Latin texts with translations, a well-chosen bibliography, and comprehensive indexes. From all of this, readers will be equipped as never before to investigate, appreciate, and begin to understand a number of Propertius's most fascinating poems, and it is to be hoped that similar editions of other books of elegies will follow. --Religious Studies Review

S. J. Heyworthis Bowra Fellow and Tutor in Classics, Wadham College, Oxford

J. H. W. Morwoodis Emeritus Fellowl#+