Quæ nunc abibis in loca?
Pallidula rigida nudula
Nec ut soles dabis jocos.
To the original characteristics of epigram the Romans added that which constitutes an epigram in the modern sense of the term, pointedness either in jest or earnest, and the bitterness of personal satire. Common sense, shrewdness, and an acute observation of human nature were thus superadded to Greek gracefulness and elegance; and the same nation which reduced the wild and unpremeditated sarcasms of the Greek stage into the symmetrical form of satire, produced also the epigram as written by the pen of Martial. The same characteristics of the Roman mind which mark satire are visible also in epigram. Epigram is the concentration of satire. The desultory vagueness which is allowable in the latter, the variety of subjects, which are touched upon with irregular and unrestrained freedom, are, in the former, limited and defined. One idea is selected, and to this all the powers of the writer’s acute mind are directed, and made to converge as to a point. It is not often that the harmless elements of Greek wit, such as the pun, or the pleasantry by surprise or unexpected turn (although these sometimes occur,[[1145]]) are found in the Roman epigram. Smartness is generally connected with severity. The same bitter spirit which dictated the Archilochian epodes of Horace, which breathes throughout the indignant lines of Juvenal, points the shafts of Martial. The blows, however, which he aimed at vice could not be deadly, because he had no faith in virtue, and because he delighted to grovel in the impurity which he described.
M. Valerius Martialis (BORN A. D. 43.)
All that is known of the life of Martial is derived from his own works; and this is but little, for he says nothing of his early years, and did not begin to write until the reign of Domitian. Of his parents he undutifully tells us that they were fools for teaching him to read.[[1146]] He was born at Bilbilis, a Spanish town in the province of Tarragon,[[1147]] of the position of which nothing is known for certain, except that its site was an elevated one,[[1148]] overlooking the river Salo, which flowed round its walls. It appears to have prided itself on its manufactures in gold and iron;[[1149]] to have been particularly famous for its arms;[[1150]] and to have been one of the Roman colonies dignified with the title of Augusta.[[1151]] As Vespasian had conferred on the poet’s native town, in common with the rest of Spain, the jus Latii,[[1152]] Martial was by birth a Roman citizen; and in the days of his popularity obtained this privilege for many of his friends.[[1153]] His birthday was March 1,[[1154]] A. D. 43, the third year of the reign of Claudius.
In the twenty-second year of his age, the twelfth year of the reign of Nero,[[1155]] he migrated to Rome. He was a great favourite of Titus and Domitian, by whom the “jus trium liberorum” was conferred upon him,[[1156]] together with the rank of a Roman knight,[[1157]] and the honorary title of tribune.[[1158]] In the reign of the latter he was appointed to the office of court poet, and received a pension from the imperial treasury.[[1159]] Hence during the latter part of his residence in Rome it is almost certain that, although not rich, he enjoyed a competency. He had a house in the city, and a little villa at Nomentum given him by Domitian.[[1160]] Nevertheless, he is constantly complaining of his poverty, and thinks that every one grows rich but himself. He laments that poets receive nothing but compliments for their verses, whilst lawyers, and even common criers, gain an ample maintenance:—that “Minerva was a better patron than Apollo; a fuller stream of wealth flowed through the Forum than from the fountain of Helicon, or the channel of Permessus.”[[1161]] He complains that he spends all he has, and either borrows money from his friends, or takes to another the presents he has given him, and querulously asks him to purchase them back again.[[1162]] The roof of his villa lets in the rain; and when his friend Stella sends him some tiles to mend it he reproaches him for not sending also a toga to protect the poor inmate.[[1163]]
All this may have proceeded from the discontented feelings which poets and literary men so often indulge at seeing genius unrewarded, and affluence attending talents which, although if not so high an order, are of more general utility. Perhaps, too, though not absolutely poor, he was straitened in his circumstances, considering his social position and the demands which this entailed upon him. During thirty-five years he lived at Rome the life of a flatterer, and a dependant,[[1164]] and then returned to his native town.[[1165]] As Horace, when in his quiet country retirement, sometimes regrets the enjoyments of the capital, although when at Rome he sighs for the pleasures of rural life, so Martial, when at Rome, longed for Bilbilis, and when he returned to Bilbilis regretted Rome. At this late period of his life he married a Spanish lady, named Marcella, whose property was amply sufficient to maintain him in affluence. Her estate he considers a little kingdom; her gardens he would not exchange for those of Alcinous; he praises her bowers, groves, fountains, streamlets, fish-ponds, and meadows; and tells us the climate is so genial that the olive-grounds are green in January, and the roses blow twice in the year, like those of Pæstum.[[1166]] His wife he praises for her rare genius and sweet manners; he tells her that no one could discover her provincial origin; that her equal could not be found amongst the most elegant ladies in the capital; and when inclined to forget Rome she alone is all that Rome ever was to him:—
Tu desiderium dominæ mihi mitius urbis
Esse jubes; Romam tu mihi sola facis.[[1167]]