Book i.—All the Elegies in Book i., except the last two, are amatory. El. 2-10 belong to the first months of the poet’s love, when Cynthia was gracious, though capricious. She had refused to accompany a rival of his, who was going to Illyricum as praetor (El. 8); but afterwards she left Rome for Baiae, and the rest of the Book is full of complaints of her harshness. El. 1, written after the year of separation, introduces the whole Book in a melancholy strain.
The clearest indication of date in Book i. is 8, 21, ‘Nam me non ullae poterunt corrumpere taedae,’ where Propertius protests that he will never marry, in spite of the Lex Iulia of B.C. 27. (He could not legally marry a woman of Cynthia’s class.) The Book was published probably in B.C. 25, under the title of ‘Cynthia.’ Cf. ii. 24, 1,
‘Cum sis iam noto fabula libro
et tua sit toto Cynthia lecta foro.’
Her name was a recommendation for the Book, and it was probably her satisfaction at the fame which it brought her that caused her to relent towards Propertius. Cf. Mart. xiv. 189,
‘Cynthia, facundi carmen iuvenile Properti,
accepit famam, nec minus ipsa dedit.’
At all events, a few months afterwards we find the old relations re-established; ii. 3, 3,
‘Vix unum potes, infelix, requiescere mensem,
et turpis de te iam liber alter erit.’
Book ii.—Cynthia is the theme of nearly all the thirty-four poems of Book ii., which give lively expression to her lover’s varying moods. Only three Elegies (1, 10, and 31) are given to other subjects.
Of the few poems to which dates can be assigned, the earliest is El. 31 (on the dedication of the temple of the Palatine Apollo, B.C. 28), and the latest is El. 10, to Augustus (written shortly before the invasion of Arabia by Aelius Gallus in B.C. 24. Cf. l. 16, ‘et domus intactae te tremit Arabiae’). The Book was therefore published B.C. 24 at the earliest.
Book iii.—In this Book the poems on Cynthia form a far smaller proportion; 7, 12, and 22 show the warmth of the poet’s friendship; events of national interest are treated in 4, 11, and 18. In 5, 23-47, Propertius looks forward to spending his later years in the study of natural science (‘naturae perdiscere mores,’ l. 25).