BOOK REVIEWS Sextus Propertius: The Augustan Elegist. By FRANCIS CAIRNS. Cam bridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xvi + 492. Cloth, $100.00. ISBN 978-0-521-86457-2. Francis Cairns is one of themost recognizable voices inClassics. He is a scholar of immense intelligence, deep learning, imaginative scope and dogged determination. Yet he often employs a style of argumentation that begins from a plausible premise and then seeks to hammer away on that initial intuition as an explanatory key until he reaches conclusions that ultimately are neither convincing nor necessarily useful. It is one of the paradoxes of a brilliant mind that it often becomes so enthralled with the explanatory power of its own insights that it becomes incapable of seeing or evaluating counter evidence, but instead builds ever more elaborate structures that finally implode under their own weight and lead the reader to ques tion even what remains of value in the initial intuition. Indeed, often when I read C, I am reminded of no one somuch asMartin Bernal. Needless to say, what follows will not be a glowing review of C/s new book, yet it is not at all the product of contempt or a lack of profound respect for a scholar of obvious giftswho has toiled in the vineyards of philology for four decades and made many real contri butions. Under these circumstances, I feel that this book is owed the favor of a genuine engagement and counterargument. What follows, then,will be a step-by-step analysis of some major moments in C/s text and of his style of argumentation in an attempt to show pre cisely how such brilliance can go badly off the rails. C/s book contains essentially three parts. The first is an attempt to reconstruct the biography and family connections of Propertius, based largely upon epigraphic evidence from Assisi. Much of the material here is highly speculative, but it is of genuine interest. C. demonstrates that the Propertii were a prominent family from the region, and that there is every reason to believe that they were related by marriage to theVolcacii Tulli, who in turn had close rela tions with theMaecenates. Much of this goes a long way toward explaining how Propertius came to join the inner circle ofMaecenas, a social position that has struckmore than one reader as odd and into which Horace at least never seems tohave fully accepted the elegist. The next two parts build on this initial reconstruction and, as is unfortunately typical of the present work, often seem to accept as proven factwhat is initially, rightfully presented as a speculative re construction. This slide from heuristic speculation to a set of proven 276 BOOK REVIEWS premises from which one can deduce firm conclusions is typical of the argumentation throughout the book. Part two is essentially a meditation on Gallus and his role in theMonobiblos. Part three at tempts to prove that since Propertius accepted the patronage of Maecenas, all readings that perceive a moment of subversive irony in the Propertian text are a priori ruled out of order. Iwill now take up each of these arguments in turn. The contention thatGallus is a central presence in theMonobiblos is of course nothing new. Ithad already been extensively treated by Skutsch (1906) and Ross (1975); more recently, ithas been taken up by Janan (2001), myself (2004), and in countless articles and book reviews. C. cites from Skutsch and Ross extensively and essentially seeks to extend their insights. Janan and I are cited when we agree with him, but ignored when we disagree. All other viewpoints on elegy or the Propertian Monobiblos are systematically excluded. The result is five chapters devoted toGallus and theMonobiblos, two de voted solely to "Gallan metrics/' inwhich one would never guess that important books on elegy had been written by R.O.A.M. Lyne, Duncan Kennedy, Ellen Greene, Sharon James or Paul Veyne. The Propertius that emerges from this reading is greatly impov erished and the Gallus grotesquely inflated. The unwary reader could indeed quickly forget that barely 12 fragmentary lines survive from Gallus. To his credit, C. presses these texts for all they are worth. He notes...