SOURCE: "The Motive of Martial's Satire," Classical Weekly, Vol. 38, No. 3, October 16, 1944, pp. 18-20.

In the essay below, Krauss maintains that Martial's early and continuing failure to find a generous, sympathetic patron led to deep personal resentment and a proclivity for satire. The critic also speculates about why Martial's acerbic verses were so popular with his contemporary audience.

Marcus Valerius Martialis, the son of Celtic parents, migrated to Rome from Bilbilis, his birthplace, in Hispania Tarraconensis in A.D. 64, when he was already in or approaching his middle twenties. The incentive, doubtless, was the quite natural desire of an aspiring provincial writer to realize his literary ambitions in the city which was the cultural, as well as the political, center of the empire. It appears that soon after his arrival he not only gained the patronage of his eminent and well-to-do fellow countrymen, Seneca the Philosopher, the latter's brothers...