Propertius and Augustus

Propertius, affected at an early age by Augustus' quest for power and the submission of the conquered, had attitudes critical of Augustus, but he felt pressure to veil his true opinions by flattering the Emperor in his poetry for the sake of self-preservation. Many of his poems praise the military accomplishments of Augustus, but they also contain signals that Propertius is not expressing his true attitudes on the surface. Propertius gives descriptions of military conquest a distasteful flavor, and he rejects outright the Augustan program of pax through the total subjugation of Rome’s enemies, with whom he identifies as a victim of imperial conquest.