Venustas Litterarum: The original shit-poster.

Hic est quem legis ille, quem requiris,                                                                   toto notus in orbe Martialis                                                                               argutis epigrammaton libellis:                                                                                 cui, lector studiose, quod dedisti                                                                      veventi decus atque sentienti,                                                                                  rari post cineres habent poetae.

Here is that fellow whom you read, whom you ask for,                                    know throughout the world for his witty little books of epigrams—Martial.      To him, studious reader, you have given honour                                                while he lives and feels                                                                                             that few poets possess beyond the grave.

The first-century Roman poet Marcus Valerius Martialus, whom we know as Martial, was born in Spain, made his way through a traditional upper-crust liberal education, and as a young man travelled to the capitol, where he achieved that rare and coveted prize: a successful literary career. Martial specialised in the Epigram, a literary form originating in ancient funerary inscription—Greek ἐπίγραμμα literally means writing upon—and later developed into short, pithy, and ironical verse, well suited to satire. Epigrams usually present a balance of opposites; like all good jokes, they are part set-up, part ironical twist. Very good epigrams, like very good aphorisms, pack a maximum amount of meaning into a minimum amount of text: I can resist everything except temptation (Oscar Wilde); Candy/Is dandy,/But liquor/Is quicker (Ogden Nash): No one can make you feel inferior without your consent (Eleanor Roosevelt).

Martial’s career itself also presented a balance of opposites. Active during the reign of the paranoid and murderous Domitian, he was obliged both to avoid producing anything that could be interpreted as seditious (lest he find himself judicially murdered) and to provide the emperor a steady diet of obsequious flattery. On the other hand he could be a merciless troll toward his non-political targets; there were no moderators at the dinner parties and professional recitals—the era’s equivalent of social media—to protect the feelings of the thin-skinned, and Martial did not mince his words. We can never know for certain whether the many names he cites were real people or simply stock characters, but I suspect at least some of them were based in fact, particularly those he excoriates for cribbing his material.

His epigrams can be philosophical:

Nullos esse deos, inane caelum                                                                       affirmat Segius: probatque, quod se                                                               factum, dum negat haec, videt beatum.

Segius asserts that there are no gods, that heaven is empty;                            and he proves it,                                                                                                           for as he denies these things, he sees himself prosper.

or barbed:

Omnes quas habuit, Fabiane, Lycoris amicas                                                  extulit; uxori fiat amica meae.

Lycoris has buried every friend she ever had, Fabianus.                                      Let her be a friend to my wife.

Milia misisti mihi sex, bis sena petenti.                                                                     ut bis sena feram, bis duodena petam.

You sent me six thousand, when I asked for twelve.                                             To have twelve, I’ll ask for twenty-four.

or unabashedly obscene:

Quod pectus, quod crura tibi, quod bracchia vellis,                                           quod cincta est brevibus mentula tonsa pilis,                                                      hoc praestas, Labiene, tuae (quis nescit?) amicae.                                            Cui praestas, culum quod, Labiene, pilas?

You pluck the hair of your chest, your shins, and your arms;                            Your prick is coiffed, girdled with stubble;                                                              We all know that you do this, Labienus, for your girlfriend.                                You shave your ass, Labienus; for whom do you do that?

Martial’s racier epigrams have titillated generations of Latin students, but aside from their entertainment value, they furnish a rich source of cultural detail, illuminating the lifestyles of wealthy and fashionable Romans. Even in translation, they are well worth the read.