2. Works.
Elegies, in four Books. (Some editors divide Book II into two Books, El. 1-9 Book II, and El. 10-34 Book III, so that III and IV of the MSS. and of Postgate become IV and V.)
Books I and II are nearly all poems on Cynthia.
Book III contains, besides poems on Cynthia, themes dealing with friendship (El. 7. 12. 22) and events of national interest (El. 4. 11. 18). The poet struggles to emancipate himself from the thraldom of Cynthia and to accomplish work more worthy of his genius.
Book IV contains poems on Roman antiquities (El. 2. 4. 9. 10), written at the suggestion of Maecenas, the paean on the great victory at Actium (El. 6), and the noblest of his elegiacs, the Elegy on Cornelia (El. 11).
3. Style.
The aim of Propertius was to be the Roman Callimachus: Umbria Romani patria Callimachi (IV. i. 64).
The flexibility and elasticity of rhythm of the finest Greek elegiacs he made his own. The pentameter, instead of being a weaker echo of the hexameter, is the stronger line of the two, and has a weightier movement. In Book I he ends the pentameter freely with words of three, four, and five syllables, and we find long continuous passages in which there is scarcely any pause: e.g. in I. xx. 33-37:
Hic erat Arganthi Pege sub vertice montis
Grata domus Nymphis umida Thyniasin,