Selected Epigrams

by Martial

  Book Twelve

  12.7. This epigram, like 11.101, belongs to the tradition of humor through exaggerated comparisons and ridicule of unattractive physical features.

  12.9. Cornelius Palma was consul in 99 CE (Shackleton Bailey 3:372). Trajan, who had been born in Italica, near what is now Seville, had become emperor in January 98 CE (3:97–98n). Around 98 CE, Martial returned to his hometown of Bilbilis in northeastern Spain, where he spent the rest of his life (Howell, Martial 26).

  12.10. Martial focuses on the irony that Africanus, who owns a hundred million already, is still looking for more in the form of legacies from others.

  12.12. This epigram suggests a solution to a situation Martial must often have encountered, in which people make generous promises to him when they are drunk that they “forget” once they are sober.

  12.13. Because Martial was dependent on the generosity of rich men, he must have suffered often from their caprices and piques. This poem is addressed to Pompeius Auctus, a legal expert and friend of Martial’s (Shackleton Bailey 3:377).

  12.16. The slaves Labienus bought are catamites, so Martial is using “plow” in a sexual sense.

  12.17. The name Dama was often used for slaves (Shackleton Bailey 3:351), so in this poem it suggests a slave or poor freedman (3:103n). The wines named in this poem are all excellent ones, and the foods are also luxury items.

  12.18. The Juvenal mentioned here is probably Decimus Junius Juvenalis, the famous satirist, who was Martial’s friend (Shackleton Bailey 3:361). Martial seems to be reminding Juvenal of the onerous duties of visiting patrons in order to contrast them with the pleasures of his rustic life of retirement in Bilbilis in northeastern Spain, the town of his birth, which was populated by Celtiberians (Spanish Celts). The Subura was a bustling section of Rome. Diana’s hill is the Aventine, which had a temple to Diana (3:105n). Boterdus was a sacred wood near Bilbilis (3:343), and Platea was another local place (3:376).

  12.20. Martial is using “has” to mean “has sex with” (Shackleton Bailey 3:107n).

  12.22. Physical defects are frequent targets of Martial’s humor.

  12.23. As in 12.22, 3.8, 3.39, and other epigrams, Martial makes fun of a person with just one eye.

  12.26. The bandits may be implying that Saenia was too ugly to fuck or, as Shackleton Bailey suggests, that she performed other sexual acts (3:110n).

  12.27. Though Martial complains when he, as a guest, is served different wine than his host is drinking (3.49, 4.85), he justifies serving a cheaper wine to Cinna because Cinna drinks so much.

  12.30. A sober slave would be unlikely to be sneaking into the wine, but friends would typically be drinking together, so a sober man in the crowd might put a damper on the fun.

  12.31. Martial is describing his home in Bilbilis, after he retired to Hispania. Marcella was his local patroness. Nausicaa is a Phaeacian princess in The Odyssey, whose father Alcinous has gardens described as a sort of earthly paradise, in which fruits are always in season.

  12.34. This poem, addressed to Martial’s closest friend, Lucius Julius Martialis (Shackleton Bailey 3:361), looks back fondly on their years together in Rome. Martial was living in retirement in Spain when he wrote it.

  12.35. To Romans, there were more shameful things than being sodomized. Martial implies that Callistratus also performs oral sex.

  12.40. The one thing that Pontilianus does without Martial is not specified, but is implied to be something sexual of a discreditable nature. Martial casts himself as a long-suffering legacy hunter, willing to commit any hypocrisy to keep the rich target happy, but his true feelings are revealed in his wish that Pontilianus will die soon.

  12.42. Though sexual liaisons between grown men and boys were accepted by Roman society, the idea of two adult men wanting to marry one another would have seemed absurd, and the idea of a bearded man wearing the wedding veil of a virgin was even more ridiculous.

  12.45. This early form of a toupee, made from kidskin (presumably with the hair still on it) excites derision from Martial, who also makes fun of Phoebus for painting hair on his bald head in 6.57.

  12.46. This poem is probably addressed to one of Martial’s slave boys, given his other similar poems about their uncooperative behavior.

  12.47. Martial implies that the ones who buy verse by Lupercus and Gallus are the true madmen.

  12.51. Aulus Pudens is a friend of Martial’s and is frequently addressed in his poems (Shackleton Bailey 3:378).

  12.56. When people recovered from illness, their friends would send them soteria, gifts to congratulate them on their recovery (Shackleton Bailey 3:137n). Polycharmus seems to be faking frequent illness to collect these gifts.

  12.58. Alauda’s wife, knowing that he sleeps with slave girls, indulges in sex with the slaves who carry her litter. Though the double standard of Roman times endorses Alauda’s infidelity, not hers, Martial implies that the two deserve one another.

  12.61. According to Martial, Ligurra longs to be considered important enough to be lampooned by him, pretending to fear such notoriety, but actually desiring it. Martial says Ligurra is unworthy of his own verses, but fit for those of scurrilous graffiti writers who scrawl their work in latrines, brothels, and other dark corners. The drunk bard may be living under an archway, as homeless people do even now, though it is possible that he chooses such a location to write in so that he will be less likely to be caught in the act.

  12.64. Cinna, Martial implies, has no taste for beauty, only for food.

  12.65. Phyllis, ironically, asks for far less than Martial is prepared to give for the night of sex with her, and by asking first, she loses out on what he would have given. Prostitutes usually charged more for sexual services such as anal or oral intercourse than for regular intercourse, so her moderate demands are surprising.

  12.69. Martial implies that the friends are as phony as Paulus’ “antique” paintings and wine cups (Shackleton Bailey 3:150n).

  12.71. Martial suggests that Lygdus formerly satisfied even requests that should be refused, such as a request for fellatio (Shackleton Bailey 3:151n). A similar point is made about Thais in 4.12.

  12.73. The last line means “I won’t believe it unless I read it, Catullus” (Shackleton Bailey 3:153). Since the will of Catullus would not be read until after his death, Shackleton Bailey takes this to be a hint to Catullus to die (3:152n). Since Martial frequently praises the poet Catullus (ca. 84–ca. 54 BCE) and seeks to imitate him, there may also be a self-deprecating allusion here to Martial’s hope that he will be seen as the heir of that Catullus.

  12.76. Though the farmer has more food and wine than he can consume, he can get no money for them (Shackleton Bailey 3:155n). The as, here translated as “cent,” was a bronze coin of low value.

  12.78. Shackleton Bailey notes that plaintiffs could challenge defendants in law cases to swear an oath that their claims were true; to refuse to swear was an admission of guilt. Martial would rather pay damages than admit the truth that he has not written anything against Bithynicus, implying that he wishes he had (3:157n).

  12.79. As in 12.71 and 4.12, the joke is that anyone who refuses no requests will agree to perform fellatio.

  12.80. Martial often, as here, shows disgust at the praise of poets he considers unworthy, perhaps feeling that his own poetry was undervalued by comparison.

  12.81. Though the pun on alicula (light coat) and alica (a drink made from spelt, a kind of grain) cannot be preserved in English, the irony of Umber’s sending a more expensive gift when he was poor than after he becomes rich is still clear. Umber sent a costlier gift when he was poor because he hoped to gain something from Martial. Once he was rich himself, he had no incentive to stay in Martial’s favor.

  12.84. According to myth, Pelops had a shoulder of ivory because his father Tantalus had killed him and served him as a meal to the gods. All of the gods refrained from eating any of the cannibalistic feast except Demeter, who was so distracted by grief for her daughter Persephone�
�s recent kidnapping that she ate his left shoulder. When the gods brought the boy back to life, the missing shoulder was supplied by an ivory substitute. Polytimus, a slave of Martial’s, longs to cut his hair as a sign of manhood and an end to his role as Martial’s catamite. Martial does not want to grant that wish, but once he does, he finds Polytimus even more attractive with his hair cut short, like a bridegroom’s, revealing his ivory shoulders.

  12.85. Martial may have associated the name Fabullus with smelling because of poem 13 of Catullus, in which Catullus tells Fabullus that once he has smelled the perfume of the girlfriend of Catullus, he will wish he were all nose. Martial makes his usual joke about oral sex causing bad breath.

  12.86. Martial not only points out the irony of owning many desirable slaves while being unable to perform sexually, but also hints that the only sexual options available to such a person were the shameful ones of performing oral sex or being sodomized.

  12.87. People reclined barefoot on couches while dining (Shackleton Bailey 3:163n), so Cotta would have left his sandals in his slave’s care. Since the slave has twice lost the sandals and Cotta has no other slave he can bring, he solves the problem by going to dinner barefoot.

  12.91. Magulla shares not only her husband’s bed, but also his male bed-mate. She does not share the good-looking boy who pours his wine (and who may also be his catamite). Her reason may be either that the husband is more jealous of that boy and might be tempted to poison her if she had sex with him or that having her wine poured by her husband’s darling gives him a greater opportunity to poison her.

  12.92. Martial implies that it is as likely that he will get wealth and power as it is that Priscus will become a lion.

  12.93. The dwarf that Labulla keeps as a fool is compared to her own husband (a bigger fool) in that she is able to carry on her adultery right under his nose without his suspecting a thing.

  12.95. The books of Sybaris were well-known pornographic works by Hemitheon, called “The Sybarite,” though Mussetius is otherwise unknown (Shackleton Bailey 3:167n). Sullivan points out that Martial tends to portray masturbation as an inferior mode of sexual activity (190–91).

  12.96. Here, as in 11.43, Martial makes the argument that wives should not consider boys to be their rivals and should not try to compete with the boys by allowing the husband to sodomize them; this poem, however, is addressed to an unnamed woman instead of to Martial’s invented wife, as it was in 11.43.

  12.97. Martial here writes to Bassus as if in the capacity of a lawyer for the neglected wife of Bassus, to shame him into fulfilling his marital obligations to her. Though Martial himself was averse to marrying and often has negative things to say about wives and marriage, he supports the expectation that married men would make an effort to reproduce with their wives.

  Bibliography

  Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. Translated and edited by James Strachey. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960. Originally published as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Vienna: F. Deuticke, 1905).

  Galán Vioque, Guillermo. Martial, Book VII: A Commentary. Translated by J. J. Zoltowski. Boston: Brill, 2002.

  Henriksén, Christer. A Commentary on Martial, Epigrams Book 9. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

  Howell, Peter. A Commentary on Book One of the Epigrams of Martial. London: Athlone, 1980.

  _______. Martial. London: Bristol Classical, 2009.

  _______. Martial: Epigrams V. Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips, 1995.

  Kay, N. M. Martial Book XI: A Commentary. London: Duckworth, 1985.

  Moreno Soldevila, Rosario. Martial, Book IV: A Commentary. Boston: Brill, 2006.

  Pliny. Letters and Panegyricus, Books 1–7. Vol. 1. Translated by Betty Radice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969.

  Richlin, Amy. The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

  _______. “The Meaning of Irrumare in Catullus and Martial.” Classical Philology 76 (1981): 40–46.

  Shackleton Bailey, D. R., ed. and trans. Martial: Epigrams. 3 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.

  Spisak, Art L. Martial: A Social Guide. London: Duckworth, 2007.

  Sullivan, J. P. Martial: The Unexpected Classic. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

  Williams, Craig A. Martial: Epigrams Book Two. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

  Index

  absurdity, 4.20, 7.75, 10.54

  Achilles (famous Greek warrior in The Iliad ), 11.43

  actor, 6.6, 11.13

  adultery/adulterer/adulteress, 1.62, 1.73, 1.74, 1.90, 2.39, 2.49, 2.56, 2.60, 2.83, 3.26, 3.70, 3.84, 6.22, 6.45, 6.90, 6.91, 8.31, 10.52, 10.95, 10.97, 12.93

  adulthood, 3.6, 4.7

  Alcestis (wife who agreed to die in her husband’s place to save his life), 4.75

  Alcinous (king of Phaeacia in The Odyssey), 10.94, 12.31

  Amazoniad (epic poem about the Amazons, by Marsus), 4.29

  amber, 3.65, 4.32, 4.59, 6.15

  ambrosia (food of the gods), 11.57

  amethyst, 10.49

  Andraemon (a racehorse), 10.9

  Andromache (wife of Hector in The Iliad ), 3.76, 5.53, 10.90

  anger, 2.23, 3.37, 4.17, 4.43, 5.46, 6.51, 7.19, 8.61, 11.35, 12.13

  ant, 6.15

  Antony (Mark), 2.89

  anus, 2.51, 2.62, 3.71, 11.43, 11.46, 11.90, 11.99, 12.96

  Apicius (man famous for extravagance and gourmet taste), 2.89, 3.22

  Apollo/Phoebus ( god of music, poetry, inspiration), 2.22, 2.89, 3.45, 8.62, 10.21, 11.43, 11.93

  applause, 6.34, 9.33, 10.53

  apple, 3.65, 10.94

  Apulia (region in southern Italy, known for producing wool), 10.74

  Argiletum (Roman street of shops near the Forum Iulium), 1.117, 2.17

  Aricia (area known for beggars, south of Rome on the Appian Way), 2.19

  Armenia, 5.58

  arrow, 10.16

  art/artist, 1.102, 4.47, 6.52, 7.39, 9.44, 9.50, 10.32

  ash, 4.44, 10.90

  Assyria (Near Eastern country in the region that now includes Iraq), 8.77

  astrologer, 9.81

  atheist, 4.21

  athlete, 11.72

  Atropos (the Fate who cuts the thread of life), 10.44

  Attica/Attic (region around Athens in Greece), 11.42

  auctioneer, 6.66

  autumn, 10.94

  Avernus (lake near the Bay of Naples), 1.62

  avoidance, 11.47, 12.34

  baby/toddler, 4.87, 7.25, 9.74, 10.95

  Bacchus (god of wine), 4.44

  bad breath, 3.28, 11.30, 12.85

  badness, 1.16, 1.94, 2.34, 2.56, 6.62, 6.82, 7.81, 7.90, 8.35, 9.88, 9.89, 10.77, 11.30, 12.40, 12.80

  Baiae (resort town on the Bay of Naples), 1.59, 1.62, 4.63

  baker, 2.51, 8.16

  baldness, 1.72, 2.33, 6.57, 12.45

  bandit, 12.26

  barbarian, 11.96

  barber/barbering, 2.17, 2.62, 6.52, 6.57, 7.83, 8.47

  barefoot, 12.87

  barkeep/tavern owner, 2.51, 3.57

  Batavian (member of a tribe living in what is now Holland), 6.82

  bath/bathing, 1.23, 1.59, 2.42, 2.52, 2.70, 2.78, 3.3, 3.51, 3.68, 3.72, 3.87, 5.20, 6.53, 7.76, 9.19, 9.33, 11.47, 11.51, 11.63, 11.75, 12.17

  Bauli (a resort town on the Bay of Naples, near Baiae), 4.63

  bean, 7.78

  beard, 4.7, 4.36, 7.83, 8.47, 10.90, 12.42

  beating, 2.66, 5.46, 8.23

  beauty, 1.9, 1.10, 1.64, 1.108, 2.87, 3.3, 3.33, 3.39, 3.51, 3.72, 3.76, 5.45, 5.46, 6.16, 6.40, 8.51, 8.54, 8.79, 9.66, 10.32, 11.40, 11.60, 11.102, 12.64, 12.65

  bed/couch, 2.59, 4.13, 4.22, 8.43, 8.77, 10.47, 10.84, 12.17, 12.91, 12.96

  bedroom, 11.45

  bee, 4.32, 6.34, 11.42

  beggar, 2.19

  believing, 1.24, 1.28, 2.83, 3.3, 4.49, 4.69, 6.56, 10.90, 12.40, 12.73,
12.78

  belly/stomach, 2.51, 3.22, 3.72

  bier, 8.43, 10.97

  bigamy, 6.90

  Bilbilis (Martial’s birthplace in northeastern Spain), 12.18

  birth, 8.40, 10.39, 10.65, 10.91, 10.94, 10.95, 11.44, 12.42

  birthday, 3.6, 7.21, 9.52, 9.53, 10.27

  bitterness, 7.25, 12.34

  blackness/darkness, 1.72, 3.34, 4.27, 4.36, 5.43, 6.55, 7.13, 7.14, 7.30, 8.77, 10.49, 10.66, 11.34, 12.17, 12.34, 12.61

  blandness, 7.25

  blemish, 7.18

  blindness, 3.8, 3.15, 4.51, 8.51, 9.25, 12.22

  blondness, 5.68

  blushing, 4.17, 5.2, 8.17, 9.60, 9.67, 10.64, 11.15

  boar, 7.78, 9.14, 9.88, 10.45, 12.17

  boasting, 9.102, 10.65

  body, 3.3, 6.56, 7.18, 11.47, 11.60

  bone, 1.72, 5.34

  book, 1.16, 1.29, 1.38, 1.108, 1.111, 1.113, 1.117, 2.23, 2.93, 3.68, 3.86, 3.100, 4.6, 4.27, 4.29, 4.49, 4.72, 5.2, 5.20, 5.73, 6.60, 7.3, 7.11, 7.77, 7.81, 7.85, 7.90, 8.1, 8.29, 9.50, 9.81, 10.1, 10.21, 10.45, 10.64, 10.74, 10.100, 11.15, 11.108, 12.95

  bookcase, 4.33

  bookseller, 1.113, 1.117, 4.72

  Boreas (the north wind), 8.14

  Bordeaux (Burdigala, a city in Gaul, in what is now southwestern France), 9.32

  boy, 1.58, 1.113, 1.117, 2.49, 2.60, 3.39, 3.65, 3.69, 3.71, 3.73, 4.7, 4.49, 5.2, 6.16, 6.52, 7.14, 9.21, 9.50, 9.67, 9.74, 10.80, 11.15, 11.29, 11.43, 11.45, 11.63, 11.86, 11.96, 11.108, 12.18, 12.64, 12.86, 12.91, 12.96, 12.97

  brand, 2.66, 12.61

  bread, 8.16, 10.59

  breast, 2.52, 3.53, 3.72

  bribery/extortion, 2.13, 2.56

  bride, 1.24, 4.75, 12.42, 12.84, 12.95

  Briseis (slave girl loved by Achilles), 11.43 bronze, 9.50, 11.75

  broth, 12.81

  brothel, 1.34, 11.45