SOURCE: "The Panegyrics of Domitan in Martial, Book 9," Ramus, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1993, pp. 78-102.

In the essay that follows, Garthwaite focuses on Book 9, discerning a subtle thematic relationship between the epigrams praising the emperor Domitian, the verses dedicated to the young slave Earinus, and the poems dealing with patronage. Garthwaite concludes that the Earinus cycle represents an ironic commentary on Domitian's moral hypocrisy, and that the patronage epigrams suggest that imperial panegyrics are really nothing more than the poet's fulfillment of his part of the client-patron bargain.

The rich diversity of Martial's Epigrams makes up, in Duff's words, 'one of the most extraordinary galleries of literary pictures, vignettes, miniatures, portraits, caricatures, sometimes almost thumbnail sketches' of the Classical Age.¹ Yet the books are by no means merely random or haphazard assortments. Like other Roman poets, Martial was attentive to the need to impose a sense of order and continuity...