Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal Part 24

summa Palatini poteras aequare Colossi, si fieres brevior, Claudia, sesquipede (viii. 60).

Had you been eighteen inches shorter, Claudia, you would have been as tall as the Colossus on the Palatine.

Without wis.h.i.+ng to break a b.u.t.terfly on the wheel, we may well quote against Martial the remark made in a different context to a worthless poet:

tanti non erat esse te disertum (xii. 43).

'Twas scarce worth while to be thus eloquent.

There is much also which, without being precisely pointless or silly, is too petty and mean to be tolerable to modern taste. Most noticeable in this respect are the epigrams in which Martial solicits the liberality of his patrons. The amazing relations existing at this period between patron and client had worked a painful revolution in the manners and tone of society, a revolution which meant scarcely less than the pauperization of the middle cla.s.s. The old sacred and almost feudal tie uniting client and patron had long since disappeared, and had been replaced by relations of a professional and commercial character. Wealth was concentrated in comparatively few hands, and with the decrease of the number of the patrons the throng of clients proportionately increased. The crowd of clients bustling to the early morning _salutatio_ of the patronus, and struggling with one another for the _sportula_ is familiar to us in the pages of Juvenal and receives fresh and equally vivid ill.u.s.tration from Martial. The worst results of these unnatural relations were a general loss of independence of character and a lamentable growth of bad manners and cynical sn.o.bbery. The patron, owing to the increasingly heavy demands upon his purse, naturally tended to become close-fisted and stingy, the needy client too often was grasping and discontented. The patron, if he asked his client to dine, would regale him with food and drink of a coa.r.s.er and inferior quality to that with which he himself was served.[675] The client, on the other hand, could not be trusted to behave himself; he would steal the table fittings, make outrageous demands on his patron, and employ every act of servile and cringing flattery to improve his position.[676] The poor poet was in a sense doubly dependent. He would stand in the ordinary relation of _cliens_ to a _patronus_, and would be dependent also for his livelihood on the generosity of his literary patrons. For, in spite of the comparative facilities for the publication and circulation of books, he could make little by the public sale of his works, and living at Rome was abnormally expensive. The worst feature of all was that such a life of servile dependence was not clearly felt to be degrading. It was disliked for its hards.h.i.+p, annoyance, and monotony, but the client too often seems to have regarded it as beneath his dignity to attempt to escape from it by industry and manly independence.

As a result of these conditions, we find the pages of Martial full of allusions to the miserable life of the client. His skill does not fail him, but the theme is ugly and the historical interest necessarily predominates over the literary, though the reader's patience is at times rewarded with shrewd observations on human nature, as, for instance, the bitter expression of the truth that 'To him that hath shall be given'--

semper pauper eris, si pauper es, Aemiliane; dantur opes nullis nunc nisi divitibus (v. 81);

Poor once and poor for ever, Nat, I fear, None but the rich get place and pension here.

N.B. HALHEAD.

or the even more incisive

pauper videri Cinna vult: et est pauper (viii. 19).

But we soon weary of the continual reference to dinners and parasites, to the sn.o.bbery and indifference of the rich, to the tricks of toadyism on the part of needy client or legacy hunter. It is a mean world, and the wit and raillery of Martial cannot make it palatable. Without a moral background, such as is provided by the indignation of Juvenal, the picture soon palls, and the reader sickens. Most unpleasing of all are the epigrams where Martial himself speaks as client in a language of mingled impertinence and servility. His flattery of the emperor we may pa.s.s by. It was no doubt interested, but it was universal, and Martial's flattery is more dexterous without being either more or less offensive than that of his contemporaries. His relations towards less exalted patrons cannot be thus easily condoned. He feels no shame in begging, nor in abusing those who will not give or whose gifts are not sufficient for his needs. His purse is empty; he must sell the gifts that Regulus has given him. Will Regulus buy?

aera domi non sunt, superest hoc, Regule, solum ut tua vendamus munera: numquid emis? (vii. 16).

I have no money, Regulus, at home. Only one thing is left to do--sell the gifts you gave me. Will you buy?

Stella has given him some tiles to roof his house; he would like a cloak as well:

c.u.m pluvias madidumque Iovem perferre negaret et rudis hibernis villa nataret aquis, plurima, quae posset subitos effundere nimbos, muneribus venit tegula missa tuis.

horridus ecce sonat Boreae stridore December: Stella, tegis villam, non tegis agricolam (vii. 36).[677]

When my crased house heaven's showers could not sustain, But flooded with vast deluges of rain, Thou s.h.i.+ngles, Stella, seasonably didst send, Which from the impetuous storms did me defend: Now fierce loud-sounding Boreas rocks doth cleave, Dost clothe the farm, and farmer naked leave?

ANON., 1695.

This is not the way a gentleman thanks a friend, nor can modern taste appreciate at its antique value abuse such as--

primum est ut praestes, si quid te, Cinna, rogabo; illud deinde sequens ut cito, Cinna, neges.

diligo praestantem; non odi, Cinna, negantem: sed tu nec praestas nec cito, Cinna, negas (vii. 43).

The kindest thing of all is to comply: The next kind thing is quickly to deny.

I love performance nor denial hate: Your 'Shall I, shall I?' is the cursed state.

The poet's poverty is no real excuse for this petulant mendicancy.[678]

He had refused to adopt a profession,[679] though professional employment would a.s.suredly have left him time for writing, and no one would have complained if his output had been somewhat smaller. Instead, he chose a life which involved moving in society, and was necessarily expensive. We can hardly attribute his choice merely to the love of his art. If he must beg, he might have done so with better taste and some show of finer feeling. Macaulay's criticism is just: 'I can make large allowance for the difference of manners; but it can never have been _comme il faut_ in any age or nation for a man of note--an accomplished man--a man living with the great--to be constantly asking for money, clothes, and dainties, and to pursue with volleys of abuse those who would give him nothing.'

In spite, however, of the obscenity, meanness, and exaggerated triviality of much of his work, there have been few poets who could turn a prettier compliment, make a neater jest, or enshrine the trivial in a more exquisite setting. Take the beautifully finished poem to Flaccus in the eighth book (56), wherein Martial complains that times have altered since Vergil's day. 'Now there are no patrons and consequently no poets'--

ergo ego Vergilius, si munera Maecenatis des mihi? Vergilius non ero, Marsus ero.

Shall I then be a Vergil, if you give me such gifts as Maecenas gave? No, I shall not be a Vergil, but a Marsus.

Here, at least, Martial shows that he could complain of his poverty with decency, and speak of himself and his work with becoming modesty. Or take a poem of a different type, an indirect plea for the recall of an exile (viii. 32):

aera per tacitum delapsa sedentis in ipsos fluxit Aratullae blanda columba sinus, luserat hoc casus, nisi in.o.bservata maneret permissaque sibi nollet abire fuga.

si meliora piae fas est sperare sorori et dominum mundi flectere vota valent, haec a Sardois tibi forsitan exulis oris, fratre reversuro, nuntia venit avis.

A gentle dove glided down through the silent air and settled even in Aratulla's bosom as she was sitting.

This might have seemed but the sport of chance had it not rested there, though undetained, and refused to part even when flight was free. If it is granted to the loving sister to hope for better things, and if prayers can move the lord of the world, this bird perchance has come to thee from Sardinia's sh.o.r.e of exile to announce the speedy return of thy brother.

Nothing could be more conventional, nothing more perfect in form, more full of music, more delicate in expression. The same felicity is shown in his epigrams on curiosities of art or nature, a fas.h.i.+onable and, it must be confessed, an easy theme.[680] Fish carved by Phidias' hand, a lizard cast by Mentor, a fly enclosed in amber, are all given immortality:

artis Phidiacae toreuma clarum pisces aspicis: adde aquam, natabunt (iii. 35).

These fishes Phidias wrought: with life by him They are endowed: add water and they swim.

PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITH.

inserta phialae Mentoris manu ducta lacerta vivit et timetur argentum (iii. 41).

That lizard on the goblet makes thee start.

Fear not: it lives only by Mentor's art.

PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITH.

et latet et lucet Phaethontide condita gutta, ut videatur apis nectare clusa suo.

dignum tantorum pretium tulit illa laborum: credibile est ipsam sic voluisse mori (iv. 32).

Here s.h.i.+nes a bee closed in an amber tomb, As if interred in her own honey-comb.

A fit reward fate to her labours gave; No other death would she have wished to have.

MAY.

Always at home in describing the trifling amenities of life, he is at his best equally successful in dealing with its trifling follies. An acquaintance has given his cook the absurd name of Mistyllos in allusion to the Homeric phrase [Greek: mistyllon t' ora talla]. Martial's comment is inimitable:

si tibi Mistyllos cocus, Aemiliane, vocatur, dicatur quare non Taratalla mihi? (i. 50).

He complains of the wine given him at a dinner-party with a finished whimsicality:

potavi modo consulare vinum.

quaeris quam vetus atque liberale?

Prisco consule conditum: sed ipse qui ponebat erat, Severe, consul (vii. 79).

I have just drunk some consular wine. How old, you ask, and how generous? It was bottled in Priscus' consuls.h.i.+p: and he who set it before me was the consul himself.

Polycharmus has returned Caieta.n.u.s his IOU's. 'Little good will that do you, and Caieta.n.u.s will not even be grateful':

quod Caietano reddis, Polycharme, tabellas, milia te centum num tribuisse putas?

'debuit haec' inquis. tibi habe, Polycharme, tabellas et Caietano milia crede duo (viii. 37).