The sentiment is as characteristic of antiquity as it is of Martial. Not very elevated, perhaps, but Martial is not a reformer. Like most men of the world he is generally indifferent on the subject of other people's vices. He is not an enthusiast, for he has no illusions. Nor is he a man of lofty ideals. But he is natural and sensible as he is witty and brilliant. Therefore he was in harmony with his own days, and would have been equally in harmony with ours. For if Martial seems so intensely modern it is not because he has advanced beyond his own time. It is because he is universal. Martial is a cosmopolitan poet and, with the single exception of Menander, the most pronounced example of the type in all classical antiquity.

The prose preface to Martial's first book indicates very clearly some of his views with regard to the sphere and character of the epigram. It also illustrates the man. "I trust," he says, "that the attitude I have maintained in these books of mine is such that no reasonable man can complain of them. They never make their fun at the expense of real people, even of the humblest station,-a thing quite absent from the old epigrammatists. Those men not only attacked and vilified people by their real names but also attacked people of consequence. I do not care to buy fame at such a price. My witticisms contain no innuendoes. I want no malicious commentators who will undertake to rewrite my epigrams for me. It is unfair to be subtle in another man's book. For my free plainness of speech, that is, for the language of the epigram, I should apologize if the example were mine. But so Catullus writes, so Calvus, so Pedo, so Gætulicus, so everyone who is read through. Still, if there is anyone so painfully Puritanical that in his eyes it is unholy to speak plain Latin in a book, he would better content himself with the preface or, better still, with the title. Epigrams are written for those who attend Flora's entertainments. Cato should not come into my theatre. But if he does come in let him take his seat and look on with the rest."

Perhaps I ought to add, by way of explanation, that the theatrical performances regularly given at the spring festival of the Floralia were proverbial for their gaiety and license. Once upon a time, the younger Cato, a proverb of Stoic virtue and gravity, went into the theatre during this festival, but finding that his presence put a damper on the occasion, he walked out again. The Stoics of the Empire were never weary of repeating this anecdote of their patron saint. We might expect a man of Martial's temperament to detect the essential ostentation of such a performance. Witness the closing words of his preface:

Pray tell me, when you knew 'twas Flora's holiday,
With all the license, all the sport expected then,
Why, Cato, came you stalking in to see the play?
Or was it that you might go stalking out again?

So, too, referring to the theatrical way in which the contemporary Stoics preached and practised their favorite doctrine of suicide, Martial says (i. 8, 5-6): "I care nothing for a man who buys fame with his blood-'tis no task to let blood. Give me the man who can deserve praise without dying for it." That the ostentatiousness of the proceeding was the cause of his criticism is shown by the fact that he yields to none in his admiration of real heroism where real heroism is needed. Ostentation in vice is quite as repellent to him. "Tucca," he says, "is not satisfied to be a glutton, he must have the reputation of it."

All goes back to his doctrine of Nil nimis,-temperance in the real meaning of the word. Neither virtue nor happiness is compatible with excess of any sort. Writing to his friend Julius Martialis, he says [x, 47, translated by Fanshawe]:—

The things that make a life to please,
Sweetest Martial, they are these:
Estate inherited not got;

A thankful field, hearth always hot;

City seldom, lawsuits never;

Equal friends, agreeing ever;

Health of body, peace of mind;

Sleeps that until the morning bind;

Wise simplicity, plain fare;

Not drunken nights, yet loos'd from care;

A sober, not a sullen spouse;

Clean strength, not such as his that plows;

Wish only what thou art, to be;

Death neither wish nor fear to see.

It is extremely difficult to reproduce the exquisite poise and simplicity of Martial's style and thought. No one knew better than he how hard it was to write good epigrams. "Some of your tetrastichs," he says to one Sabellus (vii, 85), "are not so bad, a few of your distichs are well done. I congratulate you but I am not overpowered. To write one good epigram is easy, to write a bookful is another matter." To those who insisted that no epigram should exceed the length of a distich, his characteristic reply was (viii, 29): "If a man confines himself to distichs his object, I suppose, is to please by brevity. But pray tell me what does their brevity amount to when there is a whole bookful of them?"

Everyone knows his famous judgment of his own work (i, 26):—

Sunt bona, sunt quædam mediocria, sunt mala plura
Quæ legis hic aliter non fit, Avite, liber.

:

Good, fair, and bad

May here be had.

That's no surprise! "Twere vain to look For any book

That's otherwise.

So good a criticism of books in general and of books of epigrams in particular that one might almost be excused for overlooking the fact that Martial himself is really an exception to his own rule. At any rate, no one has written so many epigrams, and at the same time has contrived to produce so many good epigrams. It is clear that he was one of those rarest of men who have resolution enough to throw their bad work into the wastebasket.

So far as they illustrate the life of contemporary Rome, many of Martial's themes are also to be found in the letters of that literary Bostonian of antiquity, the younger Pliny. They are, likewise, the same which Juvenal worked into his satires twenty years after when Domitian was safely dead. Each of these three has pictured the situation from his own point of view. It

was Martial who really saw it. So far as that situation applies to our own life, much has always been familiar, some has grown familiar during the last decade, and the remainder will probably come home to us with the advancing years of the twentieth century.

A marked feature of this age was the feverish production of literature. One may say without exaggeration that it was really the fashion to write books. In fact, the situation politically and socially was such that for an ambitious Roman of birth and education, literature was one of the few avenues to fame which was still open. No wonder Juvenal and Martial believed that neither literature nor learning was a paying investment. "There are quite too many persons of quality in the business," he says in one place, "and who ever knew an author who was interested in other people's books?" "Of course [x, 9], one may become famous through one's books. I myself, for example, am well known all over the Empire,-almost as well known, I may say, as Andræmon, the race-horse!"'

But although literature may bring fame it never brings a large income. "I understand, Lupus," he says in another epigram (v, 56), "that you are debating on the best training of your son. My advice is, avoid all professors of literature and oratory. The boy should have nothing to do with the works of Vergil or Cicero. Let him leave old Professor Tutilius to his own glory. If he makes verses disown the poet. If he wants to follow an occupation that will pay, let him learn the guitar or the flute. If he proves to be dull, make an auctioneer of him or an architect." The business of an auctioneer was despised, but it was proverbially lucrative. Hence the point of the following epigram (vi, 8):—

Two prætors, seven advocates,

Four tribunes and ten laureates,—

Such was the formidable band

Of suitors for a maiden's hand.

All twenty-three approached her sire,
All twenty-three breathed their desire.
Father dismissed that deputation
Without a moment's hesitation,
And straight bestowed his daughter dear
On Eulogus, the auctioneer.

Of course, we hear a great deal about the deadly recitatio and all its attendant horrors, such as the amateur poet, the admirable Crichton in literature, etc., etc. The ostensible and legitimate object of the recitatio was to allow an author to read his work to his friends and get their criticisms of it. But this unfortunate invention of Vergil's friend, Asinius Pollio, had become literally pestiferous by the time of Domitian, and more especially for its inordinate length and intolerable frequency. Martial speaks in all seriousness of the entire days which politness or policy often obliged him to waste on these things. Pliny attended them religiously. But then, Pliny performed all the functions of his life religiously. Moreover, Pliny was himself an author. He was, therefore, as Horace said, an ‘auditor et ultor,'-in a position to get even now and then by giving a reading himself.

Martial is only too well acquainted with all the types. Here is Maximus (viii, 76) who begins his reading by saying that he has a bad cold. "Why then do you recite?" inquires Martial solicitously.

"Gallicus," he says in another epigram (viii, 76), "you always say, 'tell me the exact truth about my poetry and my oratory. There is nothing which I would rather hear.' Well, Gallicus, listen then to the great truth of all. It is this: Gallicus, you do not like to hear the truth."

It is needless to remark that Martial did not have Pliny's love for the recitatio.

"Mamercus," he says (ii, 88), "you wish to be considered a poet, and yet you never recite. Be anything you like, Mamer

cus, provided you don't recite!"

Of course, the reader often gave a dinner to his hearers. But in Martial's opinion such dinners are quite too dear at the price. In iii, 45, he observes: "They say the Sun god turned backward that he might flee from the dinner of Thyestes. I don't know whether that is true or not. But I do know, Ligurinus, that I flee from yours. I don't deny that your dinners are sumptuous, and that the food you furnish is superb. But absolutely nothing pleases me so long as you recite. You need not set turbot and mullet before me, I don't care for mushrooms, I have no desire for oysters. Just be still."