Martiālis Marcus Valerius, a native of Bilbilis, in Spain, who came to Rome about the 20th year of his age, where he recommended himself to notice by his poetical genius. As he was the panegyrist of the emperors, he gained the greatest honours, and was rewarded in the most liberal manner. Domitian gave him the tribuneship; but the poet, unmindful of the favours he received, after the death of his benefactor, exposed to ridicule the vices and cruelties of a monster, whom in his lifetime he had extolled as the pattern of virtue, goodness, and excellence. Trajan treated the poet with coldness, and Martial, after he had passed 35 years in the capital of the world, in the greatest splendour and affluence, retired to his native country, where he had the mortification to be the object of malevolence, satire, and ridicule. He received some favours from his friends, and his poverty was alleviated by the [♦]liberality of Pliny the younger, whom he had panegyrized in his poems. Martial died about the 104th year of the christian era, in the 75th year of his age. He is now well known by the 14 books of epigrams which he wrote, and whose merit is now best described by the candid confession of the author in this line,
Sunt bona, sunt quædam mediocria, sunt mala plura.
But the genius which he displays in some of his epigrams deserves commendation, though many critics are liberal in their censure upon his style, his thoughts, and particularly upon his puns, which are often low and despicable. In many of his epigrams the poet has shown himself a declared enemy to decency, and the book is to be read with caution which can corrupt the purity of morals, and initiate the votaries of virtue in the mysteries of vice. It has been observed of Martial, that his talent was epigrams. Everything which he did was the subject of an epigram. He wrote inscriptions upon monuments in the epigrammatical style, and even a new year’s gift was accompanied with a distich, and his poetical pen was employed in begging a favour as well as in satirizing a fault. The best editions of Martial are those of Rader, folio, Mogunt. 1627; of Schriverius, 12mo, Leiden, 1619; and of Smids, 8vo, Amsterdam, 1701.——A friend of Otho.——A man who conspired against Caracalla.
[♦] ‘liberalty’ replaced with ‘liberality’
Martiānus. See: [Marcianus].
Martīna, a woman skilled in the knowledge of poisonous herbs, &c. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 2, ch. 79, &c.
Martiniānus, an officer, made Cæsar by [♦]Licinius, to oppose Constantine. He was put to death by order of Constantine.
[♦] ‘Linicius’ replaced with ‘Licinius’
Martius, a surname of Jupiter in Attica, expressive of his power and valour. Pausanias, bk. 5, ch. 14.——A Roman consul sent against Perseus, &c.——A consul against the Dalmatians, &c.——Another, who defeated the Carthaginians in Spain.——Another, who defeated the Privernates, &c.
Marullus, a tribune of the people, who tore the garlands which had been placed upon Cæsar’s statues, and who ordered those that had saluted him king to be imprisoned. He was deprived of his consulship by Julius Cæsar. Plutarch.——A governor of Judæa.——A Latin poet in the age of Marcus Aurelius. He satirized the emperor with great licentiousness, but his invectives were disregarded, and himself despised.