SOURCE: "Juvenal and Martial on Social Mobility," The Classical Journal, Vol. 83, No. 2, Dec. / Jan., 1988, pp. 133-41.
In the essay below, Malnati remarks on the different attitudes toward social mobility expressed by Martial (in eight epigrams from Book 5) and by Juvenal (in a passage from the third satire). He contends that although both poets are dealing here with the same issue—the law reserving the best seats in a theater for men of equestrian status—Juvenal's treatment reveals an aristocratic bias against upstarts in general, while the principal target of Martial's satire is social pretentiousness.
