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Martial on Patronage and Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. P. Saller
R. P. Saller
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
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Extract

Martial wrote about himself and his participation in the everyday life of Rome more than any other extant poet of the post-Augustan Principate. More particularly, dozens of his epigrams describe the life of the ordinary client and his treatment by great and often arrogant patrons. Unfortunately for social and literary historians, however, Martial was writing satirical epigrams, not autobiography. Consequently, his poetry cannot be taken at face value as a direct reflection of Roman life. With regard to literary patronage, the difficulties of interpretation have allowed modern scholars to reach diametrically opposed conclusions. One editor and commentator baldly labelled Martial ‘a chronic beggar’ who ‘despite his numerous friends and the many patroni to whom he paid court,…dragged on a hand-to-mouth existence’. In a recent and more detailed study, on the other hand, Martial is portrayed as a man of independent means, who looked to his powerful amici not for financial support so much as for help in publicizing his work and for protection in literary squabbles.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , January 1983, pp. 246 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1983

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References

1 Post, E., Selected Epigrams of Martial (1908Google Scholar, reprinted Norman, Oklahoma, 1967), xiii.

2 White, P., ‘Amicitia and the profession of poetry in early imperial Rome’, JRS 68 (1978), 74–92Google Scholar. This is the most extensive study of literary patronage in the late first and early second centuries, and my essay is in part a response to it.

3 1. pr.; 5. 15.

4 Allport, G. W. in his classic study, The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), ch. 12Google Scholar, demonstrated the unreliable nature of stereotypes.

5 Friedlaender, L., M. Valerii Martialis Epigrammaton Liber (Leipzig, 1886), ii. 179Google Scholar.

6 Also compare 10. 94, where Martial's gift of apples is bought at market, with 13. 42, where they come from his Nomentum farm.

7 See the prefaces to books 1, 8, 9 and especially 12.

8 1. 107; 8. 56; 11. 3; 12. 4.

9 White (above, note 2), pp. 85 f.

10 7. 80; also 7. 52.

11 5. 6; also 12. 11. For a similar request of Sextus, see 5. 5.

12 Flattery: 5. 1, 3, 19 and so on. Requests: 6. 10, 87; 8. 24; 9. 8.

13 3. 95. On Martial's ius trium liberorum, see Daube, D., ‘Martial, father of three’, AJAH 1 (1976), 145–7Google Scholar; see also Szelest, H., ‘Domitian und Martial’, Eos 62 (1974), 105–14Google Scholar.

14 See references in note 8.

15 White (above, note 2), p. 75.

16 Hands, A. R., Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome (London, 1968), pp. 108 fGoogle Scholar.

17 sat. 7. 1–97; used as evidence by White (above, note 2), pp. 82 f. Echoes of Martial's poems in this satire are discussed by Colton, R. E., ‘Juvenal and the suffering poets. Some echoes of Martial in the Seventh Satire’, CB 55 (1978), 17–20Google Scholar.

18 Gifts from emperors are listed and discussed by Friedlaender, L., Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire, transl. Freese, J. H. (New York, 1908–1913), iii. 52 ffGoogle Scholar.

19 1. 76; 2. 30; 5. 16. For a similar theme, Calpurnius Siculus, Ed. 4. 23 ff.

20 Lines 36 ff. For an analysis of the echo see Rudd, N., Lines of Enquiry: Studies in Latin Poetry (Cambridge, 1976), p. 107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Friedlaender (above, note 18), p. 51. Rudd (above, note 20), pp. 116–18, offers some general observations and reaches a similar conclusion: ‘the picture of the poet-patron relationship in [Juvenal's] satire seven is neither an accurate portrait nor a piece of grotesque fantasy. Like many other Juvenalian sketches it is best described as a faithful caricature.’

22 Dial. 6–9; Juvenal, Sat. 7. 105 ff. For Juvenal's manipulation of themes, see Rudd (above, note 20), p. 95.

23 Williams, G., Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford, 1968), pp. 44 fGoogle Scholar.

24 Laus Pisonis 109 ff. with 254 imply this; Calpurnius Siculus, Eel. 4. 33 ff. For the Neronian date of Calpurnius' poems, I accept the arguments of Townend, G. B., ‘Calpurnius Siculus and the Munits Neronis’, JRS 70 (1980), 166–74Google Scholar, and in the same volume Mayer, R., ‘Calpurnius Siculus: technique an d date’, 175–6Google Scholar. Both are a reaction to Champlin's, E. third-century date in ‘The life and times of Calpurnius Siculus’, JRS 68 (1978), 95–110Google Scholar.

25 White (above, note 2), pp. 88 f.

26 White cites Juvenal, Sat. 14. 322–4 and 9. 139–40; Martial 3. 10; and the salary of a semestris tribunatus. The first passage from Juvenal is taken out of context: the lines cited do not say that man of leisure could live an aristocratic life in Rome on a minimum equestrian census, and the following lines (325 ff.) indicate that Juvenal does not expect his readers to find this sum satisfactory. Juvenal, Sat. 9.139–40 is taken out of context and misread by White: it says nothing of an annual income of 20,000 sesterces; rather, the 20,000 is the amount out on secured loans and is only part of Naevolus' assets. Moreover, Naevolus regards himself as close to beggary, not living an aristocratic life. The 2,000 sesterces per month allowance for the filius familias in Martial, Epig. 3.10 is of no relevance to the question under consideration, since there is no reason to think that the son was intended to support a full, independent household on this allowance, which in any case proved inadequate to his wants. Finally, the 25,000 sesterces salary of the equestrian tribune, if it was intended to be the amount needed to support a household at Rome (for which there is no evidence), was for a six-month tour of duty, and so at an annual rate the salary would amount to 50,000 sesterces. The fact is that we do not know what it cost to live in Rome in a style appropriate to a gentleman, but if Martial had an adequate independent income, it is hard to believe that he would have endured the social obligations of the Roman client (referred to in the preface to book 12, as well as in the epigrams, see note 35). White's notion (p. 85) that ‘poets attached themselves to the houses of the great in the first place because there was nowhere else for them to go’ seems a bit lame.

27 12. 4, 31.

28 Note that Romatius Firmus with a family estate worth only 100,000 sesterces was educated with Pliny (Ep. 1. 19).

29 (Above, note 18), 4, 650 (note to p. 61, line 18).

30 9. 97; 10. 48.

31 5. 16 indicates the need for support if Martial is not to have to turn to other, less elevated means of making a living.

32 Saller, R. P., Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 127 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 The salutatio is alluded to frequently throughout Martial's books (for references, see the word index in Friedlaender's edition of Martial under salutabat and salutator); for titles of deference, Epig. 2. 68.

34 1. 59; 3. 7 and others. For a discussion of Domitian's prohibition of a monetary dole, see Sailer (above, note 32), p. 128, note 58.

35 1.70,108;5.20; 10.70,74,82; 11.24; 12. 18,68. In most of these Martial isclearly speaking for himself, especially in 12. 68, where morning salutations are credited with driving Martial out of Rome.

36 Hook: 5. 18; poems as a gift: 4. 10 among others.

37 White (above, note 2), p. 87.

38 ibid.

39 9. 97; 12. 4, 31.

40 7. 36; 8. 28; 10. 73; 12. 24, 36.

41 8. 33, 51, 71; 10. 57; 12. 36.

42 3. 62; 4. 15.

43 Requests for money: 4. 37; 10. 14; receipt: 4. 76; 6. 30; 9. 102; 12. 36. Monetary gift for another: 4. 61, 67; 6. 18; 8. 37; 9. 9. Request of the emperor: 6. 10.

44 1. 31; 6. 3, 21, 38, 52, 68, 76, 85; 7. 8, 96; 8. 66; 10. 63, 71; 11. 13. Many of these poems and the people for whom they were written are discussed by White, P., ‘The friends of Martial, Statius and Pliny, and the dispersal of patronage’, HSPh 79 (1975), 265–300Google Scholar.

45 White (above, note 2), p. 86.

46 Inst. 12. 7. 12. The advocate's services were of more concrete value than the poet's, and so some at least were able to demand fees, but that does not alter the point here.

47 Tacitus, , Ann. 3. 49Google Scholar.

48 pp. 230–2 of the van den Hout edition. White's other evidence (above, note 2, p. 87) about the modest value of gifts is no more persuasive. Cicero, Off. 2. 54 says only that a man should not ruin his estate through large gifts, while Seneca, Ben. 1. 11 indicates that money is to be valued after the gifts of life and freedom (the association of the three suggests that gifts of money were highly valued).

49 p. 229 of the van den Hout edition.

50 Saller (above, note 32), p. 63.

51 Tacitus, , Agricola 42Google Scholar.

52 See note 44 above; 10. 92.

53 Tacitus, , Ann. 3. 55Google Scholar; Friedlaender (above, note 18), iii. 58; White (above, note 2), 77, briefly suggests a view similar to the one argued here.

54 Calpurnius Siculus, Ecl. 4. 23 ff.; Juvenal, Sat. 7. 1 ff. Cousin, J., Études sur la poésie latine (Paris, 1945), 217 fGoogle Scholar. notes the decline of imperial patronage of poets after Hadrian.

55 The definition from Webster's Third International Dictionary, used by White (above, note 2), p. 75.

56 White (above, note 2), 79. In a discussion of patronage during the late Republic S. Tfeggiari noted the pattern of usage, but recognized the element of dependence and so continued to use the label ‘patron’ in her paper (‘Intellectuals, poets and their patrons in the first century B.C.’, Echos du monde classique 21 (1977), 24)Google Scholar.

57 In inscriptions patronus is used not infrequently with this meaning; see Sailer (above, note 32, p. 10).

58 This issue raises serious philosophical questions, on which I think Gellner, E., Cause and Meaning in the Social Sciences (London, 1973), ch. 2Google Scholar, is persuasive. The use of a direct translation of amicitia as ‘friendship’ would seem to me to be misleading to the modern reader as a description of Martial's relationship with his great aristocratic supporters at Rome.

59 For the problem of definition see Saller (above, note 32), p. 1.

60 Pliny, , Ep. 7. 3. 2Google Scholar; Seneca, , Ep. ad Luc. 94. 14Google Scholar.

61 Martial, 12. 68.

62 Pliny, , Ep. 8. 12Google Scholar.

63 I should like to thank William Harris, Helen North, and Martin Ostwald for reading and discussing this paper with me.