SOURCE: "Martial" in Martial and the English Epigram from Sir Thomas Wyatt to Ben Jonson, The University of California Press, 1925, pp. 285-99.

[In the following excerpt, Whipple discusses Martial's principal themes and classifies the epigrams by their content. He also provides a detailed analysis of their structure, emphasizing the poet's masterful use of rhetorical figures to enhance the essence and effect of his verses.]

No author was ever more completely the product of his environment than Martial. Both in the material which he treats and in his attitude toward it, he is representative of Rome in the latter half of the first century after Christ. The same statement holds true of the form in which he casts his epigrams; it is the natural result of the rhetorical training of the time.

In the first place, his subject-matter is limited only by Rome as Martial knew the city, under Nero and Domitian. He has left us a remarkably detailed picture of his surroundings. He occupied a most advantageous position from which to view the life of the imperial capital. He himself was evidently poor and lived in bohemian fashion on his doles as client and the gifts he could obtain with his verses. However lacking in dignity and manliness this manner of life may have been, it at least brought him into contact with all sorts and classes of people. As a client and as a distinguished poet, he had the acquiantance of the aristocracy and the literary cliques; whereas his hand-to-mouth way of living made him see much of the poorer class and especially of those who like himself were dependent upon the caprices of the rich.⁴

The vivid picture he gives us shows Roman life as brilliant on one side as it is squalid on the other. His laudatory epigrams, addressed for the most part to the Emperor Domitian and to members of the imperial court, show to what lengths flattery can can go without discomposing its object, and how the resources of the most highly developed literary art may lend themselves to heightening the effect of fulsomeness. The flattery which Martial addresses to the favorite slaves and freedmen of those in power sheds some light on the state of society in which could flourish the cliques and intrigues that centered about the emperor. On the other hand, when he addresses his friends and acquaintances, most of whom seem to have been more prosperous than himself, we see the best side of contemporary life; for his friends were men of culture with philosophic and literary interests, many of them authors in their own right, connoisseurs of art, and the like. When to one of these friends Martial sends an invitation to dinner, or congratulations on marriage, or a gift accompanied by an epigram, we see him at his most likable; for he is at his best in dealing with the theme of friendship, which seems to have been the deepest and most sincere emotion he experienced.

The second class of his epigrams—the gnomic or reflective—are usually addressed to these friends. His moralizings aspire to no elevation; he professes an epicurcanism even less exalted and less attractive than Horace's. Carpe diem—eat, drink, and be merry—is the burden of his advice: to have as good a time as possible, without worrying about anything more remote than the pleasure offered by the present moment. His real point of view is mildly cynical, strictly speaking, rather than epicurean, though neither harsh nor bitter. He sums the matter up in the well-known Vitam quae faciunt beatiorem,⁵ in which he wishes for a modest income, health, peace and quiet, and a farm. He seldom presents himself so pleasingly.

The taste for country life indicated in the epigram just mentioned is one of Martial's outstanding characteristics. Many of his epigrams are concerned with rural Italy—with the life on the country estate of the rich city man, that is, rather than with the life of the real farmer or the peasant. Martial has all the enthusiasm for the country usually shown by dwellers in large cities, not the less sincere because called forth by the glamor of distance and contrast. These epigrams usually take the form of epistles to his friends, and are closely allied to those of the preceding type, the reflective. Martial is entirely free from the pastoral convention. In his writing we see the real Italian countryside, not an ideal land of shepherds and their loves.

Martial wrote a number of epitaphs. A few of these are satirical, but for the most part they display to perfection that vein of sentiment and pathos, often half-playful, in which he excelled. Many of the best are on children, chiefly young slaves, or on animal pets. Others are composed for the benefit of his friends. Closely akin to these, but more conventional and of less merit, are his mere jeux d 'esprit, concerning his friends' pets, or dealing cleverly with objects of art or natural curiosities, such as the bee enclosed in amber.⁶

Friendship, pathos, sentiment, mark the height to which Martial rises in poetic feeling; when dealing with love he is at his worst. To be sure, most of the epigrams which relate to that theme have to do with other people's love affairs and treat them satirically. But those in which he talks of his own amatory concerns are devoid of passion, with the possible exception of a few addressed to favorite slaves. It would scarcely be going too far to say that love, as an inspiration to poetry, is absent from Martial's work.

Finally we arrive at his epigrams which depict more specificaly the city life of ancient Rome. Most of these, but by no means all, are satiric. Favorite themes with Martial are the spectacles in the arena, food and drink, and presents. He asks for gifts, he—less often—returns thanks for them, he writes verses to accompany those he gives his friends. He sends verses as an excuse for not calling in person on his patrons. Many of his epigrams are no more than detailed descriptions of dinners, which often include invitations to his friends to dine with him. In describing the spectacles, he finds occasion to flatter the emperor who provided them.

Generally, however, he sees in the life about him occasion for amusement, for contempt, once in a while for disgust. The vast majority of his epigrams are satiric. Especially he attacks all the forms of hypocrisy and pretence to which such a society as he knew gives birth. The poor who pretend to wealth, the lowborn who pretend to high station, the old men and women who pretend to youth, the dissolute who pretend to rugged virtue—all provide him with material for his jests. The literary life in which he took part also furnishes him with a fertile field, and he attacks poetasters, bad reciters, and plagiarists. But in truth the objects of his satire are as varied as the life of the metropolis. Sycophants, dinner-seekers, newsmongers, social upstarts, gourmands, sots, dandies, misers, bad lawyers and doctors, courtesans, legacy-hunters—he lampoons them all. In terms of unrivaled obscenity he describes the debauchery and vice of the time. We see the streets of the capital with their contrasts, their extreme luxury and extreme poverty, their dirt and noise; we go to the baths; we wait for hours in the great man's antechamber to be presented with the price of a dinner. All this is depicted without moral indignation; Martial fell in with the spirit of the age, and it is to this fact that we owe the extraordinary vividness of the picture he has drawn of Rome in the days of Domitian.

There has been a tendency to underestimate the variety in Martial's work. It has become common to refer to the satiric pointed epigram as the "Roman" or the "Martial" type. For this reason the wide range and the varied treatment both of material and of form in the Epigrammata need to be emphasized. And yet there is of course some excuse for the over-insistence on Martial's satire. Certainly as a class his satiric verses are more amusing and have therefore won more popularity than his others. The point I make is only that this portion of his work must not be allowed to obscure the rest, that we must not forget his epitaphs, his praises of country life, his reflective verse, his eulogies.

In form, likewise, Martial exhibits a considerable variety. His epigrams range in length from a single verse to fifty lines and more. Many of them an English reader would not call epigrams at all. They might with equal propriety be termed epistles, epodes, short satires. Some of them differ only in meter from certain odes of Horace. A few fail to terminate in a 'point.' Yet the author apparently regarded them all as epigrams, although even in his own time there seem to have been demurrers on this point.⁷ I emphasize Martial's variety because much has been said of the restricting influence which he has exerted upon the modern epigram.

That this restriction has been associated with his influence will not be denied. The reason lies in the fact that with him the pointed epigram is the rule, the unpointed the exception. In giving an account of the form of his epigrams, we shall therefore confine ourselves to this, the representative and preponderating type.

In the form of Martial's epigrams, the first thing to note is the structure. On the basis of structure, most of his work may be divided into two groups: those epigrams which consist merely of exposition and conclusion; and those which contain also a transition from the one to the other.

In the first group, exposition and conclusion usually take one of the three following forms: statement and comment; statement and question; question and answer. The simplest type of epigram is that in which the exposition consists of a mere statement in the third person, the conclusion containing the poet's comment. An illustration is III 21:

Proscriptum famulus servavit fronte notatus.
  Non fuit haec domini vita, sed invidia.

This type, however, is rare in Martial; more frequently the statement is in the second person, or is an indirect quotation:

Bellus homo et magnus vis idem, Cotta,
  videri:
  sed qui bellus homo est, Cotta, pusillus
  homo est.
(I 9)

Dicis formonsam, dicis te, Bassa, puellam.
 istud quac non est dicere, Bassa, solet.
(V 45)

Instead of comment, the conclusion may take the form of a question:

Iurat capillos esse, quos emit, suos
Fabulla: numquid [ergo], Paule, peierat?
(VI 12)

Or the exposition, instead of statement, may take the form of question, the conclusion containing the answer, or some comment, perhaps in the form of another question:

Quid mihi reddat ager quacris, Line,
 Nomentanus?
 Hoc mihi reddit ager: te Line, non video.
(II 38)

Abscisa servom quid figis, Pontice, lingua?
 nescis tu populum, quod tacet ille, loqui?
(II 82)

The preceding illustrate the simplest type of epigram; much more numerous are those which contain also a third element, a transition from the exposition to the conclusion. In III 15, for instance:

Plus credit nemo tota quam Cordus in urbe.
  'Cum sit tam pauper, quomodo?' Caecus
  amat—

we have one of Martial's favorite methods of constructing an epigram: by a statement in the exposition, a transitional question, and an answer in the conclusion. Sometimes he develops a little dialogue out of this form:

Petit Gemellus nuptias Maronillae
et cupit et instat et precatur et donat.
Adeone pulchra est? Immo foedius nil est.
Quid ergo in illa petitur et placet? Tussit.
(I 10)

Another form to which he is partial is a combination of question, answer, and comment:

Esse quid hoc dicam quod olent tua basia
  murram
  quodque tibi est numquam non alienus odor?
hoc mihi suspectum est, quod oles bene,
  Postume, semper:
  Postume, non bene olet qui bene semper
  olet.
(II 12)

Martial's favorite ways of opening an epigram, then, are with a statement in the second person, a question, an indirect quotation. He uses habitually some form of direct address. In addition to the varieties already mentioned, he employs apostrophe, exhortation, exclamation: "I, felix rosa" (VII 89); "Sili, Castalidum decus sororum" (IV 14); "Barbara pyramidum sileat miracula Memphis" (Spec. 1); "Quantus, io, Latias mundi concentus ad aras" (VIII 4).

Occasionally he will develop one of the three simple elements of exposition, transition, and conclusion to a considerable length. One of his methods of doing this has already been mentioned: his use of several questions and answers so as to produce a short dialogue. Another of his methods is enumeration, of details or of specific instances. An example is III 63:

Cotile, bellus homo es: dicunt hoc, Cotile,
  multi.
  audio: sed quid sit, dic mihi, bellus homo?
'Bellus homo est, flexos qui digerit ordine
  crines,
  balsama qui semper, cinnama semper olet;
cantica qui Nili, qui Gaditana susurrat,
  qui movet in varios bracchia volso modos,
  etc.⁸

Much like the preceding are those epigrams which he develops by a series of comparisons, such as II 43 or VIII 33. But the simple epigrams are more numerous and more typical of Martial than the developed, which remain after all the exception, not the rule.

A thorough classification of Martial's ways of making a point is perhaps impossible. Only an indication of some of the more frequent will be attempted here. A great many of his epigrams depend for their point upon surprising or startling the reader. This surprise is effected by several means. Sometimes what the poet says is in itself startling, because of its apparent impossibility or its incongruity, as in the conclusion of Spec. 11:

deprendat vacuo venator in aere praedam,
 si captare feras aucupis arte placet.

The same device appears in II 78, although here it is used with an ironical implication:

Aestivo serves ubi piscem tempore, quaeris?
 In thermis serva, Caeciliane, tuis.⁹

More often, however, the surprise is less in what Martial says than in the way he says it. He likes to work up a suspense or deliberately to mislead the reader, so that the solution of the difficulty, when it comes, is contrary to the reader's expectation. This device, technically known as paraprosdokia, is used with signal effect in VI 51:

Quod convivaris sine me tam saepe, Luperce,
 inveni noceam qua ratione tibi.
irascor: licet usque voces mittasque rogesque—
  'Quid facies?' inquit. Quid faciam? veniam.¹⁰

Other and not dissimilar means of securing this effect are antithesis, paradox, oxymoron, and hyperbole. Antithesis gives point to the conclusion of II 68:

servom si potes, Ole, non habere,
et regem potes, Ole, non habere.

Paradox is one of Martial's favorite figures; in XII 46 we find it combined with oxymoron:

Difficilis facilis, iucundus acerbus es idem:
 nec tecum possum vivere nec sine te.¹¹

The whole point of III 35,

Artis Phidiacae toreuma clarum
pisces aspicis: adde aquam, natabunt—

depends upon mere hyperbole; more often, however, we find the hyperbole combined with some other figure. In III 25 it is combined with an ambiguity, a play upon the two kinds of frigidity:

Si temperari balneum cupis fervens,
Faustine, quod vix lulianus intraret,
roga lavetur rhetorem Sabineium.
Neronianas is refrigerat thermas.

Furthermore, even plainer than in the preceding is the ironical implication of the hyperbole in VI 53:

Lotus nobiscum est, hilaris cenavit, et idem
 inventus mane est mortuus Andragoras.
Tam subitae mortis causam, Faustine, requiris?
 In somnis medicum viderat Hermocraten.

Irony, in fact, is one of Martial's most frequent satirical weapons. It rarely takes the form of downright sarcasm; he does not often say the opposite of what he means. Rather, he deals in innuendo, he damns by implication. Straightforward, bludgeoning abuse is not his line; even if his satire sounds far from over-delicate or subtle to modern ears, it yet involves a certain indirection. In VII 59, for instance,

Non cenat sine apro noster, Tite, Caecilianus.
 bellum convivam Caecilianus habet—

or in VI 24,

Nil lascivius est Charisiano:
Satumalibus ambulat togatus—

although no doubt the point is obvious enough, still the method employed is not direct statement.¹² We have already seen how the same effect is sometimes secured by means of a surprising incongruity or an hyperbole. Another device which Martial often uses for ironical effect is ambiguity. See, for instance, the ironical double entendre in the close of IV 33:

Plena laboratis habeas cum scrinia libris,
  emittis quare, Sosibiane, nihil?
'Edent heredes' inquis 'mea carmina.'
  Quando?
  tempus erat iam te, Sosibiane, legi.¹³

Sometimes by a question at the end he will import an ironical equivocation into what has preceded, as in IX 15, or in VI 12 (quoted above) on Fabulla's hair. Or by his final statement he will give a new satiric sense to what before was dubious or obscure, as in I 10 (quoted above) by the final word 'Tussit.'

Word play furnishes the point of many of Martial's epigrams. Sometimes he plays with the meaning, sometimes with the sound, of a word. In III 15, although the point is in the unexpected resolution of a difficulty, it depends upon the double meaning of credit:

Plus credit nemo tota quam Cordus in urbe.
  'Cum sit tam pauper, quomodo?' Caecus amat.

The twofold sense of nil gives point to III 61:

Esse nihil dicis quidquid petis, inprobe Cinna:
 si nil, Cinna, petis, nil tibi, Cinna, nego.

The point of such epigrams as these, depending as they do altogether upon meaning, is not lost in translation. When, however, Martial plays with sound, the point is lost in translation. The pun in IX 21 or in III 34, which depends upon the similarity of the name Chione to the Greek word for snow, is an illustration:

Digna tuo cur sis indignaque nomine, dicam.
  Frigida es et nigra es: non es et es Chione.

Perhaps the most extreme case in Martial of playing with sound is I 100:

Mammas atque tatas habet Afra, sed ipsa
 tatarum
 dici et mammarum maxima mamma potest.

But mere sound play is not habitual with Martial; it is scarcely, indeed, common enough to be called characteristic of him.

Martial employs two other devices for securing point. One of them is his manner of ending an epigram with an implied comparison or analogy, as in the following:

Muneribus cupiat si quis contendere tecum,
 audeat hic etiam, Castrice, carminibus.
nos tenues in utroque sumus vincique parati:
 inde sopor nobis et placet alta quies.
Tam mala cur igitur dederim tibi carmina,
 quaeris?
 Alcinoo nullum poma dedisse putas?
(VII 42)

Finally, Martial makes very large use of aphoristic material. One of his most frequent ways of concluding an epigram is with a pithy generalization: "hunc volo, laudari qui sine morte potest"; "qui bellus homo est, Cotta, pusillus homo est"; "sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie"; "ille dolet vere qui sine teste dolet."¹⁴

Besides the structure of Martial's epigrams, and besides his methods of introducing, developing, and concluding an epigram, there are other features of his style which must be noted. Most important of these are the parallelism and the balance which so pervade all Martial's work as to constitute an outstanding feature of his style. Especially in those epigrams which he develops by an enumeration of details or instances or by a series of comparisons, he makes use of parallelism for the sake of clearness and emphasis. He is particularly fond of putting a balanced antithesis in chiastic order, as in the familiar line, "Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba."¹⁵ Usually the parallelism is strengthened by the repetition of words or phrases. Martial uses every conceivable species of repetition. He repeats the same words at the beginning of consecutive clauses, or at the end of them:

Hermes Martia saeculi voluptas,
Hermes omnibus eruditus armis,
Hermes et gladiator et magister, etc.
(V 24)

Appellat rigida tristis me voce Secundus:
 audis et nescis, Baccara, quid sit opus.
pensio te coram petitur clareque palamque:
 audis et nescis, Baccara, quid sit opus.
esse queror gelidasque mihi tritasque lacemas:
 audis et nescis, Baccara, quid sit opus.
(VII 92, vv. 3-8)

Primum est ut praestes, si quid te, Cinna,
  rogabo;
 illud deinde sequens utcito, Cinna, neges.
diligo praestantem; non odi, Cinna, negantem:
  sed tu nec praestas nec cito, Cinna, negas.
(VII 43)

The repetition at the end of clauses is usually, as in the preceding, varied by the use of different forms and constructions. Sometimes Martial combines these two types of repetition, as in the first two lines of XII 79:

Donavi tibi multa quae rogasti;
donavi tibi plura quam rogasti.

Again, Martial uses the first words of one clause as the last of the next, or the last of one as the first of the next; he even does both:

Pauper videri Cinna vult; et est pauper.
(VIII 19)

Cogit me Titus actitare causas
et dicit mihi saepe 'Magna res est.'
Res magna est, Tite, quam facitcolonus.
(I 17)

[Koina philon] haec sunt, haec sunt tua,
  Candide, [koina].
(II 43, v. 1)

Finally, as an illustration of the lengths to which repetition can be carried, IX 97 may be cited:

Rumpitur invidia quidam, carissime luli,
 quod me Roma legit, rumpitur invidia.
rumpitur invidia quod turba semper in omni
 monstramur digito, rumpitur invidia.
rumpitur invidia tribuit quod Caesar uterque
 ius mihi natorum, rumpitur invidia, etc.

He uses the same words, but in opposite relations—that is, with a reversal of the thought:

Insequeris, fugio; fugis, insequor; haec mens
  est:
  velle tuum nolo, Dindyme, nolle volo.
(V 83)

Martial's method of fitting the structure of his epigrams and the devices of parallelism and repetition just enumerated into the structure of his verse is also noteworthy. He commonly ends exposition, transition, and conclusion at the end of a line, often in his shorter pieces allotting to each element a couplet or a single verse. Frequently he begins with a couplet of exposition, makes the transition in a line, and devotes the final verse to making the point; or he opens with two couplets of rhetorical questions and gives over the final couplet to the conclusion. Again, he likes to save his point until the final word of the last line, especially when it is intended to surprise the reader. In that case, all save the final word will usually be filled with a transitional question. The same strictness of form is exhibited in his treatment of parallelism and repetition; he arranges to have the repeated words at the beginning or the end of lines, or at least in the same metrical position in succeeding lines. He is especially given to introducing the name of the victim of his satire in line after line in this fashion, so as to produce a sneering effect.

In form as in substance Martial's work is typical of his age. He lived at a time when the art of rhetoric was as highly developed as it has ever been, and when, moreover, it constituted the chief—almost the only—subject of education. The natural result is seen in his masterly control of devices for heightening the effect and point of his epigrams, for upon them he lavishes all the resources of the most elaborate rhetoric. His brilliance, his polish and vivacity, are in large measure due to his use of parallelism and repetition. Both these devices and also his use of question and answer, of quotation direct and indirect, of the first and second persons, of dialogue, of exclamation and apostrophe, impart to his style an emphasis, a liveliness and animation, which are among its most conspicuous characteristics. With all that terseness and concision which is essential to the successful epigram and which is in none more evident than in Martial's, he has managed to secure a colloquial ease which makes his way of writing as unconstrained as a casual conversation. This quality too is the result of his way of constructing and developing his epigrams.

It is therefore in large measure due to the devices which we have been discussing that his epigrams have attained their effect of reality and individuality, that in reading them we seem to be overhearing the talk of two real men. In many if not most of his epigrams he speaks in the first person; he addresses some one by name, and refers to a common acquaintance. When he begins, "Do you see that fellow yonder, Decianus, that needs a haircut?"¹⁶ we seem to be present at the gossip of the baths or the porticos. It is thus that Martial contrives to give the air of writing about, and to, definite and actual people.

Both his manner and his matter are calculated to render as clear to us as possible the world he lived in. He draws his material from the ordinary life and the everyday interests of himself and his acquaintances, and he treats it, though in the most finished style and with the most finished art, yet without imagination and, without emotion. We see both the author and the age through the least distorting of mediums. And this quality is the quality of the time: in fresher, less sophisticated, and more imaginative periods there is no demand for this microscopic realism, for these minutiae of common life and this mirror-like verisimilitude.

Martial's spiritual quality, or rather his lack of it, is also significant. For all his sentimental pathos and his genuine expression of friendship, he is wanting in poetic feeling and imagination. Superficial both in feeling and in vision, he was above all observant and easy-going, but easy-going without benevolence, even without good nature. He makes no pretense to that earnestness which most satirists affect if they do not feel. Although sharp and clever, quick of eye and of wit, a finished workman and complete master of his medium, he gives at best an accurate rendering of the outside of a society which even in its brilliance was frivolous and squalid.

If we ask ourselves, then, when we may expect to find Martial influencing modern literature, we need be at no loss for an answer: in an age which appreciates his literary skill, which is interested in his subject-matter, and which sympathizes with his spirit. An age which exalts Martial, we may be sure, is a disillusioned and skeptical, a sophisticated and cynical age; it holds up realism as the end of art, for it understands and has faith in only the concrete and the immediate. Martial cannot appeal to an imaginative and idealistic age which trusts enthusiasm and generous aspiration, which cherishes high hopes and thinks more of the possibilities of human life than of the spotted actuality.

Notes

… ⁴ For Martial's life, see Friedlaender's ed., I, 3 ff. See H.E. Butler, Post-Augustan Poetry, for a general characterization of Martial and his work.

⁵ X 47. References throughout are to W. M. Lindsay's edition in Oxford Classical Texts.

⁶ IV 32.

⁷ VI 65:

'Hexametns epigramma facis' scio dicere
  Tuccam.
  Tucca, solet fien, denique, Tucca, licet.
'Sed tamen hoc longum est.' Solet hoc quoque,
  Tucca, licetque:
  si breviora probas, disticha sola legas.
conveniat nobis ut fas epigrammata longa
  sit transire tibi, scribere, Tucca, mihi.

See also II 77, III 83.

⁸ For examples of various kinds of enumeration, see II 14, VII 10, VII 92.

⁹ See also IV 2 and V 17.

¹⁰ See also I 10, I 28, III 57, V 47.

¹¹ See also II 80, III 10, V 81, VI 41.

¹² For other illustrations see II 58, II 71, V 29, V 53, VII 11.

¹³ See also II 65.

¹⁴ I 8, 9, 15, 33.

¹⁵ I 4. "Vis dare nec dare vis" (VII 75) might also be cited, but it contains the additional element of repetition.

¹⁶ I 24: Aspicis incomptis illum, Deciane, capillis?

Bibliography

… BUTLER, H. E., Post-Augustan Poetry, Oxford, 1909.…

MARTIAL, M. VAL., Epigrammata, ed. W. M. Lindsay, Oxford, n.d. (Script. Class. Bibl. Oxon.)

Epigrammaton libri, ed. L. Friedlaender, 2 vols., Leipsig, 1886.