THE EPIGRAMS OF MARTIAL
BOOK TWO
Marcus Valerius Martialis (AD 38/41-102/4) was a Roman poet born in Bilbilis in Hispania Tarraconensis (Tarragonese Spain) of Spanish stock. He lived in Rome from 64 to ca. 100, then returned home. His Epigrams, much his most celebrated and substantial work, were published in Rome in twelve books, and have since been very highly valued for both their wit and what they reveal about life in Rome. Presented here are all references to Greek love in Book II, published in 86 or early 87.
The translation, the first in English to include frank translation of passages considered obscene by modern people, is by D. R. Shackleton Bailey for the Loeb Classical Library volumes 94, published by the Harvard University Press in 1993. Older translations either omitted the sexually most interesting epigrams or, much worse, misled as to their content by omitting or distorting critical phrases. The webpage editor would like to draw attention to the footnotes as being particularly important for this article, at least for readers not deeply familiar with Roman customs.
43
Towards the end of a long epigram attacking one Candidus for preaching about friends sharing while he lives in great luxury and gives nothing to impoverished Martial:
Your waiters could vie with the Ilian catamite; but my hand comes to my assistance in lieu of Ganymede. [1] | grex tuus Iliaco poterat certare cinaedo: at mihi succurrit pro Ganymede manus. |

48
An innkeeper, a butcher, a bath, a barber, a board and pieces, and a few little books (but I must choose them), one friend not too new, a large boy smooth[2] for a long time to come, and a girl of whom my boy is fond:[3] give me these, Rufus, even at Butunti[4], and keep Nero’s baths.[5] | Coponem laniumque balneumque, tonsorem tabulamque calculosque et paucos, sed ut eligam, libellos: unum non nimium rudern sodalern et grandem puerum diuque levem et caram puero meo puellam: haec praesta mihi, Rufe, vel Butuntis, et thermas tibi have Neronianas. |
49
I won’t marry Telesina. Why not? She’s an adulteress[6]. But Telesina goes with boys. I will.[7] | Uxorem nolo Telesinam ducere: quare? moecha este sed pueris dat Telesina. volo. |

57
You see him sauntering aimlessly, crossing the Enclosure[8] in violet. My friend Publius doesn’t outdo him in mantles, nor Cordus himself, our number one in cloaks. A gowned and long-haired troop[9] follows him, and a chair with fresh curtains and straps. Only the other day he pawned a ring for barely eight sesterces at Cladus’ counter, to buy his dinner.[10] | Hic quem videtis gressibus vagis lentum, amethystinatus media qui secat Saepta, quem non lacernis Publius meus vincit, non ipse Cordus alpha paenulatorum, quem grex togatus sequitur et capillatus recensque sella linteisque lorisque, oppigneravit modo modo ad Cladi mensam vix octo nummis anulum, unde cenaret. |

60
Hyllus my boy, you fuck the wife of an armed tribune, fearing nothing worse than a boyish punishment.[11] Alas and alack, you’ll be castrated as you sport.[12] Now you’ll say to me: “That’s not allowed.” Well, how about what you’re up to, Hyllus? Is that allowed? [13] | Uxorem armati futuis, puer Hylle, tribuni, supplicium tantum dum puerile times. vae tibi, dum ludis, castrabere. iam mihi dices ‘non licet hoc.’ quid? tu quod facis, Hylle, licet? |
61
In the springtime of your cheeks[14] when the down was still dubious, your shameless tongue licked male middles. Now that your sorry head has earned the scorn of undertakers and the disgust of a wretched executioner, you use your mouth otherwise; delighted by excess of spite, you bark at whatever name is put to you. Better that your noxious tongue stick in genitals. It was cleaner when it sucked.[15] | Cum tibi vernarent dubia lanugine malae, lambebat medios improba lingua viros. postquam triste caput fastidia vispillonum et miseri meruit taedia carnificis, uteris ore aliter nimiaque aerugine captus allatras nomen quod tibi cumque datur. haereat inguinibus potius tam noxia lingua: nam cum fellaret, purior illa fuit. |

[1] The Ilian catamite was Ganymede, who came from Ilium (Troy) and was abducted by the love-smitten king of the gods to be his catamite. In other words, Candidus’s slave-boys are even more desirable than him. Martial assumes they are there to be enjoyed sexually. There is a double entendre in his complaint that his hand will have to help him in place of Ganymede: he will have to use it both to pour his own wine (which was Ganymede’s official role for the gods) and to wank. [Website footnote]
[2] The translator’s “smooth-cheeked” as a transalation of diuque levem has been amended to “smooth”. “Most translations understand levis to refer specifically to smooth cheeks; that is, Martial’s ideal boy will long remain beardless; see on 2.61.1. But the adjective often refers to the absence of body hair in general or hair on the buttocks in particular: compare 2.47.2–3 (“levior o conchis, Galle, Cytheriacis. / confidis natibus?”), 10.65.8 (“levis dropace tu cotidiano”), 14.205.1 (“sit nobis aetate puer, non pumice levis”); Catull. 64.322 (“levia . . . bracchia”); Ov. Ars am. 3.437 (“femina quid faciat cum sit vir levior ipsa?”). See also 4.7.3, where the boy Hyllus (see on 2.51.2) appeals to his beard and body hairs as a sign that he ought no longer to play the receptive role in sexual encounters with the poet.” (Craig A. Williams, Martial Epigrams. Book Two, Oxford University Press, 2004. p. 175)
[3] Martial evidently considers having a boy and a girl essential ingredients of the good, simple life in this epigram extolling life in a small town in the countryside (a traditional theme in Roman literature). In the light of the stress placed on the boy still being genuinely that, “smooth”, and by comparison with epigrams like IX 90, where the sexual intent with a slave-girl is made explicit, one can assume that both boy and girl are needed for sexual happiness. Various suggestions have been made to explain the puzzle of why it also mattered that the boy should be fond of the girl, but none of them have been at all convincing. [Website footnote]
[4] Butunti was an obscure town in Apulia. [Website footnote]
[5] Nero’s baths: “the thermae Neronianae were one of the three great complexes of public baths in Martial’s day. They were located in the Campus Martius near the present site of the Church of S. Agostino and were emblematic of the pleasures of city life” (Craig A. Williams, Martial Epigrams. Book Two, Oxford University Press, 2004. p. 175). They were thus very different to the private bathing facility (“balneum”) mentioned in line one. [Website footnote]
[6] The translator’s “a tramp” has been replaced by the more precise adulteress: “The Greek borrowing moecha is more or less equivalent to adultera, designating a freeborn married woman who has sexual relations with someone other than her husband. It is colloquial in tone (Craig A. Williams, Martial Epigrams. Book Two, Oxford University Press, 2004. p. 144).
[7] The epigram is a joke. Of course no-self-respecting Roman would want to marry an adulteress! But hang on; what if doing so would lead to ample opportunities to pedicate boys? The poet is teasing the reader as to how far he might go in pursuit of that delight. [Website footnote]
“Disinclined to marry Telesina because she is given to adultery, the speaker instantly changes his opinion upon learning that she bestows her favors upon boys (pueri). His sudden eagerness is explained by what Martial elsewhere calls the “boyish punishment” (supplicium puerile, 2.60.2), one of the traditional modes of revenge allowed a cuckolded husband: anal rape of the adulterer. In other words, if he were to catch Telesina in the act with a boy, Martial would have the right to exact his (obviously sweet) revenge.” (Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality, 2nd edition, Oxford, 2010, pp. 25-6)
[8] The Enclosure (Saepta): “The Saepta Julia in the Campus Martius was a favorite strolling ground and social showcase: see on 2.14.5. The verb secat suggests that he is making his way through a crowded area (OLD s.v. 5: “to cleave a path through”), a detail that builds on the preceding line’s evocation of his strategy to be seen by as many as possible (Craig A. Williams, Martial Epigrams. Book Two, Oxford University Press, 2004. p. 194).
[9] The “gowned” (literally, “toga-wearing”) indicates freeborn clients, suggesting a man of importance. Being long-haired was for males the special indication of being pueri delicati, beautiful slave-boy catamites, suggesting a man of wealth and good taste (such boys sometimes selling for astronomical sums); ordinary slave-boys wore cropped hair (see Martial, Apophoreta 158, for example), as did freeborn Roman males. [Website footnote]
[10] The epigram is about a desparately poor man putting on an ostentatious show of wealth, wandering around showing off luxury possessions such as pueri delicati. [Website footnote]
[11] Comparison with epigrams II 47 and 49 (see above) leave no doubt that by “a boyish punishment” (supplicium puerile), Martial means pedication, the best known punishment Roman custom allowed a man to inflict on another he caught in flagrante delicto with his wife. Pedication was always strongly associated with boys in both Latin and Greek, since it was boys who were most typically pedicated. The verb itself (Latin pedicare) is thought to derive from paidika, the Greek expression for the boy in a pederastic love affair. In epigram IX 67, Martial refers to pedication of a woman as illud puerile (the boyish thing), as do Greek sources such as The Greek Anthology V 54 and VI 17.
As regards Hyllus’s age, note that in IV 7, about two years later, Hylus (if the same one is meant) is suddenly claiming he has become physically a man and thus too old for sex with men. [Website footnote]
[12] Traditional Roman folk justice had also been known to allow more severe punishment for adulteres, including castration, which Hylus would not appreciate (while Martial is wickedly suggesting that he would not have minded being pedicated) [Website footnote]:
Val. Max. 6.1.13 and Hor. Sat. 1.2 provide an overview ranging from extortion to anal rape to castration to murder; see 2.83 for yet another punishment. Juv. 10.314–317 (“exigit autem/ interdum ille dolor plus quam lex ulla dolori / concessit: necat hic ferro, secat ille cruentis / verberibus, quosdam moechos et mugilis intrat”) suggests that while such extreme punishments went beyond what the law allowed, they were sometimes carried out nonetheless. (Craig A. Williams, Martial Epigrams. Book Two, Oxford University Press, 2004. p. 201).
[13] As perpetual censor, the reigning Emperor, Domitian, had issued an edict (later reinforced) forbidding castration in 82/3, but he had also reissued and took very seriously the Emperor Augustus’s law against adultery (sex with a Roman citizen’s wife, not one’s own), the lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis. [Website footnote]
[14] This line presents a poetic image for that period of male adolescence sometimes called the flos aetatis (Craig A. Williams, Martial Epigrams. Book Two, Oxford University Press, 2004. p. 204).
[15] Fellators had “impure” mouths and are always spoken of with contempt by Martial and others. And yet the unnamed man to whom this epigram is addressed has made his mouth far more impure still, befouling it with habitual slander: it sounds as though he brought false accusations against people in return for money. Martial’s refusal even to assign him a pseudonym is likely a way of saying he will not stoop to his level. [Website footnote]
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