Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/606

578 MARTIAL to be dependent on them for gifts of money, for his dinner, and even for his dress. We cannot feel sure that even what seem his sincerest tributes of regard may not be prompted by the hope of payment. Further, there is no book in any literature which, both in expression and in the things treated of, sins so flagrantly against all instincts of propriety. A certain proportion of the epigrams in every book perhaps one-fifth or one-sixth (in some books the proportion is much larger) can be read by no class of readers with any other feelings than those of extreme distaste. These faults are so unmistakable and undeniable that many readers of ancient literature have formed their whole estimate of Martial from them, and have declined to make any further acquaintance with him. Even those who greatly admire his genius, who find the freshest interest in his representation of Roman life and his sketches of manners and character, and who, after admitting the un favourable first impression which he is bound to make, believe that they still can discern sufficient indications of the better nature which made him a popular and likeable man in his day, do not attempt to palliate his faults, though they may partially account for them by reference to the morals of his age and the circumstances of his life. The time when " the last of the Flavian line was tearing in pieces the half-lifeless world, and Rome was a bond slave to a bald Nero," l was one when literature had either to be silent or to be servile. Martial was essentially a man of letters; there was no other metier for which he was fitted ; he was bound either to gain favour by his writings or to starve. Tacitus and Juvenal might have chosen the latter alternative, but they were fortunately spared the necessity of making the choice by the pos session of independent means. Even Statius, the contem porary of Martial, whose writings are in other respects irreproachable, is nearly as fulsome in his adulation as Martial. The relation of client to patron had been recognized as an honourable one by the best Roman traditions. No blame had attached to Virgil or Horace on account of the favours which they received from Augustus and Maecenas, or of the return which they made for these favours in their verse. That old honourable relationship had, however, greatly changed its character between the era of Augustus and that of Domitian. Men of good birth and education, and sometimes even of high official position (Juv., i. 117), were not ashamed to gain or increase their living by the acceptance of money doles to provide their daily meal. " Atria magna colam " is the resource of a man who was too lazy or too incom petent to become an advocate, and who thought himself too much of a gentleman to adopt any mechanical trade. Martial was merely following a general fashion in paying his court to "a lord." "Rex " is, the common term used for a patron. He made the best of the custom. In his earlier career he used to accompany his patrons to their villas at Baia? or Tibur, and to attend their morning levees. Later on he went to his own small country house, near Nomentum, and sent a poem, or a small volume of his poems, as his representative, at the early visit. If his patron was courteous and liberal, he became his friend and entertained him with his wit and social vivacity. If he was mean and exacting, he found in him a subject for his epigrams. The fault of grossness Martial shares with nearly all ancient and many modern writers who treat of life from the baser or more ridiculous side. That he offends worse than perhaps any of them is to be explained, not, apparently, on the ground that he was more of a 1 Cum iam semianinrum laceraret Flavins orbem Ultimus, et calvo serviret Roma Neroni. Juv., iv. 37. libertine in his life, but on the ground that he had to amuse a public which had become more corrupt than in any other civilized era. Although there is the most cynical effrontery and want of self-respect in Martial s use of lan guage, there is not much trace of the satyr in him, much less, many readers will think, than in Juvenal. Neither is it at all true, as is said by historians of Roman litera ture (W. S. Teuffel, vol.. ii. 317, 5), that his epigrams mostly deal with this side of life. At least four-fifths of them are unexceptionable in subject and treatment. Our knowledge of Martial s life is derived almost entirely from himself. His writings do not, like those of Horace, supply materials for a continuous biography, nor do they lay bare every secret of his heart with the self-absorption of Catullus. But, as he writes frankly about everything that interested him, he has not only painted a very life like picture, or rather drawn a multitude of very life-like sketches of Roman society in his time, but he has clearly marked his own position in and his own relation to that society. His criticism of men and manners enables us to judge of the standard which he applied to life, of the things which he liked and disliked, and of his own temper and disposition. Reference to public events enables us approxi mately to fix the date of the publication of the different books of epigrams, and from these dates to determine those of various important events in his life. Thus, as in book x., which was published in 97 or perhaps 98 A.D., he is found celebrating his fifty-seventh birthday (x. 24), the date of his birth may be assigned to the year 40 or 41. The place of his birth was Bilbilis, or Augusta Bilbilis, in Spain, in a " barren and rugged country " near the sources of the Tagus. His name seems to imply that he was born with the rights of Roman citizenship, but he speaks of himself as " sprung from the Celts and Iberians, and a countryman of the Tagus "; and, in contrasting his own masculine appearance with that of an effeminate Greek, he draws especial attention to " his stiff Spanish hair " "Hispanis ego contumax capillis" (x. 65). In an epigram written nearly thirty years after his removal to Rome he piously commends the soul of a little child, Erotion, to whom he was much attached, to his parents Fronto and Flaccilla, who had gone before to the world of shades (v. 34). Their position in life seems to be indicated by such references to his former home as the phrase " saturse sordida rura casas " (x. 96). His home was evidently one of rude comfort and plenty, sufficiently in the country to afford him the amusements of hunting and fishing, which he often recalls with a keen sense of pleasure, and sufficiently near the town to afford him the companion ship of many comrades, the few survivors of whom he looks forward to meet again after his five and thirty years absence (x. 104). The memories of this old home, of Bilbilis on its mountain site, of the shallow, rapid Salo flowing round the base of the hill ("fluctu tenui sed inquieto "), of " Gaius hoary with snow and sacred Vadavero with its broken cliffs, " of the ilex-grove of Burado (iv. 55) " which even the laziest traveller walks through," and of other spots the rough names and local associations of which he delights to introduce into his verse, attest the enjoy ment which he had in his early life, and were among the influences which kept his spirit thoroughly alive in the midst of the deadening routine of social life in Rome. But his Spanish home could impart, not only the vigorous vitality which was one condition of his success as a wit and poet, but the education which made him so accom plished a writer. The literary distinction obtained by the Senecas, by Lucan, by Quintilian, who belonged to a somewhat older generation, and by his friends and contem

poraries Licinianus of Bilbilis, Decianus of Emerita, and