Selected Epigrams

by Martial

  The landscape of epigram (lit. “inscribed text”) as it may have appeared to Martial at the beginning of his career is that of a well-developed genre with a strong Greek pedigree. The literary genre of epigram arose in the third century BCE out of the (by then already) longstanding practice of inscribing poems on funerary tombs. Callimachus famously defined good poetry on the basis of slimness rather than length, thereby flying in the face of tradition, which gave pride of place to epic. Slimness remained the rule for epigram for the remainder of its history, a rule that Martial has fun breaking from time to time (1.110 [page 11]; 2.77; 3.83 [page 31]; 6.65; 10.59 [page 82]). Short poems with a pungent punch line proved enormously popular in the age of literary experimentation that was the Hellenistic period. The first anthology was produced by Meleager of Gadara around 95 BCE, followed by The Garland of Philip, which was published in the reign of Nero and included poets from the Augustan period. The genre became even more popular by the influx into Rome of Greek poets, such as Philodemus of Gadara and Antipater of Thessalonica, who adapted the genre to the tastes and political reality of the Roman world.44 Both poets received financial support from L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, consul in 15 BCE and putatively identified as the owner of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum.45

  The establishment of the Principate in 27 BCE provided further opportunities for the development of the genre and its practitioners. Greek writers of epigram had not sought out rulers of the Hellenistic world as the addressees of their poetry. In the Roman world the already existing relationship between poets and patrons was extended to include the most important family in the Empire. The fact that the first Princeps wrote epigrams in his spare time created a welcome environment for practitioners of the genre.46 One of the major representatives of the genre in the Augustan age was Crinagoras from Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. He visited Rome on several occasions as an ambassador before he decided, presumably in 26 BCE, to stay as a permanent resident. Crinagoras was sufficiently close to Augustus to accompany him on his military campaigns.47 He is the author of two epigrams on Marcellus, the son of Augustus’ sister Octavia. The earliest epigram serves as a companion to a gift, a copy of Callimachus’ Hecale (AP 9.545). The second epigram celebrates Marcellus’ safe return from the war front in Spain in 25 BCE, followed by the shaving of his first beard (AP 6.161).48

  After Marcellus’ unexpected death in 23 BCE Crinagoras’ imperial output continued. An epigram published around 20 BCE praises Tiberius for placing Tigranes on the throne of Armenia (APl 61). Next in the chronological sequence are three poems for a female member of the imperial family. Her identity is not entirely certain and it cannot even be established whether all three epigrams concern the same woman. If they do, however, and this seems very likely, it suggests that after Octavia, Crinagoras found another member of the family willing to support him financially. The most explicit epigram is a prayer directed at Hera asking her to facilitate the pregnancy of a woman by the name of Antonia (AP 6.244). Octavia had two daughters named Antonia, usually distinguished from one another by referring to them as Antonia Maior and Minor. Not much is known about the Elder Antonia and consequently most scholars agree that the epigram is addressed to the Younger Antonia, who was married to Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, and who was pregnant with her son Germanicus in 16 or 15 BCE.49 Two other epigrams are addressed to an unidentified female member of the imperial family and on the basis of AP 6.244 it is assumed that the woman in these epigrams was also Antonia.50 In the first of the two epigrams a gift of winter roses is made to a woman who is about to be married (AP 6.345). Antonia may have married Drusus in the early spring of 18 BCE.51 A woman of the imperial family received five books of lyrical poetry, presumably as a birthday present (AP 9.239). There is no hard evidence that Crinagoras ever received financial support from Octavia and Antonia, or from Augustus for that matter, but the possibility is a strong one seeing the important moments concerning the imperial family covered in them.52 It is therefore no surprise that he is traditionally catalogued as a court poet.53 Crinagoras would have served as an obvious model for any poet with aspirations to be a successful writer of epigrams. His influence on Martial, either by way of his poetry or by his focus on the imperial family, is acknowledged, although it is left largely undefined.54

  On the side of Greek epigram the biggest influence on Martial is Lucillius, a poet who was active in Rome under Nero and whose poems survive in the Palatine Anthology.55 Martial incorporated two aspects of Lucillius’ work that the latter had developed into important features of his poetry.56 His major contribution is the development of the skoptic epigram, a type of epigram in which ridicule is heaped on physical defects, immoral excesses, and other types of unwanted social behavior. Also singled out for vilification were certain occupations that were deemed of questionable reputation, such as doctors, undertakers, and innkeepers, because of the nature of the work, their obsession with money or the perceived incompetence of the practitioners. These themes make up a substantial amount of Martial’s poetry. The second area in which Lucillius’ influence is undeniable is in the projection of the emperor as a reader of the poet’s work. His importance becomes immediately clear when his imperial epigrams are compared to the way in which Lucillius’ predecessor Crinagoras uses the emperor as subject material for his epigrams. Of Crinagoras only a single epigram (AP 9.562) is known in which the emperor is the subject matter and where he is addressed explicitly as Kaisar, the usual form of address for the emperor in the Greek world at the time.57 Lucillius’ relationship with his emperor is entirely different. He commandeers Nero as a reader (AP 11.75; 11.116; 11.132; 11.185; 11.247), even though the emperor is by no means connected with the subject matter of the poem.58 In the poem that the epigrammatist explicitly claims is the proem to his second book of epigrams, Lucillius states in the final couplet that a few coppers (the epigram has chalkos; “bronze”) from Nero have enabled him to survive as a poet (AP 9.572).59 The issue as to whether Nero was a, or even the main, patron of Lucillius cannot be resolved without new evidence, but it is possible that Lucillius’ emperor is an entirely literary construct.

  Apart from Callimachus (4.23; 10.4), the names of the Greek epigrammatists discussed here are absent from Martial’s epigrams.60 The lack of any reference to Lucillius is especially revealing, because no fewer than seventeen of Martial’s epigrams are based on the work of his predecessor.61 The vast majority of these epigrams are much more than attempts at emulation; in some cases it is much better to speak of direct translations without modifications.62 For a poet who is so concerned with defending his poetry against plagiarism and exposing impostors, it is ironic, to say the least, that he is happy to pass off as his own the poems of others.63 The absence of references to Greek epigrammatists, either of earlier times or of Martial’s own lifetime, is by design. It is Martial’s desire to rewrite epigram as a Roman genre, which may also explain why he seeks to establish a literary connection between his own work and that of Catullus.64 The debt is expressed most eloquently in 10.78, where Martial asks his friend Baebius Macer, who is on his way to take up the governorship of Dalmatia, not to prefer his predecessors over him but to rank him below Catullus only. In another poem from the same book, 10.103, Martial is less modest, stating that Verona, the birthplace of Catullus, would happily adopt him as her son if Bilbilis does not want him anymore.65

  Other Roman predecessors of Martial include L. Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, Albinovanus Pedo, and Domitius Marsus. All three are mentioned together with Catullus in Martial’s prose preface of the first book of his epigrams. These poets are unknown to the modern reader and mere names to the regular Classicist. Due to the small number of lines that survive for each poet it is therefore difficult to say what kind of poetry they produced and how much of an influence they had on Martial. Domitius Marsus is known for two poems about Atia, the mother of Octavian, which have survived in a late anthology (Epigrammata Bobiensia 39; 40). Lentulus Gaetulicus is known for a flattering ep
igram addressed to Caligula, the same emperor, ironically, who had him executed in 39 CE for involvement in a conspiracy. In striking contrast with Martial, who specialized in epigram, his predecessors produced works in other genres as well. Albinovanus Pedo was the author of an epic poem on the Athenian hero Theseus (Ovid’s Epistulae ex Ponto 4.10 is addressed to Albinovanus; Ovid’s Ars Amatoria 2.24 is a line from the poem; Amores 2.11.10 is another one) and a historical epic on the campaigns of Germanicus (for a snippet, see Seneca the Elder, Suasoriae 1.15), while Domitius Marsus wrote a theoretical work on wit (Quintilian, The Orator’s Education 6.3.102).

  Until a few years ago the scholarly position on the date and nature of Martial’s debut as a poet was firmly established. The Liber Spectaculorum (“The Book of the Games”) was a collection of epigrams on highlights of gladiatorial games held by a Flavian emperor. The similarities with reports in Dio Cassius (Roman History 66.25) and Suetonius (Life of Titus 7.3) on the games celebrated by Titus during the opening of the Colosseum in 80 led to the conclusion that Martial’s poems must have appeared in a single collection soon after the events they are describing. In the chronology of Martial’s output this was his first published work. Recent research, however, has convincingly argued that some of the poems in the Liber Spectaculorum should be taken to refer to games organized by Domitian between 83 and 85.66 This suggests that, while some of the poems could have been written as early as 80, the Liber Spectaculorum may have appeared as a collection as late as 85 or 86. The idea has already been met with support and seems poised to completely overtake the idea of a publication shortly after the opening of the Colosseum.67 The order in which Martial’s books of epigrams were published is now thought to be as follows. Two books of occasional poetry, the Xenia and the Apophoreta, were published in 83 (Leary, Xenia 13) and 84 or 85 (Leary, Apophoreta 10), respectively. After the Liber Spectaculorum, Martial published twelve books of epigrams between 86 and 101.68

  Nero’s suicide in June of 68 was followed by a disruptive and disastrous civil war. Three ambitious senators, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, only managed to hold on to power for a short period of time before Vespasian, from a family—the Flavii—with roots in rural Umbria, successfully used his legions in Syria to take over absolute control over the Roman Empire and establish a new dynasty. Vespasian is best known for his efforts to bring economic rigor to the Roman Empire after years of extravagance under Nero (Suetonius, Life of Vespasian 23.3; Dio Cassius, Roman History 65.14.5; Juvenal, Satires 14.204–5) and for his lighthearted attitude on his deathbed toward his imminent deification (Suetonius, Life of Vespasian 23.4; Dio Cassius, Roman History 66.17.3).69 The reign of his eldest son Titus (79–81) was marked by two major events: the destruction of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 (Dio Cassius, Roman History 21–23; Suetonius, Life of Titus 8.3–4) and the opening of the Colosseum one year later (Dio Cassius, Roman History 66.25; Suetonius, Life of Titus 7.3). Titus suddenly died in the prime of his life in 81. Martial’s productive and prolific years as a poet coincided with the ten years between 86 and 96, the year in which Titus’ successor, his younger brother Domitian, was assassinated. In this period Martial wrote more than ninety epigrams addressed to Domitian, roughly ten percent of his total output until 96. The vast majority of them praise the emperor for his military successes and his social and moral legislation, usually in combination with an attempt to acquire his financial support. Martial does not seem to have been particularly successful in acquiring the patronage of the emperor and the material advantages that would accrue from such a relationship. That was certainly not for lack of trying. Especially books 5 and 8 feature a large number of poems dedicated to the emperor and the prose letter that serves as the dedication for book 8 is a dapper attempt to persuade Domitian to acknowledge and reward the poet’s eloquent and elegant poetry.

  The poems in praise of Domitian have been a controversial issue in the scholarship on Martial since the nineteenth century and although different viewpoints have been taken, the controversy is not yet resolved. In the nineteenth century and for most of the twentieth century Martial was viewed as a self-contradictory poet. He was praised for his sharp insights on the social lapses of his fellow Romans but criticized for the obscenity of his poetry as well as for his flattery of Domitian. J. H. Westcott called his flattery assiduous and importunate, marking out the persistent nature of his praise and the unwelcome response this created in the contemporary reader. Edwin Post called him a consummate lickspittle and a time-serving hypocrite.70 Only occasionally is the criticism mitigated by a sense that Martial had very few options: “Apart from the grossness of some of his verses, the poet’s chief weakness lay in the spirit of abject flattery that marks his allusions to Domitian. This, however, was the vice of the day, a fawning servility being the only road to favour with such a ruler, beneath whose sway any independence of character on the part of a man of note was likely to cost him his life.”71 The notion that Martial was a servile poet has not completely died out. A history of Roman literature published toward the close of the twentieth century labels Martial’s eulogies of Domitian as “disgusting.”72

  In the final quarter of the twentieth century scholars developed a different approach to Martial’s adulation; disgust with Martial’s sycophancy made way for admiration for his ingenuity.73 Point of departure is the notion that Martial took great care in putting together each book of epigrams from a “back catalog” of poems that had been circulating informally among buyers and addressees. The poems that praise Domitian are then studied together with those poems that stand in closest proximity to them on the assumption that the adulation is somehow undone or subverted by additional meaning flowing over from the other poems. This reading strategy became very influential in the scholarship on Martial in the final two decades of the twentieth century, but toward the close of the century more and more scholars started to question the premises underlying this literary strategy. One of the convincing objections maintains that Domitian was well-educated, smart, and well-versed in the reading of literature. To assume, therefore, that he was incapable of spotting the hidden meanings embedded by Martial in the structure of his books seems, in hindsight, to be somewhat naïve.74

  What is perhaps most striking in this shift in perspective on the relationship between Martial and Domitian is the fact that Domitian’s image as a cruel despot has been left virtually unaltered. The image of Domitian as a cruel emperor is based on a variety of hostile accounts (Tacitus’ biography of his father-in-law, Agricola; Suetonius’ biography of Domitian; Pliny the Younger’s Panegyricus in praise of Trajan; Juvenal’s fourth satire). These accounts were without exception composed after the death of the emperor and although they are interesting for the composite picture they provide of Domitian’s personality, they do not present a reliable basis for evaluating his reign. Ancient historians have paid very little attention to the historical puzzle that is Domitian and when they have, they have analyzed him almost exclusively without the help of Martial’s epigrams.75 In the past twenty-five years Domitian has received more attention because of the rise in interest in Martial, Statius, and most recently Pliny, but for this purpose the rhetorical image of Domitian does not need to be corrected. Martial’s “Domitian” is worthy of consideration because it shows that there also existed positive accounts of the emperor. It is good to suspend judgment and to examine which aspects of Domitian received the attention of the poet.

  In ancient Rome, imperial building projects did not only offer the city population an important opportunity to earn a living, but each completed assignment potentially carried a multitude of cultural and political messages. Domitian ranks second only behind Augustus as an initiator of large building projects. Domitian was responsible for the rebuilding and restoration of many temples damaged in the fire of 64.76 In 28 BCE Augustus had undertaken the restoration of eighty-two temples that had fallen into disrepair (Augustus, Res Gestae 20). By imitating this Domitian exemplifie
d his overall religious zeal and devotion to the gods. He also commissioned the building of new temples dedicated to his patron goddess Minerva (in the forum), and to Castor and Pollux, Isis and Serapis. His other main line of building activities consisted of projects to add luster to the Flavian family, the first set of emperors not connected with Augustus, the founder of the Principate. Their most famous building project, the massive amphitheater officially named the Amphitheatrum Flavium or Flavianum but better known as the Colosseum, blotted out the reputation of Nero, who had built a park connected with his Golden House on the same location. Domitian further promoted the illustrious reputation of the Flavian family by building a sumptuously decorated structure that was monument and temple in one on the site of his father’s house on the Quirinal Hill. The building was given a presumptuous name—templum gentis Flaviae, the sanctuary of the Flavian gens—another reason perhaps for the ill will sensed by some groups in Roman society. It plays an important role in Martial’s imperial panegyrics of book 9 (9.1; 9.3.12; 9.20.1; 9.34.2; 9.93.6).77 The poet is equally enthusiastic about the imperial palace that Domitian commissioned on the Palatine (7.56; 8.36; 9.24). Another building that attracted the attention of the poet was a dining hall nicknamed “the Golden Crumb” (mica aurea; 2.59 [page 19]).78