people who had read Propertius’s first book were not all friends of the
poet.^147 They did not attend his readings because they knew about his
private life. Total strangers were speculating about his private life because
they had read his book.^148
The picture Propertius paints of his reader in 3.3.19–20 is quite precise:
ut tuus in scamno iactetur saepe libellus,
quem legat exspectans sola puella virum.(So that your book, which a girl reads all alone as she waits for her man, may
get often tossed aside onto the bench.)^149She is not at a lecture, not at a party, not being read to. She is alone
(sola) and holding the book in her hands and reading it to herself.
Propertius intended his verses for readers far away in time and space
(1.7.13–14):
me legat assidue post haec neglectus amator
et prosint illi cognita nostra mala.(Let the neglected lover in years to comereadme studiously and may he
profit from learning about my misfortunes.)Propertius got his wish. The witty lover who parodied his verses, and the
neglected lover who scrawled his verses years later on walls in Pompeii
had read his books.^150
Ovid assumed that he would be read, and in books, books that could be
promulgated in a second edition (Am. epigr.). He hoped that he would
be read throughout time and throughout space, everywhere that Latin
was read:
- Skinner 1993, 63, for example, makes the proper interpretation of Catullus 4
limited to ‘‘listeners personally acquainted with the author.’’ - Propertius is very clear: he had become a topic of gossip (fabula), because total
strangers (toto foro) had read (lecta) his successful book (noto libro). See Allen 1950, 257. To
this list add Prop. 2.7.17 18: his fame for erotic servitude has traveled to the ends of the
earth. - For the correct interpretation of the first part, see Rothstein 1920 24, 2: 23: ‘‘und
sie wirft sie [the book] fort in den Augenblicke, wo der Erwartete erscheint.’’ Forinwith
abl., Ku ̈hner 1912 4, 2.1: 595, §114 a(e), cf. Cic.de Or. 1.28. Valckenaer (cited from
Brunck 1772 76, 2: 370) had already pointed to StratoAP12.208.5 6:j ðÆæa äßçæïıò=
âºÅŁbí.
150.CIL4.1520:Candida me docuit nigras odisse puellas(cf. Prop. 1.1.5) andCIL
4.4491 Prop. 2.5.9 10:nunc est ira recens, nunc est discedere tempus. / si dolor afuerit, crede,
redibit amor. The evidence from Pompeii has been carefully analyzed by Franklin 1991, esp.
87 8; see also Gigante 1979, 163 83, and Milnor, ch. 12, this volume. The people who
wrote the opening lines of theAeneid(more or less successfully) on the walls of Pompeii
were not bragging that they had been to a recitation in which someone had read to them.
They were bragging that they themselves knew how to read. Whether they were good at it or
not is another matter.
222 Books and Texts