A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

the epigrammatist. Whatever information we possess regarding the personal history of this writer is derived almost exclusively from his works; for although he often boasts of his own far-spread popularity, and although Aelius Verus was wont to term him " his Virgil," he is not spoken of by any contemporary author except the younger Pliny, nor by any of those who followed after him, except Spartianus, Lampridius, and perhaps Sidonius Apollinaris, until we reach the period of the grammarians, by whom he is frequently quoted. By collecting and comparing the incidental notices scattered through his pages, we are enabled to determine that he was a native of Bilbilis in Spain, that he was born upon the first of March, in the third year of Claudius, A. D. 43, that he canoe to Rome in the thirteenth year of Nero, A. D. 66, that after residing in the metropolis for a space of thirty-five years, he again repaired to the place of his birth, in the third year of Trajan, A. D. 100, and lived there for upwards of three years at least, on the property of his wife, a lady named Marcella, whom he seems to have married after his return to the banks of the Salo, and to whose graces and mental charms he pays a warm tribute. His death, which cannot have taken place before A. D. 104, is mentioned by the younger Pliny, but we are unabie to fix the date of the epistle (3.20, al. 21) in which the event is recorded. His fame was extended and his bools were eagerly sought for, not

only in the city, but also in Gaul, Germany, Britain, Getica, and the wild region of the north; he secured the special patronage of the emperors Titus and Domitian, obtained by his influence the freedom of the state for several of his friends, and received for himself, although apparently without family if not unmarried, the highly-valued privileges accorded to those who were the fathers of three children (jus trium liberorum), together with the rank of tribunus and the rights of the equestrian order, distinctions which in his case were probably merely honorary, not implying the discharge of any particular duties, nor the possession of any considerable fortune. His circumstances, however, must have been at one time easy; for he had a mansion in the city whose situation he describes, and a suburban villa near Nomentum, to which he frequently alludes with pride. It is true that Pliny, in the letter to which we have referred above, states that he made Martial a pecuniary present to assist in defraying the expenses of his journey (prosecutus eram viatico secedentem), but when he adds that the gift was presented as an acknowledgment for a complimentary address, he gives no hint that the poverty of the bard was such as to render this aid an act of charity. The assertion that the father of Martial was named Fronto and his mother Flaccilla, rests upon a mistaken interpretation of the epigram 5.34; and another curious delusion at one time prevailed with regard to the name of Martial himself. In the biography of Alexander Severus (100.38) we find the twenty-ninth epigram of the fifth book quoted as " Martialis Coci Epigramma," and hence Joannes of Salisbury (Curial. Nugar. 7.12, 8.6, 13), Jacobus Magnus of Toledo (Sopholog. passim), and Vincentius of Beauvais (Specul. Doctr. 3.37), suppose Coquus to have been a cognomen of the poet, and designate him by that appellation. The numerous corruptions which everywhere abound in the text of the Augustan historians, and the fact that the word in question is altogether omitted in several MSS. and early editions, while we find etiam substituted for it in two of the Palatine codices, justify us in concluding either that coci was foisted in by the carelessness of a transcriber, or that the true reading is coce, i. e. quoque, which will remove every difficulty.

[W.R]