THE EPIGRAMS OF MARTIAL
BOOK SEVEN
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 VII, published in December 92.
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 95, 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.
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| Thestylus, sweet torment of Voconius Victor, than whom no boy in the whole world is better known,[1] so may you be beautiful and loved even when you have put aside your long hair and may no girl pIease your poet: for a little while put away your master’s elegant books while I read my little poems to your Victor. Even to Maecenas, when Maro sang of Alexis, still was Marsus’ dusky Melaenis familiar.[2] | Thestyle, Victoris tormentum dulce Voconi, quo nemo est toto notior orbe puer, sic etiam positis formosus amere capillis et placeat vati nulla puella tuo: paulisper domini doctos sepone libellos, carmina Victori dum lego parva tuo. et Maecenati, Maro cum cantaret Alexin, nota tamen Marsi fusca Melaenis erat. |
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| You sodomize big youths, Hamillus, behind open doors and want to be caught doing so, for fear that your freedmen and your father’s slaves and a malicious client, chattering and hinting, may tell some tale. Anyone who calls to witness that he is not sodomized, Hamillus, does often what he does without witnesses.[3] | Reclusis foribus grandes percidis, Hamille, et te deprendi, cum facis ista, cupis, ne quid liberti narrent servique paterni et niger obliqua garrulitate cliens. non pedicari se qui testatur, Hamille, illud saepe facit quod sine teste facit. |
[1] Thestylus, evidently (from his characteristic his long hair) a puer delicatus (treasured slave-boy kept for sex rather than menial labour) of Voconius Victor is well-known because his master/lover is also a well-known poet. Martial is thus indirectly praising the poems of Victor, who is probably the friend of his in XI 78, there described Victor is probably the friend of Martial in XI 78, there described as getting married without ever having had sex with a female.
[2] C. Cilnius Maecenas (68-8 BC), friend and advisor to the Emperor Augustus and patron of poets such as Vergilius Maro and Domitius Marsus, is imagined dividing his attention between Vergil, who “sang” to him of his beloved boy Alexis, and Marsus who sung to him of Melaenis (apparently his mistress). Hence Thestylus (a mere boy rather than a great man) should be willing to take interest in Martial’s poems as well as his master’s.
[3] A man like Hamillus who chose big youths for sex rather than younger boys evidently invited suspicion that he was a cinaedus (a man who, contemptibly in Roman eyes, took the passive role). Martial is implying that Hamillus deliberately let himself be seen pedicating these youths in the hope of fooling people that he was not one, but this merely increased Martial’s suspicions as to what he got up to unseen. This epigram may well be intended not so much to attack the (possibly fictitious) Hamillus as a cinaedus, as to attack the motives of exhibitionists in general.
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