Martial's Epigrams Book Two

by Marcus Valerius Martialis, Craig A. Williams

This edition provides an English translation of and detailed commentary on the second book of epigrams published by the Latin poet Marcus Valerius Martialis. The past ten years have seen a resurgence of interest in Martial's writings. But contemporary readers are in particular need of assistance when approaching these epigrams, and until now there has been no modern commentary dedicated to Book II. This new commentary carefully illuminates the allusions to people, places, things, and cultural practices of late first-century Rome that pervade Martial's poetry. It analyzes the epigrammatist's poems as literary creations, treating such topics as the structure of the individual poems and of the book as a whole, and the influence of earlier texts on Martial's language and themes.

320 pages, Hardcover

Published January 8, 2004

About the author

Born: March 1, 40 AD, in Augusta Bilbilis (now Calatayud, Spain); Died: ca. 102 AD--Marcus Valerius Martialis, known in English as Martial, was a Latin poet from Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. In these short, witty poems he cheerfully satirises city life and the scandalous activities of his acquaintances, and romanticises his provincial upbringing. Considered the creator of the modern epigram, Martial wrote a total of 1,561 - 1,235 of which are in elegiac couplets.