classics via the sexy bits
Martial epigram 6.67, a surprising way not to get pregnant in Ancient Rome
When I appeared on the wonderful podcast Instant Classics, Charlotte Higgins and Mary Beard told me that one of the things they appreciate about my Classics scholarship is that I treat Classical writers as colleagues rather than ‘the sources’. Which has really made me think about what I can uniquely contribute to the world of Classics scholarship; I am very interested in treating these writers as really really good writers who we can enjoy delving into word by word. They come from a world that can seem very close to us at one moment and then completely alien in another. But if we pay close attention to these great writers’ use of words, then we can touch other minds in distant places, and it is incredibly satisfying and enriching to do so.
So. I had the idea that - to keep my hand in with my Classics having finished my Masters - I could do a short weekly post of close readings. And just for the fun of it, I’ll focus mostly on what I’m calling “the sexy bits”. Which doesn’t necessarily mean “this is extremely erotic” but more like “all of the things that are a bit seamy, low-rent and perhaps absolute filth which you don’t get taught in a very sensible course on Latin and Greek grammar, or a course on the - very beautiful and important! - lyric poetry or epic.”
I am really excited to use this Substack to keep on with my own intellectual interests and this will always be in the Classics section and so if it’s not for you, you can just unsubscribe to that section! And of course, warning, there will be a lot of language in here. Latin and Greek and lots of rude words. So, you know, be advised.
I did some Martial for my dissertation and was just delighted by him. He is very very funny and also incredibly scabrous, insulting, rude, generally filthy. So, I want to read more!
Here is a little potted biography of Martial which I have condensed from the entry by Mario Citroni in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (that is the number one resource if you want to research things in classics - it will lead you off in good directions if you start by looking stuff up there.) My notes are in brackets.
Martial was born at Bilbilis in Spain on 1 March in a year between 38 and 41CE. He died between 101 and 104CE. He came to Rome around 64CE.
(This means he lived through what I might like to call the ‘Golden Age’ of Rome, the height of her expansionism and power and some very interesting times, spanning the Emperor Nero, the Year of the Four Emperors, Vespasian, Domitian all the way through to the Emperor Trajan. Don’t worry if this means nothing to you.)In the fifteen years and more that he spent in Rome before his first publications, he was probably already gaining renown.
In 86 he began publishing the series of twelve books of varied epigrams which are his principal claim to fame. They show a network of patronage and friendship involving a large cross-section of Roman upper-class society.
He became extremely popular, being read even in the provinces by a wide public. His relationship with Emperor Domitian and the powerful freedmen of the court also grew, as his popular success gave him a central role in the literary scene.
(His main relationship was with Domitian, who was - very very broadly - one of the sort-of-OK emperors, not one of the famously absolutely barking mad ones.)Martial complains that this success did not bring him financial reward: without any copyright in his works, he was dependent on patrons whose lack of generosity towards their clients … he constantly laments.
(He loves complaining! He is the most complaining, insulting writer. It is amazing to think that this was what Emperors wanted, like the Prime Minister employing writers from Private Eye to be the poet laureate.)After the death of Domitian… Martial must have felt less at home. Tired of city life and, as ever, nostalgic for the idealized ‘natural’ life in Spain that he had always set against the falsity and conventionality of Rome, he decided to return there in 98… The contradictory and unnatural life of the capital was, however, the source of his poetry, and in book 12, composed in Spain, he expresses with a new bitterness his sense of delusion and emptiness at the loss of the cultural and social stimuli that had made him a poet in the first place.
(This is incredibly Martial. There’s always something to complain about, whereever you are.)
epigram 6.67: an unexpected way to avoid pregnancy
Right so having done that bit of throat-clearing and scene-setting, let’s have a look at one of these epigrams. Almost at random, we are going to start with epigram 6.67 (that is, epigram 67 in book 6), because it is strange, filthy, funny and very short. An introduction to a whole alien world.
Here’s the text in Latin:
“Cur tantum eunuchos tua Caelia quaeris,
Pannyche? vult futui Caelia nec parere.”1
And here’s the translation from the Loeb. Loeb translations are very helpful to know about when starting a journey into the Classics. They are quite straight parallel-text translations of the words, designed for students who are comparing the Latin or Greek with the English and working out which word means what. You won’t get a lot of brilliant style out of a Loeb, but it’s a good place to start for understanding.
“Do you ask why your Caelia has only eunuchs, Pannychus?
Caelia wants to be fucked, but not to have children.”
