Martial's Rome
Empire and the Ideology of Epigram

Explores Martial's radical vision of the relationship between art and reality and his role in formulating modern perceptions of Rome.

Victoria E. Rimell (Author)

9780521828222, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 January 2009

240 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.1 cm, 0.52 kg

Rimell's study is sophisticated...good poetry--and especially a large collection of poems that interacts with a long established poetic canon--invites the reader to identify and investigate intra- and extra-textual dynamics..." --BMCR

This provocative book is a major contribution to our understanding of Martial's poetics, his vision of the relationship between art and reality, and his role in formulating modern perceptions of Rome. The study shows how on every scale from the microscopic to the cosmic, Martial displays epigram's ambition to enact the sociality of urban life, but also to make Rome rise out of epigram's architecture and gestures. Martial's distinctive aesthetic, grounded in paradox and inconsistency, ensures that the humblest, most throwaway poetic form is best poised to capture first century empire in all its dazzling complexity. As well as investigating many of Martial's central themes - monumentality, economics, death, carnival, exile - this books also questions what kind of a mascot Martial is for classics today in our own advanced, multicultural world, and will be an invaluable guide for scholars and students of classical literature and Roman history.

Introduction: getting to know Martial
1. Copyright and contagion: the city as text
2. Vigor Mortis: living and dying
3. Poetic economies: figuring out Martial's maths
4. Mundus inversus: Martial's Saturnalia
5. The space of epigram
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], History of art: ancient & classical art,BCE to c 500 CE [ACG]