Epigrams

With parallel Latin text

Martial
Gideon Nisbet

Oxford World's Classics

• Martial's epigrams target every level of Roman society, from slave to aristocrat. This newly translated selection is as punchy and close to the knuckle as the originals.
• One of only two substantial modern translations since 1972, and the first by a classicist. Witty and accurate prose translations convey incidental detail and the poet's consummate comic timing.
• The first translation to bring out the literariness of Martial, to show how his books and poems interconnect. The selection illustrates the range and diversity of Martial's style and topics.
• Includes facing Latin text.
• The Introduction considers Martial's life and times, his importance for the genre, and the thematic structure of the original books.
• Notes identify Martial's literary and mythic allusions, explain real-world contexts, and show the interaction of different books and poems.

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From Our Blog

'Your fame will be sung all round the world': Martial on the convenience of libraries

"Your library of a gracious country villa, from where the reader can see the city close by: might you squeeze in my naughty Muse, between your more respectable poems?" Martial's avid fans will find themselves on familiar ground here, at the suburban ranch of the poet's aspirational namesake, Julius Martial (4.64).

Posted on December 10, 2015

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'If you have no better offer, do come': Martial's guide to Roman dinner parties

"If you have no better offer, do come," 11.52 helps put flesh on the bones of Martial's Rome ('you know Stephanus' baths are right next door'¦') and presents the city poet in a neighbourly light. It's also a favourite of modern foodies in search of an unpretentious sample menu from ancient daily life.

Posted on December 2, 2015

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'A girl who made the peacock look ugly, the squirrel unloveable': Martial mourns a lost love

I begin with one of Martial's more troublesome twentieth-century Avid Fans: the poet, editor, translator, and Fascist propagandist, Ezra Pound.

Posted on November 25, 2015

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'I get more of a kick out of your bad temper than your good looks': Martial's guide to getting boys

Martial adores sexy boys. He craves their kisses, all the more so if they play hard to get, "'¦ buffed amber, a fire yellow-green with Eastern incense'¦ That, Diadumenus, is how your kisses smell, you cruel boy. What if you gave me all of them, without holding back?" (3.65) and "I only want struggling kisses ' kisses I've seized; I get more of a kick out of your bad temper than your good looks'¦" (5.46).

Posted on November 18, 2015

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'Tomorrow I'll start living': Martial on priorities

'Dear Martial' ' what a strange coincidence that Martial's soul-mate, who leads the life he himself dreams of living, is called 'Julius Martial'. In our selection we meet him first at 1.107, playfully teasing the poet that he ought to write 'something big; you're such a slacker'; at the start of book 3, JMa's is 'a name that's constantly on my lips' (3.5), and the welcome at his lovely suburban villa on the Janiculan Hill 4.64 is so warm, 'you will think the place is yours'.

Posted on November 11, 2015

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Roman author, Greek genre: Martial's use of Epigrams

An epigram is a short poem, most often of two or four lines. Its typical metre is the elegiac couplet, which is also the metre of Roman love poetry (elegy) and the hallmark of Ovid. In antiquity it was a distinctively Greek literary form: Roman writers were never comfortable in it as they were in other imported genres, such as epic and elegy. When they dabbled in epigram they often used Greek to do so. Martial's decision to write books of Latin epigrams, and nothing else, is thus a very significant departure.

Posted on October 28, 2015

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Distinctive dress: Martial's index to life in a crammed metropolis

His books are famous around the world, but their author struggles to get by ' two themes that quickly become familiar to any reader. Martial has an eye for fabric. He habitually ranks himself and judges others by the price and quality of their clothing and accessories (e.g. 2.29, 2.57), a quick index in the face-to-face street life of the crammed metropolis.

Posted on November 4, 2015

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Introducing Martial: Epigrams

Who is 'Martial'? "Up to this point, Madam, this little book has been written for you. You want to know for whom the bits further in are written? For me." (3.68) Marcus Valerius Martialis was born some time around AD 40 (we know his birthday, 1st March, but not the year) at Bilbilis in Hispania Tarraconensis, a province of oil- and wine-rich Roman Spain.

Posted on October 21, 2015

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Oxford World's Classics Reading Group Season 4: Martial's Epigrams

The poet we call Martial, Marcus Valerius Martialis, lived by his wits in first-century Rome. Pounding the mean streets of the Empire's capital, he takes apart the pretensions, addictions, and cruelties of its inhabitants with perfect comic timing and killer punchlines.

Posted on October 14, 2015

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