What thou hast given to friends, and that alone,
Defies misfortune, and is still thine own.
PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITH.
But the needy poet may have had some arrière-pensée. We do not know to whom the poem is addressed.
663. Cp. the description of the villa of Faustinus, iii. 58.
664. Their only rival is the famous Sirmio poem of Catullus.
665. Even Tennyson's remarkable poem addressed to F. D. Maurice fails to reach greater perfection.
666. e.g. Arruntius Stella and Atedius Melior. Cp. p. 205.
667. Cp. the poems on the subject of Earinus, Mart. ix. 11, 12, 13, and esp. 16; Stat. Silv. iii. 4.
668. Mart. vi. 28 and 29.
669. The remaining lines of the poem are tasteless and unworthy of the portion quoted, and raise a doubt as to the poet's sincerity in the particular case. But this does not affect his general sympathy for childhood.
670. 101 provides an instance of Martial's sympathy for his own slaves. Cp. 1. 5:—