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three pairs of lovers with space

THE EPIGRAMS OF MARTIAL
BOOK FOUR

 

Marcus Valerius Martialis (AD 38/41-102/4) was a Roman poet born in Bilbilis in Hispania Tarraconensis (Tarragonese Spain) of Spanish stock. He lived in Rome from 64 to ca. 100, then returned home. His Epigrams, much his most celebrated and substantial work, were published in Rome in twelve books, and have since been very highly valued for both their wit and what they reveal about life in Rome. Presented here are all references to Greek love in Book IV, published in 88.

The translation, the first in English to include frank translation of passages considered obscene by modern people, is by D. R. Shackleton Bailey for the Loeb Classical Library volumes 94, published by the Harvard University Press in 1993. Older translations either omitted the sexually most interesting epigrams or, much worse, misled as to their content by omitting or distorting critical phrases.

 

7

Why did you refuse today what you granted yesterday, Hyllus boy, so suddenly cruel who were lately kind? But now you plead beard and years and hair. What a long night, one night, to make an old man! Why do you mock me? Yesterday you were a boy, Hyllus. Tell me, how do you come to be a man today?[1] Cur, here quod dederas, hodie, puer Hylle, negasti,
     durus tam subito, qui modo mitis eras?
sed iam causaris barbamque annosque pilosque.
     o nox, quam longa es, quae facis una senem!
quid nos derides? here qui puer, Hylle, fuisti,
     die nobis, hodie qua ratione vir es?
17 refusing d1

 

42

If perchance somebody could give me what I ask, hear, Flaccus, what sort of boy I should like to ask for. First, let this boy be born in the land of Nile; no country knows better how to give naughty ways. Let him be whiter than snow; for in dusky Mareotis[2] that complexion gains beauty in proportion to its rarity. Let his eyes rival stars and soft tresses float upon his neck; curly hair, Flaccus, is not to my liking. Let his forehead be low and his nostrils not too large and slightly aquiline, let his red lips vie with the roses of Paestum.[3] Let him often force me when I am not in the mood and refuse me when I am, let him often make freer than his master. Let him fear the boys[4] and often shut out the girls;[5] let him be a man to all besides, a boy to me only.[6] “I know now, you don’t fool me; it’s true and I too so judge. Such,” you will say, “was my Amazonicus.”[7]  Si quis forte mihi possit praestare roganti,
     audi, quem puerum, Flacce, rogare velim.
Niliacis primum puer hic nascatur in oris:
     nequitias tellus scit dare nulla magis.
sit nive candidior: namque in Mareotide fusca
     pulchrior est quanto rarior iste color.
lumina sideribus certent mollesque flagellent
     colla comae: tortas non amo, Flacce, comas.
frons brevis atque modus leviter sit naribus uncis,
     Paestanis rubeant aemula labra rosis.
saepe et nolentem cogat nolitque volentem,
     liberior domino saepe sit ille suo;
ec timeat pueros, excludat saepe puellas:
     vir reliquis, uni sit puer ille mihi.
‘iam scio, nec fallis: nam me quoque iudice verum est.
     talis erat’ dices ‘noster Amazonicus.’ 
Egyptian blond AD 80 d1


[1] “Puberty, with its physical changes, is a common topic in ancient homoerotic literature, for it signals the end of licit intercourse: in fact, both in Greece and Rome homosexual relations were allowed only between an adult and a child (a slave in Rome). […] The poem has a circular structure: it begins with the poet’s complaint about his lover’s unwillingness to have sexual intercourse. The central lines reconstruct the boy’s reply indirectly: he claims to be old enough now to refuse. The poet does not credit this excuse and expresses his disbelief by resuming the interrogative mode of the first distich, with a slight variatio. This poem bears striking resemblance to an epigram by Strato of Sardis (A. P. 12.191) […] Both epigrams deal with the sudden change caused by puberty by means of questions, the contrast between the past and the present, along with a nonchalant parodic tone. The main difference is that Strato confirms the existence of secondary sexual features and is astonished at their rapid appearance, whereas Martial complains about the boy’s unruliness and his made-up excuses. For the poet, he is still a puer. […]
     “vir: the term relates both to age and sex (cf. 1.31.8; 4.42.14 n.). Homosexual relations between two adults (then called cinaedi ) were intolerable in Rome.” (R. M. Soldevila, Martial, Book IV: A Commentary, Leyden: Brill, 2006, pp. 133 & 137).

[2] Mareotis was a large freshwater lake (much degenerated since antiquity), navigable from the Nile and  separated from the Mediterranean by the isthmus on which lay Alexandria, the capital of Egypt. Martial is using it as a metonym for Egypt itself.
     The Silvae V 5 of Martial’s contemporary Statius also attests to Egyptian boys being especially favoured by Romans as pueri delicati (treasured slave-boy catamites). Similarly, the possession of them by the ostentatiously rich Trimalchio in Petronius’s Satyricon 31 ii and 75 x-xi also implies that they were a supremely luxurious possession. Part of the cause may have been Egyptian wit, which Martial praises in XI 13, but the evidence of the epigram under discussion is that it was their sexual skill and lack of inhibition that was critical. Martial seems to imply here that these were innate qualities, but probably Alexandria was the empire’s centre par excellence for  the sexual and social training of slave-boys for sale to the wealthiest connoisseurs. [Website footnote]

[3] Martial’s list of the physical attributes of the most desirable puer delicatus conforms to the Roman canon. See, for comparison, Ovid, Metamorphoses III 420–423, and Petronius, Satyricon 126 xv-xvi. For an admirably graphic modern analysis of precisely what aroused Roman men about boys and women (attractions she deems equally important for them), see Chapter 2, “The Erotic Ideal in Latin Literature and Contemporary Greek Epigram” of Amy Richin’s The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality & Aggression in Roman Humor, revised edition, OUP, 1992. [Website footnote]

[4] The translator’s “Let him have no fear of the boys” has been amended to “Let him fear the boys” in the light of what is said about his unnecessary and confusing amendation of the Latin, as set out by R. M. Soldevila (Martial, Book IV: A Commentary, Leyden: Brill, 2006, pp. 316-7):

Shackleton Bailey (1978: 277) emended the text and changed et to nec: if the boy has to behave as a vir with others (line 14), he may well have intercourse with his fellow slaves. According to him, excludat saepe puellas implies that he may often refuse them, that is, that he may have sex with them if he wants to. Neither the correction nor the interpretation are necessary. Lines 13–14 may be interpreted as a statement of reciprocally exclusive love: on the one hand, it is desirable that the boy may feel jealous of his fellow slaves (13); on the other, only the owner would derive pleasure from his puer (14). The boy’s desirable sexual freedom (12) is only to be used commentary with his master.

[Website footnote]

[5] Another way of saying: “Let the girls often seek his favors (considering him a man) and be rejected.” [Translator’s footnote]

[6] “vir reliquis: vir means male adult (cf. 1.31.8; 4.7.6), with whom one could not have homosexual intercourse (4.43.1 n.). Concerning his age and social position he will be a puer for everyone, but as to sex, he will be a puer only for his master. Therefore this line simply means: ‘let everyone consider him a grown-up, so that our exclusive relationship will be safe’. This interpretation may seem absurd, because it was the master who had exclusive access to his slave. However, the poet has presented this relationship as something natural and spontaneous.” R. M. Soldevila (Martial, Book IV: A Commentary, Leyden: Brill, 2006, pp. 317).

[7] Through this last line emerges Martial’s intent with this epigram: to praise his friend Flaccus for his good taste in having chosen such an exquisite pleasure-boy as Amazonicus, and presumably also imply his high status in having been able to acquire him. [Website footnote]

 

 

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