But, notwithstanding the delicate compliment which he pays to his rich wife—a compliment dictated probably more by his habit of courtly flattery than by sincerity of affection—he evidently pined for Rome. He was fitted for crowds and not for solitude: his spirit was not pure enough to commune with itself. His delight had been so long to study the human heart in its worst developments, to drag forth to public view its blackest plague-spots, that he would miss the foul models which he had so long studied. Provincial life was therefore utter dulness to him; his only enjoyment was to reproduce the results of his observations on the life of the capital. Combining in himself the apparently inconsistent characters of the flatterer and the satirist, he needed great men to whom he might look up for patronage and approbation, as well as moral wounds to probe and subjects to anatomize. Rome alone supplied these; and when he lost them he lost the intellectual food necessary for his existence. The absence of his accustomed pursuits, and the irremediable void thus created, is evident in many of his epigrams.
The time of his death is uncertain, as the date of Pliny’s elegant epistle to Priscus, in which it is mentioned, cannot be determined.[[1168]] But as it is probable that the eleventh book of his Epigrams was published in the year in which he left Rome for Bilbilis, and as he apologizes in the dedication of his twelfth book to Priscus for his obstinate indolence during a period of three years, his death cannot have taken place before A. D. 104. It is, however, generally supposed that his life was not prolonged much beyond this date. His death may have been hastened by his distaste for a provincial life, and by the malice and envy of his new neighbours.[[1169]]
According to his own account, in an epigram,[[1170]] in which he contrasts himself with an effeminate fop, his appearance was rough and unpolished, his shaggy hair refused to curl, his cheeks were well-whiskered, and his voice was louder than the roar of a lioness.[[1171]] It is impossible to believe the assertion which he makes respecting his own moral character, namely, that although his verses are licentious his life was virtuous,
Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba est.[[1172]]
—although, measured by the corrupt standard of morals which disgraced the age in which he lived, he was probably not worse than most of his contemporaries. The fearful profligacy which his powerful pen describes in such hideous terms spread through Rome its loathsome infection. As no language is strong enough to denounce the impurities of his age—impurities, in the description of which, the poet evidently revels with a cynical delight—so they were not merely creatures of a prurient imagination, but had a real existence.
It may be said in extenuation of his crime, that the prevalence of vice produced the obscenity of the poet; but no more can be said in defence of works in which the characters of vice are emblazoned in such shameless and unnatural deformity. Had he lived in better times, his talents, of which no doubt can be entertained, might have been devoted to a purer object; as it was, his moral taste must have been thoroughly depraved not to have turned with loathing and disgust from the contemplation of such subjects, instead of voluntarily seeking them; for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” In Martial we observe that paradoxical but still not unusual combination of varied wit, poetical imagination, and a happy power of graceful expression, not only with strong sensual passions, but with a delight in vice in its most hateful forms and attributes.
Although the new feature which Martial added to the Greek epigram is such as has been described, and although his pages are polluted and defiled, not all his poems are spiteful or obscene. Amidst some obscurity of style and want of finish, many are redolent of Greek sweetness and elegance. Here and there are pleasing descriptions of the beauties of nature;[[1173]] and, setting aside those which are evidently dictated by the spirit of flattery, many are kind-hearted, as well as complimentary. The few lines which were intended to accompany such trifling offerings of friendship as the poet could afford to give, and which, doubtless, rendered a flower or a toy doubly acceptable, are equal in neatness to many of the Greek Anthology. When he sends a rose to Apollinaris, it is accompanied by the following elegant lines:—
I felix rosa, mollibusque sertis
Nostri cinge comas Apollinaris;
Quas tu nectere candidas sed olim,