Classical Poetry

Pliny 3.21 & Martial

Translated by Max Latham B.A. (Hons.) Classical Studies
(circa 104)

From Pliny the Younger to Cornelius Priscus himself, salutations.

I hear that [Marcus] Valerius Martialis died and I am taking it badly. Martial was an ingenious man, keenly intelligent, both who in writing the most and his wry wit, and it must have been an infection of the gall bladder, though his candour was no less. I was cut off on a journey, I was going away; I might give this up for friendship's sake, I might give up by writing little verses, from me, which I composed. It was the manner of the ancient authors, they who were either of singular praises, or had written of Roman cities. It was either from their honours or that their riches distinguished them; truly in our times, when respectable and extraordinary artists flourish so had Martial grown old and frail in this especially. For after we fail to praise, to be praised too we prune what is unsuitable. Who might the little verses be by I hear you ask? Whose kindness had been emulated? I was perhaps going to send back to you the very scroll, unless I could keep certain sections; if these are agreeable to you, the rest of the writings in the book you will want to have. Martial addresses a Muse, he orders it when at my house on the Esquiline hill, he asks that she might respectfully visit:

"Yet lest at the right time, not your eloquent
Entrance, you might knock at the door drunk, see! All
Is given on the day of grim Minerva,
While a hundred study with the ears of men
And here they'd be, future generations,
Volscian hill towns too, in letters equal,
Prison bars, safer, you walk towards the lamps,
This is your hour, when Bacchus-Lyæus
Raves, when the rose bush reigns, when they've wet their hair,
Then they'd ordain me or rigid Porcia."

Undeservedly the poem, this which was written about me had been both dismissed then in a most amicable way, and now must I most amicably have done with it by effacing it? Martial had certainly given to me the greatest quantity which had ever been, he could have given more still if he had lived on. Although what greater gift can man be given, than both glory and praise forever? Yet that which Martial had written will not be eternal: they might not be, that however he wrote: just like his poetry should have been about to be immortalised.

Farewell,

Pliny.