Propertius 4.2: Slumming with Vertumnus?

In her recent study of Ciceronian oratory Ann Vasaly observes that particular activities are associated with the monuments, edifices, and different quarters of Rome, on the basis of the daily practice and liter? ary depiction of each location. Together, these associations constitute a "metaphysical topography" of a location?that is, the network of mean? ings the place held for a Roman audience in the Augustan age.1 Atten? tion to the metaphysical topography of a place can enrich or change our appreciation of a literary work that depends in some manner on its set? ting. The fourth book of Propertius directs the reader's attention to a variety of places in the city, from the Tarpeian Rock (4.4) to the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine (4.6), from the Ara Maxima of Hercules (4.9) to the recently restored Temple of Jupiter Feretrius (4.10). These elegies play a part in shaping our sense of each of these places, but they also draw upon the preexisting metaphysical topography. In 4.2 the statue of Vertumnus on three occasions refers to its specific location in a street shrine on the Vicus Tuscus and voices its preference for this particular spot over any other. In this essay I describe the literary tradition con? cerning the statue of Vertumnus and the Vicus Tuscus and demonstrate that the metaphysical topography of the location affords this aetiological poem a markedly amatory aspect, which encourages us to read it as a programmatic piece for the entire book and grants some of the narra? tor's assertions an ironic and witty flavor. The fourth book of Propertius' elegies is characterized by pervasive interplay between amatory and aetiological poetry. This interplay is created in the first elegy, which is split into two halves (4.1a, 4.1b). In the first half an authorial narrator introduces a new program of aetio? logical elegy, culminating with a promise to sing of sacred rites, festi-