Martial

• 1. Origins And Early Life

  ›

  Marcus Valerius Martialis was born in the town of Augusta Bilbilis, now known as Calatayud, during March between 38 and 41 AD. He described himself as sprung from the Celts and Iberians, a countryman of the Tagus river. His parents were named Fronto and Flaccilla, and they died while he was still young. Martial recalled his childhood home as having rude comfort and plenty, situated far enough from the town to allow hunting and fishing yet close enough for companionship with many comrades. These memories of simple pleasures kept his spirit alive against the stultifying routines of upper-crust social life in Rome. Several notable first-century Latin writers emerged from Roman Hispania, including Seneca the Elder, Seneca the Younger, Lucan, and Quintilian. Martial's contemporaries included Licinianus of Bilbilis, Decianus of Emerita, and Canius of Gades.

• 2. Migration To Rome

  ›

  Martial moved to Rome from Hispania in AD 64 after completing his education. The success of his countrymen likely motivated this move to the capital. Not much is known about the details of his life for the first twenty years following his arrival. He published some juvenile poems which he thought very little of in his later years. A foolish bookseller once tried to keep these early works alive despite Martial's wishes. His faculty ripened with experience and knowledge of the social life that became both his theme and inspiration. Many of his best epigrams were written during his last years. Friends urged him to practice at the bar, but he preferred a lazy, Bohemian kind of life instead. He made many influential friends and patrons and secured favor from both Titus and Domitian. From them he obtained various privileges, among others the semestris tribunatus, which conferred equestrian rank. Martial failed however in his application to Domitian for more substantial advantages.

• 3. Patronage System

  ›

  Martial was dependent on wealthy friends and patrons for gifts of money, dinner, and even dress. The relation of client to patron had been recognized as an honorable one by the best Roman traditions. No blame attached to Virgil or Horace regarding favors received from Augustus and Maecenas. That old honorable relationship changed greatly between Augustus and Domitian. Men of good birth and education sometimes accepted the sportula dole. Martial merely followed general fashion in paying court to a lord. In his earlier career he accompanied patrons to villas at Baiae or Tibur. Later he went to his own small country house near Nomentum and sent poems as representatives. Martial's character showed much good nature alongside wit and pungency in writings according to Pliny the Younger. He professed to avoid personalities in satire while honoring sincerity and fides. Some found distasteful his apparent servile flattery to bad emperors of Rome in the first century. Martial would later censure these same emperors immediately after their deaths. He disliked hypocrisy in its many forms and remained free from cant, pedantry, and affectation.

• 4. Epigrammatic Style

  ›

  Martial wrote a total of 1,561 epigrams, with 1,235 composed in elegiac couplets. His keen curiosity and power of observation manifested clearly in these short poems. The enduring literary interest arises as much from literary quality as colorful references to human life. Martial brought to life spectacle and brutality of daily life in imperial Rome. Fire was a constant threat because wood was common building material and people used open fires and oil lamps. Martial made accusations that some deliberately set fire to property to collect insurance money. He poured scorn on doctors of his day and chided men like Rufus for flogging cooks over minor mistakes. Epigrams were characterized by biting sense of wit and often lewdness earning him place as original insult comic. Alongside Roman graffiti, the Epigrams serve as important sources of Latin obscene words. Martial's epigrams are also characterized by their biting and often scathing sense of wit as well as for their lewdness. This earned him a place in literary history as the original insult comic.

• 5. Social Commentary

  ›

  The twelve books bring Martial's ordinary mode of life between age forty-five and sixty before us. His regular home for thirty-five years was bustle of metropolitan Rome. He lived at first up three flights of stairs where garret overlooked laurels in front of portico of Agrippa. He had small villa and unproductive farm near Nomentum in Sabine territory to which he occasionally retired from pestilence, boors and noises of city. In later years he had small house on Quirinal near temple of Quirinus. At time when third book brought out he retired short time to Cisalpine Gaul weariness of unprofitable attendance on bigwigs of Rome. Even epigrams sent from Forum Corneli and Aemilian Way ring much more of Roman forum than places from which dated. Final departure from Rome motivated by weariness burdens imposed by social position and difficulties meeting ordinary expenses living in metropolis. Evidence shows he could not live happily away from literary and social pleasures of Rome for long. One consolation of exile was lady named Marcella whom he wrote platonically about as patroness rather than wife or mistress.

• 6. Literary Legacy

  ›

  Martial became known as greatest Latin epigrammatist and creator of modern epigram. Works became highly valued upon discovery by Renaissance writers who saw sharing eye for urban vices of own times. Poet's influence seen in Juvenal, late classical literature, Carolingian revival, Renaissance France and Italy, Siglo de Oro, early modern English and German poetry. He became unfashionable with growth of Romantic movement. Twenty-first century has seen resurgence scholarly attention to Martial's work. Pliny the Younger paid tribute writing that he had as much good nature as wit and pungency in writings. Though many epigrams indicate cynical disbelief in female character others prove respect and almost reverence for refined courteous woman. Tenderest element in Martial's nature seemed affection for children and dependants. His works remain important sources documenting daily life, urban vices, and social hierarchies within imperial Rome.