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Bassa's Borborysms: on Martial and Catullus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Lindsay C. Watson
Lindsay C. Watson*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Extract

Martial on a number of occasions declares himself the literary inheritor of Catullus, and repeatedly evinces that indebtedness by unmistakable echoes and adaptations of his Republican predecessor. But the Catullan legacy in Martial has not fared well at the hands of scholars. Many of the passages pertinent to the topic are industriously assembled in the secondary literature. But that literature is (it must be said) seriously deficient. Ferguson's 1963 article ‘Catullus and Martial’ is lightweight and vitiated by value judgements as to the respective worth of the two poets. Despite a disclaimer of bias, Ferguson is plainly of a mind with Muretus, who said that Martial was to Catullus as a buffoon is to a gentleman, and with Andrea Navagero, who each year burned a copy of Martial in an assertion of Catullus' superiority. A similar criticism can be levelled at Offermann's ‘Uno tibi sim minor Catullo’, which, descriptive rather than analytical, devotes a great deal of space to castigating Martial for sacrificing Catullus' intense emotionalism and to devaluing the Flavian poet in consequence; Offermann was unwilling to recognise that impassioned sincerity more Catulliano was not part of Martial's epigrammatic brief. J.K. Newman's recent treatment of Catullus and Martial, while helpful in some respects, makes much of the ‘carnivalesque’ or Saturnalian spirit which allegedly infuses the work of both poets, a claim which is valid for Martial, for the most part,8 but questionable for Catullus.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 37 , November 2003 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2003

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References

1 Cf. Mart. 1 epist., 2.71,4.14.13-14, 5.5.5-6,7.99.5-8, 10.78.14-16, 10.103.1–6Google Scholar; also 1.61.

2 Ferguson, J., ‘Catullus and Martial’, PACA 6 (1963) 3–15Google Scholar.

3 ‘Here the agony of Catullus’ divided mind has become an epigrammatic ambivalence, neat but shallow’ (Ferguson, ‘Catullus and Martial’ [n.2] p.11) is typical.

4 See Ferguson, ‘Catullus and Martial’ (n.2) 15. Navagero presumably had in mind Catull. 36, where Catullus proposes to dispatch into the fire the worthless Annates of the poetic hack Volusius, cf. Clarke, G.W. (Latomus 27 [1968] 575–80Google Scholar)—though the topic of burning poor quality verse is highly traditional: see Nisbet-Hubbard on Hor. Od. 1.16.13Google Scholar, Bumikel, W., Untersuchungen zur Struktur des Witzepigramms bei Lukillios und Martial (Wiesbaden 1980) 16–18Google Scholar.

5 Offermann, H., ‘Uno tibi sim minor Catullo’, QUCC 34 (1980) 107–39Google Scholar.

6 Noted in Pierre Laurens’ excellent treatment of the Greek and Roman epigrammatic tradition, L'Abeille dans l'ambre: célébration de l'épigramme (Paris 1989)Google Scholar.

7 Newman, J.K., Roman Catullus and the Modification of the Alexandrian Sensibility (Hildesheim 1990)75–103Google Scholar.

8 Notable exceptions are the somewhat dour and verbally restrained Domitianic books 5, 7 and 8: indeed 11.2 connects the Saturnalian ethos of book 11 with the greater freedom of speech available under Nerva. For the Saturnalian tone of the epigrams, cf. 4.14, 5.30, 10.18, 11.2, 11.6, 11.15, 14.1, Nauta, R.R., Poetry for Patrons. Literary Communication in the Age of Domitian (Leiden 2002) 166–89Google Scholar.

9 Martial invokes the Saturnalian spirit to justify the freedom of speech which characterises his epigrams: in the far more liberal conditions which prevailed under the late Republic, Catullus had no such need: cf. poems 29 and 57 (contrast Mart. 12.6). There is only one reference to the Saturnalia in Catullus, poem 14, which concerns volumes of execrable poetry sent by Calvus to Catullus as a jesting Saturnalian gift.

10 Swann, Bruce W., Martial's Catullus. The Reception of an Epigrammatic Rival (Hildesheim 1994)Google Scholar. Cf. id., ‘Sic scribit Catullus: the importance of Catullus for Martial's Epigrams’ in Grewing, F. ed. Toto Notus in Orbe. Perspektiven der Martial-lnterpretationen (Stuttgart 1998) 48–58Google Scholar.

11 More valuable is the second half of Swann's book, which deals with Martial's Rezep-lionsgeschichle.

12 Cf. Havelock, E.A., The Lyric Genius of Catullus (Oxford 1939)Google Scholar, Johnson, W.R., The Idea of Lyric (Berkeley 1982) 108–23Google Scholar, Fitzgerald, W., Catullan Provocations; Lyric Poetry and the Drama of Position (Berkeley 1995)Google Scholar. For Offermann, ‘Uno tibi sim’ (n.5) too Catullus is self-evidently a lyric poet.

13 Swann, , Martial's Catullus (n.10) 9, 31–2Google Scholar.

14 Swann, , Martial ‘s Catullus (n. 10) 34Google Scholar.

15 Paukstadt, R., De Martinie Catulli imitatore (Diss. Halle 1876)Google Scholar.

16 Paukstadt, , De Martiale (n.15) 6Google Scholar.

17 Schulze, K.P., ‘Martials Catullstudien’, Neue Jahrb. 135 (1887) 637-40 at 640Google Scholar.

18 The point is repeated by Schönberger, O., ‘Oppositio in imitando: zu Martial 6, 34’, Gymnasium 102 (1995) 501-7 at 502Google Scholar, who offers there some brief but helpful remarks on compositional techniques shared by Catullus and Martial.

19 A persuasive case for arrangement by Catullus in Quinn, K.F., Catullus. An Interpretation (London 1972) 9–53Google Scholar. The fullest recent expression of this viewpoint is Dettmer, H., Love by the Numbers (NY 1997)Google Scholar. See also Wiseman, T.P., Catullan Questions (Leicester 1969) 1–31Google Scholar. A contrary opinion in Wheeler, A.L., Catullus and the Traditions of Ancient Poetry (Berkeley 1934) 1–32Google Scholar.

20 Grewing, F., ‘Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des Vergleichs: Martials Diadumenos und Catulls Lesbia’, Hermes 124 (1996) 333–54Google Scholar.

21 For this characteristic of Martial, cf. Siedschlag, E., Zur Form von Martials Epigrammen (Berlin 1977) 39–55Google Scholar. For Catullus, cf. 7.3-8, 25.1-5, 43, 55.3-7, 58b.l-6.

22 The best account of this aspect of Catullus remains Havelock, The Lyric Genius (n.12) 97-121.

23 Lorenz, S., Erotik und Panegyrík. Martials epigrammatische Kaiser (Tübingen 2002) 20Google Scholar, notes that, even in those epigrams where Martial writes of country life, images of the city tend, significantly, to intrude.

24 In the preface to the book, Martial expresses a fear lest he send to Rome a book which is not merely Spanish in the sense of being put together in Spain, but also Spanish in the sense of ‘provincial’ (‘ne Romam … non Hispaniensem librum mittamus, sed Hispa-num’).

25 Cf. Lorenz, , Erotik und Panegyrik (n.23) 232, 244Google Scholar.

26 Still valuable are Clausen, W., ‘Callimachus and Latin Poetry’, ORBS 5 (1964) 181–96Google Scholar and Buchheit, V., ‘Catulls Dichterkritik in C. 36’, Hermes 87 (1959) 309–27Google Scholar.

27 Cf. also 8.3.11-22, 10.4, 14.1.7-12. Similarly in 3.45 it is implied that Ligurinus' dinner party recitations are tedious partly on account of their hackneyed mythologising.

28 Cf. Mart. 12.94Google Scholar, Tac, . Dial. 10.4Google Scholar.

29 Cf. 10.33.9-10: ‘hune servare modum nostri novere libelli, | parcere personis, dicere de vitiis’. Just how seriously one should take Martial's claim to be a critic of society has been a matter of considerable dispute. Laurens, L'Abeille dans l'ambre (n.6), 244-51 and Holzberg, N., ‘Neuansatz zu einer Martial-Interpretation’, WJA 12 (1986) 197–215Google Scholar take Martial at his word. Seel, O., ‘Ansatz zu einer Martial-Interpretation’, AA 10 (1961) 53-76Google Scholar, sees the Epigrams as infused with a despairing moral nihilism, while Holzberg, Martial und das antike Epigramm (Heidelberg 2002)Google Scholar, in a complete recantation of his earlier stance, now views Martial as a classic of wit.

30 Cf. Citroni, M., ‘Motivi di polemica letteraria negli epigrammi di Marziale’, DArch 2 (1968) 259-301 at 273–83Google Scholar. Lorenz, , Erotik und Panegyrik (n.23) 248Google Scholar also notes that Martial's numerous pieces eulogising the Emperor encroach on the territory of the more elevated genres, thus paradoxically investing epigram with a dignity which is at odds with its traditional profile.

31 E.g. Mart. 1.8.5–6Google Scholar: ‘nolo virum facili redimit qui sanguine famam, | hunc volo, laudari qui sine morte potest’.

32 Wray, D., Catullus and the Poetics of Roman Masculinity (Cambridge 2001CrossRefGoogle Scholar) passim.

33 The exclusivist character of Catullan urbanitas is particularly well brought out by Krostenko, Brian A., Cicero, Catullus and the Language of Social Performance (Chicago and London 2001)Google Scholar.

34 Cf. Havelock, , The Lyric Genius (n.12) 106Google Scholar, Watson, L. (PLLS 6 [1990] 15–16Google Scholar). Cf. Mart. 1.41Google Scholar for a similar complaint against a would-be urbanus.

35 Egnatius is inurbanus in both a literal (10) and a metaphorical (8) sense, the latter being in part a function of the former. For the first point, see Katz, J.T., ‘Egnatius' Dental Fricatives’, CPh 95 (2000) 338–48Google Scholar (Catullus spoofs Egnatius’ Celtiberian speech-patterns); for the second, see Krostenko, Brian A., ‘Arbitrio Urbanitatis. Language, Style, and Characterisation in Catullus cc. 37 and 39’, CA 20. 2 (2001) 239–72Google Scholar.

36 ‘Hune habet morbum, | neque elegantem, ut arbitrer, neque urbanum’ (7-8), ‘nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est’ (16).

37 Catull. 85, ‘odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. | nescio, sed fieri sentio et exerucior’. Friedländer ad toc. strangely denied that Martial was imitating Catullus, but see rather Offermann, ‘Uno tibi sim’ (n.5), 125-6.

38 Details on this reading will be found in Howell's and Citroni's introduction to the poem. According to the late Harry Jocelyn (personal communication), in the well-known adaptation, ‘I do not love you, Dr. Fell, but why I cannot tell; | but this I know full well, 1 do not love you, Dr. Fell’, Martial's vagueness as to the cause of his animosity has been replaced by a broad hint at its raison d'être, felicitously embedded in the target's name; that Dr. Fell is a fellator, a scandalous fact which cannot be stated publicly (sc. ‘but why I cannot tell’).

39 Cf. also 9.28.5-8 for a similar disclaimer put in the mouth of a mime-actor (mime being known for its obscenity).

40 Qui <scil. versiculi> tum denique habent salem ac leporem, | si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici, I et quod prurit incitare possunt, | non dico pueris, sed his pilosis | qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos'.

41 Cf. especially 10-11 ‘lex haec carminibus data est iocosis, | ne possint, nisi pruriant, iuvare’.

42 Further discussion in Hallett, J., ‘Nec Castrare Velis Meos Libellos. Sexual and Poetic Lusus in Catullus, Martial and the Carmina Priapea’ in Klodt, C. ed. Satura Lanx. Festschrift für Werner Krenkel zum 70. Geburtstag (Hildesheim 1996) 321–44Google Scholar.

43 1 praef, 1.35.8–9Google Scholar, Garthwaite, J., “Theatre Sports and Martial's Programme in Epigrams, Book” Anlichthon 35 (2001)70-83 at 71–2Google Scholar.

44 The topic is much too large to discuss here, but see particularly 3.68, 10.35 and 38 with Parker, Holt, ‘Other Remarks on the other Sulpicia’, CW 86 (1992) 89–95, 10.47.10, 10.63.8, 10.68, 11.7, 11.16.7-10, 11.43, 11.75, 11.104Google Scholar; Lorenz, , Erotik und Panegyrik (n.23) 28–31Google Scholar, with Lucr. 4.1269–77Google Scholar; and Jocelyn, H.D. (PACA 17 [1983] 53–8Google Scholar) for the disapprobation attaching to overt expressions of sexuality by repectable females.

45 On this poem, see Merli, Elena, ‘Vetustilla noua nupta: liberta uigilata e uolontà epigrammatica in Marziale 3, 93, con qualche osservazione sugli epigrammi lunghi’, MD 30(1993) 109–25Google Scholar.

46 The whole question of Martial's use of obscenity is fraught with difficulty and internal contradictions. In addition to the problem just noted of whether savage sexual satire could be construed as titillating, Martial muddies his stance towards the obscenity which he broadly embraces by condemning (12.43) as excessively lubricious some verses of Sabel-lus which, he says, go beyond anything to be found in the erotic handbooks of Elephantis and co. (these conventionally served in Antiquity as the standard of what was beyond question pornographic: cf. Parker, Holt N., ‘Love's Body Anatomized. The Ancient Erotic Handbooks and the Rhetoric of Sexuality’ in Richlin, Amy ed. Pornography and its Representation in Greece and Rome [NY 1992] 90–111)Google Scholar. To further complicate matters, he describes his verse in 10.9.2 as ‘nec nimis proterv<us>‘, ‘not excessively naughty’ (cf. OLD s. v. ‘protervus’ 2, Ov. RA 361-2 for the adjective in this sense); this does not seem to square with what he says elsewhere, particularly in book 3 and the beginning of book 11, about the deliberate importation of explicit obscenity into his writings.

47 Cf. Sullivan, J.P., Martial. The Unexpected Classic (Cambridge 1991) 96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ferguson, , ‘Catullus and Martial’ (n.2) 14, 15Google Scholar; Citroni, , ‘Motivi di polemica’ (n.30) 283Google Scholar.

48 Cf. Mart. 2.41.17–18Google Scholar and Catull. 61.212–13Google Scholar, Mart. 6.27.3–4Google Scholar and Catull. 61.214–18Google Scholar, Mart. 6.27.8Google Scholar (see next n.), 6.85.3-4 (cf. 9.30.1-2) and Catull. 68.97–100Google Scholar, Mart. 12 praef. 8-16 and Catull. 68.33–6Google Scholar, Mart. 10.38.4–5Google Scholar and Catull. 68.147–8Google Scholar. Additionally, lines 12-13 of Mart. 10.38Google Scholar, on Sulpicia and Calenus, may have been suggested by the Protesilaus and Laudamia story of Catull. 68, especially if, as argued by Parker, ‘Love's Body Anatomized’ (n.46) 94-5 and Richlin, Amy (CW 86 [1992] 103)Google Scholar, 10.38 postdates Sulpicia's death.

49 6.27.8 amphora … anus (Catull. 68.46Google Scholarcarta … anus, 78b.4 fama … anus), 7.97.3 munici-pem mei Pudentis, 10.37.3Google Scholarmunicipi … tuo (Catull. 17.8Google Scholarquendam municipem meum), 9.11.9Google ScholarVeneres Cupidinesque (Catull. 3.1)Google Scholar, 10.31.2-3 ut bene cenares … nec bene cenasti (Catull. 13.1Google Scholar), 11.48.1 magni … monumenta Moronis (Catull. 11.10Google ScholarCaesaris … monimenta magni). By ‘interpretatively inconsequential’ I mean that the borrowings are inconsequential for the interpretation of the poems which feature them. But they add up to a general feeling that Catullus is important for Martial, and in that regard are by no means inconsequential.

50 2.51, 4.10, 5.20, 5.29, 7.26, 8.35, 8.54, 9.11, 9.93, 10.35, 10.86, 11.6, 11.13, 12 praef, 12.49, 12.55, 12.59Google Scholar; Paukstadt, De Martiale (n.l5) 12, 20.

51 1.1-2 and 4, 3.1-2, 4.86-7, 7.25-6, 8.72-3, 11.13 and 15, 11.52 and 54, 11.98-9, 12.20 and 22.

52 I have purposely excluded from the present discussion Martial's metrical debt to Catullus, because this and other factors governing Martial's metrical practice have been fully examined by Patricia Watson in a forthcoming paper, ‘Metrical Rationale in Martial’, to appear in Proceedings of the First Groningen Conference on Flavian Poetry.

53 Cf. Catull. 13.10, 23.13, 82.2Google Scholar and 4, Mart. 7.72.6, 14.1.7, 14.83.2Google Scholar. A particular favourite of Martial is sic + subjunctive to express a wish whose realisation is made contingent upon the fulfilment of an appended request: cf. Catull. 17.5ffGoogle Scholar. (similarly 45.13ffGoogle Scholar). N.b. also malo quam + accusative (Catull. 45.22, Mart. 4.4.12, 4.55.29, 10.38.14, 12.39.3, 12.75.7-8).

54 In general on the import of Martial's names, see Giegengack, Jane M., Significant Names in Martial (Diss. Yale 1969)Google Scholar.

55 Cf. Lindsay and Patricia Watson, Martial. Select Epigrams (Cambridge 2003) 223–4Google Scholar.

56 Eight occurrences of deliciae in Catullus, and twelve of ludere [none of lusus] (Wetmore, M.N., Index Verborum Catullianus [New Haven 1912] s.w.Google Scholar). Martial might conceivably have been thinking in particular of deliciae and (quicum) ludere in Catullus 2 and 3 on the passer, which, like Bassa's infans, is constantly to be found in its mistress's lap (Catull. 3 8). On the other hand, deliciae is the mot juste for slave-pets: see below.

57 4.81, 5.35 and 12.22.

58 Cf. Hosek, R., Lidovost A Lidové Motivy in Arìslofana (Prague 1962) 160-74, 220–2Google Scholar (German summary), RE 22.235–40Google Scholar s. v. Other mentions of farting in Martial: 10.15.10, 12.77.

59 Slater, W. J., ‘Pueri, turba minuta’, BICS 21 (1974) 133–40Google Scholar.

60 Cf. Ov, . Med. 70Google Scholar, Cie, . Div. 1.62 with PeaseGoogle Scholar.

61 Details in following note.

62 Quinn, K.F., Catullus. The Poems (London 1970)Google Scholar, ad loc., Kilpatrick, R. S., ‘Nam unguentum dabo: Catullus 13 and Servius' note on Phaon’, CQ 48 (1998) 303–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Vaginal secretions; Littman, R., ‘The Unguent of Venus: Catullus 13’, Latomus 36 (1977) 123–28Google Scholar, Hallett, J., ‘Divine Unction; some Further Thoughts on Catullus 13’, Latomus 37 (1978), 747–8Google Scholar: some unmentionable substance; Case, B., ‘Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: Two Notes on Catullus 13’, Latomus 54 (1995), 875–6Google Scholar. Cf. also Nappa, C., ‘Place Settings: Convivium, Contrast and Persona in Catullus 12 and 13” AJPh 119 (1998) 385-97 at 390Google Scholar.

64 Discussed by Offermann, ‘Uno tibi sim’ (n.5) 116-17 and Watson and Watson, Martial (n.55) 193-5. Both poems are in hendecasyllables: see Watson and Watson 28 for more specific metrical imitation of Catullus.

65 2.1,3.3 , 3.17,13.1 1,36.2.

66 Offermann, ‘Uno tibi sim’ (n.5), 120 additionally suggests that ‘cuius in Elysio nigra columba volat’ reflects Catull. 3.11-12 ‘qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum | illud, unde negant redire quemquem’. Typically, he regards Martial 7.14 as ‘a banal refashioning’ of the Catullan originals, and possibly a misunderstanding of Catullus.

67 Styled lanthis by Martial (Gk. ïavdos — Latin viola).

68 68.132 and 160. Cf. Mart. 5.29.3.

69 For Martial's appropriation of this Catullan term of artistic self-categorisation, cf. Swann, , Martial's Catullus (n.10) 47–55Google Scholar.

70 Cf. Jones, Julian Ward Jr., ‘Catullus' Passer as Passer’, GR 45 (1998) 188-94 at 189–91Google Scholar.

71 Slater, ‘Pueri, turba minuta’ (n.59).

72 Cf. Mart. 5.34.5-6, 5.37.15-16, Citroni on Mart. 1.101.4.

73 Howell, P., (CR 43 [1993] 277Google Scholar) and (CR 46 [1996] 37Google Scholar) defends bis denos on the grounds that it is a deliberate absurdity, like the notion that the boy's penis could really grow to eighteen inches.

74 And presumably rendering Martial superfluous to requirements. As Lorenz, Erotik und Panegyrik (n.23) 35-6 observes, the speaker of the Epigrams, while talking constantly of sex, represents himself as something of a failure in the sexual arena. For the notion that greater penile size enhanced female sexual enjoyment, see Watson, Lindsay, A Commentary on Horace's Epodes (Oxford 2003)Google Scholar, on Epode 12.1Google Scholar.

75 See inter alia Martindale, Charles, Redeeming the Text. Latin Poetry and the Hermen-eutics of Reception (Cambridge 1993)Google Scholar. The most pertinent part of Martindale's work for present purposes is the discussion 48-53 of whether Aeneas' visit to Pallanteum (Aeneid 8) can profitably be interpreted through the lens of Lucan's reconstitution of the scene at Pharsalia 9.961–99Google Scholar.

76 A well established trope for impotence: see e. g. Ov, . Am. 3.7.65–6, Petr. 129.1Google Scholar.

77 Giangrande, G., ‘Catullus' Lyrics on the passer’, MPhL 1 (1975) 137–46Google Scholar. Further bibliography on passer = mentula and on whether Catullus 3 is clean or obscene will be found in Ward Jones, ‘Catullus’ Passer as Passer’ (n.70) and Vioque, Guillermo Galán, Martial Book 7. A Commentary (Leiden 2002) 119 and 122–3Google Scholar.

78 So correctly Pitcher, R.A., ‘Passer Catulli. The Evidence of Martial’, Antichthon 6 (1982) 97-103 at 100Google Scholar.

79 Doves were sacred to Venus (Alexis frg. 217 K.-A. with Arnott, Thompson, D'Arcy W., A Glossary of Greek Birds [Oxford 1936] 244–6)Google Scholar, were thought highly sexed (Catull. 68.125-8) and served as gifts between lovers (Ov, . Met. 13.833 with BornerGoogle Scholar). One thinks loo in this connexion of Greek phallos-birds: cf. Dover, K.J., Greek Homosexuality (London 1978) 133Google Scholar, Licht, H., Sittengeschichte Griechenlands. Ergänzungsband (Zurich 1928)76, 158Google Scholar.

80 As Pitcher, ‘Passer Catulli’ (n.78) however shows, in most cases where Martial mentions the Catullan passer, scholars have been too ready to read into the term an obscene signification.

81 Cf. Pitcher, , ‘Passer Catulli’ (n.78) 103Google Scholar.

82 Hinds, S., Allusion and Intertext. Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry (Cambridge 1998) 5–16Google Scholar.

83 Paukstadt, , De Martiale (n. 15) 24–7Google Scholar.

84 Thanks are due to Patricia Watson and to one of Antichthon's referees for constructive criticisms of earlier drafts of this paper.