Sextus Propertius was the greatest of the elegiac poets of Rome. He was born of an affluent Umbrian family at or near Assisi and lived from about 50 BC to 16 BC. We learn from Ovid that Propertius was his senior and also his friend and companion, and that he was third in the sequence of elegiac poets, following Gallus (born 69 BC) and immediately preceding Ovid himself (born 43 BC). The known poems of Propertius consist of four books comprising 4046 lines. Cynthia, the first book, was published around 25 BC. He was the most psychologically astute of the Roman poets, a deeply introspective man who mastered a language of selfhood.
-- Jack Hanley
