SOURCE: "Martial and the Roman Crowd," The Classical Journal, Vol. XXVII, No. 4, January, 1932, pp. 244-54.

[In the essay below, Spaeth surveys Martial's depiction of men whose occupations he either scorned as contemptible or envied because they were lucrative—cobblers and booksellers, moneylenders and pawnbrokers, merchants and undertakers, and charioteers and musicians, among others.]

The epigrams of Martial have long served as a rich source of supply for those who would seek a more intimate knowledge of life as it was lived at Rome in the first century of the Empire. This is quite as it should be, for Martial was one who freely obeyed his own command to live in the present¹ and at the same time he had been endowed by nature with a keen sense of vision and an agile mind, which he used with unsurpassed success in describing what he saw and experienced. The simplicity and sparkling vividness of his little poems make them immediately appealing and expressive. His vignettes of Roman life are based upon a familiar background into which they naturally merge; but oftener than not this is true because of the very wealth of detail which he himself has supplied. Both by virtue of necessity and by deliberate intent the epigrammatist knew life at close range and from that knowledge derived both entertainment and a livelihood. No one knew the contemporary scene better than he; no one observed it with so professional an interest.

Moreover, if it be objected that Martial's pictures are too frequently vitiated by exaggeration, the result of prejudice and a straining after effect, it must also be acknowledged that the character of the man is so clearly revealed in his verse that the exaggeration can easily be discounted by the discerning reader. For Martial's prejudices are seldom so deep-seated as to be very vicious; Juvenal erred much more in that direction. The epigrammatist scanned the surface, wearing his heart on his sleeve, so to speak, and submitting to no close philosophic attachment. His interests were generally broad rather than deep. It was thus that he touched life closely at all levels and was enabled, by his gift of pointed expression, to invite his many readers to a feast of such richness and variety.

Representatives of practically all walks of Roman life are mentioned and criticized by Martial in the course of his fifteen books. Sometimes the mention is a brief one; in other cases the poet is moved, more often by animosity than by sympathy, to give his pen freer play. Of the sixty or more Roman occupations, high and low, to which he alludes there are very few which find much favor in his sight. In an earlier essay² I presented his views on doctors, teachers, lawyers, and poets, about whom he permitted himself considerable eloquence. The purpose of the present paper will be to follow the poet's course as he ranges more widely through the heterogeneous Roman mob, in the fora, the Subura, the parks, and the porticoes, making note as he passes of each flagrant example of vice or folly which may serve him later as the subject for an epigram.

Let us turn first to the world of the petty tradesmen. These were in many cases slaves or freedmen who acted as agents for their betters. There were all sorts, but for Martial they might all be lumped together as necessary evils that must be tolerated. And yet the poet admits that some of them at least, like the butcher, barber, and taverner, are indispensable aids to a livable existence. The noisy baker (pistor), like others of his genus, robs one of an hour or two of sleep before daybreak (XII, 57, 4f), a heinous sin for which Martial can never forgive him.³ Then there is, too, the crafty taverner (copo) who tries to sell his cheap wine unmixed with the more precious water (I, 56; III, 57). At this rate, thinks Martial, it is about time for him to be giving a gladiatorial show to his native town, as a cobbler and a fuller have already done for theirs (III, 59). Even book-sellers (bybliopolae) are thriving beyond their deserts. Tryphon is selling Martial's thirteenth book (the collection of Xenia or "Guest-Gifts") for twenty cents, whereas at half the price it would yield him a decent profit (XIII, 3). But, in passing, the poet pays to the book-dealer Quintus Pollius Valerianus the compliment of remarking that it is through him that his poems are not permitted to disappear from public view (I, 113); and, for advertising purposes, he informs us that another of his publishers is Secundus, freedman of learned Lucensis (I, 2).

The depth of degradation is very nearly reached when, one descends to the level of the petty huckster. Wishing to be especially abusive to one Caecilius who has dared to regard himself as a man of polish and wit, Martial likens him to the common street vender and much else besides—the hawker who trades sulphur chips for broken glassware (X, 3, 3f, the peddler of pease-pudding, the vile slaves of the salt-fish merchant (salarius),⁴ the raw-voiced purveyor of smoking sausages (I, 41). The foul debauchee is merely in the same category. The dealer in slaves (mango) offends by his greed (IX, 5, 4) and still more by the din he makes (IX, 29, 5). This was a combination that Martial could not stomach. The self-imposed pomposity of the merchant (negotiator) in Agrippa's Saepta (X, 87, 9) and the frenzied haste of the business man in the fora (VIII, 44) move him to scorn. He is prompted to warn Titullus, as he observes him rushing about from forum to forum in the busy hours of the morning, sweating and mud-bespattered, that his wealth is an evanescent thing after all: "Plunder, hoard, pilfer, possess; you must finally leave it all."⁵ How the poet exults in the edict of Domitian that forbade these pushing fellows to overflow the whole street in the ambitious promotion of their trade! Thanks to the emperor, no longer must a praetor tramp through the mud in the middle of the street; no longer does the reckless barber brandish his razor dangerously close to the ears of pedestrians, nor the smoky cook-shop (nigra popina) monopolize most of the walk. "Barber, taverner, cook, and butcher (lanius) are keeping to their own thresholds. Now Rome actually does exist; recently it was but one huge shop" (VII, 61). This world of business was not for Martial. It was too noisy, too nervously busy, and too undeservedly profitable; on these grounds alone it would justly have merited our author's unrighteous indignation. But, in addition, it was one side of Roman life that the prouder Roman should not tolerate, and Martial's disapproval is merely superimposed upon this traditional attitude and buttressed by it.

The tale is not much different among the handicraftsmen and those who contracted for their services. We are still in the realm of slave and freedman. What an outrage, exclaims the poet, this kissing craze has become at Rome! You are bussed on one side by the weaver (textor), on the other by the fuller (fullo), and again by the cobbler (sutor) who has just been kissing his hide (XII, 59). What could be more disgusting? Yet these same fullers, greedy like the rest (VI, 93, 1), gather in their inordinate gains and, at least in the case of one of their number, can entertain their native municipalities with gladiatorial shows (III, 59). The metalworker (aerarius) and the money-lender (faenerator) are among those who rob Rome of its matutinal slumbers and so, of course, could never rise at all in Martial's esteem (XII, 57, 6f). These money-lenders were loathsome creatures anyway to a man like Martial, who was in a continual state of insolvency and would rather receive a gift of money than put up surety for a loan. Sextus, one of these fellows, at the approach of our poet, murmurs to himself very audibly that he hasn't a cent (quadrans nullus) in his chest. "Vile worm!" mutters Martial; "it is bad enough to refuse a loan when you are asked, but much worse to do so before-hand" (II, 44). Cladus, another pawn-broker, advances less than forty cents on a customer's ring (II, 57). One of Martial's particular banes among this class was Secundus, stern-voiced and without a trace of human benevolence (VII, 92, 3). A contractor (redemptor) for construction work is very likely to be an arrant cheat, and a good five-foot rule, says Martial, is a handy weapon to have on hand to combat his fraud (XIV, 92). Even the brazen mule-driver (mulio), knowing that his asinine subjects cannot complain intelligibly about him, will rob them of their barley and sell it to the innkeeper (X, 2, 9f; XIII, 11).

Undertakers' menials (vispillones), too, are a tribe to be scorned, being on a par with hangmen (carnifices) and neither better nor worse than doctors (I, 30; I, 47; and II, 61, 3f); and this, as we have seen,⁶ is contempt indeed. Barbers (tonsores) are especially exasperating. It is hard to do without them (II, 48, 2), and yet they goad one almost to the verge of despair. The sidewalk barber, in particular, is a menace to life on this planet (VII, 61, 7). The slashing Antiochus, barber by trade, will disfigure a customer more effectively than any other known agent. Avoid him if you are not yet prepared to meet the god of the lower world. The he-goat of all beasts alone seems to have good sense: he chooses to go bearded in order to escape Antiochus' razor (XI, 84). The barber Eutrapelus (Mr. Skillful), on the other hand, works so slowly and deliberately that another beard has grown by the time he has finished shaving the original one (VII, 83).⁷ Yet one of these worthless fellows, Cinnamus, "the most noted barber in the whole city," has been made a knight through the generosity of a female acquaintance, only to find, as Martial tauntingly observes, that he is, by nature, fitted to be nothing else than a barber (VII, 64; cf. also VI, 64, 26). Martial is here voicing, in his own pungent manner and with his own unique comments, the opinions of his day and generation. For the pursuits which all these men represented met with scant respect from any true-born Roman citizen. They were all out of caste.

Certain trades in particular Martial regarded as especially conducive to ill-deserved gain; and about these, for this reason if for no other, his pen is more fluent than ever. The job of public crier or auctioneer (praeco), like that of undertaker (libitinarius), was held in general contempt.⁸ So when the auctioneer Gellianus, mentioned by Martial, kissed the slave girl in order to prove her qualities, he immediately lost all chances of making a sale (VI, 66). Yet such vileness did not prevent the trade of auctioneer from being one of the most profitable in the imperial city. Our poet advises a friend, Lupus, to avoid all higher learning for his boy: if he is dull, make him an auctioneer and his fortune is assured (V, 56).⁹ Just so the praeco Eulogus (Mr. Plausible) wins the hand of an eligible maiden in the face of competition from two praetors, four tribunes, seven lawyers, and ten poets; and Martial is quite cynically convinced that the old father has done wisely and well by his daughter (VI, 8).¹⁰ Cobblers (sutores) seem to have furnished another special butt for Martial's disesteem. He abominates their kisses as he would those of a viper (XII, 59). In three epigrams (III, 16, 59, and 99) he applies to a cobbler the term cerdo, which was used for slaves or tradesmen of the lowest class. Such creatures are outcast; but this fact does not hinder them in the accumulation of wordly treasure. Here is one who has become possessed of the estate of his deceased patron. "My parents taught me latters," bitterly exclaims the poet; "but what is the use to me of teachers of grammar and of rhetoric if a shoe can give a cobbler a gift like that?" (IX, 73). Another cobbler, like his mate the fuller, is affluent enough to spend his surplus on a gladiatorial show for his home town (III, 16 and 59), and Martial is rather fiendishly amused when he has got the fellow angry by twitting him about it (III, 99).

Charioteers (aurigae) are another low-lived lot which the public honors with both praise and wealth. Here we can well imagine that it is the real Martial himself who is speaking. One Catianus is rogue enough to "pull" his team in a race, probably in order to gratify some patron who has staked his money on a different color (VI, 46). Yet in polite conversation his fellows Scorpus and Incitatus will take precedence over topics of art and literature (XI, 1, 15f), just as Messrs. Ruth and Tunney, in our own sporting circles, have little competition from Barrie or Shaw. Scorpus, when victorious, carries off in a single hour fifteen bags of gold, whereas the client Martial spends a whole feverish day to receive a few spare pennies (X, 74; cf. also X, 76). In view of this bitterness we are tempted to wonder who paid our poet for writing the lament on Scorpus' death and the eulogistic epitaph that we find in the tenth book of the Epigrams (X, 50 and 53). Or may it be, rather, that here we read the sportsman Martial's genuine tribute to the individual, whereas elsewhere we have his stinging scorn for an overprized profession? Musicians, too, were a well-paid tribe—too well paid, of course, for Martial's satisfaction. The same parent whom we have already mentioned is advised to make his boy into a lyre-player (citharoedus) or a flute-player (choraules) if he shows an aptitude for money-making arts (V, 56). The poet belittles the pride of a certain wealthy Rufinus by reminding him that Philomelus the musician has more than he (III, 31); and he replies to a hypothetical query as to when he will return to Rome from a sojourn in Cisalpine Gaul with the words, veniet cum citharoedus erit (III, 4). In spite of their wealth, as well as because of it, these musicians were a bother; and the best entertainment of all, Martial thinks, is one in which there is no lyre-player to din one's ears (IX, 77).

Architecture was another lucrative pursuit at Rome, but it was also generally held in higher esteem than the others already mentioned. Martial is hardly different in his own attitude. While he grieves to note that this calling is highly rewarded while the profession of letters is not (V, 56), he is ready to pay a very flattering tribute to Rabirius, the architect (architectus) of Domitian's palace on the Palatine (VII, 56).¹¹ The fact remains, however, that Martial could not view with perfect serenity the professional status of the auctioneer, the cobbler, the charioteer, the musician, and the architect so long as they were paid well and the pursuit of poetry was a career of beggary. This was a perversion of nature that he could never condone.

The charioteer and the musician were not the only professional entertainers that our poet disliked. He spurned them all; and we can imagine that here, too, he was sustained in his position by the best elements of Roman society. Gladiators (gladiatores) were, in most cases, slaves, though under the Empire they were, on occasion, even equites and senators; and they merited little esteem from any respectable person. Yet, to be sure, many of them were idolized, like our own athletic heroes. Martial himself pays a tribute to the fighter Hermes (et gladiator et magister) in a peculiar poem of fifteen lines, every one of which begins with the idol's name (V, 24).

The gladiatorial trainers (lanistae) were by general consent little more than brutes, so that Martial was probably echoing sentiment in using the name of this occupation, along with other obviously vile terms, as an epithet to apply to a certain Vacerra whom he despised. Even here the poet cannot refrain from inveighing against riches in his customary manner. "I wonder, Vacerra," he concludes, "why you are not wealthy!" (XI, 66). The boxing master (magister) with his cauliflower ear (fracta aure) was probably not much better (VII, 32, 5). The keeper and trainer of snakes (custos dominusque viperarum) and the foul dancing master from Gades were of the lowest rank of disrepute, classed with those petty hucksters whom we have already introduced as stigmatized by Martial as the very dregs of humanity (I, 41).

Of actors (mimi)¹² the poet has little of importance to say.¹³ He mentions the mima Thymele and the mimi Latinus and Panniculus in terms that would suggest > that the performances in which they participated were not the highest and purest forms of histrionic art. In fact, the acting profession was, like some others, confined almost entirely to freedmen, foreigners, and slaves; the citizen who performed professionally, at least under the Empire, suffered legal infamia, thus being barred from holding public office.¹⁴ Accordingly, the social esteem in which actors as such were held could not have been very high,¹⁵ though individual performers were complimented, flattered, and materially rewarded. Martial seems to be paying a high tribute to the famous Latinus in an epigram that is echoed by Ben Jonson's lines on Shakespeare.¹⁶ There the actor, styling himself "the sweet idol of the stage, the glory of the games, the darling of your applause," defends his private life from attack on the grounds of his actions on the stage (IX, 28). So, too, the actor Paris is honored in an epitaph as "the darling of the city and the wit of the Nile, art and grace itself, playfulness and joy, the Roman theater's glory and bereavement, and all the Venuses and Cupids incarnate" (XI, 13).¹⁷

Official position per se held no charm for Martial, particularly if the incumbent himself was unworthy. He was pleased enough to commend in verse the tenure of the consulship by his friend Silius Italicus in the year 68 (VII, 63, 9f) and to felicitate him when the same high office fell to one of his sons some twenty-five years later (VIII, 66); and he prays earnestly to Apollo, god of bards, that a like honor may be granted to his poet friend Stella (IX, 42). Even under the Empire the consulship was an honorable distinction, though it was not much more. But some holders of public office were worthy of nothing but contempt. Such is the consul who attends "a thousand morning levees (mane salutator limina mille teras), crowding out poorer and humbler brethren who find it hard to compete against his official purple for their patron's alms (X, 10). In such cases the rewards are bound to be unequal: the poor client may be asked to dinner, but the consul, by his assiduous lobbying, gains a rich province to plunder (XII, 29). Moreover, courting a praetor or a consul was a burdensome bore, when at any moment of the day he might expect a crowd of clients to escort him home from some function or other (X, 70, 9; cf. also II, 74; and XI, 24). Yet holding high office involved heavy expense, too; and Martial gives a knowing wink to one Proculeia who has divorced her husband, the praetor, at the very beginning of the year, when, as we might say, the bills for his lavish entertainments are about due to arrive (X, 41). After all, these great and mighty magistrates did not rate so high in the scale of wealth, for, as we have already seen, one auctioneer has outbid two praetors, four tribunes, and seven lawyers for the privilege of marrying an old man's daughter (VI, 8). In Domitian's day Martial was safe in taking but a languid interest in politics. Nor was it his r6le, either, to play upon the heavier instruments of war (VIII, 3, 13f). He has little to say in general about military offices, confining his observations to a few personal remarks about hardy centurions¹⁸ with whom he was acquainted and several of whom had fallen on foreign fields while engaged in the service of Rome.¹⁹

Finally, in matters of religion Martial was a Roman.²⁰ He observed the proper forms, but it is highly doubtful that he ever experienced a surge of religious devotion. For the imported cult of Cybele and her emasculated priests (Galli) he can entertain only utter disgust (I, 35, 15; V, 41, 3; VII, 95, 15; and IX, 2, 13f). These are simply rascals that practice vice under the guise of religion, and when hungry they are not above selling the brazen cymbals which are used in their crazy rites.²¹ The bald-pated, linen-clad priests of Isis, with their noisy crowd of followers (linigeri fugiunt calvi sistrataque turba), were scarcely much better (XII, 28, 19; cf. also IX, 29, 6). Yet, even in Martial's day, there did exist religious devotees who were not rogues and impostors. Such is the Roman Carpus whom the poet praises in one of his laudatory epigrams as a duteous high priest (pius antistes) who devotes his gifts to the pursuit of wisdom (VII, 74).²² Thus there was still real worth to be found in the holy profession. The witch or fortune-teller (saga) and the astrologer (astrologus), we might say in passing, draw from Martial only a few casual remarks (VII, 54, 4; IX, 29, 9; IX, 82, 1; and XI, 49, 8). "Garrulous" he calls the former (XI, 49, 8). Probably his contempt for such charlatanism was too eloquent even for words.

Not all the canvases in Martial's gallery have been passed in review in this survey. But sufficient have been produced to prove the kaleidoscopic quality not only of his literary output but also of the Roman world in which he lived, a world which will stand comparison with our own in many striking particulars. Obviously Martial is one of the most modern of the ancients. But it is to be noted in addition that he is a zealous and exceedingly realistic reporter of many humbler walks of life that the more elevated Roman literature is wont to disregard. For our comprehensive knowledge of these lower levels of society we shall always remain his debtors.

Notes

¹ Cf. I, 15, 12: Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie; also V, 20; V, 58; and VIII, 44. The references in this paper are to W. M. Lindsay, M Val. Martialis Epigrammata: Oxford, Clarendon Press (1902).

² "Martial Looks at His World," Classical Journal XXIV (1929), 361-73.

³ Cf. IX, 29; IX, 68; X, 74; XII, 18; and XII, 68, 5f.

⁴ Or it may be "sellers of salt"; cf. IV, 86, 9f. The more usual term for sellers of salt-fish is salsamentarii.

⁵ Cf. VIII, 44, 9: Rape, congere, aufer, posside: relinquendum est.

⁶ Cf. the Classical Journal XXIV (1929), 364f.

⁷ Cf. VIII, 52, where, however, another interpretation is possible.

⁸ By the terms of the Lex Iulia Municipalis (45 B.c.), 94-97, praecones and libitinarii were excluded from standing for municipal offices; cf. C. G. Bruns, Fontes Iuris Romani Antiqui⁷: Tuibingen, P. Siebeck (1909), 107; and E. G. Hardy, Six Roman Laws: Oxford, Clarendon Press (1911), 155f. Cf. also Cicero, Ad Familiares VI, 18, 1.

⁹ Cf. Petronius, Satiricon XLVI, 7.

¹⁰ Cf. Juvenal VII, 5f, where poets are forced to turn praecones in order to make a living.

¹¹ Of course we cannot be sure that this was not an indirect shaft of flattery aimed at the master through the servant. We must always, in reading Martial, be wary of such commendations.

¹² Marfial nowhere in his epigrams employs the word histrio.

¹³ Cf. I, 4, 5; II, 72, 3f; III, 86, 3f; V, 61, llf; IX, 28; and XI, 13. There is a subtle hint in VII, 64, 9.

¹⁴ Cf. Livy VII, 2, 12; Suetonius, Aug. XLV, 3f; Digest III, 2, 2, 5; also Tenney Frank, "The Status of Actors at Rome," Class. Phil. XXVI (1931), 11-20.

¹⁵ Cf. Seneca, Epist. Mor. XLVII, 17; Tacitus, Ann. I, 77; Juvenal VII, 90; Suetonius, Aug. XLV, 3f; and Digest XXIII, 2, 44.

¹⁶ "Th' applause, delight, the wonder of our stage."

¹⁷

Urbis deliciae salesque Nili,ars et gratia, lusus et voluptas,Romani decus et dolor theatriatque omnes Veneres Cupidinesque.

¹⁸ Cf. XI, 3, 4 (rigido centurione).

¹⁹ Cf. I, 31; VI, 58; XIII, 69 (Pudens): I, 93 (Fabricius and Aquinus): and X, 26 (Varus, fallen in Egypt): also VI, 76 (Fuscus, in Dacia).

²⁰ Cf E. E. Burriss, "Martial and the Religion of His Day," the Classical Journal XXI (1926), 679f.

²¹ Cf. XIV, 204 (Cymbala). The esuriens Gallus of this epigram recalls Juvenal's famous Graeculus esuriens (III, 78); the sentiment in both cases is, no doubt, similar—a strong feeling of contempt for easterners.

²² In line 7 some MSS read Caro or caro instead of Carpo.