and with the epithet ‘proxima’ in i. 22, 9, as Asisium is nearer than Hispellum to Perusia. Cf. i. 22, 3-10,
‘Si Perusina tibi patriae sunt nota sepulcra,
Italiae duris funera temporibus, ...
proxima supposito contingens Umbria campo
me genuit terris fertilis uberibus.’
At Assisi, moreover, have been found several inscriptions of the Propertii, one of which, C. PASSENNO | C. F. SERG. |, PAULLO | PROPERTIO | BLAESO,[66] probably refers to the Passennus Paullus mentioned by Pliny, Ep. vi. 15, as ‘municeps Propertii.’
Propertius was younger than Tibullus, and older than Ovid. His birth, therefore, took place between B.C. 54 and 43 (Hertzberg gives 46, Postgate prefers 50). Cf. Ovid, Tr. iv. 10, 53,
‘Successor fuit hic [Tibullus] tibi, Galle; Propertius illi;
quartus ab his serie temporis ipse fui.’
He came of a family well known in the neighbourhood (cf. iv. 1, 121, ‘notis penatibus,’ already quoted), but not ‘noble’ in the technical sense; ii. 34, 55,
‘Aspice me, cui parva domi fortuna relictast,
nullus et antiquo Marte triumphus avi.’
His childhood was clouded by the early death of his father, and by the confiscation of his estate in B.C. 41; iv. 1, 127,
‘Ossaque legisti non illa aetate legenda
patris; et in tenues cogeris ipse lares,
nam tua cum multi versarent rura iuvenci,
abstulit excultas pertica tristis opes.’
His mother then took him to Rome, where he studied law for a short time after assuming the toga virilis, but abandoned it in favour of poetry; iv. 1, 131,