Propertius 4.4: tarpeia and the burden of aetiology

At the beginning of his final book of elegies, Propertius intro duces a program of aetiological poems, explaining the origins of Roman place-names and customs. He immediately sets them in opposition to a series of amatory poems reminiscent of his earl ier love elegies. Tension between the rival aetiological and ama tory programs remains a focal point of the book. In the past, it has been a matter of dispute to what extent this tension is inten tional. Book 4 has even been described as an editor's posthum ous collection, and as an unfinished aetiological cycle, padded with some amatory pieces.1 Most recently, the tide has begun to turn in favour of recognizing that this book was conceived by the poet as a unified whole.2 In this paper, I take the unity of this book for granted. I argue that the rival aetiological and amatory programs intersect in the Tarpeia elegy, and that we witness a transformation of this legendary story of treason and greed into an unhappy tale of unrequited love. As Tarpeia abandons her aetiological role and embraces the guise of an amatory heroine, the imagery of this act draws on a significant source: the recusa tio poems of the previous book, which had already established an adversarial relationship between amatory elegy, on the one hand, and any experiments with genres new to the poet, on the other.