Propertia gens

Last updated July 11, 2019

The gens Propertia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens are mentioned in history, and none of them ever obtained the consulship, but a few of them held other magistracies in imperial times. The most famous of the Propertii was Sextus Propertius, a celebrated poet of the Augustan age. Many other Propertii are known from inscriptions.^[1]

The plebs were, in ancient Rome, the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census. The precise origins of the group and the term are unclear, though it may be that they began as a limited political movement in opposition to the elite (patricians) which became more widely applied.

In historiography, ancient Rome is Roman civilization from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, encompassing the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and Roman Empire until the fall of the western empire. The civilization began as an Italic settlement in the Italian Peninsula, conventionally founded in 753 BC, that grew into the city of Rome and which subsequently gave its name to the empire over which it ruled and to the widespread civilisation the empire developed. The Roman Empire expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world, though still ruled from the city, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants ) and covering 5.0 million square kilometres at its height in AD 117.

In ancient Rome, a gens, plural gentes, was a family consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a stirps. The gens was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Italia during the period of the Roman Republic. Much of individuals' social standing depended on the gens to which they belonged. Certain gentes classified as patrician, others as plebeian; some had both patrician and plebeian branches. The importance of membership in a gens declined considerably in imperial times.

Origin

The poet Propertius wrote that he was born in Umbria, near the border with Etruria.^[1] The Propertii were homines novi, a family just beginning to make its mark in Roman society, and modern scholars suppose that they were probably of Umbrian extraction. An Umbrian inscription from Asisium mentions a certain Nerie Propartie, or "Nerius Propertius".^[2]^[3]

Umbria is a region of central Italy. It includes Lake Trasimeno and Marmore Falls, and is crossed by the River Tiber. The regional capital is Perugia. Umbria is known for its landscapes, traditions, history, culinary delights, artistic legacy, and influence on culture.

Etruria was a region of Central Italy, located in an area that covered part of what are now Tuscany, Lazio, and Umbria.

Homo novus was the term in ancient Rome for a man who was the first in his family to serve in the Roman Senate or, more specifically, to be elected as consul. When a man entered public life on an unprecedented scale for a high communal office, then the term used was novus civis or "new citizen".

Members

This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation.

Nerius Propertius, named in an inscription from Asisium, dating to the end of the second century BC, or the beginning of the first.^[2]
Titus Propertius, grandfather of Gaius Propertius Postumus, the proconsul.^[4]
Quintus Propertius T. f., father of the proconsul Gaius Propertius Postumus.^[4]
Quintus Propertius Q. f. (T. n.), probably the elder brother of Gaius Propertius Postumus, named in the same sepulchral inscription from Rome.^[4]
Gaius Propertius Q. f. T. n. Postumus, held a number of magistracies, including those of quaestor, praetor, and proconsul of an uncertain province during the time of Augustus.^[4]^[5]
Sextus Propertius, the poet, variously known as Sextus Aurelius Propertius, or Sextus Propertius Nauta, was born in Umbria about the middle of the first century BC, and wrote his elegies between about 31 and 16 BC.^[1]
Propertius Celer, had been praetor, but in AD 15, he asked to be degraded in the hopes of being relieved of the financial burdens of his rank. The emperor Tiberius instead sent him a million sestertii in order to maintain his household.^[6]^[5]

A quaestor was a public official in Ancient Rome. The position served different functions depending on the period. In the Roman Kingdom, quaestores parricidii were appointed by the king to investigate and handle murders. In the Roman Republic, quaestors were elected officials who supervised the state treasury and conducted audits. It was the lowest ranking position in the cursus honorum. However, this means that in the political environment of Rome, it was quite common for many aspiring politicians to take the position of quaestor as an early rung on the political ladder. In the Roman Empire, the position, which was initially replaced by the praefectus (prefect), reemerged during the late empire as quaestor intra Palatium, a position appointed by the emperor to lead the imperial council and respond to petitioners.

Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities: the commander of an army ; or, an elected magistratus (magistrate), assigned various duties. The functions of the magistracy, the praetura (praetorship), are described by the adjective: the praetoria potestas, the praetorium imperium, and the praetorium ius, the legal precedents established by the praetores (praetors). Praetorium, as a substantive, denoted the location from which the praetor exercised his authority, either the headquarters of his castra, the courthouse (tribunal) of his judiciary, or the city hall of his provincial governorship.

A proconsul was an official of ancient Rome who acted on behalf of a consul. A proconsul was typically a former consul. The term is also used in recent history for officials with delegated authority.

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References

1 2 3 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, pp. 545–548 ("Sextus Aurelius Propertius", "Propertius Celer").
1 2 CIL XI, 5389.
↑ Chase, p. 131.
1 2 3 4 CIL VI, 1501.
1 2 PIR, vol. III, p. 104.
↑ Tacitus, Annales, i. 75.

Bibliography

Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales .
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology , William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849).
Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present).
George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII (1897).
Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898).

PubliusCornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. Tacitus is considered to be one of the greatest Roman historians. He lived in what has been called the Silver Age of Latin literature, and is known for the brevity and compactness of his Latin prose, as well as for his penetrating insights into the psychology of power politics.

<i>Annals</i> (Tacitus) history of the Roman Empire by the senator Tacitus

The Annals by Roman historian and senator Tacitus is a history of the Roman Empire from the reign of Tiberius to that of Nero, the years AD 14–68. The Annals are an important source for modern understanding of the history of the Roman Empire during the 1st century AD; it is Tacitus' final work, and modern historians generally consider it his greatest writing. Historian Ronald Mellor calls it "Tacitus's crowning achievement,” which represents the "pinnacle of Roman historical writing".

The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology is an encyclopedia/biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans three volumes and 3,700 pages. It is a classic work of 19th-century lexicography. The work is a companion to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities and Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography.

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[DGRBM_Propertius-1] 1 2 3 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, pp. 545–548 ("Sextus Aurelius Propertius", "Propertius Celer").

[CIL_11_5389-2] 1 2 CIL XI, 5389.

[3] Chase, p. 131.

[CIL_6_1501-4] 1 2 3 4 CIL VI, 1501.

[PIR_III_104-5] 1 2 PIR, vol. III, p. 104.

[6] Tacitus, Annales, i. 75.