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A Martial Reader
Selections from Epigrams
Craig Williams

(2011) 5” x 7.75” Paperback
ISBN 978-0-86516-704-9

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 large product photo Martial's more than 1,500 epigrams, published in fifteen books over several decades, have long been valued for the richly varied glimpses they give into the urban landscape in which the comfortable upper classes of Roman society lived at the end of the first century ce. From public bathhouses, latrines, and brothels to private dinner parties with lavish foods and wines, from the amphitheater's violent entertainment and the use and abuse of slaves to coddled lapdogs and parrots who spontaneously exclaim "Hail Caesar!"—all are subjected to Martial's observant eye and witty, sometimes biting commentary. The poems in this volume range from gossip and crude jokes to lofty celebrations of brotherly love and reflections on what makes life livable, illustrating the kaleidoscopic array that is the hallmark of Martial's work.

 
  • Introduction to Martial's life and the literary and historical context of his poetry
  • 99 epigrams (559 lines of unadapted Latin text) selected from every book of Martial's corpus: Liber spectaculorum: 1, 2, 7; Book 1: 1–3, 6, 10, 13, 15–16, 20, 24, 32–37, 47, 72, 93, 109–110, 118; Book 2: 5, 11, 18–23, 26, 28, 30, 37, 44, 62, 80, 82; Book 3: 1, 27, 43; Book 4: 24, 56; Book 5: 58, 81, 83; Book 6: 1, 34; Book 7: 5, 10, 14; Book 8: 12, 17, 23, 55; Book 9: Praefatio, 15, 70; Book 10: 4, 8, 47; Book 11: 13–15, 70, 77; Book 12: 3, 20, 23, 68, 90–93; Book 13 (Xenia): 3–4, 14, 29, 63, 74, 82, 108; Book 14 (Apophoreta): 73, 134, 188–191, 194–195, 198–200, 203–205
  • Notes at the back and complete vocabulary
  • Two maps and five illustrations
 

Craig Williams is Professor of Classics at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. His B.A. and Ph.D. are both from Yale University. The tenth anniversary of his book Roman Homosexuality (Oxford University Press 1999) will be marked by the publication of a second edition including a new afterword, appendix on the Pompeiian graffiti, and foreword by Martha Nussbaum, and a French translation is forthcoming from Editions EPEL, Paris. He is also the author of a commentary on the second book of Martial's epigrams (Oxford University Press 2004) as well as a number of articles and reviews on Latin poetry and Roman culture, and is currently completing a monograph entitled Reading Roman Friendship.