ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 223

THE ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY:

VOLUNTARY POVERTY, THE RECUSATIO,
AND THE GREEDY GIRL

SHARON L. JAMES

ROMAN LOVE ELEGY PRESENTS sexual relationships between elite men
and women of lower status in apparently reversed gender and power
positions, so that the male is enslaved to his beloved domina. This meta-
phorical reversal, however, actually retains standard Roman social struc-
tures, suggesting an inequity even within a private love affair: rather than
sharing goals and desires, lover and beloved stand in a gendered opposi-
tion. Historically, elegy has been interpreted from the perspective of its
male speakers, and much scholarship has focused on the characteriza-
tions of those speakers. But as it is legitimate to study the male elegiac
speakers’ viewpoint, it is likewise appropriate to consider that of his
preferred love object and frequent addressee, the elegiac docta puella.
Since much of elegy is directed at a fictive, if named, woman,1 such an
approach may illuminate some of its rhetorical strategies and gender
values, particularly as they derive from and relate to Roman gendered
power constructs. Since elegy in particular generically anticipates the
perspective of the docta puella,2 and makes it a structural element of the

1
In my view, both the male speaker of elegy, herein designated lover-poet, and his
female addressee are fictive characters. On the assumed persona of the eponymous poet-
figure of Ovid’s praeceptor amoris, see Durling 1958; on the ficticity of the puella, see Wyke
1987. On the relationship of the puella to historical reality, see also Wyke 1989, 35, and
James 1998. For a view of the contents of elegy as virtually unrelated to historical reality,
see Veyne 1988.
2
Since it frequently addresses women, elegy clearly anticipates female reactions.
Prop. 3.3.20 and Am. 2.1.5, along with Tib. 2.4, discussed below, specifically identify female
readership for elegy. Am. 2.17.28–29 identifies a fairly wide female readership for elegy:
“multae per me nomen habere volunt: / novi aliquam, quae se circumferat esse Corinnam”
(“many girls want to have a known name through me: / I even know one who tells it around
that she’s Corinna”). Likewise Prop. 2.5.5–6: “inveniam tamen e multis fallacibus unam, /
quae fieri nostro carmine nota velit”(“nonetheless I’ll find one, out of so many cheating
girls, / who’d want to become famous through my poetry”). The very existence of Ars 3
explicitly acknowledges a female reading audience. Furthermore, elegy generally depicts its

American Journal of Philology 122 (2001) 223–253 © 2001 by The Johns Hopkins University Press
224 SHARON L. JAMES

genre, to read elegy from that perspective provides both a necessary

corrective or balance to the dominant male voice of the genre and a
revelation of its inherent disingenuity. I will examine two related topoi of
elegy—the recusatio and the problem of the “greedy girl”—from the
position of the puella, a viewpoint that demonstrates the relationship
between these two topoi and reveals the engine of Roman love elegy to
be self-interested sexual persuasion rather than sincere confession of
passion.3
This approach requires identifying the elegiac puella, the counter-
part to the recognizable elite male speaker of Roman love elegy, the
lover-poet. In my view, she is a fictional construct based upon the courte-
san of New Comedy—that is, she is an elegant, educated woman who has
no financial security and thus must earn her own living while she can.4

male-female relations as belonging to a kind of partnered opposition, and it regularly

acknowledges that women will read with a different perspective than that of men. On
reading elegy from the female point of view, see Gamel 1989; James 1997. On the general
project of reading as a woman, see Culler 1982, 43–64; Fetterley 1978; Schibanoff 1986;
Schweickart 1986. Ultimately, I propose, elegy wants its readers to employ at least two
perspectives simultaneously, as they read: the male speaker’s view and that of the necessary
elegiac beloved, the docta puella, who is freqently invoked even when she is not being
addressed. This double-prism approach is especially appropriate for a genre so closely
related to drama; on the relationship of elegy to Roman comedy; see note 4 below.
3
On elegy as persuasion, see Stroh 1971. Though it might seem that the pioneering
work of Allen had done away with any notion that elegy contains expression of genuine
love for a particular woman, this belief persists; see, e.g., Arkins 1990. I am interested here
not in actual historical readers of Ovid, Propertius, and Tibullus, whether male or female,
but in the implicit dialogue between the two main actors of elegy—the lover-poet and the
puella, whose interests are mostly opposed. This reader-response approach examines
intratextual communication, focusing particularly on male sexual persuasion as it is re-
ceived by its internal female audience. Though this method of reading may also yield
insight into the ways in which the elegists appeal to and communicate with their historical
audiences, the possible responses of actual readers lie outside my scope here.
4
See James 1998. For a fuller exposition of this identification, see the introduction to
my book, Learned Girls and Male Persuasion: Gender and Reading in Roman Love Elegy
(forthcoming), which provides more extensive discussion of many points from this article.
This identification further supports the project of reading elegy from the viewpoint of its
fictive female addressees, for New Comedy provides many examples of courtesans evaluat-
ing and responding to the persuasive speeches of their male lovers. In addition, the pres-
ence of comedy’s lena in Roman love elegy offers an explicitly female countervailing
perspective to the male values and desires propounded throughout the genre. On the
relationship between the lenae of comedy and elegy, see Williams 1968, 542–43; Courtney
1971, 81; Barsby 1973, 91–93. On scholarly research in the relationship of Roman comedy
to elegy, see n. 1 in James 1998. Davidson (1997) well distinguishes between elegant, high-
class courtesans and other women who lived by their bodies; see particularly chap. 4 on the
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 225

Identifying her in this way has several consequences, but only two con-
cern us here.
The first consequence is that many apparently individual character
traits in an elegiac puella turn out to be professionally motivated behav-
ior, as dictated by both Dipsas and Acanthis in Amores 1.8 and Propertius
4.5. A primary example is greed, for which the elegiac speakers never tire
of criticizing their puellae, as though avaritia were a character flaw of a
specific woman rather than a professional obligation.5 Thus, when the
lover-poet in Propertius 2.16 complains that Cynthia always weighs the
purses of her lovers (“semper amatorum ponderat una sinus,” 2.16.12),
he is actually describing the behavior prescribed for her not only by the
lena Acanthis, in poem 4.5 but in the pages of Roman comedy as well.6
Comedy routinely presents the courtesan’s needs and the young lover’s
desires as being at odds. The same structure of economic opposition
governs the elegiac love affair: the puella plays a generic, professional
part that may conflict with her personal inclinations or character (cf.
Thais and Bacchis in Ter. Eun. and Hecyra). She is also presented as
retaining her self-control while her impassioned lover loses his.7 Like
other courtesans of Roman comedy, Phronesium (Plaut. Truc.) is fully
aware of both her present material and social circumstances and the

hetaira. Though he is discussing Athenian hetairai rather than Roman courtesans, much of
his analysis applies to the docta puella as well. Herter (1960) likewise differentiates types of
historical Roman prostitutes; see also Luck 1974, 19–20, on the different types of courte-
sans in comedy.
5
Caprice is another common complaint of the lover-poets; but as Davidson (1997,
125–26) remarks, the courtesan “must always have freedom to exercise her whim and keep
alive the possibility, however small, of doing something for nothing or of not returning the
favor [of a gift] at all.” Hence capriciousness is a professional necessity.
6
Astaphium, chief assistant to the brainy courtesan Phronesium in Plautus’
Truculentus, comments that a meretrix must be like a thorny shrub, to capture or at least
cost any man: “meretricem similem sentis esse condecet, / quemquem hominem attigeret,
profecto ei aut malum aut damnum dari” (227–28). She further notes that men complain
about female greed but don’t actually provide adequate support for women.
7
Hence such adjectives for her as dura and ferrea, which impute to the puella a
constancy of character that the lover-poet lacks. Elegy must construct her as unified and
strong where the lover is fragmented and weak, owing to his passion. The puella, who must
avoid actually falling in love, engenders elegiac lament precisely through her firmness, her
constancy, and her relative inscrutability. “munera quanta dedi vel qualia carmina feci! / illa
tamen numquam ferrea dixit ‘Amo,’” remarks the Propertian speaker resentfully (“how
many gifts I gave or how many poems I made! / Nevertheless, that iron girl never said ‘I
love you,’” 2.8.11–12). Many an elegy might be read as the lover-poet’s attempt to discover
whether or not his beloved returns his affections. As Dipsas and Acanthis make clear, her
job is to keep him always off-balance (see also Ars 3.578–98).
226 SHARON L. JAMES

expiration date of her professional viability. Thus she necessarily seeks

money and gifts from her lovers, both to maintain her attractions as an
elegant woman8 and to prepare for the future when she will no longer be
able to practice her profession. Her literary granddaughter, the elegiac
puella, does likewise (see, as noted above, the instruction of Acanthis and
Dipsas, particularly lines 59–62 of Prop. 4.5 and 49–56 of Am. 1.8), and
here it is worth recalling that even the male speakers of elegy allude to
the damaging effects of eventual age on the puella (see Tib. 1.8.41–48,
Prop. 3.25.11–16, Ars 3.65–80).
Since the elegiac lover-poet wishes not to pay for his mistress’s
favors, he must use other means to gain access to her, namely his poetry.
All the elegiac lovers attempt to ignore, as much as possible, the social
status of their beloveds, so they must convert the generic, professional
mercenary behavior of their beloveds into individual character flaws
(which, not coincidentally, provide an excellent source for elegiac la-
ments). Thus the elegists describe their girlfriends as demanding not
necessities but needless luxuries—in a word, as greedy rather than needy.
The second generic consequence of the identification of the elegiac
puella as a courtesan9 is the recognition that Roman love elegy is self-
consciously a genre of sexual persuasion.10 The preferred method of
counterattack on the greedy girl is elegy itself; hence she must generi-
cally take an oppositional stance to much of the persuasion proffered
her, and examine its arguments skeptically. In taking her point of view
toward these topoi—the elegiac recusatio and the problem of the greedy
girl—it is therefore crucial to keep in mind both these points: that she is
a courtesan in need of money and that elegy self-consciously employs
tactics primarily of flattery and emotional appeal11 to persuade her to
provide sex for free.12

8
On luxuries as necessities for the courtesan, see Gutzwiller 1985.
9
Other consequences of the identification of elegiac puella and comic courtesan: the
inevitable rival, the advisory lena, the sexual infidelities of the mistress, the puella’s neces-
sary hardness and unpredictability, her alternating refusal or admission of her lover-poets.
10
As noted above, see Stroh 1971 on elegy as persuasion. On the hetaira’s need to
exert careful control over her sexual partners, and the consequent necessity of persuasion,
see Davidson 1997, 124–25. See also Kennedy 1993, 74: “The lover’s discourse emerges as
an incessant attempt to control, to mould, to construct for the beloved an identity . . . that
she will accept or reject . . . by ‘giving’ herself to the lover.”
11
Elegiac sexual persuasion is performed chiefly by blanditiae, flatteries, accompa-
nied by ethical appeals, with relatively little logical argumentation added for support.
Examples of flattery and soft speech for sexual persuasion in elegy may be found at Tib.
1.2.91; Prop. 1.7.19; 1.8.40; 1.9.12; 3.23.13; Am. 1.12.22; 2.1.19–22; Ars 1.439, 455, 467–68, 480;
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 227

I. VOLUNTARY POVERTY AND THE ELEGIAC RECUSATIO

In theory, the docta puella appreciates the poet’s ingenium: she values his
poetry over the material offerings of other men. Yet she may reject his
persuasion on its own merits or faults rather than because of her fickle-
ness or cruelty. From her structural and generic perspective the lover-
poet, in the programmatic, generic Alexandrian recusatio adopted by
elegy, claims a poverty that is voluntary.13 That is, in the recusatio the
lover-poet gives up the financial rewards of both military service and
public poetry (epic, tragedy, scientific didaxis), in favor of serving his
mistress; in return, he expects her to reject monetary concerns, at least in
his case.14 Thus elegy establishes an insoluble tension, the “elegiac im-
passe,” between the impecunious but upper-class lover-poet and his cour-
tesan beloved, who does not have the opportunities that he rejects. From

2.152, 159, and elsewhere. See Keith 1994, 32, on flatteries and soft words (blanditiae and
dulcia verba) in the Amores as virtually signifying elegiac poems.
12
I am treating elegy here not as homogeneous but as relatively unified, a genre
almost independent of individual authors, more like Homeric poetry or modern popular
music than any traditional notion of love poetry. I take this approach in part because I see
elegy’s professions of love not as serious but as part of generic play. See Veyne 1988 for a
similar treatment. Elegy was composed and performed for a specific elite audience; it
enjoyed only a short floruit period, in which poets witnessed each other’s performances and
responded poetically (Prop. 2 is often seen as reacting to Tib. 1; and as Gross [1996, 199 n.
11] points out, it is even possible that Prop. 4.5 was influenced by an earlier version of Am.
1.8; see also McKeown 1987, 85, on Ovid’s possible influence over Tibullus and Propertius).
Ovid is regularly described as mocking or satirizing his predecessors, especially Propertius
(despite their friendship, Tr. 4.10.46), but in my view he uncovers latent subtexts in their
work rather than overturns or makes fun of it; see chapter 5 of my forthcoming book. In
any case, from the perspective of the generic elegiac woman, the differences between
Propertius’ elegiac sexual persuasion and that of Tibullus or Ovid would be negligible, as it
is all always aimed at the same goal: unpurchased access to her bedroom.
13
The elegiac speakers routinely claim poverty or lack of resources. As Cairns (1979,
38 n. 16) notes, of this generic posture, “Tibullus’ paupertas—the standard Hellenistic
manifesto topos—is programmatically stated at 1.1.5. . . . It is thus a standing aspect of his
persona.”
14
Note that although not every elegiac recusatio is addressed to a female beloved,
each one may still be read from her perspective, as within the fictional world of elegy, the
puellae appear to read all the poetic production—particularly the published works—of
their versifying suitors, rather than only the poems addressed to themselves. See, e.g., Prop.
2.26.21–26, for a puella devoted to poetry; see also 2.3.21–22, in which Cynthia criticizes
Korinna’s work as inferior to her own; as noted above, Am. 2.17.28–29 identifies the elegiac
puella as reading widely. Further, only a very few of the poems in the Monobiblos are
addressed to Cynthia (1.2, 8, 11, 15, 19; 18 includes speech directed at her in her absence),
but most of them invoke her and thus may be read from her perspective.
228 SHARON L. JAMES

her point of view, then, her lover-poet’s claims of poverty are false
because he has chosen to be poor.
The puella will consider the elegiac recusatio doubly suspect be-
cause, unlike the Callimachean gesture of refusal, it does not represent
an aesthetic, artistic principle but is instead a generic strategy employed
in the pursuit of sex. That is, where the original Alexandrian recusatio
claimed a literary motive for rejecting public poetry, the Roman elegiac
recusatio initiates a program of poetry motivated by sexual desire, under
the name of love.15 It is functional and strategic rather than merely or
purely aesthetic; hence its sincerity is dubious, at least from the view-
point of its chief beneficiary, the docta puella to whom the subsequent
poetic production will be addressed.16
Establishing the lover’s poverty as voluntary is in fact elegy’s open-
ing move—it is the topos of the first post-programmatic elegy in Propertius
(1.2) and is programmatic in Tibullus, whose first poem (1.1) identifies
the lover-poet’s rejected opportunities. Since Tibullus gives these rejec-
tions as hortatory and jussive subjunctives, they are even more clearly
marked as voluntary:17

divitias alius fulvo sibi congerat auro

et teneat culti iugera multa soli,
quem labor adsiduus vicino terreat hoste,
Martia cui somnos classica pulsa fugent;
me mea paupertas vita traducat inerti,
dum meus adsiduo luceat igne focus (1.1.1–6)

15
As Mary Jaeger has reminded me, in Horace’s lyric practice, by contrast, the poet-
speaker claims to prefer a life of modest self-sufficiency to lucrative epic and public service;
his preference for the private life derives, as he presents it, not from elegiac servitium
amoris but from a more ancient Roman tradition of the simple, moderate life, combined
with a personal tendency to be lazy and to prefer recreation and relaxation to war and
exertion.
16
And since, as I will argue, elegy and elegiac speech are consistently identified as
the necessary language in matters of love, even the choice of meter already identifies the
poetic speech aimed at her as part of a genre of sexual persuasion. Though the Roman
Alexandrians do not openly discuss the financial benefits of composing public poetry like
epic or scientific didaxis, they consistently present those forms of composition as more
respectable, more politically advantageous, and perhaps even more publicly productive
than elegy, which is marked as private, solipsistic, unproductive. Patrons prefer great epics
glorifying (or at least acknowledging) themselves, so the elegiac recusatio of public po-
etry—epic or scientific—is meant to be understood as involving loss not only of prestige
but of money as well.
17
Again, note that this poem may be read from the puella’s perspective; though she
is not its sole addressee, its ultimate persuasion is aimed directly at her.
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 229

Let some other man pile up gleaming gold for himself,

and own many acres of tilled earth—
the one whom constant struggle terrifies, when the enemy is near,
and whose sleep the trumpet blasts of war chase away;
let my poverty draw me away in a lazy life,
as long as my hearth burns with a constant fire.18

The poem goes on to describe an estate that is comfortable and gener-

ous, though not especially grand,19 a life free of politics, business, and war
that allows the lover to devote himself to his beloved:

non ego divitias patrum fructusque requiro,

quos tulit antiquo condita messis avo:
parva seges satis est, satis est requiescere lecto
si licet et solito membra levare toro.
quam iuvat immites ventos audire cubantem
et dominam tenero continuisse sinu
aut gelidas hibernus aquas cum fuderit Auster,
securum somnos imbre iuvante sequi!
hoc mihi contingat: sit dives iure, furorem
qui maris et tristes ferre potest pluvias (1.1.41–50)
I don’t need the riches and fruits of fathers,
which the harvest established by an ancient ancestor provided:
a small field is enough, it’s enough to rest on my couch,
if that’s allowed, and to relieve my limbs on my customary bed.
How pleasing it is to hear the harsh winds while lying in bed
and to hold my mistress to my soft side
or when the winter south wind pours down freezing waters,
to seek sleep safely, to the pleasing sound of rain!
Let this be my fortune: let that man be wealthy by right, who can
tolerate the ocean’s rage and harsh rainstorms.

This poem cleverly proposes as the source of dispute between

lovers not his penury and her need but separation motivated by profit: “o
quantum est auri pereat potiusque smaragdi, / quam fleat ob nostras ulla
puella vias” (“oh, let every amount of gold and emeralds be ruined,

18
Translations throughout are my own, and deliberately literal.
19
Cf. Lee-Stecum 1998, 34–35. There is, of course, no subsistence farming in elegy.
Luck (1969, 71) and others point out of Tibullus in particular that Hor. Ep. 1.4.6–7 depicts
him as both handsome and wealthy, and able to enjoy both conditions. His elegiac speaker’s
poverty is thus all the more fictive. The poet’s audience would have found it very amusing.
230 SHARON L. JAMES

rather than that any girl should weep on account of my travels,” 51–52).
His patron Messalla can go on missions and bring back spoils (53–54),
but he himself has already been taken prisoner: “me retinent vinctum
formosae vincla puellae” (“the chains of a beautiful girl hold me cap-
tive,” 55). Another useful loss connected to his sacrifice of money and
military victory follows—his personal glory: “non ego laudari curo, mea
Delia: tecum / dum modo sim, quaeso segnis inersque vocer” (“I don’t
care for being praised, my Delia, as long as / I am with you, I seek to be
called lazy and inactive,” 57–58).20 This move is designed to establish an
exchange between lover and beloved: he abandons fame and even ac-
cepts censure21 as long as they are together until the hour of death: “te
spectem, suprema mihi cum venerit hora, / et teneam moriens deficiente
manu” (“may I be looking at you, when my final hour has come to me,
and hold you with my failing hand as I die,” 59–60).
This description leads easily into a plea that Delia grant him her
sexual favors: “interea, dum fata sinunt, iungamus amores: / iam veniet
tenebris Mors adoperta caput” (“meanwhile, as long as the fates are
allowing it, let us join loves: / soon Death will be coming, its head covered
in shadows,” 69–70). If the prospect of death is not persuasive, there’s
always unattractive and embarrassing old age to be cheated by means of
sex now: “iam subrepet iners aetas, nec amare decebit, / dicere nec cano
blanditias capite. / nunc levis est tractanda venus, dum frangere postes /
non pudet et rixas inseruisse iuvat” (“already inactive old age is creeping
up, and it will be inappropriate to love / or to speak flatteries with a
white-haired head. / Now we must engage in light sex, while it’s not
shameful / to break doorposts and it’s still fun to get into sexual quar-
rels,” 1.1.71–74). The exchange of money, glory, and risk for poverty,
anonymity, and sex is thus complete, and the poem returns to its beginning:

hic ego dux milesque bonus: vos, signa tubaeque,

ite procul, cupidis vulnera ferte viris,

20
Cf. Prop. 1.14, which similarly opposes money and love, claiming that there is no
joy in luxuries without love and volunteers to be poor, as long as the puella stays happily
with him: “quae mihi dum placata aderit, non ulla verebor / regna vel Alcinoi munera
despicere” (“as long as she will be with me peaceably, I will not fear to / despise any
kingdoms or the riches of Alcinous,” 23–24).
21
To be segnis, lazy, and iners, inactive, are unthinkable for a traditional elite Roman
male. On the standard mores of the Roman elite, see Edwards 1993. Leach (1980, 60) calls
this an “ironically self-damaging pose of simplicity” and notes that it characterizes the
Tibullan lover-poet in both the Delia and Marathus poems (not to mention the Nemesis
poems; see below).
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 231

ferte et opes: ego composito securus acervo

dites despiciam despiciamque famem (1.1.75–78)
in this arena I’m a good general and soldier: you, standards and
trumpets,
go far away, bring wounds to greedy men,
and bring them wealth, too; let me, safe on my piled-up harvest heap,
despise wealth, and let me despise hunger.

This elegy proposes an arrangement that erases the need for money, and
thus eliminates the beloved’s grounds for expensive demands.22 Read
from her point of view, however, it is designed to create access to her
without any material benefit to her: it reads as rhetorical manipulation
rather than poetic manifesto.23
Propertius’ Monobiblos likewise announces early on the lover-
poet’s penury and loss of fame (both, it is assumed, on account of love),
though the speaker finds the arrangement less appealing than Tibullus’
lover does. Here, the lover does not fear the dangers of travel and
warfare—he consistently claims that he is prevented from any public
activity like war or epic poetry, because a conspiracy of hostile gods, fate,
and the tyranny of Cynthia have forced him into a different, and harsh,
kind of service:24

22
Tib. 1.2.65–80 repeats this exchange—the lover-poet reiterates his preference for
a simple rustic life with Delia over a more remunerative life of warfare: for example,
“ferreus ille fuit qui, te cum posset habere, / maluerit praedas stultus et arma sequi” (“that
man was made of iron who, when he could have had you, / foolishly preferred to pursue
booty and weapons,” 65–66). This couplet particularly identifies elegy and profiteering war
expeditions as opposed occupations, though as Veyne (1988, 38, 40) points out of the next
poem, the Tibullan lover-poet has in fact actually gone off to war on a military-political
mission with his patron. See further lines 67–78, in which the lover-poet encourages this
rival to go off and win both glory and money (67–70); as for himself, he’ll stay home with
Delia (71–78).
23
Lee-Stecum (1998, 58) proposes a reading that “might see the entire poem . . . as
an assertion of devotion to Delia in the hope of her compliance with the poet’s wishes, or
even as part of a process of exchange of such devotion for her compliance” (emphasis
original).
24
Though this poem is addressed to a male friend rather than a female beloved, it is
included in a volume of poetry named for that beloved and thus may be read from her
perspective; it reiterates the familiar claims of the elegiac recusatio, that the lover-poet is
unfit for military duty because of love, and its characterization of him as hopelessly devoted
is designed, when read by her, to operate as implicit sexual persuasion. The picture of
Cynthia delineated here is not especially flattering—a typically Propertian touch, quite in
line with the inconsistent portraiture of her throughout his poetic corpus—but it certainly
marks her dominance over the lover-poet.
232 SHARON L. JAMES

non ego nunc Hadriae vereor mare noscere tecum,

Tulle, neque Aegaeo ducere vela salo,
cum quo Rhipaeos possim conscendere montis
ulteriusque domos vadere Memnonias;
sed me complexae remorantur verba puellae,
mutatoque graves saepe colore preces (1.6.1–6)
I’m not afraid to meet the Adriatic sea with you now,
Tullus, nor to raise sails on the Aegean salt-water,
you with whom I might climb the Rhipaean mountains
and cross further into the dwellings of Memnon;
but the words of my embracing girl hold me back,
and her heavy prayers, along with her frequently changing color.

He wonders if the benefits, intellectual and financial, of a long voyage

would be worth the punishment Cynthia will mete out if he should go:

an mihi sit tanti doctas cognoscere Athenas

atque Asiae veteres cernere divitias,
ut mihi deducta faciat convicia puppi
Cynthia et insanis ora notet manibus? (1.6.13–16)
or is it worth so much to me to get to know learned Athens
and gaze upon the riches of Asia,
that Cynthia should complain harshly at me when the ship was departing
and mark my face with her crazed hands?

His friend Tullus, by contrast, is safe, not being in love and being thus at
leisure to defend his country, says the lover-poet, who then claims that
his love-slavery is involuntary: “non ego sum laudi, non natus idoneus
armis: / hanc me militiam fata subire volunt” (“I wasn’t born ideal for
praise, nor for weapons: / the fates want me to undergo this other kind of
warfare,” 1.6.29–30).
In declining lucrative military service, the speaker in Propertius 1.6
makes the excuse of inability, rather than proposing a bargain between
lover and beloved. Though this poem does not assume poverty in the
same overt fashion as Tibullus 1.1 does, the “riches of Asia” indicate the
profit motives of the rejected military mission and thus imply a lost
financial opportunity.25 But like Tibullus 1.1, it assumes character flaws

25
Prop. 3.13 overtly connects military service with greed and profit, then contrasts it
with the private life of love (1–6). This poem argues that a man who could leave a faithful
woman for imperialist profiteering does not deserve her. Poems 3.4 and 3.5 likewise
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 233

incurred in the service of love, flaws that preclude military duty. Propertius’
lover-poet claims that Cynthia physically restrains him, and that his
servitium amoris is harsh, intending to exculpate himself from the charges
of cowardice and laziness. His character flaw is extrema nequitia (26), a
defect rather vaguer than inertia, but certainly no part of traditional elite
Roman male values. This poem is a rather bitter and morose recusatio,
but like Tibullus 1.1, it makes the speaker claim that, because of love, he
is not fit for profitable public duty.26
Propertius’ next poem (1.7) offers the same argument about epic
poetry. The structures are similar: a friend—Tullus in 1.6, Ponticus in
1.7—has opportunities refused by the lover-poet. In 1.7, Ponticus can
write a great epic, but the speaker must stick to his more pathetic love
poetry:

Dum tibi Cadmeae dicuntur, Pontice, Thebae

armaque fraternae tristia militiae,
atque, ita sim felix, primo contendis Homero,
(sint modo fata tuis mollia carminibus):
nos, ut consuemus, nostros agitamus amores,
atque aliquid duram quaerimus in dominam;27
nec tantum ingenio quantum servire dolori
cogor et aetatis tempora dura queri (1.7.1–8)
While the sad weapons and fraternal warfare of Cadmus’
Thebes are being related by you, Ponticus,
and—may I be so lucky—you’ll compete with Homer for first place
(may the fates be kind to your poems):

associate military service with profit, a life diametrically opposed to the life of the elegiac
lover; 3.5 further differentiates love poetry and the public poetry of epic and science. 3.20
(likewise, Tib. 1.1 and 1.2.65–66) criticizes the man who is hard-hearted enough to leave
behind a grieving girl for a profiteering journey: “durus, qui lucro potuit mutare puellam!”
(“he’s hard, the man who could exchange his girl for profit!” 3.20.3). This remark may be
seen as an attempt to set puella and profit in opposition, to convince the girl that material-
ism is actually contrary to her interests.
26
Further, the lover suggests that military service is easier and more rewarding than
servitium amoris: “at tu seu mollis qua tendit Ionia, seu qua / Lydia Pactoli tingit arata
liquor; / seu pedibus terras seu pontum carpere remis / ibis, et accepti pars eris imperii: /
tum tibi si qua mei veniet non immemor hora, / vivere me duro sidere certus eris” (“But
you, whether you go where the soft Ionian river bends, or where / the waters of Pactolus
touch the Lydian plowed fields, / whether you take land by foot, or take the ocean / with
oars, you will be part of received empire. / Then if some hour, not forgetful of me, shall
come upon you, / you’ll be sure I’m living under a harsh star,” 1.6.31–36)
27
On the suggestive ambiguities of this couplet, see Kennedy 1993, 24 and 32.
234 SHARON L. JAMES

I, as usual, am chasing after my love affairs,

and seeking something against my harsh mistress;
and I’m forced to serve not talent as much as
grief, and to complain about the harsh times of my life.

Here the lover-poet identifies his inglorious (and ultimately unprofit-

able) poetic practice as inevitable, not because of his defective talent, but
because of his passion. He takes some pride in this function and hopes to
be of use to other unhappy lovers:

hic mihi conteritur vitae modus, haec mea fama est,

hinc cupio nomen carminis ire mei.
me laudent doctae solum placuisse puellae,
Pontice, et iniustas saepe tulisse minas;
me legat assidue post haec neglectus amator,
et prosint illi cognita nostra mala (1.7.9–14)
In this way the length of my life is being worn away, this is my fame,
in this direction I want the name of my poetry to go.
Let them praise me for being the only one to have pleased a learned
girl,
Ponticus, and to have tolerated unfair threats often;
let some abandoned lover read me constantly after such troubles,
and may my evils, once he’s learned of them, be helpful to him.

He warns Ponticus that Cupid strikes harder when arriving late. Worse, if
Ponticus falls in love, he’ll have to give up epic, for it does not appeal to
the docta puella: “et frustra cupies mollem componere versum, / nec tibi
subiciet carmina serus Amor” (“and in vain you’ll want to write soft
poetry, / but late Love won’t provide you poems,” 1.7.19–20). In the rest
of this poem, the lover-poet proclaims that ultimately he will receive
recognition for the public service his poetry performs—but that recogni-
tion will come posthumously from other enamored young men, and can
thus be of no present political or financial value to him.
Propertius 1.7 and 1.9, both directed at Ponticus, dramatize the
steps of the recusatio and the subsequent turn to hortatory elegy—a “soft
speech” characterized in opposition to the noble language of myth, epic,
and science.28 In 1.7 above, the lover-poet had warned Ponticus that if he

28
Between these two poems, poem 8 (8a–b) dramatizes the effectiveness of elegiac
flattery, the language aimed at women, which produces one of the rare victories of persua-
sion over Cynthia in Propertius’ elegy: “sed potui blandi carminis obsequio” (“but I was
able [to dissuade her] with the flattery of soft song,” 1.8.40).
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 235

should fall in love, he would seek to make elegy, too. Sure enough, in
poem 9, Ponticus has fallen in love and will, according to the speaker,
have to turn to love poetry:29

quid tibi nunc misero prodest grave dicere carmen

aut Amphioniae moenia flere lyrae?
plus in amore valet Mimnermi versus Homero:
carmina mansuetus lenia quaerit Amor.
i quaeso et tristis istos compone libellos,
et cane quod quaevis nosse puella velit! (1.9.9–14)
What good does it do you now, you wretch, to sing a heavy song
or to weep the walls of Amphion’s lyre?
Mimnermus’ poetry does more good when you’re in love than Homer’s:
peaceful Love wants soft songs.
Go on, I dare you, and put away those unhappy volumes,
and sing what any girl wants to hear!

This poem virtually performs Ponticus’ recusatio for him and in its eroto-
didaxis identifies elegy as the required language of love, a language that

29
The status of the woman with whom Ponticus has fallen in love is a relevant issue
for the project of reading elegy from the puella’s perspective: she seems to have been
recently purchased (empta modo, 4), and she is described as “available enough” (satis illa
parata, 25). Richardson sees this woman as a slave purchased by Ponticus and therefore
“ready to hand” (parata) at any time. Butler and Barber interpret empta as signifying that
she is “either a courtesan or slave.” The relevant question here is why persuasion would be
needed for a household slave. Lines 25–26 may be read as suggesting that a woman in the
house is more dangerous than one living outside, as one can fall in love with her more
easily, but they do not necessarily mean that this woman is a household slave. The entire
poem is about the need for poets in love to write persuasive poetry designed to attract and
appeal to a woman; slave status, however, obviates the need for persuasion (see Hor. Sat.
1.2.117–19), much less the need for the toils of poetry; on the subject of the female slave in
elegy, see James 1997; Fitzgerald 2000, 59–68; and Henderson 1991–92. Further, I would
argue that if this woman were to be understood as a recently purchased household slave,
the Propertian speaker would be more clear about her status, as Horace is in Ode 2.4. It
seems to me more likely that this woman is either a concubine or a courtesan who has
accepted an exclusive contract for her services, and has moved into Ponticus’ house, but is
not his property. That such women continue to need persuasion and gentle treatment is
evident from Plautus’ Truculentus, where Diniarchus claims that the merces annua actually
purchases only three nights, and Asinaria, where Diabolus’ proposed terms for a contract
with Philaenium reveal some of the liberties such courtesans retained, even under contract;
see also, as noted above, Davidson 1997, 124–25. On the different arrangements a courtesan
or prostitute of any class could make, see Herter 1960, esp. 76–85. In any case, this poem
assumes the absolute necessity of elegy for a man in love.
236 SHARON L. JAMES

mandates abandonment of epic, a language designed to appeal to women.30

It thus marks the elegiac recusatio as a gesture necessitated by genre and
claims that, even if embrace of the genre is involuntary (because love
overpowers even the epic poet), it is not necessarily immediate and
inevitable. Notably, although the recusatio of epic and the assumption of
elegy are shown as the first step in any poet’s love affair, Ponticus’
resistance, implicit in 15–18 and even the final couplet (33–34), suggests
that elegy, along with its attendant slavery and poverty, may be less
involuntary than the Propertian speaker claims.31
Propertius’ lover-poet regularly repeats his claim that love makes
him unfit either for profiteering adventure or for profitable public poetry.
In fact, he positively loves the recusatio, for he performs it regularly and
lengthily, often spelling out exactly what he is not doing. The opening,
programmatic sections of books 2 and 3 go on for many lines about the
poetry not being written, in favor of love and love poetry;32 likewise,
other poems in the same books identify the other forms of poetry not
being written by elegists and assert the mutual exclusivity of money and
elegy.33

30
The specific instruction of Prop. 1.10.22 further extends the use of flattering, soft
language into conversation as well as formal poetic composition: neve superba loqui, neve
tacere diu (“neither talk haughtily, nor be silent too long”).
31
“quid si non esset facilis tibi copia? nunc tu / insanus medio flumine quaeris
aquam” (“what if you don’t have an easy supply of material [for elegies]? now, / madman,
you’re seeking water in the middle of a stream,” 15–16). “quare, si pudor est, quam primum
errata fatere: / dicere quo pereas saepe in amore levat” (“wherefore, if you have any shame,
admit your failures right away: / when you’re in love, it often provides relief to tell about
the thing that’s killing you,” 33–34). This couplet suggests that Ponticus has been fighting
both his emotions (or his desire) and the urge to talk about them; since in elegy to love is
to compose poetry, Ponticus is attempting to avoid both love and elegy. Cf. Veyne 1988, 108:
“To love is to be an elegiac poet, not an epic poet. Now this does not necessarily mean to
choose to be a pure literary type and to reject public service; there is nothing to prevent
one from doing both. Gallus and Tibullus did so.” And indeed Tibullus’ own corpus,
especially 1.3, suggests that his eponymous lover-poet too attempted to escape elegiac love
by travel on a military expedition. Thus to the puella, this aspect of the recusatio—that love
forces a poet to abandon remunerative work for unrewarding poetry—rings particularly
false.
32
See 2.1.16–38; 3.1.15–34; 3.3. 2–12; 3.5.25–46.
33
Poems 3.4 and 3.5 distinguish the lover from the warrior and businessman, overtly
refusing the financial benefits of those careers; 3.7 underscores the poet’s choice of love
over profitable sea-excursions and echoes the decision of Tib. 1.1 to accept the inglorious
pursuit of love over such lucrative but dangerous missions: “at tu, saeve Aquilo, numquam
mea vela videbis: / ante fores dominae condar oportet iners” (“but you, savage Wind, will
never see my sails: / it’s right for me instead to be planted, inactive, before my mistress’
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 237

Propertius 3.23 goes even further in identifying elegiac speech as

learned, designed to please girls, and incompatible with profit-making.
The lover-poet has lost his writing tablets, which have previously served
him well as a means of inscribing elegiac persuasion:

ergo tam doctae nobis periere tabellae,

scripta quibus pariter tot periere bona!
has quondam nostris manibus detriverat usus,
qui non signatas iussit habere fidem.
illae iam sine me norant placare puellas,
et quaedam sine me verba diserta loqui (3.23.1–6)
So my very learned writing-tablets have been lost,
with which so many good words have been lost!
Usage wore them down long ago, by my own hands,
which assured confidence in them, even without my seal.
Even without me they knew how to appeal to girls,
and to speak certain learned words without me.

These tablets successfully carried messages between lover-poet and puella;

most important of all, they arranged assignations with the right kind of
girl: “volens . . . non stulta puella / garrula” (“a willing . . . talkative girl,
not a foolish one,” 17–18). The tablets have fallen into enemy hands, and
their loss pains the lover (19–20) so much that he actually offers a reward
for them—the very thing he hates to give his mistress: “quas si quis mihi
rettulerit, donabitur auro: / quis pro divitiis ligna retenta velit?” (“if
anybody brings them back to me, he’ll be rewarded with gold: / who
would want wood kept in place of riches?” 21–22). This poem, at the end
of Propertius’ official amatory corpus, both opposes love poetry and
profit and overtly identifies the purpose of learned elegiac speech as
sexual persuasion (here, ironically, performed almost without the lover-
poet’s participation). Such an identification will of course hardly be news
to a docta puella.
Ovid’s version of the recusatio follows the course identified in
Propertius 1.7 by showing elegy as the inevitable result when any epic
poet falls in love. His speaker wittily blames Cupid: the lover-poet claims

doors,” 3.7.71–72). Iners (inactive, resourceless, inert, motionless) appears twice in Tib. 1.1,
at lines 58 and 71, and contrasts strongly with the active life of the warrior. Elsewhere,
Propertius’ speaker criticizes the man who chooses to leave a girl behind for either war or
business (3.12, 3.20). See also Prop. 2.10.11–20; 2.34; 3.9.
238 SHARON L. JAMES

to have been preparing to compose an epic when the naughty little god
attacked and turned him to elegy instead:

arma gravi numero violentaque bella parabam

edere, materia conveniente modis.
par erat inferior versus; risisse Cupido
dicitur atque unum surripuisse pedem (Am. 1.1.1–4)
I was getting ready to produce weapons and violent wars in a heavy
meter, and my material fit my meter.
The second line was equal; Cupid is said
to have laughed and stolen away a foot.

But, protests the poet, my material isn’t right for elegy, and I’m not in
love with anybody: “nec mihi materia est numeris levioribus apta, / aut
puer aut longas compta puella comas” (“I have neither material suited
for lighter meters, / nor a boy or a girl with long, styled hair,” 1.1.19–20).
The solution to this impasse? Cupid’s arrow, of course: the god strikes,
the poet burns, and accepts elegy as his genre—no more public, war
poetry for this elegist:34

me miserum! certas habuit puer ille sagittas:

uror, et in vacuo pectore regnat Amor.
sex mihi surgat opus numeris, in quinque residat;
ferrea cum vestris bella valete modis (1.1.25–28)
Woe is me! That boy had unerring arrows:
I’m on fire, and Love rules in my previously empty breast.
Let my work rise up in six feet, and fall back in five;
farewell, iron wars, with your meters.

So facetious a recusatio could hardly convince any docta puella that

this particular lover-poet is a sincere suitor.35 Elsewhere the amator

34
The remaining problem? He still has no beloved! Am. 1.2 extends the conceit of
an enamored poet sans beloved into a poetic triumph; only in poem 1.3 does the lover-poet
claim to have found an actual object for his affections, though she remains unnamed and
effectively anonymous. Though none of these poems attempts explicit sexual persuasion,
they all identify elegy as the medium for addressing women, and the goal of that medium
is sexual access to those women.
35
Again, as noted above, the absence of a female addressee does not mean that a
docta puella could or would not read this poem and note its manifest insincerity. The
pseudo-autobiographical episode presented so fancifully here is a prologue, as it were,
alerting Ovid’s own readers to what they will find ahead. The first of the Amores to address
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 239

repeats the justification for elegy; only a few passages need noting here.
Amores 2.1 overtly reiterates the reasons behind the elegiac recusatio of
public poetry. Trying once more to write war poetry, Ovid’s alter ego is
foiled yet again by love (2.1.11–22); he defends himself by praising the
power of love poetry (23–28), identifies epic as useless in matters of the
heart (29–32), and goes on to describe the utility of love poetry (33–38).
Amores 2.18 dramatizes the disruption of epic production by the elegiac
puella herself—she sits in the lover-poet’s lap and causes him to drop his
poem altogether; 3.1 articulates the practical value of elegy, which can
persuade girls where tragedy fails (45–60). Poem 3.12.15–16 repeats the
lover-poet’s choice of love over epic, a choice that has turned on him by
making Corinna known to other men, to his own bitter regret.
These sites in Ovid’s elegies further mark the recusatio of public,
remunerative poetry, a gesture that his speaker, like Propertius’, feels
inclined or obliged to repeat. The programmatic opening of his Amores
makes clear the generic functions operating behind the elegiac recusatio
of public poetry and military service. Those functions are ostensibly to
effect an exchange, via persuasion, of one of the lover-poet’s several
options for the only resource the puella has—sex. From her perspective,
however, the lover can always return to other activities and careers (as
indeed, he does in Prop. 4 and Am. 3.15), but all she has to offer is the sex
demanded by the lover in that recusatio. Once she has given that up, she
loses all her leverage36 in this relationship—a relationship that, despite
the protestations of the lovers, is unequal and temporary.

II. BONA NEC AVARA: ON THE GREEDY PUELLA

The lover’s complaints about having to be generous recur throughout

elegy, and they come in a wide variety, exhibiting several persuasive
approaches but never once recognizing that the exigent girl needs a
livelihood. To acknowledge her needs would require admitting that the

a specific woman, 1.3 fulfills the lunatic logic of 1.1 by offering poetic service, in exchange
for sex, to a woman so invisible as to be even less real than the generic elegiac puella. Its
persuasion—that his poetry will make her famous—is undercut by the mythic exempla
used to support this claim and the absence of any name at all for her. This poem could be
offered to Anygirl.
36
As Ovid’s praeceptor amoris points out: “ne dederit gratis quae dedit, usque dabit”
(“in order that she not have given for free what she has given, she’ll keep giving it,” Ars
1.454).
240 SHARON L. JAMES

inequities in the elegiac love affair materially favor the lover, an admis-
sion that would topple the inverted power structure of servitium amoris.
So the lover-poets vociferously protest what they depict as the relentless
demands of their mercenary sweethearts. They cover over the financial
imbalance between lover and beloved by depicting the gifts she requests
as luxuries rather than necessities.37 The primary defenses are thus of-
fenses: first, to claim poverty, by way of the recusatio,38 and second, to
characterize her as greedy rather than needy. Further rhetorical strate-
gies range from the emotional appeals in Tibullus 2.4 to the attempts in
Propertius 1.2 to convince Cynthia that she needs no costly adornment
to the implicit threats in Amores 1.10 that a greedy puella is less attrac-
tive. The Ars complains bitterly about demanding girls and counsels
prospective lovers to seem always to be about to give, without ever
actually delivering anything,39 and to use written flatteries—in other
words, something like elegiac poems—in lieu of more tangible gifts. The
lover-poets wax both emotional and rhetorical on the subject of their
“material girls,” always decrying mandatory generosity and attempting
to persuade their puellae that poetry is better than material objects. They
try every approach but one: conspicuously missing from all the greedy-
girl elegies are credible promises of gifts.
Poem 2.4 is Tibullus’ most extended expression of the greedy-girl
theme. It directs implicit persuasion at Nemesis, using standard elements
of an elegiac querela: the speaker laments his enslavement to a demand-

37
As noted above, see Gutzwiller 1985 on the puella’s actual need for luxuries and
elegance.
38
Though the recusatio serves other functions as well, in the context of elegy, and
from the docta puella’s perspective, this is its primary purpose. As noted above, the elegists
do not offer the recusatio as a disinterested statement of purely aesthetic, artistic principle.
In fact, the urge to compose other types of poetry is a standard feature of elegy: the
Ovidian speaker regularly attempts epic or tragedy (Am. 1.1, 2.1, 2.18, 3.15) and the
Propertian speaker demonstrates an occasional bent toward national themes (2.10; 4.1).
Elegy presents itself as both an erotic and poetic necessity, on the one hand, and a
commodity to be exchanged for sex, on the other; rarely is it presented as a medium
preferred in its own right. Even Propertius’ great sweeps of Callimachean rejections of
public poetry devolve into concern for Cynthia; see, e.g., the resolution of 3.1 into 3.2,
especially 17–18: “fortunata, meo si qua es celebrata libello! / carmina erunt formae tot
monumenta tuae” (“lucky woman, if you are celebrated in my little book! / my poems will
be so many monuments of your beauty”). Poem 3.3 likewise returns to the utility of elegy,
especially at 19–20; and 3.4 converts the declined military opportunity into an occasion for
celebratory snuggling with his girlfriend (15–16).
39
“quod non dederis, semper videare daturus” (“so that you not have to give, always
seem about to give,” 1.449).
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 241

ing mistress, the failure of elegy to provide easy access to the beloved,
the perfidy of Venus and Cupid. He curses the discoverer of costly
decorations, warns the avaricious girl, praises the ungreedy girl, acknowl-
edges that such warnings are futile, and finally, apparently capitulates—
he is willing even to risk death by poison at his mistress’s hand, if only
Nemesis will be kind to him. He even suggests that rarest of things in
elegy—a marriage-like relationship of lover and puella. This elegy does
everything but promise gifts. From her perspective, then, it offers nothing.
The poem begins emotionally, suggesting that the lover-poet must
give up his ancestral liberty and enter into slavery, in which state he will
be tortured by his puella (1–6). The speaker goes on to proclaim that he’d
rather undertake the kinds of travels he has refused in the past, espe-
cially in 1.1, than suffer his present misery (7–10).40 The cause of his
present misery? Elegy has failed to override Nemesis’ demands. The
lover expatiates bitterly on this failure of elegy to achieve its primary
purpose:

nunc et amara dies et noctis amarior umbra est:

omnia nam tristi tempora felle madent.
nec prosunt elegi nec carminis auctor Apollo:
illa cava pretium flagitat usque manu.
ite procul, Musae, si non prodestis amanti:
non ego vos, ut sint bella canenda, colo,
nec refero Solisque vias et qualis, ubi orbem
complevit, versis Luna recurrit equis.
ad dominam faciles aditus per carmina quaero:
ite procul, Musae, si nihil ista valent. (2.4.11–20)
now the daytime is bitter and the shadow of night even more bitter:
for all the hours drip with miserable poison.
And neither do elegies do any good, nor Apollo, the sponsor of poetry:
that girl keeps demanding a price with her hollowed hand.
Go far away, Muses, if you’re no help to a lover:
I don’t cultivate you for the purpose of war poetry,
nor do I relate the travels of the Sun and how, when she’s filled
out her circle, the Moon runs back with her horses turned.
I seek easy access to my mistress by means of songs:
go far away, Muses, if they have no power.

40
These lines reveal the obverse side of the bargain he originally offered Delia in
1.1: here he’d rather go on dangerous journeys than be treated cruelly by Nemesis.
242 SHARON L. JAMES

His poetry isn’t getting him where it should, where he wants to be—in his
mistress’s bed.41 Why? She is demanding gifts, which he claims he can
provide only by criminal means, since poetry is no help. A few standard
curses ensue, particularly on the perfidious goddess who has let him
down (21–26).42 The typical curse on the discoverer of costly luxuries
follows—for before girls knew of them, apparently they took lovers for
free. Now they charge admission (27–34). Further standard imprecations
conclude the passage, railing against the divinity that made girls pretty
and against the greedy girl herself (35–44).
At this point Tibullus’ lover-poet changes tactics, praising the non-
materialistic girl:

at bona quae nec avara fuit, centum licet annos

vixerit, ardentem flebitur ante rogum:
atque aliquis senior veteres veneratus amores
annua constructo serta dabit tumulo
et “bene” discedens dicet “placideque quiescas,
terraque securae sit super ossa levis.” (45–50)
but the girl who was good and not greedy, may she live a hundred
years and be wept for over her burning pyre:
and some elderly gentleman, honoring their long love,
will put an annual garland on her built-up tomb,
and as he leaves, he’ll say, “May you rest well and quietly,
and may the earth sit lightly over your safe bones.”

This posthumous gift is, of course, of no value at all to the living girl. In
any case, the gift of a single garland once a year is hardly munificent,43 so
this is once again a strategy that appeals to emotion.

41
Stroh (1971, 110–11) considers lines 29–30 elegy’s most powerful statements on its
own utilitarian nature. Bright (1978, 209) argues, contra, that this claim for elegy is patently
false in situ: “The more elaborate Tibullus becomes, the less convincing his protestations;
his claim that he only writes poetry to win Nemesis is both untrue on the face of it, and
unreasonable. Therefore his rejection of the Muses and their gift is unnatural and melodra-
matic, as it occurs in lines which show with unusual openness the deliberate effects of the
Muses’ arts.” But to Nemesis, the utilitarian motive of elegy is a given, as every piece of
poetry aimed at her is always persuasive, whether directly or indirectly.
42
In lines 23–26 the lover-poet appears to propose assaulting Venus’ temple to gain
the necessary gifts for Nemesis. Citing Pichon, s.v. violare, Bright (1978, 210) suggests that
considering Venus a symbol of Nemesis renders this curse “more intelligible,”as the “action
carries the thought of taking Nemesis by force.” The threat of rape has already arisen in
Tibullus, particularly in 1.6, where it is specifically forbidden by Cupid (51).
43
On this, Smith (1913, 441) and Putnam (1973, 181) both note that there are several
dates per year on which such a garland could be laid. Neither proposes that the garland will
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 243

The lover-poet seems to recognize the futility of asking his puella to

be “good, not greedy” (bona . . . nec avara), for he changes tactics again,
now seeming to give in, by way of volunteering to drink poisons brewed
by her:

vera quidem moneo, sed prosunt quid mihi vera?

illius est nobis lege colendus amor.
quin etiam sedes iubeat si vendere avitas,
ite sub imperium sub titulumque, Lares.
quidquid habet Circe, quidquid Medea veneni,
quidquid et herbarum Thessala terra gerit,
et quod, ubi indomitis gregibus Venus adflat amores,
hippomanes cupidae stillat ab inguine equae,
si modo me placido videat Nemesis mea vultu,
mille alias herbas misceat illa, bibam. (51–60)
I’m making truthful warnings, but what good does the truth do me?
I must cultivate love by her dictate.
Wherefore, if she orders me to sell my ancestral properties,
go under the sale-placard, Lares, under someone’s rules.
Whatever poison Circe has, whatever Medea has,
and whatever herbs the Thessalian land bears,
and whatever fluid, when Venus breaths passions into
the untamed flock, drips from the loins of a mare in heat,
if only Nemesis will look upon me with a peaceful face,
let her mix up a thousand other potions, I will drink them.

Though the lover seems to be conceding here, in fact these lines offer the
girl nothing. The exchange offered is yet another form of the speaker’s
love-for-loss deal: he’ll risk his life at her hands if only she’ll receive
him.44 But he never says, in the words of Jupiter to Juno at Aeneid 12.833,

be placed more than once a year. Murgatroyd (1994) on Tib. 2.6.32 suggests that floral gifts
might be given on several occasions annually. (Cf. the even greater observance and finan-
cial obligation of Joe DiMaggio, who for many years had roses placed three times weekly
on the grave of Marilyn Monroe, though they had been long divorced at the time of her
death.) Smith (1913, 441) further notes that constructo, in 48, suggests “that the tomb itself
has been carefully built and taken care of,” but again, to Nemesis, posthumous tokens, even
ones as significant as the construction and maintenance of a tomb, offer nothing she can
presently use.
44
This passage offers a classic example of the power of the puella’s perspective to
reveal the ethical disingenuity of elegy. Bright (1978, 215) comments rightly that “the finale
is so drastic, almost overdrawn, that it is hard to take quite seriously.” I would argue that it
is impossible to take seriously, especially as Nemesis will see herself described in them
virtually as a witch intent on poisoning her suitor. These lines may perhaps offer a negative
244 SHARON L. JAMES

do quod vis—“I give what you want.” His voluntary physical suffering
brings Nemesis no benefit, material or other; thus she cannot perceive
this deal as any kind of useful exchange for herself.
Further, this poem implicitly acknowledges throughout the lover-
poet’s social and financial advantage; a specter of need underlies her
demands, invoking Nemesis’ financial dependence on her lovers. Despite
his claim to be enslaved to her (1–4, 53–54) and her freedom to refuse
him, he retains the upper hand because he has property (53) and she
does not. To her, it is disingenuous to suggest that she will be better
rewarded by not asking: if the good puella will receive gifts from her
aged lover after her death, they will be of his choosing rather than hers
and can do her no material good. Given elegy’s distaste for sexual activ-
ity among the elderly, lines 45–49 conjure up not a stable extramarital
liaison but a marriage, an event that elegy never considers seriously. The
prospect of marriage may further remind Nemesis of her dependent,
insecure status, for as Veyne has remarked (1988, 2), the elegiac lover will
do anything for his beloved except marry her. Nemesis knows that her
lover-poet will eventually move on,45 so the suggestion of a long-term
relationship can carry no weight with her. Lines 19–20 make suspect his
gifts of poetry, for a motive like the desire for sexual access implies little
divine inspiration and can hardly persuade a docta puella.
Read from Nemesis’ point of view, Tibullus 2.4 promises nothing
substantive, only a hint of praise in the distant future if she ceases now to
ask for gifts. The apparent capitulations of 53–54 (a rather impractical
course of action)46 and 55–60 do not actually suggest that the speaker will
bring her anything at all. Thus to Nemesis, this poem offers only elegiac

persuasion, by way of encouraging her to be less cruel than Medea or Circe; the overt
persuasion they offer, that her lover will be her slave and lab rat, is of no value to her. The
implicit ethical persuasion they offer, that she should show pity on her hopelessly devoted
lover-poet by receiving him, is nothing new to her.
45
Indeed, the Tibullan lover-poet has more named love objects than do the other
speakers of elegy; in other words; his inconstancy is on record.
46
On Tib. 2.3 and 2.4, Cairns (1979, 209–12) argues that they demonstrate “Tibullus’
striking espousal of wealth and rejection of aspects of his standard persona” (209). Cairns
remarks (212) that the offer to sell the ancestral estate is “more practical and realistic” than
crime, and the lover-poet’s “recourse to it is more likely” than his plan to turn criminal. But
even this analysis does not demonstrate any actual promises by the lover-poet to deliver
anything concrete to Nemesis, merely his willingness to undergo “every and any degrada-
tion, provided only that Nemesis smiles on him” (212). To Nemesis, the degraded lover is
unlikely to offer much material benefit.
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 245

male persuasion with no material benefit.47 Finally, in the intransigence

of both parties, it demonstrates the gender and class divide, for the puella
cannot afford free love, and the elite lover, who can afford to believe that
he’s actually in love, won’t believe that it’s love if he has to pay. Hence
the elegiac impasse, in which the irresistible force and the immovable
object—one is tempted to call them the irresistible object and the im-
movable force—conduct their amorous hostilities over love and material
goods.
Propertius’ Monobiblos takes on the problem of the demanding
girlfriend immediately after the programmatic poem 1.1. The speaker
takes a relatively flattering approach to the problem by arguing that
Cynthia needs no costly adornment.48 He offers up the exempla of mythi-
cal heroines who needed no jewelry or makeup to attract hero-lovers
(1.2.15–24), then undercuts his argument somewhat—given his prior state-
ment that both Amor and nature need no adornment—by comparing
their faces to the artwork of Apelles.49 As if recognizing his misstep, the
lover immediately alters his tack by claiming that it was the modesty
(pudicitia, 24) of the heroines rather than their effort (studium, 23) that
attracted their famous and glorious lovers. Then he changes the subject
to himself and Cynthia: he does not fear seeming worse (vilior, 25) than
the heroes, for, if a girl attracts just one man, she is adorned sufficiently.
Especially, he goes on to say, because Cynthia has attractions both liter-
ary and physical, sponsored by divinities (27–30). The final couplet offers
her an exchange like that offered to Delia in Tibullus 1.1—if you stay just
this way, you’ll be the love of my life: “his tu semper eris nostrae gratissima
vitae, / taedia dum miserae sint tibi luxuriae” (“on account of these
graces, you’ll always be the most pleasing woman of my life, / as long as
wretched luxuries are disgusting to you,” 31–32).50

47
Further, as Bright (1978, 207) notes, this poem’s “dominant feature” is rhetoric; as
he points out (205), the standard, generic nature of some of the inset arguments “is all the
more striking in a poem where the author professes to compose for strictly utilitarian
reasons (19–20).” To Nemesis, the very genericness of these arguments suggests all the
more that her lover-poet has no intention of coming through with the material support she
needs.
48
It is no accident that Acanthis quotes the opening to this poem when she mocks
elegiac persuasion: “quid iuvat ornato procedere, vita, capillo / et tenuis Coa veste movere
sinus?” (1.2.1–2 = 4.5.55–56: “Why is it pleasing, darling, to go out with decorated hair / and
to move your tender limbs in a Coan dress?”).
49
“nudus Amor formae non amat artificem” (“naked Love does not love the artifi-
cer of beauty,” 1.2.8).
50
He expresses a similar sentiment at 2.18c.30, in which he instructs his puella not to
dye her hair—she’s pretty enough for him, he says, if she’ll just let him see her: “mi formosa
246 SHARON L. JAMES

Implicit in that dum is the threat articulated in Ovid’s first poem on

the subject, Amores 1.10: “if you keep demanding expensive gifts, I’ll stop
wanting you.” This poem, Ovid’s major exposition of the greedy-girl
theme,51 is a tour de force that applies all the persuasive techniques of
elegy—appeals to logos, ethos, pathos, and mythohistoric exempla—then,
like Tibullus 2.4, seems to give in. It begins with a series of mythological
raptae puellae: I even feared, says the lover-poet to his puella, that Jove
would assault you (1–8). But now I’ve recovered from that madness, and
your beauty no longer holds me captive. Why? Because you’re asking for
gifts.52 Here the lover-poet implicitly threatens her with removal of his
affection, which he characterizes as a flaw in himself—a flaw corrected
by her own defect: “donec eras simplex, animum cum corpore amavi; /
nunc mentis vitio laesa figura tua est” (“when you were pure, I loved soul
along with body; / now your beauty has been damaged by the defect of
your mind,” 13–14). A brief excursus on Venus and Cupid, like a musical
trill, establishes sex as innocent, a harmless activity unrelated to war and
commerce (15–20).53
The serious argumentation gets under way in a set of exempla and
logical questions, all of which require ignoring the material needs of the
puella and pretending that she and her lover-poet are equals:

stat meretrix certo cuivis mercabilis aere

et miseras iusso corpore quaerit opes;
devovet imperium tamen haec lenonis avari
et, quod vos facitis sponte, coacta facit.

sat es, si modo saepe venis” (“you’re beautiful enough for me, if only you’ll come to me
often”). Gaisser (1977, 385) notes that Prop. 1.2 seeks not Cynthia’s fidelity but her financial
modesty: “Propertius’ principal interest in the elegy is to dissuade Cynthia from the use of
expensive finery. . . . His plea is not that she be chaste but that she be less expensive.”
51
Am. 1.8 also presents the issue of mandatory gift-giving, but from the opposition’s
point of view.
52
On this, McKeown (1989, 287) notes that the puella’s request for gifts is “not so
very reprehensible,” so that the amator is shown to be overreacting. The gifts do, however,
serve a significant function for the puella, who needs material goods as well as cash in order
to maintain her elegance and attractions, and as both Zagagi (1980, 118–20) and Davidson
(1997, 111–12) point out, the gift exchange allows both partners to elide the commercial
basis underlying their sexual relationship. Thus the lover-poet both overreacts and ignores
the function of these gifts. On the language of mercantilism in this poem, see Curran 1964,
passim.
53
It is no coincidence that these are the other two occupations generically available
to the elegist, in the forms of remunerative military missions and public epic poetry.
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 247

25 sumite in exemplum pecudes ratione carentes:

turpe erit, ingenium mitius esse feris.
non equa munus equum, non taurum vacca poposcit,
non aries placitam munere captat ovem.
sola viro mulier54 spoliis exultat ademptis,
30 sola locat noctes, sola locanda venit
et vendit, quod utrumque iuvat, quod uterque petebat,
et pretium, quanti gaudeat ipsa, facit.
quae Venus ex aequo ventura est grata duobus,
altera cur illam vendit et alter emit?
35 cur mihi sit damno, tibi sit lucrosa voluptas,
quam socio motu femina virque ferunt? (21–36)
The prostitute stands out, for purchase by anybody at a fixed price
and she seeks miserable wealth by obeying orders with her
body;
nevertheless she curses the command of the greedy pimp
and, what you do freely, she does by force.
25 Take for example the flock animals who have no rationality:
it would be disgraceful if wild animals had a milder character.
The mare doesn’t seek a gift from the stallion, nor the heifer from
the bull,
nor does the ram capture the happy ewe with a gift.
Only a woman rejoices in spoils taken off a man,
30 only she sells her nights, only she comes with a price
and sells what pleases both, what each was seeking,
and sets her price by her own pleasure.
The sex to come will please both equally,
so why should one sell it and the other have to buy?
35 Why should pleasure be costly to me and profitable to you,
which a man and a woman create in joint motion?

In the context of elegy, references to prostitutes are risky, since the puella
occupies a social position closer to them than to the lover-poet, so he
reverts to his previous theme—sex as a natural, nonprofit activity—this
time using examples from the animal world (25–28).55 These exempla,
along with the principles of 15–20, allow him to characterize the puella as

54
McKeown (1989, 294–95) notes that mulier (29) “used by the poets . . . generally
has disparaging connotations,” and proposes that it operates here to underscore the argu-
ment of line 26. On the relative values of femina, the more polite term for woman, and
mulier, the derogatory term, see L’hoir; note that mulier is what the lover-poet calls Cynthia
at Prop. 3.24.1 as he is insulting her beauty and preparing to bid her farewell for good.
55
As Curran (1964, 315) notes, we are “led from brothel to barnyards to business.”
248 SHARON L. JAMES

violating the very nature of sex (29–32). Thus he can claim that both
partners equally seek and enjoy sex, a view that again requires ignoring
their social and financial inequity. The rhetorical questions of 33–36
further rely upon the invented equality of lover-poet and puella, arguing
from the points in 31–36 that both partners seek sex, both enjoy it, and
the activity itself is joint.56 But elegy nowhere establishes that the puella
seeks lovers, at least not in her youth; they seek her, as she knows.
Thus Ovid’s lover-poet, again on shaky ground, must change strat-
egy. He turns to other examples, continually characterizing payment as
contemptible (37–42), arguing that the intangible benefits of gratia ac-
crue only when a favor has been done for free (43–46). This admission of
course suggests that the puella is performing a service for her lover, that
their sexual relationship originates in his desire, not in mutual desire;
hence he must implicitly threaten, as he has already done in 1–12, that
her continued demands for gifts will alienate him (45–46). But this sug-
gestion returns him to the original impasse, so he changes tactics yet
again, now adding pathos to his mythohistoric exempla, to show that
purchased favors go bad, citing the unhappy ends of Tarpeia and Eriphile
(47–52). These examples, however, do not remotely fit the present situa-
tion (they’re even less apposite than the animals of 25–28), so the lover-
poet gives up. Demanding a price is unworthy in law and social relations,
but not in love, as long as the donor is rich: “nec tamen indignum est a
divite praemia posci: / munera poscenti quod dare possit habet” (“but
still, it’s not unworthy for prizes to be sought from a rich man: / he has
something he can give to the demander,” 53–54). The poor man can,
however, perform services,57 and the poet can make girls eternally fa-
mous (57–62). Ultimately, the lover-poet pretends defeat: he’ll give, he
says, as long as she does not ask: “nec dare, sed pretium posci dedignor et
odi; / quod nego poscenti, desine velle, dabo” (“it isn’t giving, but being

56
See Habinek 1997, 37–38, on Ovid’s “argument from equal pleasure” (37) in this
passage. As he says, “Ovid transfers the notion of mutuality from homosocial to hetero-
sexual relations and concretizes it in an exhortation to equal enjoyment, but the net effect
is to disembed sex from its traditional context without disrupting other aspects of that
context that he has an interest in preserving. The Ovidian amator’s pretense that his
mistress can love him as freely as Calvus can love Catullus flies in the face of everything we
know about the asymmetrical distribution of power between men and women in the
historical Rome” (38).
57
The service offered by the poor man is a standard elegiac topos; see also Tib.
1.5.61–66 and Ars 2.209–30.
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 249

asked for a price, that I disdain and hate; / what I refuse the asker, stop
wanting, and I’ll give,” 63–64).58
This apparent concession, however, is as vague and materially use-
ful as the profferred suicide in Tibullus 2.4, for the puella cannot put such
a promise in the bank. Further, this offer by Ovid’s lover-poet continues
the pretense of equality: he says he’ll voluntarily give her gifts (which of
course will be of his choosing), again eliding the reality of her circum-
stances and their relationship.59 This offer requires her to stop making
demands, but from her point of view, it’s a losing proposition, designed to
get her to give sex in hopes of getting gifts. If she should inquire about
those gifts, however, the deal would be off. This bargain boxes the puella
in, so her only recourse is to refuse it.
The offer seems to be made out of resignation, but it is the final
strategy in the lover-poet’s program of getting access to his beloved
without paying. Proof that such is his goal is found at Ars 1.399–454, the
instruction on avoidance of gifts. Lines 399–418 identify the dangerous
dates on the Roman calendar, when gifts are given. The worst is the girl’s
birthday, but any day requiring a gift is evil (417–18). Still, a man can’t
escape, says the praeceptor amoris, for a woman will eventually get some-
thing out of him: “cum bene vitaris, tamen auferet; invenit artem / femina,
qua cupidi carpat amantis opes” (“even though you’ll have avoided it
well, nonetheless she’ll bear it away; a woman / finds the means by which
she can snatch the wealth of her desiring lover,” 419–20).60 So, he must
pretend he’s going to give, but if he does give a gift, he is lost, as she’ll feel
free to drop him: “promittas facito, quid enim promittere laedit? / pollicitis
dives quilibet esse potest” (“go ahead and promise, for what does it hurt
to make promises? / anybody can be rich in promises,” 443–44). If a lover
pulls this trick off properly, the puella will have to keep giving him sex for

58
The elegiac lover has his own ideas about the kinds of gifts he’d prefer to give. The
Propertian speaker gives the sleeping Cynthia gifts of fruit (1.3.24–26), which are hardly
likely to be of much financial interest to her. On inexpensive and perishable small gifts as
the lover’s preferred medium of erotic exchange, as opposed to the costly luxuries de-
manded by the puella, see Sharrock 1991, 44–45.
59
See Zagagi 1980, 118–20; see also Davidson 1997, 109–12.
60
The following lines detail her tricks (421–34) and end with a resounding curse on
women, in words that betray both the elegiac lover’s knowledge of the puella’s profession
and the praeceptor’s hatred of women: “non mihi, sacrilegas meretricum ut persequar artes,
/ cum totidem linguis sint satis ora decem” (“For me to detail out the immoral strategies of
prostitutes, ten mouths, / with as many tongues, would not be enough,” 435–36).
250 SHARON L. JAMES

free, to redeem her past concessions: “ne dederit gratis quae dedit, usque
dabit” (“so that she not have given free what she has already given, she’ll
keep on giving,” 454).61 The previous line sums up with Vergilian majesty
the major task of the young would-be lover: “hoc opus, hic labor est,
primo sine munere iungi,” and it identifies the constant impasse of the
elegiac lover and puella, who are divided by her material needs and his
desire to ignore them.

III. WHEN THE DOCTA PUELLA READS ELEGY

Thus, to the docta puella, the penury and unremunerative poetry that the
lover-poet takes up in the elegiac recusatio are voluntary, optional, since
the lover can always return to other activities and careers; the sex he
seeks via the recusatio is the only thing she has to offer. Once she has
given it up, she loses all her leverage. As we have seen by reading from
the perspective of the female addressee, these tactics ignore her material
needs—the docta puella cannot live on poetry alone. Further, since po-
etry is designed to provide easy access to the puella (in Tibullus’ phrase,
ad dominam faciles aditus per carmina quaero, 2.4.19), it is suspect: it is
the product not of the Muses’ inspiration but of calculating male sexual
desire, as an appropriately learned girl will figure out. Even if she doesn’t
figure it out for herself, the lena is always there to remind her, to direct
her attention back to the bottom line.62 But even without a decoding lena
at hand (not to mention the generous rival who so often lurks about),
male elegiac persuasion may backfire by actually reminding the puella of
her dependent status. Further, the apparent capitulations are clearly
specious: the posthumous memorial gifts described in Tibullus 2.4 can do
no present or even future material good; and the clever offer of Amores
1.10, to give if the puella will stop asking, is actually designed not only to
protect the lover from involuntary generosity but to get her to stop
asking at all.

61
This line underscores the social and financial imbalance between lover and puella
in elegy: in elegy the word dare, to give, is regularly used, idiosyncratically without a direct
object. The puella requires the lover to give unspecified material gifts; he wants her to give
sex in return.
62
Tib. 1.5.57–60, Prop. 4.5, and Am. 1.8 provide references to and examples of
advisory senior colleagues of comedy and elegy, who counsel their junior colleagues to
follow the money and to be dubious of flattering male speech, the hallmark of elegy. See
also the remarks of Syra at Hec. 58–75; Scapha, at Most. 157–290; and Cleareta, passim in
Asin.
 ECONOMICS OF ROMAN ELEGY 251

These male persuasive strategies, intended to appeal to a learned

female love object, cannot help failing, since they do not address the
basic inequities of the elegiac love relationship. The dilemma of the docta
puella is that she may indeed appreciate the artistic offerings of her lover
but be unable to afford them. To her, elegies offer only an effort at
persuasion, with no material benefit, and they underscore the gender
divide of elegy, in which the male speaker retains a financial advantage
over his beloved, despite his claims to be her helpless slave. These sites in
elegy, when viewed from the perspective of the puella, reveal elegy’s
ethical disingenuity in favoring the male lover socially and materially.
Reading elegy from the docta puella’s perspective does offer other rev-
elations,63 but, as I hope to have demonstrated here, two crucial struc-
tural elements of elegy—the recusatio and the topos of the greedy girl—
when seen from that girl’s viewpoint turn out to be primarily tactics of
male sexual persuasion rather than the purely aesthetic and ethical stances
that the elegiac lover-poets proclaim them to be.64

UNIVERSITY OF N ORTH C AROLINA

e-mail: sljames@email.unc.edu

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As I hope to demonstrate in my forthcoming study, noted above.
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It is a pleasure to acknowledge those who have read and commented on various
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