Propertius 3.20 and 4.8: The Amator
as Husband, Wife, Lover, and Meretrix

Melanie J. Racette-Campbell (University of Saskatchewan)

Sections of Propertius 3.20 and 4.8 have distinct similarities both to Greco-Roman marriage contracts and to contracts between hetaerae and their lovers in Greek new comedy.    In the turmoil of the late Republic and early Principate, there was room for experimentation with new roles as the old ones were disappearing or changing.  In the course of both of these poems, the poet inhabits the different roles of the contractors as part of his programmatic attempt to break down the barriers between genders and to construct a new identity for himself, neither traditionally masculine nor effeminate, but a blend of male and female traits.  

In 3.20, Propertius writes of drawing up a contract to be sealed and witnessed before a new love affair with a girl he has enticed from a rival is consummated.  He proceeds to threaten the male partner with pain and sorrows should he betray the affair, thereby identifying himself with the wronged woman.  This in turn brings one back to the beginning of the poem, when he emphasizes the betrayal of his beloved’s former lover in an effort to win her himself.

In 4.8, the amator is at first presented as a betrayed lover who plans to be disloyal in return.  His attempt is foiled first by his own impotence, then by his mistress, who descends upon him with the wrath of a wronged husband.  This section of the poem has previously been interpreted as a military metaphor, in which terms are imposed on the vanquished.  I believe that it is more reminiscent of a marriage contract from Oxyrhynchos which appears to have been made up to renegotiate the marriage after some sort of betrayal, likely adulterous, on the wife’s part.  It also contains similarities to the paranoid specificity of the contract between a courtesan and her lover in Plautus’ Asinaria. The terms of the contract are where the similarities to the Egyptian contract and the Asinaria are particularly evident, with Cynthia as the jealous, wronged vir and the lover-poet as the straying woman.