SOURCE: "Propertius as Praeceptor Amoris," Classical Philology, Vol. V, January, 1910, pp. 28-40.

In the following essay, Wheeler discusses Propertius's elegies as instruction in erotic love.

In his effort to justify the Ars amatoria Ovid mentions both Tibullus and Propertius as predecessors who had given erotic teachings. In the case of Tibullus he gives proof by paraphrasing many lines of Tibullus i. 6 (cf. Ov. Tr. ii. 447-64); with regard to Propertius he contents himself (ibid., 465) with the statement: "Invenies eadem blandi praecepta Properti." In spite of this perfectly definite testimony, a surprising difference of opinion has existed among scholars with regard to the position of Propertius in this important feature of Roman elegy—not indeed as to the truth of Ovid's words of the work of Propertius known to him, but as to the existence of such praecepta in the extant work of Propertius. Lachmann (ed. of Prop. [1816], praefat...