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These random jottings, the fruit of a recent re-reading of the poems of Martial, will not, it is earnestly hoped, be regarded as an attempt to appraise the work of the poet as a whole, though they may perhaps take as their starting-point Martial's critical estimate of his own epigrams.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1948
References
Page 12 note 1 i. 4. 8 Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba.
Page 12 note 2 Literally: ‘for an uncia in every as’; i.e. a twelfth.
Page 13 note 1 Cf. x. 103. 7 for a similar computation. But he eschews mere ‘trick’ poetry, writing of its composition (ii. 86. 9, 10): Turpe est difficiles habere nugas, Et stultus labor est ineptiarum.
Page 13 note 2 calva = a bald scalp; the verb semitare = ‘to lay out in paths’ is not given in Lewis and Short.
Page 14 note 1 For this use of suspendo and pendeo cf. ii. 14. 9 ‘centum pendentia tecta columnis’, ‘a roof poised on a hundred columns’.
Page 14 note 2 Dickens, , Old Curiosity ShopGoogle Scholar, ch. 42: The delight of picking up the money—the bright, shining yellow boys.
Page 15 note 1 For latus = comrade cf. vi. 65. 4 dulce latus. It is only fair to add that some scholars have regarded these lines as corrupt.
Page 15 note 2 Cf. xii. 94. 4, and Juv. xv. 30 (used = tragedy).
Page 16 note 1 At viii. 50. 10 recta is used in this meaning without the ‘cena’: ‘promissa est nobis sportula, recta data est’, ‘a dole was promised, a feast given’.
Page 16 note 2 So as early as Horace: ‘quamquam Socraticis madet sermonibus’ (Odes iii. 21. 9, 10), ‘though he is steeped in Socratic lore’.
Page 16 note 3 ‘Arca flagellat opes’ occurs again at v. 13. 6. What does flagellat mean? L. and S. say ‘enclose’. But it is a very odd metaphor. Statius' ‘Non tibi sepositas infelix strangulat arca Divitias’ (ii. 2. 150) is intelligible. Pace Friedländer, Persius’ ‘puteal … flagellas’ (iv. 49) throws no light.
Page 16 note 4 In poetry of the Golden Age this would be adeo: ‘tres adeo… soles’ (Virg. Aen. 3. 203, ‘quinque adeo… urbes’ (ib. 7. 629).
Page 16 note 5 Or. 18. 59.
Page 17 note 1 Cf. vii. 78. 4 ‘habes nec cor, Papile, nec genium’, where genius seems to mean ‘taste’ or ‘a right sense of values’.