SOURCE: "Propertius: Life and Personal Characteristics" and "The Art and Genius of Propertius" in The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1892, pp. 260-323.

In the following essay, Sellar examines Propertius's life and personal characteristics, analyzes the merits of his verse and, with certain exceptions, declares him a great poet.

Gi; propertius: Life and Personal Characteristics. =~ Spropertius: Life and Personal Characteristics.

There is a greater difference of opinion about the literary position of Propertius than about that of any other Roman poet. The place of Lucretius and Virgil, of Horace and Catullus, in the first rank of Latin authors and among the great poets of the world, has been generally conceded. A similar position would have been allowed to Ovid in any century before the present. The rank of Tibullus as a classic of the second order is also undisputed. Propertius, on the other...