‘Greek’ love at Rome: Propertius 1.20 and the reception of Hellenistic verse

Abstract

This paper analyses the homoerotic aspect of Propertius 1.20 and its presentation of the myth of Hylas, the lost beloved of Hercules. It argues that Propertius reacts to the portrait of ‘Greek love’ that is found in the two surviving lengthy versions of this myth in Apollonius’ Argonautica and Theocritus’ Idylls, increasing the homoerotic ambience of the myth and encouraging his readers to look back to his models for traces of the approach that he himself takes. It also interrogates Propertius’ domestication of his Greek models’ narratives in a contemporary Roman and particularly elegiac context, and argues that the poem is better integrated into Propertius’ elegiac universe than is often acknowledged.