1 “You scramble to avoid my fate, soldier,
wounded at the Etruscan rampart.
Why do you roll swollen eyes when I groan?
I'm from the next unit.
I hope you make it through; let your parents celebrate,
may your sister sense from your tears what's happened:
Gallus, ripped from the midst of Caesar's swords,
tried to escape the enemy units—but was not able.
No matter how many bones you see scattered on
the Etruscan mountains, let her know these are mine.”
1 The Gallus referred to is probably not the Gallus of the other poems in this book, but a neighbor of Propertius' who died in the Perusine war (41 B.C). See poem 22.
Propertius. Charm. Vincent Katz. trans. Los Angeles. Sun & Moon Press. 1995.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
