Martial

Biography

Martial is born the 1^er March 40 in a small town from Tarraconaise, in the north of Spain, in Bilbilis, in a rather easy medium. In 64, when it leaves its area for Rome, where it hopes to find fortune by the means of an activity of writer, it initially seeks to be addressed to the Spanish community, among which it finds Sénèque and Lucain, of which he becomes customer. It is the beginning of a bohemian life, resting entirely on the support of its owners, practices rather current at the time.

The following year, in 65, the conspiracy carried out against Néron, whose Pison is the principal figure, is discovered and fails. Follows one long period of repression, whose Sénèque and Lucain will be the victims. During this period, Martial is discrete and finds refuge in particular near Quintilien, and of Pline the Young person.

Thanks to its literary talent, it composes of the poems for its “owners”, that the latter make pass for their, which besides will push Martial to be attacked them in its work.

In 80, at the time of the inauguration of the Flavien theater, it publishes the Liber spectaculorum or - title apocryphal book of the editors - Liber of spectaculis . One grants to him the privilege of the ius trium liberorum , which confers at once a certain notoriety without however solving to him its money problems.

Domitien made of him a military powerful orator and a knight: it acquires a certain ease then and publishes, into 84, the Xenia and the Apophoreta . He becomes then owner of two villas, one in Nomentum and the other on Quirinal.

Helped by Pline the Young person, who pays him the voyage, it turns over to Tarraconaise, his birthplace, in 98, in a house offered by an admiror, Marcella. Martial dies in 104, in the regret of his life in Rome.

Work

Not difficulty Centauros, not Gorgonas Harpiyasque
invenies: hominem will nostra paginated sapit. ( Epigrams , X, 4)
“In my work, Centaurs, Gorgones, Harpies
you will not find any: my page feels the man. ”

Liber spectaculorum

Placé in heads of the Epigrams , this first collection of 33 epigrammatic parts, offered to Titus during the inauguration of the Colisée in 80 - and named Liber spectaculorum today - is however not the first book of the epigrams. It was worth in Martial his admission in the equestrian Ordre as well as a small pension. Mythology is quite present there and all occurs in the arena from the theater: the description of kindness in cruelty creates a feeling of faintness.

the Epigrams

Martial is the author of many epigrams, often flattering, undoubtedly published with an aim of attracting the good graces of his dedicatees. One counts 1500 of them distributed out of 15 pounds: indeed, from 84 (under Domitien) and until its death (towards 104), its epigrams gained its good reputation to him. Often obscenes, they carry a particular glance on all the layers of the Roman company and attack all kinds of characters. But when Nerva reached the capacity, Martial realized that praises and obscenities would not be worth anything any more to him.

Deliver I to XII

, In these the first 12 books, 1162 epigrams are counted. The unit is colossal and rather difficult to synthesize because of the divergence of the topics:

the request for financial help.
scenes of street.
portraits: those which make write their works, large women, thin women
descriptions of objects.
mocking remarks: people whom he regards as ridiculous, old women who try to allure it, passive pederasts, women who resist to him…
the reproaches: avarice, vice…

It is in book XII that Martial shows most openly that it is affected by loneliness, far from Rome, that he regrets.

Deliver XIII

This book is known under the title of Xenia . It counts 127 parts: in fact small labels accompany the gifts addressed to friends. A small joke is placed over each present. Here is an example drawn from XIII, 14:

LUSCINIA .

Flet Philomela nefas incesti Tereos, and quae

transferred puella flees, garrula fertur auis .

“NIGHTINGALE.

Philomèle deplores the crime of incestueux Térée; that which

was a dumb young girl is known like songbird. ”

Deliver XIV

This book is known under the title Apophoreta , resulting from the Greek term Ἀποφόρετα, meaning “what one can carry”. There are 223 parts: they are labels of various objects drawn to the fate with the table from the host. The lottery is committed with the jokes between friends.

Wine

Around its native village pushed Vigne S. It did not forget it because in the 13th book of these Epigrammes one finds a praise of the wines of Tarragone. Good expert, Martial could appreciate all the wines, the invaluable Falerne kept jealously during years in small bottles of glass (nothing to see with the large common beverage wine amphoras), the wines of Sétine, the wines of Cécube (wines of guard), the wines of Greece, of Gaules, Spain. But our poet was especially fond of delicacies wines which " had bottle " , or of " the amphora " and that the Romans indicated not by the date of the year of the vintage but of the name of the consul in function at this time.

Editions

Epigrammaton libri XIII. summa diligentia castigati , Paris, Simon Hills, 1539. Simon Colines gave several editions of Martial, the first in 1528, another in 1533. After that of 1539, it will follow from there two others in 1540 and 1544. In the Epigrams , one finds interesting details on the toast of the Romans, of the blows of anger against the defrauders, the bad Amphitryon S. One of his longest epigrams is, in short cut, the account of the feast of Trimalcion.
Epigrammata, cum notis Th. Farnabii , Amsterdam, Joan Jnssonius, 1645. Edition Dutch E of the Epigrams with the comments of the English Latinist Thomas Farnaby (1575 - 1647).

See too

Internal bonds

Article epigram

External bonds

Liber spectaculorum
Epigrammata
Apophoreta
Xenia

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