Martial, : the twelve books of Epigrams,.

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS
III
MARTIAL AS POET
IN the history of the Epigram Martial is indisputably the
greatest name. As regards bulk of poems, variety of
subject, general interest, and posthumous fame, he easily
surpasses all his Greek rivals, while among his own
countrymen there is no one who in this particular field
can be even compared with him. He is certainly indebted
in some degree-and handsomely acknowledges his debtto Catullus and Ovid for his style; but if it is possible to
improve upon the dainty lightness of the one and the
glittering polish of the other, Martial accomplishes that
miraculous feat. He is the epigrammatist, and it is
largely owing to his predominance that the word
'epigram ' in English bears a somewhat different meaning
from that which it has in Greek. Originally an inscription, whether in verse or in prose, such as might be placed
on a tomb, a statue, or a temple offering, it came to
mean for the Greeks a short poem having, as Mr Mackail
says, " the compression and conciseness of a real inscription, highly finished, evenly balanced, simple, lucid."
To this definition most of the pieces in the Greek
Anthology answer, but to the wit and point which form
the chief essentials of a modern epigram they make
little pretension. It is of Martial that the Oxford Dictionary is thinking when it says: " An epigram is a short
poem ending in a witty and ingenious turn of thought
to which the rest of the composition is intended to lead up."
Martial's reputation as satirist and wit has indeed
rather obscured his more definitely poetical qualities
In the Epigrams he confines himself practically to three
metres, the elegiac couplet, the hendecasyllabic, and the
iambic scazon; and it is interesting to notice the connection that obviously exists between the choice of
metre and the writer's thoughts. Though Martial lived
most of his days in Rome, he was in a very genuine sense
a lover of the country, of the simple life, and of his own
native land. When he is treating of these three subjects
and writing rather to please himself than his Roman
audience, he is apt to escape from the confined limits of
the epigram, and to employ the 'limping iambic' as his
metre. The bizarre effect obtained by the unexpected
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