9. When Brutus, the slayer of Caesar, committed suicide after the defeat at Philippi, his wife Porcia also took her own life. The common story was that her friends, suspecting her design, removed all weapons out of her way, and that she thereupon destroyed herself by swallowing live coals. The real fact may have been that she suffocated herself by the vapor of a charcoal stove,—a common method of suicide with the Romans. 4. fatis: by his death. patrem: Cato the Younger, who slew himself at Utica after the disastrous battle at Thapsus. 6. ferrum: emphatic.
10. 1. Arria: the wife of Caecina Paetus. In 42 A.D., on the charge of conspiracy against the government, Paetus was ordered by the Emperor Claudius to put an end to his own life. When he hesitated, Arria stabbed herself and handed him the dagger, saying, Paete, non dolet.
Pliny, Epistula 3. 16. 6, says of her conduct on another occasion when, fearing the effect of the news on her husband, then dangerously ill, she concealed from him the death of their son:
Glorious indeed that act of hers, to bare the steel, to thrust her bosom through, to draw the dagger forth, to hand it to her husband, to add words immortal and almost divine, 'Paetus, I feel no pain!' But, doing this and saying this, glory and eternal fame were in her thought. How much greater is it, without the prize of fame, without the prize of glory, to hide the tears, conceal the grief, and, bereaved of a son, still to act the mother! 4. sed…dolet: i.e. it is your wound that will give me pain.
11. 1. Flaminiam: sc. viam. 2. noli…marmor: the roads leading out from Rome were lined with tombs. 3. salesque Nili: Paris appears to have been an Egyptian. 6. omnea Veneres Cupidinesque: imitation of Catullus, 3. 1 (Selection 3. 1). 7. Paris: a popular Roman actor, put to death by Domitian.
12. This and the following selection are in memory of a child whose parents were slaves on Martial's estate. 1. senibus cygnis: 'swans sing sweetest when they die.' Notice that all the objects with which Erotion is compared in lines 1-6 are white. Martial is thinking of the whiteness of her complexion, a quality admired by the Romans. 2. The Tarentine wool was highly prized. 4. lapillos: pearls. 5. dentem: tusk. 7. Baetici gregis: the flocks on the Guadalquivir whose wool was naturally of a yellowish color. 8. Rhenique nodos: the hair of the Germans gathered into a club. Erotion's hair was the light flaxen of the Teutonic type. 9. Paesti: a city in Lucania, celebrated for its twice-blowing roses,— Vergil, Georgics, 4. 119, biferi rosaria Paesti. 10. Atticarum cerarum: Attica—and particularly Mt. Hymettus—was famous for its honey. 11. Martial several times refers to the agreeable odor of amber when warmed by holding or rubbing with the hand. 13. sciurus: derived from Greek [Greek: skia] and [Greek: oura], lit. 'the shadow-tail.' Our word 'squirrel' comes through the Late Latin diminutive forms, scuriolus, squirolus, squirelus. 19. pariter: in like manner with myself. 20. vernulae: contrasted with nobilem of line 22. 23. Quid esse fortius potest: Can any one display more fortitude? 24. Ducenties: lit. 20,000,000 sesterces, here of indefinite value.
13. Martial at the tomb which has just received Erotion's ashes appeals to his dead parents to keep the child from fear at sight of the 'black spectres' and monstrous Cerberus. 2. oscula: in apposition to puellam. 5. modo:, just. In six days she would have been six years old. 7. patronos: protectors, i.e. Fronto and Flacilla. 9, 10. nec…fueris: sit tibi terra levis, of ten found as S. T. T. L., is a phrase common upon Roman tombstones.
In another epigram (10. 61), a translation of which by Leigh Hunt follows, the poet, about to depart finally from the estate where Erotion is buried, thus beautifully commends to his successors the care of her tomb:
Underneath this greedy stone
Lies little sweet Erotion;
Whom the Fates, with hearts as cold,
Nipped away at six years old.
Thou, whoever thou mayest be,
That hast this small field after me,
Let the yearly rites be paid
To her little slender shade;
So shall no disease or jar
Hurt thy house or chill thy Lar;
But this tomb be here alone
The only melancholy stone.