He was a man of genius, of quick intelligence and vivacity, with a great
deal of wit and pungency in his writings, and at the same time great
candour.--Pliny, _Epistula_ 3. 21 (Sellar's translation).
Martial was born at Bilbilis in Spain. At twenty-three years of age he
came to Rome, where he resided for thirty-five years in limited
circumstances, returning to his birthplace three years before his death.
He composed fourteen books of Epigrams.
As a man he was social and popular. As a writer he was eminently sincere
(except when playing the courtier), natural, and witty. He had no equal
among the poets of his time as a lifelike painter of the actual world of
his day.
For Reference: Sellar and Ramsay, _Extracts from Martial_ (Edinburgh,
1884), Introduction; Teuffel, Schwabe, and Warr, _History of Roman
Literature_, vol. 2, p. 121 ff.; Friedländer, _Martialis Epigrammaton
Libri_ (Leipzig, 1886); Paley and Stone, _Select Epigrams from Martial_
(London, 1881).
Metres: Choliambic, A. & G. 618, a, b, c. _Selections_ 4, 12.
Phalaecian, A. & G. 623, 624,625. 11: _Selections_ 1, 5, 7, 11. Elegiac,
B. 369, 1, 2; A. & G. 616: _Selections_ 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 13.
_1._ 5. tu: the attorney who is conducting Martial's case. 6. periuria
ff.: to a Roman the name of Carthaginian (_Punicus_) was a synonym for
treachery. 7. Muciosque: Mucius, when captured in an attempt to
assassinate King Porsena, showed his insensibility to threats by
voluntarily holding his hand in the flame of an altar. Livy, 2. 12. The
plurals in this line may be rendered by _Sullas, Mariuses_, etc.
_4._ Bassus is met at various points on the Appian Way farther and
farther out from Rome. 1. pluit: because of the leaky aqueduct above. 2.
Phrygium...ferrum: the priests of Cybele washed their knives in the
Almo, a branch of the Tiber near Kome. 3. Horatiorum...campus: the
traditional scene of the combat between the Horatii and Curiatii. 4.
pusilli: the statue is small. fervet: is alive with worshippers. 10.
coronam: hoop. 12. nondum victa faba: too young yet to crunch the bean.
15. Immo: No indeed!
_5._ 2. sed...fenestra: window-gardens were common in Rome.
4. nemus Dianae: i.e. a forest of 'big timber.' 7. corona: not
understood. 16. sus Calydonius: the type of a huge and ferocious wild
animal. 17. ungue Prognes: the talon of Progne, i.e. of the swallow. For
myth see _Harper's Classical Dictionary_, 'Tereus.' 20. et...picata: a
nut will take the place of the pitch-bedaubed dolium. 22, 23.
praedium...prandium: lands...a lunch.
_6._ To a friend who has long been saying that to-morrow he will change
it all and really live. 4. In the Orient, the region of the sunrise, is
where that happy to-morrow is hiding, if anywhere. 5. These two are
types of longevity.
_7._ 4. focus perennis: a kitchen fire never idle. 5. toga rara:
a dress suit seldom. The toga was connected with burdensome duties, as
with the service of client to patron. 6. vires ingenuae: a gentleman's
measure of strength. 10. torus: wife. 12. quod...malis: Martial's
principle in life, 'to be yourself and not strive to be somebody else.'
_8._ The eruption is that of 79 A.D., which destroyed Herculaneum and
Pompeii. Epistles 6. 16 and 6. 20 of the younger Pliny, and the final
chapters of Bulwer-Lytton's _Last Days of Pompeii_ may be read in this
connection. 1. modo: but now. 2. presserat lacus: had filled the vats.
3. Nysae: a mountain in India where, according to the myth, Bacchus was
born. 5. Veneris sedes: Venus was the protecting deity of Pompeii. 6.
Herculaneum was named from and protected by Hercules. 7. mersa favilla:
Pliny, writing of the eruption, says, Epistula 6. 20. 18, 'Everything
was covered with deep ashes as with snow.' 8. nec...sibi: and the gods
could wish they had not been permitted this.
_9._ When Brutus, the slayer of Caesar, committed suicide after the
defeat at Philippi, his wife Porcia also took her own life. The common
story was that her friends, suspecting her design, removed all weapons
out of her way, and that she thereupon destroyed herself by swallowing
live coals. The real fact may have been that she suffocated herself by
the vapor of a charcoal stove,--a common method of suicide with the
Romans. 4. fatis: by his death. patrem: Cato the Younger, who slew
himself at Utica after the disastrous battle at Thapsus. 6. ferrum:
emphatic.
_10._ 1. Arria: the wife of Caecina Paetus. In 42 A.D., on the
charge of conspiracy against the government, Paetus was ordered by the
Emperor Claudius to put an end to his own life. When he hesitated, Arria
stabbed herself and handed him the dagger, saying, _Paete, non dolet_.
Pliny, _Epistula_ 3. 16. 6, says of her conduct on another occasion
when, fearing the effect of the news on her husband, then dangerously
ill, she concealed from him the death of their son:
Glorious indeed that act of hers, to bare the steel, to thrust her bosom
through, to draw the dagger forth, to hand it to her husband, to add
words immortal and almost divine, 'Paetus, I feel no pain!' But, doing
this and saying this, glory and eternal fame were in her thought. How
much greater is it, without the prize of fame, without the prize of
glory, to hide the tears, conceal the grief, and, bereaved of a son,
still to act the mother! 4. sed...dolet: i.e. it is your wound that will
give me pain.
_11._ 1. Flaminiam: sc. viam. 2. noli...marmor: the roads leading out
from Rome were lined with tombs. 3. salesque Nili: Paris appears to have
been an Egyptian. 6. omnea Veneres Cupidinesque: imitation of Catullus,
3. 1 (_Selection_ 3. 1). 7. Paris: a popular Roman actor, put to death
by Domitian.
_12._ This and the following selection are in memory of a child whose
parents were slaves on Martial's estate. 1. senibus cygnis: 'swans sing
sweetest when they die.' Notice that all the objects with which Erotion
is compared in lines 1-6 are white. Martial is thinking of the whiteness
of her complexion, a quality admired by the Romans. 2. The Tarentine
wool was highly prized. 4. lapillos: pearls. 5. dentem: tusk. 7. Baetici
gregis: the flocks on the Guadalquivir whose wool was naturally of a
yellowish color. 8. Rhenique nodos: the hair of the Germans gathered
into a club. Erotion's hair was the light flaxen of the Teutonic type.
9. Paesti: a city in Lucania, celebrated for its twice-blowing roses,--
Vergil, _Georgics_, 4. 119, biferi rosaria Paesti. 10. Atticarum
cerarum: Attica--and particularly Mt. Hymettus--was famous for its
honey. 11. Martial several times refers to the agreeable odor of amber
when warmed by holding or rubbing with the hand. 13. sciurus: derived
from Greek [Greek: skia] and [Greek: oura], lit. 'the shadow-tail.' Our
word 'squirrel' comes through the Late Latin diminutive forms,
scuriolus, squirolus, squirelus. 19. pariter: in like manner with
myself. 20. vernulae: contrasted with nobilem of line 22. 23. Quid esse
fortius potest: Can any one display more fortitude? 24. Ducenties: lit.
20,000,000 sesterces, here of indefinite value.
_13._ Martial at the tomb which has just received Erotion's ashes
appeals to his dead parents to keep the child from fear at sight of the
'black spectres' and monstrous Cerberus. 2. oscula: in apposition to
puellam. 5. modo:, just. In six days she would have been six years old.
7. patronos: protectors, i.e. Fronto and Flacilla. 9, 10. nec...fueris:
sit tibi terra levis, of ten found as S. T. T. L., is a phrase common
upon Roman tombstones.
In another epigram (10. 61), a translation of which by Leigh Hunt
follows, the poet, about to depart finally from the estate where Erotion
is buried, thus beautifully commends to his successors the care of her
tomb:
Underneath this greedy stone
Lies little sweet Erotion;
Whom the Fates, with hearts as cold,
Nipped away at six years old.
Thou, whoever thou mayest be,
That hast this small field after me,
Let the yearly rites be paid
To her little slender shade;
So shall no disease or jar
Hurt thy house or chill thy Lar;
But this tomb be here alone
The only melancholy stone.