¹ For their comments on an earlier draft of this piece, I owe thanks to Ted Kaizer, Zara Chadha and the Journal's readers.

² See especially Batstone, W. W. ‘Amor improbus, felix qui, and tardus Apollo: the Monobiblos and the Georgics’, Classical Philology 87 (1992), 287–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Thus Syme, R. ‘Missing persons III’, Historia 11 (1962), 146–55Google Scholar, at 152 = Roman Papers, E. Badian (ed.) (1979), vol. 2, 530–40, at 536–7. For the epigraphic supplement that confirmed the proconsulship of Volcacius, see Jones, A. H. M. ‘L. Volcacius Tullus, proconsul of Asia’, Classical Review 5 (1955), 244–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Ehrenberg, V. and Jones, A. H. M.Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius (1976)Google Scholar, no. 98 (the second edition has the supplemented inscription). On the references in Propertius 1.6 to the governorship of Tullus, see Lyne, R. O. A. M. ‘Propertius and Tibullus: early exchanges’, Classical Quarterly 48 (1998), 519–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 520–1.

⁴ For a date of 30/29 b.c., see Cairns, F.Sextus Propertius: the Augustan Elegist (2006)Google Scholar, 159 and Hubbard, M.Propertius (1974)Google Scholar, 43; on the controversy over the date, see DuQuesnay, I. M. L. M. ‘In memoriam Galli: Propertius 1.21’, in Woodman, A. and Powell, J. (eds), Author and Audience in Latin Literature (1992), 52–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at n. 109. The other known dates in his career are that he was praetor in 46 b.c. (Cic., Ad fam. 13.14.1) and went on to govern Cilicia the following year (Cic., Ad Att. 14.9.3); see Syme, R. ‘Observations on the province of Cilicia’, in Calder, W. M. and Keil, J. (eds), Anatolian Studies Presented to William Hepburn Buckler (1939), 299–332Google Scholar, at 321 = Roman Papers, E. Badian (ed.) (1979), vol. 1, 120–48, at 138. His activity between 44 and 33 b.c. is entirely unknown. The supposition of Bowersock, G. W.Augustus and the Greek World (1965)Google Scholar, 21, that he served Antony in the East is unsupported. Similarly speculative is the argument of DuQuesnay, op. cit. (n. 4), 78 and Cairns, op. cit. (n. 4), 47–9 that Prop. 1.21 and 22 imply that he fought on the side of L. Antonius at Perusia.

⁵ Thus, for example, Hubbard, op. cit. (n. 4), 43 and Batstone, op. cit. (n. 2), 301–2. More recently, see Luther, A. ‘Ein terminus ante quem für die Monobiblos des Properz’, Latomus 62 (2003), 801–6Google Scholar, at 801–2, whose suggestion of 29 b.c. as a new terminus ante quem for Book 1 is of course compatible with the even earlier date argued for here.

⁶ Lyne, op. cit. (n. 3), 521.

⁷ The phrase perhaps also implies that Tullus will share at a further remove, via his uncle, the triumviral imperium of Octavian, but that is too obscure a connection to be the primary meaning here. Many commentators have imagined that ‘anteire secures’ implies that the nephew has obtained an independent command in which he will aspire to outdo his uncle, but that is an unnecessary supposition. For example, Butler, H. E. and Barber, E. A.The Elegies of Propertius: Edited with an Introduction and Commentary (1933)Google Scholar, ad 1.6 say: ‘It is not probable that Tullus was in his uncle's retinue; for to ask an aide-de-camp to outdo his chief (anteire secures) is grotesque’. But many others, such as Shackleton-Bailey, D. R.Propertiana (1955)Google Scholar, 20, Cairns, F. ‘Some problems in Propertius 1.6’, American Journal of Philology 95 (1974), 150–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 160–1, and Fedeli, P.Sesto Properzio: Il primo libro delle Elegie (1980)Google Scholar, 178–9, have rightly seen that it is neither ‘impudent’ nor ‘insolent’ (thus Richardson, L.Propertius Elegies I–IV (1977)Google Scholar, ad loc.) for Propertius to encourage Tullus to attempt to outdo his uncle despite being his subordinate; such an invitation is a polite compliment both to the achievements of the uncle and to the emulous zeal of the nephew. Cairns, op. cit., 161–3 further suggests that the nephew might have accompanied his uncle as a propraetor and that anteire puns on the etymology of praetor from praeire.

⁸ Thus Stahl, H.-P.Propertius, “Love” and “War”: Individual and State under Augustus (1985)Google Scholar, 83.

⁹ Aug., Res Gestae 25.2, on which see Syme, R.The Roman Revolution (1939)Google Scholar, 276–93 and Herrmann, P.Der römische Kaisereid (1968)Google Scholar, 78–89.

¹⁰ Suet., Aug. 26.3; Dio 51.4.1; cf. Magie, D.Roman Rule in Asia Minor (1966)Google Scholar, 440 and 1289, n. 36. On Octavian's activities in this period, see Millar, F. ‘The first revolution: Imperator Caesar, 36–28 BC’, in La révolution romaine après Ronald Syme: bilans et perspectives (2000), 1–38Google Scholar, at 19–30.

¹¹ Suet., Aug. 17.3 with Carter, J. M.Suetonius, Divus Augustus (1982)Google Scholar, ad loc.

¹² Dio 51.5.1–2.

¹³ For example, when Antony departed from Ephesus with Cleopatra in 41 b.c., he left governors behind for Asia and Syria: see Dio 48.24.3, with Magie, op. cit. (n. 10), 1280, n. 9.

¹⁴ Lintott, A. W.The Constitution of the Roman Republic (1999), 101–2Google Scholar.

¹⁵ See Leach, J.Pompey the Great (1986)Google Scholar, 159–60; for more detail, see Marshall, A. J. ‘The Lex Pompeia de provinciis (52 b.c.) and Cicero's Imperium in 51–50 b.c.: constitutional aspects’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 1.1 (1972), 887–921Google Scholar, at 891–3.

¹⁶ Dio 53.14.2.

¹⁷ For bibliography, see Lyne, op. cit. (n. 3), 521, n. 8. Atkinson, K. M. T. ‘The governors of the province Asia in the reign of Augustus’, Historia 7 (1958), 300–30Google Scholar, at 312–14 tried to show that the Lex Pompeia would have applied to Volcacius, but her arguments have been thoroughly refuted by Cairns, op. cit. (n. 7), 157–9 and by Hubbard, op. cit. (n. 4), 42–3.

¹⁸ See Appian, BC 4.2 and Millar, F. ‘Triumvirate and Principate’, Journal of Roman Studies 63 (1973), 50–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 51–3 = Rome, the Greek World, and the East: Vol. 1, The Roman Republic and the Augustan Revolution, H. M. Cotton and G. M. Rogers (eds) (2002), 241–70, at 243–7.

¹⁹ Dio 50.10.1 speaks of an eight-year plan that was supposed to conclude in 31 b.c. with a joint consulship of Octavian and Antony. Appian describes a modification to this agreement as part of the pact of Misenum (BC 5.73), on which see Gabba, E.Appiani Bellorum civilium liber quintus (1970)Google Scholar, lxxi–lxxii. See also Dio 48.35.1–2 with Laffi, U. ‘Poteri triumvirale e organi repubblicani’, in Gara, A. and Foraboschi, D. (eds), Il triumvirato costituente alla fine della repubblica romana (1993), 37–65Google Scholar, at 54.

²⁰ See Millar, op. cit. (n. 18), 62 (= 261), with the examples cited in nn. 78 and 79, and see also above, n. 13.

²¹ On the ‘notorious’ problem, see Millar, op. cit. (n. 18), 62 (= 260). On the ‘overwhelming scholarly consensus’ in favour of 33 b.c., see Wardle, D. ‘ILS 77: Nothing to do with the end of the second triumvirate’, Historia 44 (1995), 496–97Google Scholar, at 496 and Millar, op. cit. (n. 10), 3. For a useful overview of various positions on the issue, see Benario, H. W. ‘Octavian's status in 32 b.c.’, Chiron 5 (1975), 301–9Google Scholar, at 302–4. For a concise and clear statement of the case in favour of 33 b.c., see Brunt, P. A. and Moore, J. M.Res Gestae Divi Augusti: the Achievements of the Divine Augustus (1967)Google Scholar, ad RG 7.1; even more concisely, see Syme, op. cit. (n. 9), 277–8, n. 6. For a different point of view, see Gabba, op. cit. (n. 19), lxviii–lxxix. For further details, see Bleicken, J.Zwischen Republik und Prinzipat: zum Charakter des Zweiten Triumvirats (1990), 14–16Google Scholar and Girardet, K. M. ‘Per continuos annos decem (res gestae divi Augusti 7.1): zur Frage nach dem Endtermin des Triumvirats’, Chiron 25 (1995), 147–61Google Scholar.

²² Appian, BC 5.139.

²³ On the clearly Octavianic allegiance of Volcacius, see DuQuesnay, op. cit. (n. 4), 79 and 83 and Cairns, op. cit. (n. 4), 44–9.

²⁴ See above, n. 19.

²⁵ Appian, Ill. 27.

²⁶ cf. Ov., ex Pont. 4.4.35–9 and Livy, passim, e.g. 37.1.1; and see Scullard, H. H.Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (1981), 52–4.Google Scholar

²⁷ Appian, Ill. 28.

²⁸ The evidence for the speeches against Antony comes from Dio (50.1–2) and Plutarch (Ant. 55–6), but they do not specify a date. Kromayer, J. ‘Kleine Forschungen zur Geschichte des zweiten Triumvirats’, Hermes 33 (1898), 1–70Google Scholar, at 35–41 works out the chronology. See also Syme, op. cit. (n. 9), 276 and Eck, W.The Age of Augustus (2nd edn, 2007)Google Scholar, 34.

²⁹ Thus Carter, op. cit. (n. 11), ad 69.2.

³⁰ On the contio, see Mommsen, T.Le Droit publique romain (1887), vol. 2, 288–9Google Scholar and Scullard, op. cit. (n. 26), 54.

³¹ Suetonius records Antony's private response in an incredulous letter to Octavian of the year 33 b.c. (Aug. 69.2); on the date of the letter, see Kromayer, op. cit. (n. 28), 36 and Carter's note, op. cit. (n. 11), ad loc. On 1 January as the date of Sosius’ counter-attack, see Dio 49.41.4 and 50.2.3 with Osgood, J.Caesar's Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire (2006)Google Scholar, 352, n. 8; for 1 February, see Pelling, C. ‘The Triumviral Period’, in The Cambridge Ancient History (2nd edn), vol. 10 (1996), 1–69Google Scholar, at 49 with n. 259.

³² Balsdon, J. P. V. D. ‘Roman history, 65–50 b.c.: five problems’, Journal of Roman Studies 52 (1962), 134–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 139, with n. 40 says: ‘Cicero's statement [Cic., De prov. cons. 36], consul Kalendis Ianuariis habere provinciam debet may well indicate that 1st January was the day on which the sortitio normally took place’. Livy (26.26.5) strongly implies that the allocation of the following year's provinces would have been an expected part of the agenda when the consuls addressed the Senate on their first day in office.

³³ Thus Benario, op. cit. (n. 21), 304–6, Girardet, K. M. ‘Der Rechtsstatus Oktavians im Jahre 32 v. Chr.’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 133 (1990)Google Scholar, 322–50, at 338–9 and Lewis, N. G. ‘Rechtsfrage II: Octavian's powers in 32 b.c.’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 16 (1991), 57–62Google Scholar; see also Osgood, op. cit. (n. 31), 352, n. 5. According to this argument, Octavian did not set foot inside the pomerium during the year 32 b.c. in order to avoid cancelling his imperium.

³⁴ Syme, op. cit. (n. 9), 279–83.

³⁵ Crawford, M. H.Roman Republican Coinage (1974)Google Scholar, nos 544–5.

³⁶ On the probable content of Sosius’ speech, see Kearsley, R. A. ‘Octavian in the year 32 BC: the S.C. de Aphrodisiensibus and the genera militiae’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 142 (1999), 52–67Google Scholar, at 55 and De Martino, F. ‘Sugli aspetti giuridici del triumvirato’, in Gara, A. and Foraboschi, D. (eds), Il triumvirato costituente alla fine della repubblica romana (1993), 67–83Google Scholar, at 81; on the date, see above, n. 31.

³⁷ Dio 50.2.3.

³⁸ Cairns, op. cit. (n. 4), 35–69.

³⁹ Cat. 66.39: ‘invita, o regina, tuo de vertice cessi’; and Virg., Aen. 6.460: ‘invitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi’. On the critical nausea induced by Virgil's allusion, see Conte, G. B.The Rhetoric of Imitation: Genre and Poetic Memory in Virgil and Other Latin Poets (1986), 88–90Google Scholar and Barchiesi, A. ‘Some points on a map of shipwrecks’, in idem, Speaking Volumes: Narrative and Intertext in Ovid and Other Latin Poets (2001), 141–54Google Scholar, at 143–6.

⁴⁰ Fulkerson, L.The Ovidian Heroine as Author: Reading, Writing, and Community in the Heroides (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 21.

⁴¹ Batstone, op. cit. (n. 2), 289–95.

⁴² For an overview, see Jenkyns, R. ‘Labor Improbus’, Classical Quarterly 43 (1993), 243–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴³ Shackleton-Bailey, op. cit. (n. 7), 1 says: ‘a stock epithet: Virg. Ecl. 8.49, Aen. 4.412, Ov. Fast. 2.331, Stat. Silv. 1.2.75’ to which Batstone, op. cit. (n. 2), 295, n. 33 replies ‘requires the qualification, “after Vergil and Propertius”’. But that qualification is empty for it is the uncomplicated and routine appearance of the epithet in the Eclogues which attests to the tradition in which Propertius was also working. Furthermore, Propertius’ ‘amor docuit’ is taken straight from this passage of the Eclogues (8.47).

⁴⁴ On elegy as ‘pastoral in city clothes’, see Veyne, P.Roman Erotic Elegy: Love, Poetry, and the West (1988)Google Scholar, 101–15.

⁴⁵ Batstone, op. cit. (n. 2), 295, n. 35; this connection is rejected, however, by Fedeli, op. cit. (n. 7), 296.

⁴⁶ Mynors, R. A. B.Virgil, Georgics (1990)Google Scholar, ad 2.490 and S. J. Heyworth, Cynthia: a Companion to the Text of Propertius (2007), 59–60. The latter adduces Propertius’ ‘unconventional usage of cognoscere in 13’ to support Virgil's priority, but Virgil may just as well have been alluding to that distinctive Propertian usage while turning his phrase on its head.

⁴⁷ On the implicit reference to Lucretius in these lines, see Mynors, op. cit. (n. 46), ad loc. and contra see Thomas, R. F.Virgil, Georgics (1988)Google Scholar, ad loc.

⁴⁸ For a similar Statian pun on the Epicurean connotations of the word felix, see Nisbet, R. G. M. ‘Felicitas at Surrentum (Statius, Silvae 2.2)’, Journal of Roman Studies 68 (1978), 1–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 1–2.

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⁵⁰ Fedeli, P.Properzio, Elegie Libro II (2005)Google Scholar, 994: ‘Si capisce bene la ragione dell’ampio spazio riservato alle Bucoliche se si considera che ogni richiamo rinvia ad argomenti erotici: ciò significa che l’esaltazione della prima opera di Virgilio diviene per Properzio l’elogio di una poesia che presenta lo stesso stile “tenue” della sua.’

⁵¹ For the Theocritean and Virgilian significance of the ten apples, see Fantuzzi, M. ‘Amore pastorale e amore elegiaco, tra Grecia e Roma’, in Belloni, L., De Finis, L. and Moretti, G. (eds), L’officina ellenistica: Poesia dotta e popolare in Grecia e a Roma (2003), 170–4Google Scholar. On the correspondence between Propertius’ ten-line summary of the Eclogues and the poems themselves, see Thomas, op. cit. (n. 49), 242–4.

⁵² I leave to one side Batstone's final example of Propertian intertextuality, since it does not actually concern any specific passages in the Georgics. Whatever one makes of his claim that phrases such as tardus amor and tardus Apollo characterize Propertian elegy with a metapoetic sense of belatedness, there is no particular reason to connect that with the Georgics rather than, say, Gallan elegy. Batstone, op. cit. (n. 2), 297–301.

⁵³ Mynors, op. cit. (n. 46), ad 3.4 notes that Parthenius wrote a Heracles. On Busiris, see Aetia frr. 44–7 Pfeiffer. For omnia iam vulgata, see πάντα τὰ δημόσια (Callim., Epig. 28.4) with Thomas, op. cit. (n. 47), ad loc. For a different view of this passage, see S. J. Harrison, Generic Enrichment in Vergil and Horace (2007), 150–2.

⁵⁴ Thomas, R. F. ‘Callimachus, the Victoria Berenices, and Roman poetry’, Classical Quarterly 33 (1983), 92–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 93–101.

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⁵⁶ Mynors, op. cit. (n. 46), ad 3.6.

⁵⁷ Clausen, W. ‘Cynthius’, American Journal of Philology 97 (1976), 245–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁶⁰ Knox, P. E. ‘Milestones in the career of Tibullus’, Classical Quarterly 55 (2005), 204–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on the relationship with Tibullus, see Lyne, op. cit. (n. 3).

⁶¹ See especially Luck, G. ‘An interpretation of Horace's eleventh epode’, Illinois Classical Studies 1 (1976), 122–6Google Scholar and also Leo, F. ‘De Horatio et Archilocho’, in Ausgewählte kleine Schriften II (1960), 139–57Google Scholar, at 146–53 and Barchiesi, A. ‘Alcune difficoltà nella carriera di un poeta giambico: giambo ed elegia nell’epodo 11’, in Tovar, R. C. and Corte, J. C. F. (eds), Bimilenario de Horacio (1994), 127–38Google Scholar.

⁶² The idea of reading this Epode as a parody of Propertius’ first book was adumbrated by Lyne, R. O. A. M. ‘Servitium Amoris’, Classical Quarterly 29 (1979), 117–130CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 122. I intend to discuss Epode 11 as a response to Propertius’ first book in an article currently in preparation.