ABSTRACT

The chapter examines Propertius 4.11, the so-called “queen of the elegies”, as evidence for the marriage of the elite woman portrayed as its first person speaker, Augustus’ stepdaughter Cornelia, to her husband Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus, consul in 34 bce. J. P. Hallett seeks to establish that Cornelia and Paullus merit the label “power couple” by arguing that she, as portrayed in Propertius’ poem, exerted considerable political influence as representative of her aristocratic blood family, the Cornelii Scipiones; as a member of Augustus’ extended family; and as an embodiment of Augustan ideological values. Hallett ascribes this influence to her display, at least according to Propertius, of personal qualities not only associated with her male and female republican Scipionic ancestors but also with the princeps himself. Yet Hallett also emphasizes the complications arising from reliance on the love poet Propertius as a source, owing to his distinctive agenda and perspective in Book 4 of his elegies, and to his choice of details in Cornelia’s literary portrait. While Propertius clearly contrasts this sexually respectable matron with his erotically demanding and unconventional beloved inamorata Cynthia, he also points up the restrictions imposed on her emotional existence and mode of self-expression by her social circumstances.