A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

548 PROPERTIUS. PROSPER.
of Propertius was too pedantic an imitation of the care of Beroaldus, Jos. Scaliger, Maretus, Passerat,
Greeks. His whole ambition was to become the and other critics. The works of Propertius have
Roman Callimachus (iv. 1. 63), whom, as well as been often printed with those of Catullus and TibulPhiletas and other of the Greek elegiac poets, he lus. The following are the best separate editions:made his model. He abounds with obscure Greek By Broukhusius, Amsterdam, 1702, smin. 4to. By
myths, as well as Greek forms of expression, and Vulpius, Padua, 1755, 2 vols. 4to. By Barthius,
the same pedantry infects even his versification. Leipzig, 1778, 8vo. By Burmannus, Utrecht, 1780,
Tibullus generally, and Ovid almost invariably, 4to. This edition appeared after Burmann's death,
close their pentameter with a word contained in an edited by Santenius. By KkIinoel, Leipzig, 1804,
iambic foot; Propertius, especially in his first 2 vols. 8vo. By Lachmann, Leipzig, 1816, 8vo.
book, frequently ends with a word of three, four, This edition is chiefly critical. Many conjectures
or even five syllables. P. Burmann, and after are introduced into the text, and the second book
him Paldamus, have pretended to discover that is divided into two, at the tenth elegy, on insuffithis termination is favourable to pathos; but Pro- cient grounds. By Paldamus, Halle, 1827, 8vo.
pertius's motive for adopting it may more probably By Le Maire, Paris, 1832, 8vo, forming part of the
be attributed to his close, not to say servile, imi- Bibliotheca Latina. By Hertzberg, Halle, 1844-5,
tation of the Greeks. 4 thin vols. 8vo. The commentary is ample, but
The obscurity of Propertius, which is such that prolix, and often fanciful and inconclusive.
Jos. Scaliger (Castigationes in Pr-opertizos, p. 169, Propertius has been translated into French by
Steph. 1577) did not hesitate to say that the se- St. Amand, Bourges et Paris, 1819, with the
cond book was almost wholly unintelligible, is not Latin text; into German by Hertzberg, Stuttgardt,
owing solely to his recondite learning, and to the 1838 (Metzler's Collection); into Italian terza
studied brevity and precision of his style, but also rima by Becello, Verona, 1742. There is no
to the very corrupt state in which his text has complete English translation, but there is a correct,
come down to us. Alexander ab Alexandro though rugged, version of the first book, accompa(Genial. Dier. ii. 1) relates, on the authority of nied with the Latin text, anonymous, London
Pontanus, that the Codex Archetypu aswas found 1781. [T. D.]
under some casks in a wine cellar, in a very imper- PROPE'RTIUS CELER, a man of praetorian
feet and illegible condition, when Pontanus, who rank in the reign of Tiberius, begged to be allowed
was born in 1426, was a mere youth. This story to resign his senatorial rank on account of his
was adopted by Jos. Scaliger (Ibid. p. 168), who, poverty, but received from the emperor instead a
assuming as well the recklessness and negligence of million of sesterces, in order to support his dignity.
the first transcriber, introduced many alterations (Tac. Ann. i. 75.)
and transpositions, which were adopted by subse- PROPINQUUS, POMPEIUS, the procurator
quent critics to the age of Broukhius and Bur- of the province of Belgica, at the death of Nero,
mann. Van Santen, in the preface to his edition, A. D. 68, was slain in the following year, when the
published at Amsterdam, in 1780, was the first to troops proclaimed Vitellius emperor (Tac. Hist. i.
question -the truth of the story related by Alex- 12, 58).
ander (p. x. &c.), chiefly on the grounds that there PRORSA. [POSTVERTA.]
is extant a MS. of Propertius, with an inscription PROSE'RP1NA. [PERSEPHONE.]
by Puccius, dated in 1502, in which he mentions PROSPER, surnamed Aqaitanus or Aqaitanicus,
having collated it with a codex which had belonged from the country of his birth, flourished during the
to B. Valla, and which he styles antiquissimus; an first half of the fifth century. Regarding his
epithet he could not have applied to any copy of family and education no records have been prethe MS. alluded to by Alexander. That this co- served; but in early life he settled in Provence, and
dex of Valla's was not that found in the wine cellar there became intimately associated with a certain
is shown by an annotation of Ant. Perreius, in a Hilariuts, who, to avoid confusion, is usually discopy of Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius, dated tinguished as Hilarius Prosperi or Prosperianus.
in the early part of the sixteenth century, in which The two friends displayed great zeal in defendhe distinguishes them. It may be observed that ing the doctrines of Augustin against the attacks
this reasoning allows that there was such a MS. of the Semipelagians who were making inroads upon
as that mentioned by Alexander, who, however, the orthodoxy of Southern Gaul, and having opened
does not say that it belonged to Pontanus. But a correspondence with the bishop of Hippo, they
though Van Santen's arguments do not seem quite received in reply the two tracts still extant under
conclusive, they have been adopted by most mo- the titles De Praedestinatione Sanctorum, and De
dern critics; and have been further strengthened Dono Perseverantiae. Finding that, notwithby the observation that Petrarch, who flourished standing these exertions, their antagonists were
more than a century before Pontanus, quotes a pas- still active and successful, they next undertook a
sage from Propertius (ii. 34. 65) just as it is now journey to Rome, where they submitted the whole
read, in his fictitious letters (the 2d to Cicero); controversy to Pope Coelestinus, and induced him
and that one at least of the MSS. now extant (the by their representations to publish, in A. D. 431,
Guelferbytanus or Neapolitan) is undoubtedly as his well-known Epistola ad Episcopos Gallorumn,
old as the thirteenth century. Whratever may be in which he denounces the heresy of Cassianus,
the merits of this question, it cannot be doubted and warns all the dignitaries of the church to prothat the MS. from which our copies are derived hibit their presbyters from entertaining and diswas very corrupt; a fact which the followers of seminating tenets so dangerous. Armed with this
Van Santen do not pretend to deny. authority, Prosper returned home, and, from the
The Editio Princeps of Propertius was printed numerous controversial tracts composed by him
in 1472, fol.; it is uncertain at what place. There about this period, appears to have prosecuted his
is another edition of the same date in small 4to. labours with unflagging enthusiasm. Soon after,
The text was early illustrated and amended by the however, he disappears fromn history, and we know