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MARTIAL (MARCUS VALERIUS MARTIALIS)
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See also:MARTIAL (See also:MARCUS See also:VALERIUS See also:MARTIALIS) , Latin epigrammatist, was See also:born in one of the years A.D. 38-41, for in See also:book x., of which the poems were composed in the years 95-98, he is found celebrating his fifty-seventh birthday (x. 24). Our knowledge of his career is derived almost entirely from himself. Reference to public events enables us approximately to See also:fix the date of the publication of the different books of epigrams, and from these See also:dates to determine those of various important events in his See also:life. The See also:place of his See also:birth was Bilbilis, officially See also:Augusta Bilbilis, in See also:Spain. His name seems to imply that he was born a See also:Roman See also:citizen, but he speaks of himself as " sprung from the Celts and See also:Iberians, and a countryman of the See also:Tagus; " and, in contrasting his own masculine See also:appearance with that of an effeminate See also:Greek, he draws especial See also:attention to " his stiff See also:Spanish See also:hair " (x. 65, 7). His parents, See also:Fronto and Flaccilla, appear to have died in his youth (v. 34). His See also:home was evidently one of See also:rude comfort and plenty, sufficiently in the See also:country to afford him the amusements of See also:hunting and fishing, which he often recalls with keen See also:pleasure, and sufficiently near the See also:town to afford him the companionship of many comrades, the few survivors of whom he looks forward to See also:meeting again after his four-and-See also:thirty years' See also:absence (x. 104). The memories of this old home, and of other spots, the rough names and See also:local associations which he delights to introduce into his See also:verse, attest the enjoyment which he had in his See also:early life, and were among the influences which kept his spirit alive in the routine of social life in See also:Rome. But his Spanish home could impart, not only the vigorous vitality which was one See also:condition of his success as a wit and poet, but the See also:education which made him so accomplished a writer. The See also:literary distinction obtained by the Senecas, by See also:Lucan, by See also:Quintilian, who belonged to a somewhat older See also:generation, and by his See also:friends and contemporaries, See also:Licinianus of Bilbilis, Decianus of Emerita, and Canius of Gades, proves how eagerly the novel impulse of letters was received in Spain in the first See also:century of the See also:empire. The position, and apparently the difficulties of meeting the See also:ordinary success of his countrymen may have been the See also:motive which induced Martial to remove to Rome when he had completed his education. This he did in A.D. 64, one See also:year before the fall of See also:Seneca and Lucan, who were probably his earliest patrons. Of the details of his life for the first twenty years or so after he came to Rome we do not know much. He published some juvenile poems of which he thought very little in his maturer years, and he laughs at a foolish bookseller who would not allow them to See also:die a natural See also:death (i. 113). Martial had neither youthful See also:passion nor youthful See also:enthusiasm to make him precociously a poet. His See also:faculty ripened with experience and with the knowledge of that social life which was both his theme and his See also:inspiration; and many of his best epigrams are among those written in his last years. From many answers which he makes to the remonstrances of friends—among others to those of Quintilian—it may be inferred that he was urged to practise at the See also:bar, but that he preferred his own lazy Bohemian See also:kind of life. He made many influential friends and patrons, and secured the favour both of See also:Titus and See also:Domitian. From them he obtained various privileges, among others the semestris tribunatus, which conferred on him equestrian See also:rank. He failed, however, in his application to the latter for more substantial advantages, although he commemorates the See also:glory of having been invited to See also:dinner by him, and also the fact that he procured the See also:privilege of citizenship for many persons in whose behalf he appealed to him. The earliest of his extant See also:works, that known by the name of See also:Liber spectaculorum, was first published at the opening of the Colosseum in the reign of Titus, and relates to the theatrical performances given by him; but the book as it now stands was given to the See also:world in or about the first year of Domitian, i.e. about A.D. 81. The favour of the See also:emperor procured him the countenance of some of the worst creatures at the imperial See also:court—among them of the notorious Crispinus, and probably of See also:Paris, the supposed author of See also:Juvenal's See also:exile, for whose See also:monument Martial afterwards wrote a eulogistic See also:epitaph. The two books, numbered by editors xiii. and xiv., and known by the names of See also:Xenia and Apophoreta—See also:inscriptions in two lines each for presents,—were published at the Saturnalia of 84. In 86 he gave to the world the first two of the twelve books on which his reputation rests. From that See also:time till his return to Spain in A.D. 98 he published a See also:volume almost every year. The first nine books and the first edition of book x. appeared in the reign of Domitian; and book xi. at the end of A.D. 96, shortly after the See also:accession of See also:Nerva. A revised edition of book x., that which we now possess, appeared in A.D. 98, about the time of the entrance of See also:Trajan into Rome. The last book was written after three years' absence in Spain, shortly before his death, which happened about the year A.D. 102 or 103. These twelve books bring Martial's ordinary mode of life between the See also:age of five-and-See also:forty and sixty very fully before us. His See also:regular home for five-and-thirty years was Rome. He lived at first up three pairs of stairs, and his " See also:garret " overlooked the laurels in front of the See also:portico of See also:Agrippa. He had a small See also:villa and unproductive See also:farm near See also:Nomentum, in the See also:Sabine territory, to which he occasionally retired from the bores and noises of the See also:city (ii. 38, xii. 57). In his later years he had also a small See also:house on the Quirinal, near the See also:temple of See also:Quirinus. At the time when his third book was brought out he had retired for a See also:short time to Cisalpine See also:Gaul, in weariness, as he tells us, of his unremunerative attendance on the levees of the See also:great. For a time he seems to have See also:felt the See also:charm of the new scenes which he visited, and in a later book (iv. 25) he contemplates the prospect of retiring to the neighbourhood of See also:Aquileia and the Timavus. But the spell exercised over him by Rome and Roman society was too great; even the epigrams sent from See also:Forum Corneli and the Aemilian Way See also:ring much more of the Roman forum, and of the streets, See also:baths, porticos and clubs of Rome, than of the places from which they are dated. So too his motive for his final departure from Rome in A.D. 98 was a weariness of the burdens imposed on him by his socialexpenses of living in the See also:metropolis (x. 96); and he looks forward to a return to the scenes See also:familiar to his youth. The well-known See also:epigram addressed to Juvenal ()ii. 18) shows that for a time his ideal was realized; but the more trustworthy See also:evidence of the See also:prose See also:epistle prefixed to book xii. proves that his contentment was of short duration, and that he could not live happily away from the literary and social pleasures of Rome. Thb one See also:consolation of his exile was the society of a See also:lady, Marcella, of whom he writes rather as if she were his patroness—and it seems to have been a See also:necessity of his being to have always a See also:patron or patroness—than his wife or See also:mistress. During his life at Rome, although he never See also:rose to a position of real See also:independence, and had always a hard struggle with poverty, he seems to have known everybody, especially every one of any See also:eminence at the bar or in literature. In addition to Lucan and Quintilian, he numbered among his friends or more intimate acquaintances Silius Italicus, Juvenal, the younger See also:Pliny; and there were many others of high position whose society and patronage he enjoyed. The silence which he and See also:Statius, although authors See also:writing at the same time, having See also:common friends and treating often of the same subjects, maintain in regard to one another may be explained by mutual dislike or want of sympathy. Martial in many places shows an undisguised contempt for the artificial kind of epic on which Statius's reputation chiefly rests; and it seems quite natural that the respectable author of the Thebaid and the Silvae should feel little admiration for either the life or the works of the Bohemian epigrammatist. Martial's faults are of the most glaring kind, and are exhibited without the least concealment. Living under perhaps the worst of the many See also:bad emperors who ruled the world in the 1st century, he addresses him and his favourites with the most servile flattery in his lifetime, censures him immediately after his death (xii. 6), and offers See also:incense at the See also:shrine of his successor. He is not ashamed to be dependent on his wealthy friends and patrons for gifts of See also:money, for his dinner, and even for his See also:dress. We cannot feel sure that even what seem his sincerest tributes of regard may not be prompted by the See also:hope of See also:payment. Further, there are in every book epigrams which cannot be read with any other feelings than those of extreme distaste. These faults are so unmistakable and undeniable that many have formed their whole estimate of Martial from them, and have declined to make any further acquaintance with him. Even those who greatly admire his See also:genius, and find the freshest See also:interest in his See also:representation of Roman life and his sketches of See also:manners and See also:character, do not See also:attempt to palliate his faults, though they may partially See also:account for them by reference to the morals of his age and the circumstances of his life. The age was one when literature had either to be silent or to be servile. Martial was essentially a See also:man of letters: he was See also:bound either to gain favour by his writings or to starve. Even Statius, whose writings are in other respects irreproachable, is nearly as fulsome in his adulation. The relation of client to patron had been recognized as an See also:honourable one by the best Roman traditions. No blame had attached to See also:Virgil or See also:Horace on account of the favours which they received from See also:Augustus and See also:Maecenas, or of the return which they made for these favours in their verse. That old honourable relationship had, however, greatly changed between Augustus and Domitian. Men of See also:good birth and education, and sometimes even of high See also:official position (Juv. i. 117), accepted the See also:dole (sportula). Martial was merely following a See also:general See also:fashion in paying his court to " a See also:lord," and he made the best of the See also:custom. In his earlier career he used to accompany his patrons to their villas at Baiae or See also:Tibur, and to attend their See also:morning levees. Later on he went to his own small country house, near Nomentum, and sent a poem, or a small volume of his poems, as his representative at the early visit. The See also:fault of grossness Martial shares with nearly all See also:ancient and many See also:modern writers who treat of life from the baser or more ridiculous See also:side. That he offends more than perhaps any of them is not, apparently, to be explained on the ground that he had to amuse a peculiarly corrupt public. Although there is the most cynical effrontery and want of self-respect in Martial's use of See also:language, there is not much trace of the satyr in him—much less, many readers will think, than in Juvenal. It remains to ask, What were those qualities of nature and See also:intellect which enable us to read his best See also:work—even the great See also:body of his work—with the freshest sense of pleasure in the See also:present See also:day? He had the keenest capacity for enjoyment, the keenest curiosity and See also:power of observation. He had also a very just discernment. It is rare to find any one endowed with so See also:quick a See also:perception of the ridiculous who is so little of a caricaturist. He was himself singularly See also:free from cant, pedantry or affectation of any kind. Though tolerant of most vices, he had a hearty scorn of See also:hypocrisy. There are few better satirists of social and literary pretenders in ancient or modern times. Living in a very artificial age, he was quite natural, hating pomp and show, and desiring to secure in life only what really gave him pleasure. To live one's own life heartily from day to day without looking before or after, and to be one's self without trying to be that for which nature did not intend him, is the sum of his See also:philosophy. Further, while tolerant of much that is bad and See also:base—the characters of Crispinus and See also:Regulus, for instance—he shows himself genuinely grateful for kindness and appreciative of excellence. He has no bitterness, malice or envy in his See also:composition. He professes to avoid personalities in his See also:satire;—" Ludimus innocui " is the character he claims for it. Pliny, in the short See also:tribute which he pays to him on See also:hearing of his death, says, " He. had as much good-nature as wit and pungency in his writings " (Ep. iii. 21). See also:Honour and sincerity (fides and simplicitas) are the qualities which he most admires in his friends. Though many of his epigrams indicate a cynical disbelief in the character of See also:women, yet others prove that he could respect and almost reverence a fefined and courteous lady. His own life in Rome afforded him no experience of domestic virtue; but his epigrams show that, even in the age which is known to modern readers chiefly from the Satires of Juvenal, virtue was recognized as the purest source of happiness. The tenderest See also:element in Martial's nature seems, however, to have been his See also:affection for See also:children and for his dependents. - The permanent literary interest of Martial's epigrams arises not so much from their verbal brilliancy, though in this they are unsurpassed, as from the amount of human life and character which they contain. He, better than any other writer, enables us to revive the outward spectacle of the imperial Rome. If Juvenal enforces the See also:lesson of that time, and has penetrated more deeply into the See also:heart of society, Martial has sketched its See also:external aspect with a much fairer See also:pencil and from a much more intimate contact with it. Martial was to Rome in the decay of its ancient virtue and patriotism what See also:Mena.nder was to See also:Athens in its decline. They were both men of See also:cosmopolitan rather than of a See also:national type, and had a closer See also:affinity to the life of Paris or See also:London in the 18th century than to that of Rome in the days of the Scipios or of Athens in the age of See also:Pericles. The See also:form of epigram was fitted to the See also:critical See also:temper of Rome as the See also:comedy of manners was fitted to the. dramatic genius of -See also:Greece. Martial professes to be of the school of See also:Catullus, Pedo, and See also:Marsus, and admits his inferiority only to the first. But, though he is a poet of a less pure and genuine inspiration he is a greater epigrammatist even than his See also:master. Indeed the epigram bears to this day the form impressed upon it by his unrivalled skill.
The best See also:separate edition of the See also:text is that of See also:Lindsay (See also:Oxford, 19o2); earlier See also:editions of importance are those of See also:Schneidewin (1842 and 1853), and of See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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