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PLAYING IN THE LION'S JAWS: METATEXTUALITY IN MARTIAL'S ‘LION AND HARE’ CYCLE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2024
Abstract
This paper aims to provide an analysis of the metatextual function of one of the most well-known elements of Martial's Epigrams, the ‘lion and hare’ cycle from Book 1. This cycle, in which a hare is held precariously but safely in the jaws of a lion, has historically been read as representing the relationship between Domitian and poet. This paper aims to expand on this reading of the cycle while considering a largely unexplored point of view: the metatexual function of this cycle within Martial's larger epigrammatic project. I identify three major ways in which the cycle supports Martial's larger interests in exploring poetic anxieties and defending the genre of epigrammatic poetry. First of all, by figuring the lion and the hare as, respectively, the emperor and the poet, Martial presents and performs an exemplum modelling clemency in the reception of lascivious poetry. Second, as a sexual metaphor that points to the anxiety and insecurity of both predator and prey, the cycle anticipates a broader concern of the Epigrams: the instability of Roman hierarchical relations and the difficulty of maintaining balance within such relationships. Third, Martial's continued use of hare imagery in the later books of the Epigrams, both in culinary and in hunting contexts, suggests the continued consumption and enjoyment of the genre of epigram, particularly outside of the imperial city.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
References
1 See Lorenz, S., Erotik und Panegyrik: Martials epigrammatische Kaiser (Tübingen, 2002), 134Google Scholar; Holzberg, N., Martial und das antike Epigram (Darmstadt, 2002), 67Google Scholar. Both Lorenz and Holzberg interpret this cycle, as well as its narrator and the figure of Caesar, as elements in a poetic construction. Cf. Garthwaite, J., ‘The panegyrics of Domitian in Martial Book 9’, Ramus 22 (1993), 78–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Nauta, R.R., Poetry for Patrons: Literary Communication in the Age of Domitian (Leiden / Boston / Köln, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fitzgerald, W., Martial: The World of the Epigram (Chicago and London, 2007), 83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sullivan, J.P., Martial: The Unexpected Classic (Cambridge, 1991), 29CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Nauta, Fitzgerald and Sullivan see the cycle as representing, through different means, the clementia of the emperor. Most recently, E. Gunderson, The Art of Complicity in Martial and Statius: The Epigrams, Siluae, and Domitianic Rome (Oxford, 2021) acknowledges the multivalency of the symbolism of the rabbit as representing ‘the mere subject’, ‘the author himself’ and ‘the reader’ (60).
2 This cycle was recently addressed by Gunderson (n. 1). While Gunderson's intervention is invaluable, this article takes a different perspective. The central argument of Gunderson's book is that there is no break between the aesthetics and the politics of Martial's and Statius’ poetry, and that, for Martial and Statius, panegyric poetry was the practice of submission to Domitianic autocracy. While I acknowledge the complexity of Martial's position as well as his poetry's complicity within the structures of censorship, my analysis locates specific concerns that are deliberately legible even in the face of strategies of complicity. These include, particularly, Martial's anxiety regarding poetic reception and censorship.
3 See F.M. Ahl, ‘The rider and the horse: politics and power in Roman poetry from Horace to Statius’, ANRW 2.32.1 (1984), 40–124, at 85–6; Rimell, V., Martial's Rome: Empire and the Ideology of Epigram (Cambridge, 2008), 204–5Google Scholar; J. Garthwaite, ‘Ludimus innocui: interpreting Martial's imperial epigrams’, in W.J. Dominik, J. Garthwaite and P.A. Roche (edd.), Writing Politics in Imperial Rome (Leiden and Boston, 2009), 405–28, at 417.
4 Rimell (n. 3), 204–6.
5 On reading implicit criticism in Martial, see Garthwaite (n. 1). For a discussion of Flavian banishments of philosophers, see J. Penwill, ‘Politics and philosophy in Flavian Rome’, in A.J. Boyle and W.J. Dominik (edd.), Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text (Leiden, 2003). Penwill sees the implications that philosophy itself was a crime from authors such as Cassius Dio (67.12.2–3) as exaggeration formulated to laud Trajan through comparison. None the less, Penwill maintains that the sources locate crimes in the publication of subversive material (see Tac. Agr. 2.1; Cass. Dio 67.13.2; Suet. Dom. 10.3–4) and admits that this contributed to an atmosphere of fear and repression (see Dio Chrys. Or. 3.13; Plin. Pan. 47.1; Tac. Agr. 2.2). See also Johnson, M., ‘Martial and Domitian's moral reforms’, Prudentia 29 (1997), 24–70Google Scholar; F. Grelle, ‘La correctio morum nella legislazione flavia’, ANRW 2.13 (1980), 340–65; Wallace-Hadrill, A., Suetonius: The Scholar and his Caesars (London, 1983)Google Scholar. Because of the potential benefits of the culture of censorship and patronage under which Martial operated, Johnson ultimately finds fault with Garthwaite's supposition of subversion within Martial's epigrams. However, Martial's eye for benefit and his care to avoid legal blame do not preclude the existence of any legible critique beneath his blatant panegyric.
6 See Mart. 1.2, 1.45, 5.10, 7.17, 7.42, 8.72, 8.82, 9 prol.5–8, 9.50, 10.20, 10.74, 12.11, 12.94.
7 Gunderson (n. 1), 60.
8 Gunderson (n. 1), 60.
9 More broadly, in a time when the imperial family alone controlled the monumental landscape of the city, the act of personal monumentalizing can also be read as resistance against the homogeneity of imperial messaging.
10 Ahl (n. 3), 85.
11 Bartsch, S., Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian (Cambridge, MA and London, 1994), 148–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Here, Martial is pointing to his decision to not attack specific individuals. But this claim also provides plausible deniability against any interpretation of malicious intent in his playful poetry, and is a precursor to his more explicit defence in 1.4.
13 The edition used for Martial's text is W.M. Lindsay (ed.), M. Val. Martialis Epigrammata (Oxford, 1946).
14 See M. Beard, Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up (Berkeley / Los Angeles / London, 2014), 130. As Seneca makes clear in the De clementia: ‘we believe that Augustus was a good emperor … since he laughed at shameful jests against himself’ ([credimus] bonum fuisse principem Augustum … quod probrosis in se dictis adrisit, 1.10.3).
15 For Martial's intertextuality with Ovid, see Fitzgerald (n. 1), 186–90; Hinds, S., ‘Martial's Ovid / Ovid's Martial’, JRS 97 (2007), 113–54Google Scholar; H. Szelest, ‘Ovid und Martial’, in W. Schubert (ed.), Ovid. Werk und Wirkung. Festgabe für Michael von Albrecht zum 65. Geburtstag (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1999); R.A. Pitcher, ‘Martial's debt to Ovid’, in F. Grewing (ed.), Notus in orbe: Perspektiven der Martial-Interpretation (Stuttgart, 1998), 59–76.
16 Sullivan (n. 1), 71
17 The ‘lion and hare’ poems are part of a larger topos that Martial introduces in the De spectaculis: using animal anecdotes to celebrate the games and the virtues of the emperor. Animal submission is particularly underscored: in Spect. 17, when a pious elephant (pius et supplex elephas, 1) kneels to the emperor, the image establishes hierarchical order, in which even a beast submits to the emperor, since it ‘senses our god’ (nostrum sentit … deum, 4). In Spect. 13, Martial uses an image of submission to establish the clemency of the emperor when a deer, along with the dogs chasing it, stops at his feet in supplication. In exchange for acknowledging the emperor's divinity, the deer receives her life as a donum. Here there is a parallel with the ‘lion and hare’ epigrams, wherein the lion continually spares the hare, keeping it safe while still holding it in its jaws in an act of subjugation but also clemency. Yet this motif is complicated when the lion is introduced in the De spectaculis. In Spect. 10, a lion—here not specifically representing the emperor—wounds its trainer (laeserat … magistrum, 1) and is subdued with weapons (tela tulit, 4). Martial then poses the question, or exclaims, ‘what sort of character is fitting for men under such a princeps, who commands the nature of beasts to be more gentle?’ (quos decet esse hominum tali sub principe mores | qui iubet ingenium mitius esse feris, 5–6). On the one hand, the message is, presumably, that the emperor wields great power over nature and that, under such an emperor, men's natures will be similarly tamed. On the other hand, the lion was only tamed through subjugation by weapons (tela tulit, 4), and only because it ‘could not bear the lash’ (non tulerat uerbera, 4). The type of subjugation Martial associates with the emperor here is a subjugation enforced not through willing submission and anxiety, as in the ‘lion and hare’ cycle in the Epigrams, but through explicit violence. It is unclear if the De spectaculis was in fact written under Domitian—Coleman (cited below) suggests that the collection is likely a pastiche of poems written both under Titus and early in Domitian's reign. However, although the evidence is limited, the question inherent in the portrayal of the anxiety of the hare (why is the hare anxious if the lion is no threat?) may be answered in part by Spect. 10 (the potential violence of the lion). Similarly, the question implied in the association between the hare and the poet (why is the poet anxious if the emperor is no threat?) may also be answered in part with this epigram (the emperor can enforce mores through violence). On the identity of the emperor, see Coleman, K.M. (ed.), Martial: Liber Spectaculorum (Oxford, 2006), xlv–lxivGoogle Scholar.
18 Cf. Stat. Silu. 2.5, on a tame lion in the arena who has ‘unlearned’ (dediscere, 2) how to commit violence towards humans.
19 See n. 17 above.
20 Howell, P., A Commentary on Book One of the Epigrams of Martial (London, 1980)Google Scholar observes that this poem is not about clemency, noting in reference to the Dacian Wars, that ‘the point is that the war will be against the men, not the boys’ (157).
21 For Martial's poetic submission, see Gunderson (n. 1).
22 Gunderson (n. 1), 54–6.
23 Mart. Ep. 1.6, 1.14, 1.22, 1.48, 1.51, 1.60, 1.104.
24 Sullivan (n. 1), 207 n. 35 suggests that ‘in Latin lepus, a hare, can refer to the male sexual organ (cf. Petron. Sat. 131) and Martial speaks of Ligeia's old woman's cunt as a dead lion (10.90.1, 9–10).’
25 Garthwaite (n. 1), 85–94. Note that this same juxtaposition is central in Silu. 3.4, which, like the epigrams noted above, celebrates Earinus and the dedication of a lock of his hair to Apollo. Statius describes Venus leading Earinus into ‘marriage’ (conubia, 54) with the emperor at a time when ‘the beautiful clemency of the ruler had not yet begun to keep males intact from birth’ (nondum pulchra ducis clementia coeperat ortu intactos seruare mares, 73–4).
26 See 9.11–13, 16, 17, 36. Also cf. Gunderson (n. 1), 133–5, who disagrees with Garthwaite (n. 1). Gunderson reads the irony in the praise of Earinus as part of Martial's acknowledgement of the castration of himself and all ‘subjected subjects’ (133). For Gunderson, the ‘panegyrical nonsense’ is both the surface and the depth of the poem (134–5). However, in order to acknowledge only the panegyric, one must ignore—and assume Martial meant the reader to ignore—the hypocrisy which is highlighted by placing poems praising Earinus in the same book as poems that praise Domitian for his laws outlawing castration (9.5, 9.7; see Garthwaite [n. 1], 85–94). To Gunderson, the contradictions are meant to coexist but in peaceful incongruity. On some level, this seems to be the case—the coexistence of contrary truths is part of the fabric of the Epigrams, and serves to underscore the mental gymnastics and suspension of analysis necessitated by living in a high-control environment. Yet Martial, having constructed the book in such a way as to give himself plausible deniability (after all, the poems are not right next to each other) has simultaneously also presented the option—especially to the ‘careful reader’ (lector studiose, 1.1.4)—of following the contradiction to its natural conclusion: an emperor who maintains a eunuch while outlawing castration is demonstrating hypocrisy.
27 Mart. 9.3, 9.20, 9.34, 9.36, 9.39, 9.91.
28 Martial emphasizes the small size of his poems (see 1.3, 10.1), regularly referring to them as nugae (‘trifles’): 1.113, 2.1, 2.86, 4.10, 4.72, 4.82, 5.80, 6.64, 7.11, 7.26, 7.51, 8.3, 9 pr., 10.18, 12 pr.; Xenia 2; Apophoreta 183.
29 See Julhe's discussion of this poem in Julhe, J.-C., Le «livre» de Martial et l'autoportrait du poète en épigrammatiste romain (Paris, 2020), 150–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Julhe argues that Martial sent Stella two collections—a lesser and a greater collection—one of which contained more poems on the lion and the hare than the other.
30 Fitzgerald (n. 1), 89.
31 Epigram gives the chance for a dialogue between the epigrammatist and his subject: Fitzgerald (n. 1), 88–9.
32 Fitzgerald (n. 1), 88–9 sees the use of the Homeric formula as underscoring the substantial differences between epic and epigram, notably the fact that epic does not allow for a reply from the reader. In fact, both the similarities and the differences are underscored. The important point here is that epigram is both trivial as well as great—in part because of what defines it as trivial (that is, its reliance on play).
33 Although he begins Book 12 by sending his poetry back to Rome and by underscoring his longing to return to the city (12 pr. 7–14, 12.2), his attitude shifts as the book progresses. Book 12 ultimately meditates on the problems of life in Rome as well as on the problems of life in Spain (Mart. 12.57, 12.59, 12.60, 12.68).
34 Rimell (n. 3), 204–5 discusses this poem in the context of the pastoral genre, and finds this line suggestive that ‘this kind of poetry [pastoral epigram, presumably] cannot survive outside the dazzling and sophisticated arena’.
35 While lions are still used in the later books, it is usually in the context of contemplating or comparing the character of individuals: for example, at 12.92.4 ‘Tell me, if you were to become a lion, what sort would you be?’ (dic mihi, si fias tu leo, qualis eris?); at 10.65.12–13 ‘so dissimilar is the dove to the eagle, or the fleeing gazelle to the lion [are you to me]’ (tam dispar aquilae columba non est | nec dorcas rigido fugax leoni); at 10.100.3–4, of the disparity between the quality of Martial's verse and of another poet's verse: ‘why do you try to herd foxes with lions, and make owls similar to eagles?’ (quid congregare cum leonibus uolpes | aquilisque similes facere noctuas quaeris?). They never again appear with the hare.
36 Gunderson (n. 1), 53 notes that ‘the rabbit poems, that is, are both poems about shows and poems that show a key logic of showing. They do this by showing showing.’