Bellringer, A. R. "Martial, the Suburbanite." Classical Journal XXIII, No. 6 (March 1928): 425-35.

Claims that Martial was happiest at his small farm near Nomentum because it reminded him of his homeland.

Bramble, J. C. "Martial and Juvenal." In The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, Vol. 2, Latin Literature, edited by E. J. Kenney, pp. 597-623. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Compares Juvenal with Martial, emphasizing the differences between them. In Bramble's judgment, although Juvenal recreates the Rome of Martial in his early satires, he attacks it with bitterness and hyperbole, challenging the traditional values that Martial treats with caution and respect.

Burriss, Eli Edward. "Martial and the Religion of His Day." Classical Journal XXI, No. 9 (June 1926): 679-80.

Looks briefly at references to religious beliefs and practices in Martial's epigrams.

Carrington, A. G. "Martial." In Neronians and Flavians: Silver Latin I, edited by D. R. Dudley, pp. 236-70. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972.

Calls attention to the skillful conjunction of style, content, and occasion in the best of Martial's verses. Carrington also stresses Martial's influence on writers as diverse as John Milton, Matthew Prior, George Orwell, and Ogden Nash.

Church, J. E., Jr., and J. C. Watson. "The Identity of the Mother in Martial VI. 3." University of Nevada Studies III, No. 1 (1911): 28-31.

Focuses on what epigram 6.3 may contribute to modern knowledge of the relationship between the emperor Domitian and Julia, his niece and mistress.

Colton, Robert E. "Juvenal and Martial on the Equestrian Order." Classical Journal 61, No. 4 (January 1966): 157-59.

Compares passages in which both Juvenal and Martial deride upstarts who have achieved equestrian status. Colton finds Martial's humor essentially light-hearted and Juvenal's acerbic.

——. Juvenal's Use of Martial's Epigrams: A Study of Literary Influence. Amsterdam, Adolf M. Hakkert, 1991, 775 p.

A detailed study of the impact of Martial's epigrams on Juvenal's satires.

Downs, Robert B. "Creator of the Epigram." In his Famous Books: Ancient and Medieval, pp. 217-20. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1964.

A brief review of the literary and historical significance of Martial's work.

Duff, J. Wight. "Martial and Minor Flavian Poetry." In his A Literary History of Rome in the Silver Age, pp. 498-530. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927.

A comprehensive appraisal of Martial's work by the leading commentator on Martial in the first half of the twentieth century. The judgments Duff expresses here regarding Martial's preeminent stature as a writer of epigrams have been frequently cited—and generally endorsed—by later critics.

Duff, J. Wight. "Martial: The Epigram as Satire" in Roman Satire: Its Outlook on Social Life, University of California Press, 1936, pp. 126-46.

Duff discusses Martial's epigrams in the context of the tradition of Roman satire, particularly with regard to verse-forms and themes. Emphasizing Martial's originality and unusual powers of observation, he contends that Martial's indebtedness to other literary models is slight.

Giulian, Anthony A. Martial and the Epigram in Spain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Publication of the Series in Romantic Languages and Literature, No. 22. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1930, 117 p.

Prefatory remarks to Giulian's in-depth evaluation of Martial's influence on Spanish Renaissance literature.

Hawes, Adeline Belle. "A Spanish Poet in Rome." In. her Citizens of Long Ago: Essays on Life and Letters in the Roman Empire, pp. 91-110. New York: Oxford University Press, 1934.

A romantic sketch of Martial's life and works that stresses his attachment to his native land.

Howell, Peter. Introduction to his A Commentary on Book One of the Epigrams of Martial, pp. 1-18. London: Athlone Press, 1980.

Reviews Martial's life and career, the ways in which he reshaped the form and content of the epigram, and his prodigious literary influence.

Leary, R. J. Introduction to Martial Book XIV: The Apophoreta, edited by T. J. Leary, pp. 1-28. London: Duckworth, 1996.

A detailed study of the Apophoreta. Leary furnishes background information on the celebration of Saturnalia, discusses the literary tradition of "catalogue" poems, and analyzes the arrangement of these epigrams by pairs and subject matter.

Marino, Peter A. "Woman: Poorly Inferior or Richly Superior?" Classical Bulletin 48, No. 2 (December 1971): 17-21.

Evaluates epigram 8.12—specifically, Martial's warning against marrying a rich woman—in the context of Roman laws and traditions concerning the legal status and permissible social conduct of married women.

Mason, H. A. "Is Martial a Classic?" Cambridge Quarterly 17, No. 4 (1988): 297-368.

Addresses the question of whether Martial was a "great" poet who, in his finest verses, spoke for all of humankind. Mason provides a close reading of scores of Martial's epigrams as he assesses the poet's tone and matter, his insight into the complexity of artistic composition, and his understanding of what constitutes a moral life.

Mendell, Clarence W. "Martial and the Satiric Epigram." Classical Philology XVII, No. 1 (January 1922): 1-20.

Examines the epigram in Roman literature before Martial and the lines of influence that shaped his development of the genre. Mendell asserts that Stoic satire profoundly affected the tone and subject matter of Martial's epigrams.

Nixon, Paul. "Martial." In his Martial and the Modern Epigram, pp. 31-51. New York: Longmans, Green, 1927.

An overview of Martial's life and works that defends him against the traditional charges of sycophancy and obscenity. Flattering one's patrons was standard practice then as now, Nixon points out, and Martial's pornographic verses represent only a minority of his epigrams.

Reeve, M. D. "Martial." In Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, edited by L. D. Reynolds, pp. 239-44. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983.

A concise survey of the three basic groups of Martial manuscripts in French and Italian collections from the Middle Ages. Reeves considers whether the variants in these manuscript groups are evidence that Martial published different versions during his lifetime or whether the discrepancies represent revisions introduced during the process of transmission.

Sullivan, J. P. "Martial's Sexual Attitudes." Philologus 123, No. 2 (1979): 288-302.

Infers, from the picture the writer presents of himself in his poems, that Martial's sexual preference was active pederasty, and that he feared and resented sexually aggressive women. Sullivan contends that in both his choice of love objects and his bias against liberated women, Martial expressed conventional sexual values of his time.

——. Introduction to Martial, edited by J. P. Sullivan, pp. 1-66. New York: Garland, 1993.

A broad survey of Martial's reception and influence from ancient times to the late twentieth-century. Sullivan focuses on Martial's many translators, imitators, and commentators, but he also traces the textual history of Martial's poems as well as the evolution of literary theory with respect to the form and function of the epigram.

Tanner, R. G. "Levels of Intent in Martial." In Aufstieg und Neidergang der Romischen Welt, edited by Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase. Principat, edited by Wolfgang Haase, 2624-77. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986.

Argues that Martial embedded several layers of meaning in the text of his epigrams. To test his hypothesis, Tanner analyzes the poet's use of different meters in relation to tone and content, his use of Stoic doctrine in Book 1, and the personalities of the people he satirized and to whom he addressed his poems.

Additional coverage of Martial's life and career is contained in the following sources published by Gale Group: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 211; Poetry Criticism, Vol. 10.