SOURCE: "The Poet Martial," Bulletin of the John Rylandds Library, Vol. 42, No. 2, March, 1960, pp. 432-52.

In this essay, Semple touches on a wide range of topics associated with Martial's life and work. He gives an extended treatment of the patron-client system as the writer's only means of financial support; the accuracy and sincerity of the epigrams praising Domitian; and Martial's poetic style and tone.

As I thought about a scheme for this lecture, my main difficulty was this. Here were 1,200 short poems, on many different topics and themes, but with no single co-ordinating plan. There is no unity in their variety: they preach no doctrine: they advance no cause: they are not related to any one end. The individual poems are separate entities; and, though massed together in books, they stand there as isolated units, without cohesion of subject or purpose. I am reminded of what the Emperor...