He complains of the wine given him at a dinner-party with a finished whimsicality:
potavi modo consulare vinum. quaeris quam vetus atque liberale? Prisco consule conditum: sed ipse qui ponebat erat, Severe, consul (vii. 79).
I have just drunk some consular wine. How old, you ask, and how generous? It was bottled in Priscus' consulship: and he who set it before me was the consul himself.
Polycharmus has returned Caietanus his IOU's. 'Little good will that do you, and Caietanus will not even be grateful':
quod Caietano reddis, Polycharme, tabellas,
milia te centum num tribuisse putas?
'debuit haec' inquis. tibi habe, Polycharme, tabellas
et Caietano milia crede duo (viii. 37).
In giving back Caietanus his IOU's, Polycharmus, do you think you are giving him 100,000 sesterces? 'He owed me that sum,' you say. Keep the IOU's and lend him two thousand more!
Chloe, the murderess of her seven husbands, erects monuments to their memory, and inscribes fecit Chloe on the tombstones:
inscripsit tumulis septem scelerata virorum
'se fecisse' Chloe. quid pote simplicius? (ix. 15).
On her seven husbands' tombs she doth impress
'This Chloe did.' What more can she confess?
WRIGHT.
Vacerra admires the old poets only. What shall Martial do?