the truth seems to be that she belonged, as Hertz- | berg thinks, to that higher class of courtezans, or rather kept women, then sufficiently numerous at Rome. We cannot reconcile the whole tenor of the poems with any other supposition. Thus it appears that Propertius succeeded a lover who had gone to Africa for the purpose of gain (iii. 20), perhaps after having been well stripped by Cynthia. Propertius is in turn displaced by a stupid praetor, returning from Illyricum with a well-filled purse, and whom the poet advises his mistress to make the most of (ii. 16). We are led to the same conclusion by the fifth elegy of the fourth book, before alluded to, as written during his courtship, which is addressed to Acanthis, a lena, or procuress, who had done all she could to depreciate Propertius and his poems with Cynthia, on account of his want of wealth. Nor can we draw any other inference from the seventh elegy of the second book, which expresses the alarm felt by the lovers lest they should be separated by the Lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus, and the joy of Cynthia at its not having been passed. What should have prevented Propertius, then, apparently a bachelor, from marrying his mistress? It was because women who had exercised the profession of a courtezan were forbidden by that law to marry an ingenuus. There was no other disqualification, except that libertinae were not permitted to marry a man of senatorial dignity. The objection raised might, indeed, be solved if it could be shown that Cynthia was a married woman. But though Broukhusius (ad ii. 6. 1) has adopted that opinion, he is by no means borne out in it by the passages he adduces in its support. That she had a husband is nowhere mentioned by Propertius, which could hardly have been the case had such been the fact. The very elegy to which Broukhusius's note is appended, by comparing Cynthia to Laïs, and other celebrated Grecian courtezans, proves the reverse. Nor can the opinion of that critic be supported by the word nupta in the twenty-sixth line of the same piece. That term by no means excludes the notion of an illicit connection. Such an arrangement, or conditio (ii. 14. 18), as that between Propertius and his mistress, did not take place without some previous stipulations, and even | solemnities, which the poet has described in the twentieth elegy of the third book (v. 15, &c.), and which he does not hesitate to call sacra marita.

The precise date and duration of this connection cannot be accurately determined. Propertius's first success with his mistress must have been after the battle of Actium, from ii. 15. 37 and 44; and as it was in the summer time (iii. 20. 11, &c.), it should probably be placed in B. c. 30. The seventh elegy of the fourth book seems to show that the lovers were separated only by the death of Cynthia. See especially the fifth and sixth

verses:

Cum mihi somnus ab exequiis penderet amoris, Et quererer lecti frigida regna mei. That Propertius married, probably after Cynthia's death, and left legitimate issue, may be inferred from the younger Pliny twice mentioning Passienus Paulus, a splendidus eques Romanus, as descended from him. (Ep. vi. 15, and ix. 22.) This must have been through the female line. The year of Propertius's death is altogether unknown. Masson placed it in B. c. 15 ( Vit. Ovid. A.U.c. 739),

and he has been followed by Barth and other critics. Masson's reasons for fixing on that year are that none of his elegies can be assigned to a later date than B. c. 16; and that Ovid twice mentions him in his Ars Amatoria (iii. 333 and 536) in a way that shows him to have been dead. The first of these proves nothing. It does not follow that Propertius ceased to live because he ceased to write; or that he ceased to write because nothing later has been preserved. The latter assertion, too, is not indisputable. There are no means of fixing the dates of several of his pieces; and El. iv. 6, which alludes to Caius and Lucius, the grandsons of Augustus (1.82), was probably written considerably after B. c. 15. (Clinton, F. II. B. C. 26.) With regard to Masson's second reason, the passages in the Ars Am. by no means show that Propertius was dead; and even if they did, it would be a strange method of proving a man defunct in B. c. 15, because he was so in B. c. 2, Masson's own date for the publication of that poem!

Propertius resided on the Esquiline, near the gardens of Maecenas. He seems to have cultivated the friendship of his brother poets, as Ponticus, Bassus, Ovid, and others. He mentions Virgil (ii. 34. 63) in a way that shows he had heard parts of the Aeneid privately recited. But though he belonged to the circle of Maecenas, he never once mentions Horace. He is equally silent about Tibullus. His not mentioning Ovid is best explained by the difference in their ages; for Ovid alludes more than once to Propertius, and with evident affection.

In 1722, a stone, bearing a head and two inscriptions, one to Propertius, and one to a certain Cominius, was pretended to be discovered at Spello, the ancient Hispellum, in the palace of Theresa Grilli, Princess Pamphila. Though the genuineness of this monument was maintained by Montfaucon and other antiquarians, as well as by several eminent critics, later researches have shown the inscription of Propertius's name to be a forgery. The same stone, discovered in the same place, was known to be extant in the previous century, but bearing only the inscription to Cominius. (See the authorities adduced by Hertzberg, Quaest. Propert. vol. i. p. 4.)

As an elegiac poet, a high rank must be awarded to Propertius, and among the ancients it was a moot point whether the preference should be given to him or to Tibullus. (Quint. x. 1. § 93.) His genius, however, did not fit him for the sublimer flights of poetry, and he had the good sense to refrain from attempting them. (iii. 3. 15, &c.) Though he excels Ovid in warmth of passion, he never indulges in the grossness which disfigures some of the latter's compositions. It must, however, be confessed that, to the modern reader, the elegies of Propertius are not nearly so attractive as those of Tibullus. This arises partly from their obscurity, but in a great measure also from a certain want of nature in them. Muretus, in an admirable parallel of Tibullus and Propertius, in the preface to his Scholia on the latter, though he does not finally adjudicate the respective claims of the two poets, has very happily expressed the difference between them in the following terms:“Illum (Tibullum) judices simplicius scripsisse quae cogitaret: hunc (Propertium) diligentius cogitasse quid scriberet. In illo plus naturae, in hoc plus curae atque industriae perspicias." The fault

of Propertius was too pedantic an imitation of the Greeks. His whole ambition was to become the Roman Callimachus (iv. 1. 63), whom, as well as Philetas and other of the Greek elegiac poets, he made his model. He abounds with obscure Greek myths, as well as Greek forms of expression, and the same pedantry infects even his versification. Tibullus generally, and Ovid almost invariably, close their pentameter with a word contained in an iambic foot; Propertius, especially in his first book, frequently ends with a word of three, four, or even five syllables. P. Burmann, and after him Paldamus, have pretended to discover that this termination is favourable to pathos; but Propertius's motive for adopting it may more probably be attributed to his close, not to say servile, imitation of the Greeks.

mann.

The obscurity of Propertius, which is such that Jos. Scaliger (Castigationes in Propertium, p. 169, Steph. 1577) did not hesitate to say that the second book was almost wholly unintelligible, is not owing solely to his recondite learning, and to the studied brevity and precision of his style, but also to the very corrupt state in which his text has come down to us. Alexander ab Alexandro (Genial. Dier. ii. 1) relates, on the authority of Pontanus, that the Codex Archetypus was found under some casks in a wine cellar, in a very imperfect and illegible condition, when Pontanus, who was born in 1426, was a mere youth. This story was adopted by Jos. Scaliger (Ibid. p. 168), who, assuming as well the recklessness and negligence of the first transcriber, introduced many alterations and transpositions, which were adopted by subsequent critics to the age of Broukhius and BurVan Santen, in the preface to his edition, published at Amsterdam, in 1780, was the first to question the truth of the story related by Alexander (p. x. &c.), chiefly on the grounds that there is extant a MS. of Propertius, with an inscription by Puccius, dated in 1502, in which he mentions having collated it with a codex which had belonged to B. Valla, and which he styles antiquissimus ; an epithet he could not have applied to any copy of the MS. alluded to by Alexander. That this codex of Valla's was not that found in the wine cellar is shown by an annotation of Ant. Perreius, in a copy of Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius, dated in the early part of the sixteenth century, in which he distinguishes them. It may be observed that this reasoning allows that there was such a MS. as that mentioned by Alexander, who, however, does not say that it belonged to Pontanus. But though Van Santen's arguments do not seem quite conclusive, they have been adopted by most modern critics; and have been further strengthened by the observation that Petrarch, who flourished more than a century before Pontanus, quotes a passage from Propertius (ii. 34. 65) just as it is now read, in his fictitious letters (the 2d to Cicero); and that one at least of the MSS. now extant (the Guelferbytanus or Neapolitan) is undoubtedly as old as the thirteenth century. Whatever may be the merits of this question, it cannot be doubted that the MS. from which our copies are derived was very corrupt; a fact which the followers of Van Santen do not pretend to deny.

The Editio Princeps of Propertius was printed in 1472, fol.; it is uncertain at what place. There is another edition of the same date in small 4to. The text was early illustrated and amended by the

care of Beroaldus, Jos. Scaliger, Muretus, Passerat, and other critics. The works of Propertius have been often printed with those of Catullus and Tibullus. The following are the best separate editions :By Broukhusius, Amsterdam, 1702, sm. 4to. By Vulpius, Padua, 1755, 2 vols. 4to. By Barthius, Leipzig, 1778, 8vo. By Burmannus, Utrecht, 1780, 4to. This edition appeared after Burmann's death, edited by Santenius. By Kuinoel, Leipzig, 1804, 2 vols. 8vo. By Lachmann, Leipzig, 1816, 8vo. This edition is chiefly critical. Many conjectures are introduced into the text, and the second book is divided into two, at the tenth elegy, on insufficient grounds. By Paldamus, Halle, 1827, 8vo. By Le Maire, Paris, 1832, 8vo, forming part of the Bibliotheca Latina. By Hertzberg, Halle, 1844—5, 4 thin vols. 8vo. The commentary is ample, but prolix, and often fanciful and inconclusive.

Propertius has been translated into French by St. Amand, Bourges et Paris, 1819, with the Latin text; into German by Hertzberg, Stuttgardt, 1838 (Metzler's Collection); into Italian terza rima by Becello, Verona, 1742. There is no complete English translation, but there is a correct, though rugged, version of the first book, accompanied with the Latin text, anonymous, London 1781. [T. D.]

PROPERTIUS CELER, a man of praetorian rank in the reign of Tiberius, begged to be allowed to resign his senatorial rank on account of his poverty, but received from the emperor instead a million of sesterces, in order to support his dignity. (Tac. Ann. i. 75.)

PROPINQUUS, POMPEIUS, the procurator of the province of Belgica, at the death of Nero, A. D. 68, was slain in the following year, when the troops proclaimed Vitellius emperor (Tac. Hist. i. 12, 58).

PRORSA. [POSTVERTA.]
PROSE'RPINA.

[PERSEPHONE.]

PROSPER, surnamed Aquitanus or Aquitanicus, from the country of his birth, flourished during the first half of the fifth century. Regarding his family and education no records have been preserved; but in early life he settled in Provence, and there became intimately associated with a certain Hilarius, who, to avoid confusion, is usually distinguished as Hilarius Prosperi or Prosperianus. The two friends displayed great zeal in defending the doctrines of Augustin against the attacks of the Semipelagians who were making inroads upon the orthodoxy of Southern Gaul, and having opened a correspondence with the bishop of Hippo, they received in reply the two tracts still extant under the titles De Praedestinatione Sanctorum, and De Dono Perseverantiae. Finding that, notwithstanding these exertions, their antagonists were still active and successful, they next undertook a journey to Rome, where they submitted the whole controversy to Pope Coelestinus, and induced him by their representations to publish, in a. D. 431, his well-known Epistola ad Episcopos Gallorum, in which he denounces the heresy of Cassianus, and warns all the dignitaries of the church to prohibit their presbyters from entertaining and disseminating tenets so dangerous. Armed with this authority, Prosper returned home, and, from the numerous controversial tracts composed by him about this period, appears to have prosecuted his labours with unflagging enthusiasm. Soon after, however, he disappears from history, and we know

published at Mayence, 4to. 1494, as "Epigrammata Sancti Prosperi episcopi regiensis de Vitiis et Virtutibus ex dictis Augustini," and reprinted by Aldus, 4to. Venet. 1501, along with other Christian poems. Next appeared the treatise De Gratia Dei, printed by Schoeffer at Mayence, 4to. 1524, as "S. Prosperi Presbyteri Aquitanici Libellus adversus inimicos Gratiae Dei contra Collatorem,” in a volume containing the epistle of Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, the epistle of Pope Coelestinus, and other authorities upon the same subject. Then followed the Epistola ad Ruffinum and the Responsiones ad Excerpta, &c. 8vo. Venet. 1538, and soon after Gryphius published at Leyden, fol. 1539, the first edition of the collected works, carefully corrected by the collation of MSS. The edition of Olivarius, 8vo. Duaci, 1577, was long regarded as the standard, but far superior to all others is the Benedictine, fol. Paris, 1711, superintended by Le Brun de Marette and D. Mangeaut.

1. Ex sententus S. Augustini Epigrammatum Liber unus, a series of one hundred and six epigrams in elegiac verse, on various topics connected with speculative, dogmatical, and practical theology, and with morals. Thus the third is De Essentia Deitutis, the thirty-ninth De Justitia et Gratia, the twenty-second De diligendo Deum, the hundred and fifth De cohibenda Ira.

2. Carmen de Ingratis, in dactylic hexameters, divided into four parts and forty-five chapters. An introduction is prefixed in five elegiac couplets, of which the first two explain the nature and extent of the poem.

Unde voluntatis sanctae subsistat origo,

Unde animis pietas insit, et unde fides. Adversum ingratos, falsa et virtute superbos,

Centenis decies versibus excolui.

3. In Obtrectatorem S. Augustini Epigramma, in five elegiac couplets. 4. Another, on the same subject, in six elegiac couplets. 5. Epitaphium Nestorianae et Pelagianae haereseon, in eleven elegiac couplets, in which "Nestoriana Haeresis loquitur." Written after the condemnation of the Nestorians by the council of Ephesus in A. D. 431. 6. Uxorem hortatur ut se totam Deo dedicet, in fifty-three elegiac couplets, with an introduction in sixteen Iambic Dimeters Catalectic (Anacreontics). Besides the above there is a Carmen de Providentia divina, in some editions of Prosper, which is rejected by Antelmius, and made over by some scholars to Hilarius.

The first among the works ascribed to Prosper which issued from the press was the Epigrammata

PELAGIUS.)

[W. R.] PROSTATIUS, a Roman artist in mosaic, of the time of the emperors, whose name is inscribed on a mosaic pavement found at Aventicum (Avenches) in Switzerland. (Schmidt, Antiq. de la Suisse, pp. 17, 19, 24; R. Rochette, Lettre à M. Schorn, p. 394.) [P.S.]

PROTA'GORAS (Пpwrayóрas), was born at Abdera, according to the concurrent testimony of Plato and several other writers. (Protag. p. 309, c., De Rep. x. p. 606, c.; Heracleides Pont. ap. Diog. Laërt. ix. 55; Cicero, de Nat. Deor. i. 23, &c.) By the comic poet Eupolis (ap. Diog. Laërt. ix. 50), he is called a Teian (Tios), probably with reference to the Teian origin of that city (Herod. i. 168, &c.), just as Hecataeus the Abderite is by Paedagogium at Giessen, 1827; comp. Fr. Hermann Strabo. (See Ed. Geist in a programme of the in the Schulzeitung, 1830, ii. p. 509.) In the manifestly corrupted text of the Pseudo-Galenus (de Philos. Hist. c. 8), he is termed an Elean (compare J. Frei, Quaestiones Protagoreae, Bonnae, 1845, p. 5). By the one his father is called Artemon, by the others Maeandrius or Maeander (Diog. Laërt. ix. 50, ib. Interp.), whom Philostratus (p. 494), probably confounding him with the father of Democritus, describes as very rich; Diogenes Laërtius (ib. 53) as miserably poor. The well-known story, however, that Protagoras was once a poor porter, and that the skill with which he had fastened together, and poised upon his shoulders, a large bundle of wood, attracted the attention of Democritus, who conceived a liking for him, took him under his care, and instructed him (Epicurus in Diog. Laërt. x. 8, ix. 53; Aul.

Gellius, N. A. v. 3; comp. Athen. viii. 13, p. 354, c.), appears to have arisen out of the statement of Aristotle, that Protagoras invented a sort of porter's knot (TÚλŋ) for the more convenient carrying of burdens (Diog. Laërt. ix. 53; comp. Frei, 1. c. p. 6, &c.). Moreover, whether Protagoras was, as later ancient authorities assumed (Diog. Laert. ix. 50; Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 301, d., &c.), a disciple of Democritus, with whom in point of doctrine he had absolutely nothing in common, is very doubtful, and Frei (l. c. p. 24, &c.) has undertaken to show that Protagoras was some twenty years older than Democritus. If, in fact, Anaxagoras, as is confirmed in various ways, was born about B. c. 500, and was forty years older than Democritus, according to the latter's own statement (Diog. Laërt. ix. 41; comp. 34), Protagoras must have been older than Democritus, as it is certain that Protagoras was older than Socrates, who was born B. c. 468 (Plat. Protag. p. 317, c., 314, b., 361, e.; comp. Diog. Laërt. ix. 42, 56), and died before him at the age of nearly seventy (Plat. Meno, p. 91, e.; comp. Theaet. p. 171, d., 164, e., Euthyd. p. 286, c.; the assumption of others, that he reached the age of ninety years, Diog. Laërt. ix. 55, Schol. in Plat. de Rep. x. p. 600, is of no weight), after he had practised the sophistic art for forty years, and had by flight withdrawn himself from the accusation of Pythodorus, one of the Four Hundred, who governed Athens in B. C. 411 (Diog. Laërt. ix. 54; | comp. Philostratus, l. c. Aristotle mentioned Euathlus, the disciple of Protagoras, as his accuser, Diog. Laert. I. c.). Apollodorus, therefore, might very well assign the 84th Olympiad (B. c. 444) as the period when he flourished (Diog. Laërt. ix. 54, 56). A more accurate determination of the date of his death, and thence of his birth, cannot be extracted from a fragment of the Silli of Timon (in Sext. Emp. adv. Math. ix. 57), and a passage of Plato (Theaet. p. 171, d.), as the placing together of Protagoras and Socrates in them does not presuppose that their deaths were contemporaneous. Nor are we justified in concluding from the boastful expression of the sophist (Plat. Prot. p. 317, c.), that he was twenty years older than Socrates. On the other hand, if Euripides alluded to his death in the Ixion (according to Philochorus in Diog. Laërt. ix. 55), he must have died | before B. C. 406 or 407, i. e. before the death of Euripides. With preponderating probability, therefore, Frei places the death of Protagoras in B. c. 411, assuming that Pythodorus accused him during the government of the Four Hundred (Quaest. Protag. p. 64), and accordingly assigns about B. C. 480 as the date of his birth.

That Protagoras had already acquired fame during his residence in Abdera cannot be inferred from the doubtful statement, that he was termed by the Abderites Aóyos, and Democritus piλooopía or copía. (Aelian. Var. Hist. iv. 20; comp. Suid. 8. vv. Пpwray. Anuóкp., &c. Phavorinus, in Diog. Laërt. ix. 50, gives to Protagoras the designation of oopia). He was the first who called himself a sophist, and taught for pay (Plat. Protag. p. 349, a.; Diog. Laërt. ix. 52). He must have come to Athens before B. c. 445, since, according to the statement of Heracleides Ponticus (Diog. Laërt. ix. 50), he gave laws to the Thurians, or, what is more probable, adapted for the use of the new colonists, who left Athens for the first time in

that year, the laws which had been drawn up at an earlier period by Charondas, for the use of the Chalcidic colonies (for according to Diod. xii. 11. 3, and others, these laws were in force at Thurii likewise). Whether he himself removed to Thurii, we do not learn, but at the time of the plague we find him again in Athens, as he could scarcely have mentioned the strength of mind displayed by Pericles at the death of his sons, in the way he does (in a fragment still extant, Plut. de Consol. ad Apoll. c. 33, p. 118, d.), had he not been an eye-witness. He had also, as it appears, returned to Athens after a long absence (Plat. Prot. p. 301. c.), at a time when the sons of Pericles were still alive (ibid. p. 314, e., 329, a.) A somewhat intimate relation between Protagoras and Pericles is intimated also elsewhere. (Plut. Pericl. c. 36. p. 172, a.) His activity, however, was by no means restricted to Athens. He had spent some time in Sicily, and acquired fame there (Plat. Hipp. Maj. p. 282, d.), and brought with him to Athens many admirers out of other Greek cities through which he had passed (Plat. Prot. p. 315, a.). The impeachment of Protagoras had been founded on his book on the gods, which began with the statement: "Respecting the gods, I am unable to know whether they exist or do not exist." (Diog. Laërt. ix. 51, &c.) The impeachment was followed by his banishment (Diog. Laërt. ix. 52; Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 23; Euseb. Praep. Evang. xiv. 19, &c.), or, as others affirm, only by the burning of his book. (Philost. Vit. Soph. 1. c.; Joseph. c. Apion. ii. 37; Sext. Emp. adv. Math. ix. 56; Cic. Diog. Laërt. ll. cc.)

From the list of the writings of Protagoras which Diogenes Laërtius (ix. 55) doubtless borrowed from one of his Alexandrine authorities (he describes them as still extant, otÌ TÀ σwsóμeva aỦтoû Biểλía Taûтa; comp. Welcker's account of Prodikos, in his Kleine Schriften, ii. p. 447, 465), and which he gives probably with his accustomed negligence, one may see that they comprised very different subjects:-ethics (Tepi aperŵv and Tepl τῶν οὐκ ὀρθῶς τοῖς ἀνθρώποις πρασσομένων, περὶ φιλοτιμίας), politics (περὶ πολιτείας, περὶ τῆς ἐν dрx? Kатασтáσews; comp. Frei, p. 182, &c.), rhetoric (ȧvTiλoyiŵv dúo, téxvn épiσTIKŵv), and other subjects of different kinds (TроOTаKTIKÒS, TEρl μαθημάτων, περὶ πάλης, περὶ τῶν ἐν Αἵδου). The works which, in all probability, were the most important of those which Protagoras composed, Truth ('Aλnoeia), and On the Gods (Пepì eŵv), are omitted in that list, although in another passage (ix. 51) Diogenes Laërtius refers to them. The first contained the theory refuted by Plato in the Theaetetus (Theaet. p. 161, c., 162, a., 166, c., 170, e.), and was probably identical with the work on the Existent (Пepì тoû ŏvтos), attributed to Protagoras by Porphyrius (in Euseb. Praep. Evang. x. 3, p. 468, Viger). This work was directed against the Eleatics (Пpòs Toùs ev tù ôv λéyovtas), and was still extant in the time of Porphyrius, who describes the argumentation of the book as similar to that of Plato, though without adding any more exact statements. With the doctrine that was peculiar to Protagoras we obtain the most complete acquaintance from the Theaetetus of Plato, which was designed to refute it, and the fidelity of the quotations in which is confirmed by the much more scanty notices of Sextus Empiricus and others. The sophist started from the fundamental presup