This paper was presented to the Rhetoric and Poetics Workshop of the University of Chicago (Danielle Allen and Peter White, Department of Classics, Sept. 27 2001). My thanks to everyone, especially to Danielle for taking such good care of me, and to Shadi Bartsch for opening my eyes some.

‘Anon…’: At the death, I liberated ideas from the Cambridge Graduate Literature Seminar (Oct. 24, 2001). As if they were mine all along: ‘anon’. (So thanks esp. to Tony Boyle, Simon Goldhill, Philip Hardie, Richard Hunter, and Michael Reeve. I get to play Pliny dimidiatus.)

1. For a reading of Epistles 3, see Pliny’s Statue: The Letters, Self-Portraiture, and Classical Art [forthcoming Exeter 2002].

2. Cf. Henderson, J., ‘Polishing off the Politics: Horace’s Ode to Pollio (Odes 2.1)’, in Fighting for Rome: Poets and Caesars, History and Civil War (Cambridge 1998), 108–62Google Scholar, esp. 123–28.

3. 3.1, 3.5, and 9.36 are brilliantly cross-compared now by Johnson, W.A., ‘Toward a Sociology of Reading in Classical Antiquity’, AJP 121 (2000), 593–627Google Scholar; cf. ‘Knowing Someone through their Books: Pliny on Uncle Pliny (Epistles 3.5)’ [forthcoming CP 97 (2002)].Google Scholar

4. Measuring ‘time’ against a multitude of scales, 3.1 plays off uncertainty and fixity throughout, from nescio an ullum…tempus ∼ certus siderum cursus to the death. It meditates, and tells us it does, on the grandest scale conceivable: uita hominum and ratio aetatis, 2, 11 (cf. 2.14.14, ratio aetatis…ne…laborem fugisse uideamur). And it deftly dramatises the varied tones and hues of living which problematise ‘pleasure’ as a kaleidoscopic subject for analysis: iucundius, delectat, pulchrum, dulce, dulcedo, suauitas, hilaritas, remissius, dulcius, delectatur nec adficitur, uoluptates studiis condiantur, comitate, auidissime…

5. Martial probably left for Spain in 100, and died 103/4: cf. Sherwin-White, A.N., The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary (Oxford 1966), 263Google Scholar; Sullivan, J.P., Martial, the Unexpected Classic: A Literary and Historical Study (Cambridge 1991), 53CrossRefGoogle Scholar and n.64. For precise summary of the likely narrative and historical setting of Martial’s publications: Coleman, K.M., ‘Martial Book 8 and the Politics of AD 93’, Papers of the Leeds International Seminar 10 (1995), 337–57Google Scholar, and note Henriksén, C., Martial, Book IX: A Commentary (= Studia Latina Uppsaliensia 24, 2 vols., Uppsala 1999)Google Scholar, at i.11 and n.1.—For their recipient, the laudatory verses must suffer most from…preceding Pliny’s consulship.

6. When Ausonius juxtaposes Martial and Pliny at Cento Nupt. p. 153 Green, the paradosis writes ut Plinius dicit where we must read ut Martialis dicit. This is the closest they ever come to bracketing. Cf. White, P., ‘The Friends of Martial, Statius, and Pliny, and the Dispersal of Patronage’, HSCP 79 (1975), 265–300Google Scholar, at 293–300, esp. 298: ‘they had very little in common.’

7. Boyle, A.J., ‘Martialis redivivus: Evaluating The Unexpected Classic’, in Roman Literature and Ideology: Ramus Essays for J.P. Sullivan (Bendigo 1995), 250–69, at 260.Google Scholar

8. Cf. Post, E. (ed.), Selected Epigrams of Martial (Boston 1908), 168Google Scholarad loc.: ‘To these words Pliny probably refers in Ep. 3.21.’

9. Esp. 1.70; cf. Sullivan (n.5 above), 150. Cf. Prior, R.E., ‘Going Around Hungry: Topography and Poetics in Martial 2.14’, AJP 117 (1996), 121–41Google Scholar; Pitcher, R.A., ‘Martial’s Debt to Ovid’, in Grewing, F. (ed.), Toto notus in orbe: Perspektiven der Martial-Interpretation (= Palingenesia 65, Stuttgart 1998), 59–76Google Scholar, at 60f., on 3.4.

10. Cf. esp. Connor, P.J., ‘Book Despatch: Horace Epistles 1.20 and 1.13’, Ramus 11 (1982), 145–52Google Scholar; Newlands, C., ‘The Role of the Book in Tristia 3.1’, Ramus 26 (1997), 57–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Cf. esp. Conybeare, C., Paulinus Noster: Self and Symbols in the Letters of Paulinas of Nola (Oxford 2000), 31–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Cato in Martial: Henriksén (n.5 above), i.149, on 9.27.14. As is spelled out in Phaedr. 4.7, ‘Cato’ often imports derision and so effects closure, the final word for a composition as for Carthage.

13. Subura: cf. Henriksén (n.5 above), i.186 on 9.37.1. With the Esquiline Hill, the neighbourhood figures the two ends of the social ruler at Rome, ‘them down there’ polarised against ‘us up here’—and vice versa; cf. Esquilias a feruenti migrare Subura… (Juv. 11.51).

14. Cf. 1.pr.; Sullivan (n.5 above), 99.

15. After the first three verses sampling/soiling Plinian eloquence (facundo, 3), Martial’s poem self-describes (breuis…labor) a ‘Callimachean’ path off-the-highway (tramitem): an artist’s impression of local culture (Suburae)—a victorious feat of compression (peractae ∼ breuis)—maybe, even, transumption of slum material ^?up to high^? culture (altum uincere ∼ Sub-urae). The topothesia catches ekprastic immediacy and visual stressing (protinus uidebis…theatri), paradoxical synaesthesia (udi…theatri, uidebis…lubricum), the requisite wonder smuggled into the object animated into playing viewer in the text (mirantis—feras). Reduplication of the agent observer’s motivation for viewing in the mythic burden of the art object is verbally marked (i perfer ∼ quae…pertulit), together with a narrative implicature from within the locus for the embedding text (Plinio ∼ regis…Tonanti), and the miniaturising reduplication within the ekphrastic interlude of the embedding scenario (illic…illic; auem…regis ∼ aquilae minore pinna, mea Plinio ∼ tui Pedonis; parua domus ∼ ianuam), in which lurks self-promotion for the ekphrast’s own work (doctum…rusticulum…libellum ∼ caelata; mea…Thalia ∼ raptum Phryga…Tonanti). The ‘diversion’ into description is closed by resumptive ring-structure (nec… | sed non…mea ∼ | sed ne tempore non tuo; facundo ∼ disertam; Thalia…uidebis | ∼ ebria…uideto |). Shifters—the ‘here, now, us’—presence, and authority-terms mark up arrival of the ‘point’: ‘whole’ days, ‘serious’ ‘goddess’, formal label for Roman power (Cuiri), ‘a hundred’ ears, ‘intense investment’ (studet), ‘all time to come’, in emphatic hendiadys (saecula posterique), allusive periphrasis for Roman mythic paragon (Arpinis quoque…chartis), exemplum as self-declared feat of emulation achieved (quod…possint…comparare). The poem ends by re-modulating the ‘point’, switching from (Pliny’s Roman) ‘grandiosity’ to (Thalia-Martial’s Hellenising) ‘histrionics’, in a sympotic-lyric register: hoc…, 16–18 ∼ haec…, 19–21 (ne tempore non tuo ∼ totos dies ∼ ad lucernas: | hora est tua; studet ∼ furit; Mineruae ∼ Lyaeus; tetricae ∼ madent; Arpinis ∼ ‘rigidi’…Catones; cf. chartis ∼ legant). Implicitly, this realises the promissory keying of the ekphrasis, where the Orpheus and Ganymede references cue the rave at Pliny’s (Orphea ∼ Lyaeus; uertice ∼ capilli; lubricum ∼ madent; feras ∼ furit; i ∼ ibis; auem…raptum ∼ tutior; regis ∼ regnat; Phryga ∼ rosa). A good time has been had by all (readers: me legant), for very little outlay (parum seuerum ∼ uel rigidi). Aren’t epigrams great?

16. See poet and consul Stella’s compliments in 12.2, below (his doubly laurelled pile is actually in Subura); cf. esp. 7.72’s multiple occupancy of ‘homes everywhere, so nowhere a home’ by Maximus—on Esquiline, Aventine, and Aristo St; and 5.22’s (fruitless) climb from Subura to Paulus’ Esquiline residence.

17. Richardson, L. jr., A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore & London 1992), 231Google Scholar, s.v. ‘Lacus Orphei’, in Regio V; nb.: yes, the Martial locus provides all our data on the lacus.

18. The group was popular in imperial Italy, traditionally ascribed to Leochares: Beard, M. and Henderson, J., Classical Art: From Greece to Rome (Oxford 2001), 81Google Scholar fig. 56 (from above the cave at Sperlonga).

19. Spell-binding Hellenistic epigrams bury Orpheus: Anth. Pal. 7.8–10; Ganymede is—a constitutive theme and personificatory icon of the genre: Anth. Pal. 12.230, 37f., 64–70, 133, with Tarán, S. L., The Art of Variation in the Hellenistic Epigram (Leiden 1979), 7–51.Google Scholar

20. For Ovid’s own arch send-up of the arch-poet Virgil’s Orpheus, cf. esp. Thompson, J.A.S., Ovid’s Orpheus: Studies in Metamorphoses 10–11 (PhD diss. Cambridge 1993).Google Scholar

21. Bardon, H., La littérature latine inconnue, 2 vols. (Paris 1956), ii.69–73Google Scholar. It must be just a bizarre coincidence, presumably, that Seneca in one of his later Epistles recalls hearing a story from that ‘neatest story-teller of all’, Pedo (Epistles 122.15–16): ‘…about a member of that tribe the “Daylightshunners’ (lucifugae), who was living downstairs: his punchline was to call him “lamplife/vamplife” (λυχνόβιος/λιχνόβιος).’

22. Cf. Lefèvre, E., ‘Plinius-Studien 7, Cicero das unerreichbare Vorbild: (1,2; 3,15; 4,8; 7,4; 9,2)’, Gymnasium 103 (1976), 333–53.Google Scholar

23. Martial will only once explicitly cast his verse as ‘eternal(ising)’—just below his ‘Pliny’ poem, at 10.26.7, Centurion Varus was lost in the Nile, sed datur aeterno uicturum carmine nomen (‘but he gets a name that will live in eternal song’). But we shall see that self-immortalisation has by now become a leading motif in the Epigrams, as they wend toward their end.

24. Cf. Gamberini, F., Stylistic Theory and Practice in the Younger Pliny (Hildesheim 1983), 86–88Google Scholar, on Sentius Augurinus’ matching Pliny poem at 4.27.4, v. 7: ille o Plinius, ille quot Catones (‘Ah, how many Catos make up that man Pliny!’).

25. ‘Apollo’s hair drips grease—no, not grease, but heal-all upon the earth’ (Callim. Hymn 2.38–40) ∼ madent capilli (20).

26. E.g. Heraeus, W. (ed.), M. Valerii Martialis, Epigrammaton Libri, rev. Borovskij, J. (Leipzig 1982)Google Scholar, Introduction 71 (Martialis Elogiolum); Howell, P., A Commentary on Book One of the Epigrams of Martial (London 1980), 19Google Scholar, and Martial Epigrams V (Warminster 1995), 12.Google Scholar

27. The Epigrams begin by precluding, i.e. conjuring up, abusive handling for his work: the malignus interpres, who pirates poems, and the ambitiose tristis who has a down on Latin ribaldry, and ought to stop at the preface, or rather at the title (1 Praef). This is self-demonisation.

28. For this tomb, cf. 8.3.5f, Messallae saxa…Licini marmora (‘Messalla’s rocks…Licinius’ marbles’).

29. Sullivan (n.5 above), 56f.

30. This is the crucial vector of the Epigrams’ improvisatory-provisional poetics of ‘pro tern.’ flux: Fowler, D.P., ‘Martial and the Book’, Ramus 24 (1995), 31–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; White, P., ‘Martial and Pre-publication Texts’, EMC 15 (1996), 397–412Google Scholar, esp. 402–05, ‘Abridgements and Brochures’.

31. Short—just how short is short? Cf. Sullivan (n.5 above), 63; J. Scherf, ‘Zur Komposition von Martials Gedichtbüchern 1–12’, in Grewing (n.9 above), 119–38, at 119; Lausberg, M., Das Einzeldistichon: Studien zur antiken Epigramm (= Studia et Testimonia Antiqua 19, Munich 1982), 44–56Google Scholar. Here is a shortlist, for One and Two: Martial is held in one hand (leaving the other free for…: 1.2). He should save his epic work from brevity, repeat himself like Homer (1.45). Does writing nothing count as zero degree writing? (1.110). Finally: a ton up of epigrams = infinite evil (1.110). Two pages in and feeble readers are already fingering ahead to The End (2.6). Lean is never long: a bad couplet is a longueur (2.77).

32. Sullivan (n.5 above), 30–33; Pitcher (n.9 above), 59–61, on 3.4. Reader wives should skip the section marked ‘Warning: explicit lyrics’—moth(er)s to the flame (3.68 > 86). After a treat of tedium in 33 lines on a tedious dinner-party, shorter is wanted, the time it takes Snow White to…, over before begun (3.82 > 83). And Snow White just mustn’t read Martial (3.97). On Pliny’s ‘long poems’ (over 14 verses): Szelest, H., ‘ut faciam breuiora mones epigrammata, Corde… Eine Martial-Studie’, Philologus 124 (1980), 99–108.Google Scholar Read Martial half-cut, after your first glass, before your last: if two vols, are too much, do a Solomon, roll one up quick, and the half will turn into the soul of brevity (4.82). To end this short collection: Stop book, reader’s done in, copyist writes out my last line: whoa, enough (4.89).

33. Sullivan (n.5 above), 33–44; Scherf (n.31 above), esp. 124. A still shorter book, Five tells wives, boys and girls it’s for them, for Domitian and his unblushing Minerva: naughty readers should stick to One through Four (5.2). Only Domitian’s Eight will have fewer poems. Martial’s book is ‘like nothing at all’ (5.6, tamquam nihil). After a 32-hexameters-long rant, brag, and gallon of bile featuring a 15-lines-long opening sentence,—and nowt wrong with that—it’s a special deal: you can read just the one couplet poems, and skip the rest; Martial can carry on writing them (and you can shut up) (6.64 > 65). A voice says, There are 30 bad apples in the whole book: 30 good ‘uns, and, count on it, you got a good book (7.81).

34. Cf. Sullivan (n.5 above), 42; Garthwaite, J., ‘The Panegyrics of Domitian in Martial, Book 9’, Ramus 22 (1993), 78–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35. Cf. Henriksén (n.5 above), 1.54, ad loc; Garthwaite, J., ‘Patronage and Poetic Immortality in Martial, Book 9’, Mnemosyne 51 (1998), 265–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Of course, Martial began Epigrams 1–12 already famous (1.1: cf. Ovid. Amores 1.15).

36. Twelve Praef. speaks of ‘three years of sloth’: common opinion dates Ten at December 95, Eleven at 96, Twelve at 101 (perhaps posthumously revised), with the revise of Ten in 98.

37. Baebius Macer probably had it in common with Cornelius Priscus, Pliny’s addressee in 3.21, that both were suffect consuls of 103: Epistles 3 was most likely published in 104 (Sherwin-White [n.5 above], 262, in sceptical vein).

38. Silius’ self-transformation into art and back again: Wilson, M. ‘Flavian Variant: History. Silius’ Punica’, in Boyle, A.J. (ed.), Roman Epic (London 1993), 218–33Google Scholar, at 231–33. Scipio retired under a cloud to Hannibal’s hide-out, Liternum, near Naples.

39. Silius was like Regulus in ceasing delation after Nero: 6.64.10f., with M. Kleijwegt, ‘Extra fortunam est quidquid donatur amicis: Martial on Friendship’, in Grewing (n.9 above), 256–77, at 261.

40. Cf. Lefèvre, E., ‘Plinius-Studien V. Vom Römertum zum Ästhetizismus: Die Würdigungen des älteren Plinius (3,5), Silius Italicus (3,7) und Martial (3,21)’, Gymnasium 96 (1989), 113–28.Google Scholar

41. E.g. Mart. 11.1.14.

42. Plus a passing mention, as ‘interminable Silius’ (6.64.10 = 7.63.1, perpetui…Sili); 8.66—the right sort of third consulate in the family’s sights—and 9.86—the death of young Seuerus spoils that dream—immortalise Silius’ two sons (as in Epistles 3.7.2). Martial on Silius: Vessey, D.W.T.C., ‘Pliny, Martial, and Silius Italicus’, Hermes 102 (1974), 104–16Google Scholar; Pomeroy, A., ‘Silius Italicus as “Doctus Poeta”’, in A.J. Boyle (ed.), The Imperial Muse, II: Flavian Epicist to Claudian (Bendigo 1990), 119–39Google Scholar; cf. Sailer, R.P., ‘Martial on Patronage and Literature’, CQ 23 (1983), 246–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43. Shackleton Bailey, D.R. (ed. and trans.), Martial: Epigrams (3 vols.: Cambridge MA & London 1993), ii.343Google Scholar, amusingly claims Arpinis here for Arpi, not Arpinate Arpinum.

44. Cf. MacQueen, J.G., ‘Death and Immortality: A Study of the Heraclitus Epigram of Callimachus’, Ramus 11 (1982), 48–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45. Hopkinson, N. (ed. and comm.), A Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge 1888), 248Google Scholar; cf. ib. 249, ‘ars latet arte sua’.

46. Williams, G.D., Banished Voices: Readings in Ovid’s Exile Poetry (Cambridge 1994), 42–49Google Scholar, shows how the central theme of Ex Ponto 2.10, ‘the physical separation of friends need not affect a continuing life and “presence” in their poetic achievement’ re-explores the Heraclitus epigram.

47. ‘Half-wilting’ () in the Heraclitus epigram is a hapax legomenon and a half.

48. Boyle (n.7 above), 266.

49. The ‘temple threshold’ at 12.2.7 refers to the Temple of Augustus….A library was associated with it’ (Pitcher [n.9 above], 62 and n.17).

50. Cf. Citroni, M., ‘Marziale e la letteratura per i Saturnali’ (poetica dell’ intrattenimento e cronologia della pubblicazione dei libri’, ICS 14 (1989), 201–26Google Scholar, esp. 212–14. The current royals of Ten are Nerva and Trajan: 6–7, 34, 72. Of Eleven, Nerva: 2, 4–5, 7, cf. 3, 20. Of Twelve, Nerva and Trajan: 5, 8; cf. 4, 9.

51. Cf. Pitcher (n.9 above), 59–65.

52. 10.13, 37, 65, 78, 96, 102–4….Cf. Dolç, M., ‘Martial, entre Roma y Bilbilis’, in Adas del Simposio sobre Marco Valerio Marcial, poeta da Bilbilis y de Roma, Calatayud, IX-X-XI Mayo MCMLXXXVI (Saragossa 1987)Google Scholar, ii.11–22. Against political reading of the secessus: P. Howell, ‘Martial’s Return to Spain’, in Grewing (n.9 above), 173–86, esp. 184f.

53. Sullivan (n.5 above), 53f.—But more Martial means mumma’s little baby gets more shortening, still: In an idle moment out hunting, Twelve will take not one of the twelve hours of the day to hunt through, not even one of the short hours of midwinter (12.1). Read two lines of Twelve, read three, and the world will know this Spanish Harlem can only be Martial (12.2).

54. Cf. 12.2, 9, 18, 21, 31, 63, 68, 98, with Sullivan (n.5 above), 172–79. Contrast 12.57.

55. More Martial, more revisionism: in Twelve, we find the marathon of Ten and Eleven has been stripped out to make a bite-size for the busiest of readers: not for Parthenius, but an appetiser for ‘Caesar’—maybe he’ll go read the originals (12.4). If Parthenius has half a mo’, just four words in the Führer’s ear: ‘Your Rome reads this’ (12.11; cf. White [n.30 above], 403 and n.12). Cf. N.M. Kay, Martial, Book XI (London 1985), 1, on ‘revision’ and Book 11. Four words before you kill a Caesar; before you are killed for killing a Caesar. Just four words, about reading Rome reading Rome.

56. Eleven winds up, and down, with abbreviation in triplicate: Just time to say ‘Hi’? Just read this four liner, then. You skipped these four, too? You’re a genius (11.106). You return Eleven unopened. No, you read the lot, I believe you—just the way I read your Books, One through Five (107). The poetics of reading as resistance to reading gobbles up every opportunity for still more verse-ions that life, wit, death, and trauma send the Instant Poet’s way. Less we forget.

57. Eleven probably appeared in December 96, three months after the assassination: Sullivan (n.5 above), 46.

58. 4.45, 78; 5.6; 8.28; 9.49; cf. 12.11.

59. Mid-97: Sullivan (n.5 above), 46.

60. For the assassin Stephanus, cf. Mart. 11.52.4: his baths are ‘through the wall’.

61. Sullivan (n.5 above, 46) estimates that c.25, ‘perhaps 30’, epigrams were cut from Ten for the second edition (e.g. 12.7, to Parthenius). ‘New’ would be: four on Nerva and Trajan (6, 7, 34, 72; cf. 28, 101), six (or more) on Spain (n.52 above), plus c.15 others in the collection we have. Sullivan wonders at 49 if 10.19 belongs to a group of ‘new’ pieces on ‘older friends and patrons’.

62. Cf. Beutel, F., Vergangenheit als Politik: neue Aspekte im Werk des jungeren Plinius (Frankfurt 2000).Google Scholar

63. Esp. 4.2, 7, 14, 18, 19, 25, 27. The warm-up for this theme is 1.16.5, where Pompeius Saturninus, and then Catullus, dummy for Pliny: hunc dico nostrum…facit uersus quales Catullus meus aut Caluus, re uera quales Catullus aut Caluus (‘this friend of ours…he writes poems like my Catullus or Calvus, like you’d really think they were by Catullus or Calvus’). With Martial’s parum seuerum…libellum (‘booklet lacking seriousness’, 10.19.1f.), cf. Epp. 5.3.2, facio non numquam uersiculos seueros parum, facio (‘I sometimes do write verselets that lack seriousness’). Pliny apes his uncle, who shows true grit when introducing the universal catalogue of knowledge by linking buddy comradeship to laddish penmanship and royal sponsorship: through quoting Catullus (1.3–4) as conterraneum meum (agnoscis et hoc castrense uerbum) to Titus—nobis quidem qualis in castrensi contubernio! (Natural History, Praef. 1, 3): Howe, N.P., ‘In Defense of the Encyclopedic Mode: On Pliny’s Preface to the Natural History’, Latomus 44 (1985), 561–76, at 567–70.Google Scholar

64. ‘Wit, sarcasm, and charm’ are Martial’s ‘Catullan’ territory: B.W. Swann, Martial’s Catullus: The Reception of an Epigrammatic Rival (= Spudasmata 54, Hildesheim 1994), 47–64 (esp. 61–64 on sal); cf. Roller, M., ‘Pliny’s Catullus: The Politics of Literary Appropriation’, TAPA 128 (1998), 161–75.Google Scholar

65. Sherwin-White (n.5 above), 264; cf. 33.

66. (Not) to break the spell, L. Calpurnius Fabatus speaks to all three of Rome’s imperial dynasties: ‘his career was cut short when he was involved, though not condemned, in the treason charges brought against L. Junius Silanus in A.D. 65, Tac. Ann. 16.8’ (Sherwin-White [n.5 above], 264). That uppermost Ulpian analogy: Nero’s last days ∼ Domitian’s last days. And then…? (Then Book 4.)

67. Pliny’s ‘epilogue’ pointedly dislocates Seneca’s typically grim ‘proem’ to his Letters, Book 7 (= 63.1): moleste fero decessisse Flaccum, amicum tuum, plus tamen aequo dolere te nolo… (‘News in. Flaccus is gone. To my regret. He was your friend, but I deny you excess in grief…’).