Martial

Martial, born Marcus Valerius Martialis around AD 38–41 in Bilbilis, Roman Hispania (modern Spain), is a Roman poet best known for his epigrams. In the year 64, he moved to Rome during the reign of Emperor Nero. There he became a client to the powerful Seneca family. After the attempted conspiracy of Lucan, an epic poet and friend of the Senecas, to overthrow Nero in the year 65, Martial was forced to seek a new patron. It is unknown how he made his living between AD 65 and 80. Nevertheless, in the year 80, Martial published his first book, Liber Spectaculorum [On the Spectacles], a collection of thirty-three epigrams celebrating the opening of the Colosseum.

Martial is considered to have perfected the Latin epigram: a short, pithy, and often satirical poetic form. His surviving work consists of fifteen books of epigrams, totaling over fifteen hundred poems. Snapshots of life in Ancient Rome, these works comment on various aspects and dynamics of social life. A number of Martial’s epigrams are risqué or explicit in nature, and were often omitted in older translations of his work. Although his work was embraced by Renaissance poets, it fell out of favor in the Romantic era.

Despite periods of imperial favor, Martial never achieved great wealth. He was granted certain privileges, including the honorary rank of military tribune and the ius trium liberorum, a legal privilege typically awarded to fathers of three children, though he never married. After more than three decades in Rome, Martial returned to his homeland. He died there around AD 101–104.