ABSTRACT
Propertius was the son of local aristocracy and his family had significant land holdings. The first poem of his last book tells us that his father died young and he had to move to the humble home of his maternal relatives because he had lost his ancestral estates. That would presumably refer to the land confiscations that precipitated the Perusian war. He tells us that he put on the adult toga after he moved in with his mother's family. In publishing his Monobiblos, Propertius seems to have pursued both sides of this analogy: his love for Cynthia is a reflection of what his poetry contains. On the other hand, it is also a refusal to fit into the traditional morality that Augustus was now codifying into law. By the end of Propertius' poetic career, the poet who began fiercely defending individual experience and passions had turned his attention to more public subjects.
