MAXIMA ROMA IN PROPERTIUS, VIRGIL AND GALLUS

摘要

Rather than putting Cynthia prima, as the Monobiblos so self-consciously does,n3n nPropertius 4 here turns its back on amor to pronounce newfound interest in Roma.n4n nWith the conventional polarity of elegy thus reversed in favour of the epic themes nhitherto presented as anathema to (Propertian) elegy, the ensuing lines make free nwith the subject matter of Virgil’s Aeneid, the nescioquid maius … Iliade (‘some-nthing greater than the Iliad’) famously anticipated at Propertius 2.34.66 having now nbeen in circulation for upwards of three years.n5n This article is concerned with how echoes of Virgil and Gallus (for those who detect them)6n in these opening lines nmight push the book’s generic identity ‘upwards’ to and/or ‘downwards’ from the nepic magnitude sounded by the phrase maxima Roma (4.1.1).