Martial

Peter Howell

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781472521408
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia antigua

Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis) was a Spanish writer who lived in Rome in the second half of the first century AD. He wrote only in the genre of epigram, invented by the Greeks, which he chose because of his dislike of all that was pretentious and escapist in contemporary literature, where stale mythological topics were regarded as both 'elevated' and, in times of political danger, safe. His own boundless interest in the life he saw around him in Rome, and his sense of humour, led him to prefer to express himself in short and highly polished poems. He brought the genre to such a pitch of perfection that his work has defined it for subsequent authors. Although only a limited number of his own epigrams conform to the dictionary definition as 'a short poem ending in a witty turn of thought', their effectiveness has shaped this definition. This book tells what we know about the man's commonsense attitude to life, and his hatred of hypocrisy and malice. It assesses his debt to literary tradition and the astonishing influence he had on later writers. This book is part of the Ancient in Action series which features short incisive books introducing major figures of the ancient world to the modern general reader, including the essentials of each subject's life, works, and significance for later western civilisation.

1

The Life of Martial

Marcus Valerius Martialis – familiarly known in English as Martial – was born in about AD 40. We know this because he tells us in a poem published in about 95-98 that he was celebrating his 57th birthday (10.24). His third name (cognomen) came from his having been born on March 1st. We are better informed about his life than in the cases of most ancient authors because he tells us so much about himself, though care is needed as the first person singular may be the ‘authorial’ use, rather than personal.

He often writes about his birthplace Bilbilis, a small town in Hispania Tarraconensis. Its name must have been quite unknown, and rather odd-sounding, to almost all of his readers, even though Spain was by this time thoroughly Romanised. Martial’s parents were called Fronto and Flaccilla (5.34). The names are Roman, but he makes it clear that he was a native Spaniard, with bristly hair and hirsute legs and cheeks (10.65).

Bilbilis stood on a rocky hill, above the steep winding valleys of the Rivers Jalón, on the east, and the Ribota, on the north. It was near the modern town of Calatayud in Aragon, between Zaragoza and Madrid. The surroundings were probably more wooded in ancient times, but are now mostly bare, apart from some vineyards and orchards. Martial mentions the local fruit, and you can still buy sweets called ‘Frutas de Calatayud’. It was a remarkable site for a town, on the broad saddle between the two peaks of the hill, which falls precipitously on the north and east. The rocky crags are richly coloured. To the east and north the mountains are close, the highest being Moncayo (2,315 metres). To the south and west are wide plains, suitable for breeding the small, tough horses for which the region was famous. Its other chief product was iron, used to make weapons, which were tempered in the icy rivers. Martial also mentions the alluvial gold of the River Tagus (e.g. 1.49.15 – see below).

The site of the town has been excavated for some years, and there are remains of a bath-complex, numerous cisterns, and even a theatre. The most striking building must have been the temple, which stood on a projecting eminence, and formed a landmark for miles around.

Bilbilis had been given the status of a municipium in the time of Augustus. As a result, the magistrates and their families would have been Roman citizens. It appears that Martial was born a citizen, which suggests that his father may have been a magistrate. He tells us that he received the normal Roman education, in ‘grammar’ and oratory, widely available in Spain at this time.

In about 64 Martial moved to Rome. This was the obvious course for a talented provincial, and he was probably encouraged by the example of the other Spaniards who had made the same move, and contributed so much to Roman literary life in the first century AD. These included, from Cordoba, the two Senecas, father and son, authors respectively of rhetorical works, and of philosophy and tragedy, and Lucan, nephew of the younger Seneca, author of an epic poem on the civil war between Caesar and Pompey; Columella, from Cadiz, author of a treatise on agriculture; and Quintilian, from Calahorra, orator, teacher, tutor of Domitian’s great-nephews, and author of a work on the education of the orator. The likelihood is that Martial too was envisaging a life in literature: he refers to youthful works in Book I (113). Literature, however, did not automatically bring in money, as there was no copyright law in the ancient world, and so no such thing as royalties. He must have been dependent on the patronage of rich benefactors, and there is reason to suppose that these included the younger Seneca and perhaps other members of the same family and circle.

However, in 65 a conspiracy was formed, the intention being to replace Nero with C. Calpurnius Piso. The suspected complicity of Seneca and Lucan led to their enforced suicides, as well as that of Piso. Piso had been known for his open-handed patronage (Martial refers to him, and the Seneca family, as generous patrons at 4.40, and so does Martial’s near-contemporary, the satirist Juvenal), and in the aftermath it is likely that patrons were careful not to be so ostentatious in their generosity.

Modern writers sometimes take Juvenal at his own word when he implies that for a literary Roman there was no respectable source of income available other than patronage. The untruth of this is clearly revealed by Martial, who admits that the obvious source of income for a man like him was rhetoric, whether by teaching, or by pleading in the courts. Traditionally this latter had been regarded as a gentlemanly arrangement between friends, but under Claudius a law had finally made official the practice of ‘rewarding’ advocates. Martial represents Quintilian as advising him to take up advocacy, but replies that he prefers a quiet and enjoyable life. What he really meant was that the life of a poet could not be combined with that of a lawyer.

Admittedly at 3.38 he asks a fictitious Sextus, who is coming to Rome, how he intends to live there, since lawyers cannot even cover their rent, but this need not be taken seriously. He goes on to say that poets all freeze, and only three or four can live by cultivating great men. His answer to Sextus’ dilemma is that, if he is a good man, he may live by luck. The implication is that if he is not ‘a good man’ he may do well, which reminds one of Juvenal’s Umbricius (3.21f.), whose reason for leaving the city is that there is no place there for honestae artes (honourable pursuits); he goes on to describe in graphic detail how the unscrupulous prosper there.

Martial also gives a number of clues to show that such a life was not without pecuniary rewards. At 5.16 he jokingly claims that his readers owe him a debt:

Seria cum possim, quod delectantia malo

scribere, tu causa es, lector amice, mihi,

qui legis et tota cantas mea carmina Roma:

sed nescis quanti stet mihi talis amor.

nam si falciferi defendere templa Tonantis

sollicitisque velim vendere verba reis,

plurimus Hispanas mittet mihi nauta metretas

et fiet vario sordidus aere sinus.

at nunc conviva est comissatorque libellus

et tantum gratis pagina nostra placet.

sed non et veteres contenti laude fuerunt,

cum minimum vati munus Alexis erat.

‘belle’ inquis ‘dixti: iuvat et laudabimus usque.’

dissimulas? facies me, puto, causidicum.

As for the fact that, although I could write serious works, I prefer to write entertaining ones, you, friend reader, are my reason, you who read and recite my verses throughout the whole of Rome; but you do not know how much such affection costs me. For if I should wish to defend the temple of the sickle-bearing Thunderer [i.e. defend the interests of the Treasury], and to sell words to anxious defendants, very many sailors would send me Spanish oil-jars [barristers were often paid in kind, and olive oil was exported from Spain] and my pocket would become dirty with all sorts of coins. But as it is now my book is a dinner-guest and fellow-reveller, and my page pleases only when free of cost. But men of old were not equally content with praise, when the very least present for a bard was an Alexis. ‘Nicely put’, you say: ‘it pleases us and we shall go on praising you’. Are you pretending not to understand? I think you’ll make me a pleader.

‘Alexis’ (the name of a character in Virgil’s second Eclogue, was believed (probably mistakenly) to have been a real slave-boy given to him by his wealthy admirer Asinius Pollio, though Martial several times refers to him as a gift from his better-known patron Maecenas, and twice (8.55; 73) claims that it was the love of Alexis which made Virgil a great poet, so that he too would welcome such a gift.

As an author, Martial concentrated entirely on the genre of epigram. This was a surprising choice. None of his Latin predecessors had restricted himself in this way (whether any Greek authors did so is unknown). He suggests a number of reasons for his decision. Some are not to be taken too seriously – for example, laziness, and a disinclination to undertake longer and more demanding genres. A negative one must have had more weight – his dislike for the mythological poetry, often in the form of epic, which was fashionable in Rome at that time. This vogue came about partly because Virgil had shown that the disapproval of longer forms of poetry expressed by the great Alexandrian poet Callimachus in the third century BC might not apply to a Roman poet, and that a great Latin epic could be written, and partly (as Juvenal so memorably argued in his first Satire) because it was unlikely to give personal offence, and was politically harmless. The outstanding epic poet of Martial’s time was Statius, who wrote a poem in twelve books on the story of the Seven against Thebes, and began another about Achilles. The fact that he never mentions Martial in his shorter poems, and that Martial never mentions him, has led to the supposition that they regarded each other with rivalry, if not hostility.

The avoidance of personal offence was a serious consideration. Lucan’s ‘modern’ epic on the Pharsalian War, with its ecstatic praise of the great Republican hero, the younger Cato, was in effect a challenge, not just to Nero, but to the concept of autocracy. And Lucan had suffered for it.

Although we know that he had written poetry previously (as mentioned above), the earliest work of Martial to survive is the so-called Liber Spectaculorum, ‘the book of the shows’. It has traditionally been held that it was written to celebrate the opening of the Flavian Amphitheatre (now known as the Colosseum) in 80, under the emperor Titus, but it has recently been convincingly argued by T.V. Buttrey that the book describes shows put on under his brother Domitian sometime between 83 and 85.

It may have been the writing of this book which won Martial the favour of Titus, who granted him the ius trium liberorum – the privileges of a father of three children – despite the fact that he had none. The privileges included the right to receive legacies. The ius was part of the Augustan marriage legislation, intended to encourage people to have children. It is most unlikely that Martial was ever married. Although Domitian on his accession confirmed all the privileges granted by his brother, Martial published a poem asking for his to be renewed – presumably as an indication of imperial favour.

It is not known whether it was Titus or Domitian who gave Martial his titular tribunate. This sinecure army commission brought with it equestrian rank. The equites (knights) were in origin the cavalry, but by the imperial period the title simply denoted the rank below that of the senators. To hold it, a man had to possess at least 400,000 sesterces, an amount which would have produced enough income to enable a man to live respectably at Rome. It was not uncommon for men to be given money by rich friends so that they could meet the qualification. Martial himself refers to this, Pliny did it, and the conspirator Piso helped several men to acquire the rank every year.

After the Liber Spectaculorum, Martial produced two books, which are confusingly known nowadays as XIII and XIV. Both had Greek titles – Xenia (presents given to friends), and Apophoreta (presents to be taken away [from dinner parties]). Each contained a large number of two-line poems, like ‘mottoes’, describing or commenting on an immense variety of gifts.

It was only in about 86 that Martial brought out what he called his ‘Book I’. This self-conscious decision was like that of a musical composer, who will not use the term ‘Opus 1’ until he feels that the work shows a proper maturity. It is, however, possible that Martial only designated this book ‘I’ when he published his ‘Book II’. The first epigram is particularly striking:

Hic est quem legis ille, quem requiris,

toto notus in orbe Martialis

argutis epigrammaton libellis:

cui, lector studiose, quod dedisti

viventi decus atque sentienti,

rari post cineres habent poetae.

It’s him! – the man whom you’re reading is the man you’re looking for, Martial, known throughout the whole world for his clever books of epigrams; to whom, enthusiastic reader, you have given a glory, while he is still alive and can appreciate it, which few poets have after their deaths.

Readers may feel surprised that an author, in the first poem of his ‘first book’, can make such a claim. Could he just be referring to the Liber Spectaculorum, the Xenia, and the Apophoreta, and also perhaps to the youthful works which he tells us at 1.113 have already been published? Would these have brought world-wide repute? It has been argued that Martial also wrote individual collections of a few poems each – libelli, or little books – for particular friends or patrons, or particular occasions, and that these had contributed to his fame. There is too the possibility that, if ‘Book I’ only received this title when Book II was published, this epigram was added then.

At the time of the publication of his first book, Martial lived in a flat up three flights of stairs, on the Quirinal Hill (1.117). The majority of the urban population of Rome lived in flats. He had a number of slaves, including two mentioned in Book I. One was a scribe, whose work had included copying poems to be sent to emperors (Titus and Domitian).

After the publication of Book I, Martial’s books appeared with remarkable regularity, at intervals of one or two years, up to the publication of Book XI in 96. This was followed in 98, after...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Dedication
• 1. The Life of Martial
• 2. What is an Epigram?
• 3. Martial and the Epigram
• 4. Martial and Domitian
• 5. Martial and Roman Social Life
• 6. Martial and Patronage
• 7. Martial and Posterity
• Further Reading
• Index
• Imprint Page