Little as his conduct agrees with the respectability of a married man, Martial was married twice. His first wife was Cleopatra, [44] of whose morose temper he complains, [45] and from whom he was divorced [46] soon after obtaining the Jus trium liberorum. His second was Marcella, whom he married after his return to Spain. [47] Of her he speaks with respect and even admiration. [48] It is possible that his town house and country estate were part of his first wife's dowry, so that on his divorce they reverted to her family; this would account for the otherwise inexplicable poverty in which he so often declares himself to be plunged. While at Rome he had many patrons. Besides Domitian, he numbered Silius Italicus, Pliny, Stella the friend of Statius, Regulus the famous pleader, Parthenius, Crispinus, and Glabrio, among his influential friends. It is curious that he never mentions Statius. The most probable reason for his silence is the old one, given by Hesiod, but not yet obsolete:
kai kerameus keramei koteei kai aoidos aoido.
He and Statius were indisputably the chief poets of the day. One or other must hold the first place. We have no means of knowing how this quarrel, if quarrel it was, arose. Among Martial's other friends were Quintilian, Valerius Flaccus, and Juvenal. His intimacy with these men, two of whom at least were eminently respectable, lends some support to his own statement, advanced to palliate the impurity of his verses:
"Lasciva est nobis pagina: vita proba est."
The year of his death is not certain. But it must have occurred soon after 100 A.D. Pliny in his grand way gives an obituary notice of him in one of his letters, [49] which, interesting as all his letters are, we cannot do better than translate:
"I hear with regret that Valerius Martial is dead. He was a man of talent, acuteness, and spirit, with plenty of wit and gall, and as sincere as he was witty. I gave him a parting present when he left Rome, which was due both to our friendship and to some verses which he wrote in my praise. It was an ancestral custom of ours to enrich with honours or money those who had written the praises of individuals or cities, but among other noble and seemly customs this has now become obsolete. I suppose since we have ceased to do things worthy of laudation, we think it in bad taste to receive it."
Pliny then quotes the verses, [50] and proceeds—
"Was I not justified in parting on the most friendly terms with one who wrote so prettily of me, and am I not justified now in mourning his loss as that of an intimate friend? What he could he gave me; if he had had more he would have gladly given it. And yet what gift can be greater than glory, praise, and immortality? It is possible, indeed, as I think I hear you saying, that his poems may not last for ever. Nevertheless, he wrote them in the belief that they would."
Martial is the most finished master of the epigram, as we understand it. Epigram is with him condensed satire. The harmless plays on words, sudden surprises, and neat turns of expression, which had satisfied the Greek and earlier Latin epigrammatists, were by no means stimulating enough for the blasé taste of Martial's day. The age cried for point, and with point Martial supplies it to the full extent of its demand. His pungency is sometimes wonderful; the whole flavour of many a sparkling little poem is pressed into one envenomed word, like the scorpion's tail whose last joint is a sting. The marvel is that with that biting pen of his the poet could find so many warm friends. But the truth is, he was far more than a mere sharp-shooter of wit. He had a genuine love of good fellowship, a warm if not a constant heart, and that happy power of graceful panegyric which was so specially Roman a gift. Juvenal, indeed, complains that the Greeks were hopelessly above his countryman in the art of praise. But this is not an opinion in which we can agree. Their fulsome adulation may indeed have been more acceptable to the vulgar objects of it than that of the Roman panegyrist, who, even while flattering, could not shake off the fetters of the great dialect in which he wrote; but the efforts in this department by Cicero, Ovid, Horace, Pliny, and Martial, mast be allowed to be master- achievements to which it would be hard to find an equal in the literature of any other nation.
Martial is one of the most difficult of Roman authors. Scarce once or twice does he relax his style sufficiently to let the reader read instead of spelling through his poems. When he does this he is elegant and pleasing. The epicedion on a little girl who died at the age of six, is a lovely gem that may almost bear comparison with Catullus; but then it is spoilt by the misplaced wit of the last few lines. [51] Few indeed are the poems of Martial that are natural throughout. His constant effort to be terse, to condense description into allusion, and allusion into indication, and to indicate as many allusions as possible by a single word, compels the reader to weigh each expression with scrupulous care lest he may lose some of the points with which every line is weighted; and yet even Martial is less perfect in this respect than Juvenal. But then the shortness of his pieces takes away that relief which a longer satire must have, not only for its author's sake, but for purposes of artistic success. He must have read Juvenal with care, and sometimes seems to give a decoction of his satires. [52] It is probable that we do not possess all Martial's poems. It is also possible that many of those we possess under his name are not by him. The list embraces one book of Spectacula, celebrating the shows in which emperor and people took such delight; twelve of Epigrams, edited separately, and partially revised for each edition; [53] two of Xenia and Apophoreta, written before the tenth book of Epigrams, and devoted to the flattery of Domitian. The obscenities which defile almost every book make it impossible to read Martial with any pleasure, but those who desire to make his acquaintance will find Book IV. by far the least objectionable in this respect, as well as otherwise more interesting.