Yet, the epigram kept on bearing the traces of its origins, because it never depicts a dialog between the lonely poet figure with himself, but always the communication between the poet and someone else. The writer of epigrams addresses himself to people, against people and he wants to be heard by the people. This becomes clear when we read Martialis’ mockery verses, in which he doesn’t address a specific person, but speaks to a neutral listener.

Thus, the epigram developed itself from an inscription to a pointy poem, an epigram as we know it from the daysof Martialis on. This means that an epigram is short, sharp and whitty. The Dutch writer, scientist and philosopher Constantijn Huygens made epigrams as well and he used to call them "swift poems"; he wrote the definition of an epigram down in the form of an epigram:

"You ask what kind of poem a swift poem is?

It’s a poem which is a poem which swift is."

(Of course, the English used here is not correct, but it shows the point within the epigram.)

The 18th century German poet Lessing puts it like this: “in an epigram, completely according to its original function as an inscription, our curiousness is stimulated, led towards a climax and then unsuspectedly satisfied.” To put it differently: an epigram is divided into two parts. The first part stimulates our expectation, the second part brings this expectation’s fulfillment, and this always happens in the form of a pointe, a pointy throught or tendency.

At age 24, he went to Rome. He could enter the circles he needed to be in quite easily, because he soon got in contact with his fellow Spanish Roman L. Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE), who became his first patron in Rome. Seneca’s nephew, M. Annaeus Lucanus (39-65 CE), also from Spain and also a poet, took care of Martialis as well. C. Plinius Minor, a famous Roman lawyer and politician, famous also for his published letters, would become Martialis’ patron later on, during the reign of the Flavian emperors and Nerva.

Soon Martialis got to know important Romans within Seneca’s circle. Yet it was a sad environment to spend his first years in, because the year 64 CE, the year he got there, a huge fire laid large parts of the City in ashes. A year later, 65 CE, both Seneca and Lucanus committed suicide. Another much admired friend, C. Calpurnius Piso, committed suicide. All of them had been, or had been accused of being, involved in a conspiracy against the emperor Nero, whose aggravating regime became more and more palpable.

It would take 16 years before Martialis published his first book of poems. In those years after Nero’s death, he had witnesses the reign of four emperors. From 79 until 81 CE Titus was emperor and he completed a great building project his father, Vespasianus, had started. Vespasianus had commis-sioned the building of thermal baths and an amphitheatre on the terrain where once Nero’s Domus Aurea was being built. The Ampitheatrum Flavium, better known to us as the Colosseum, was opened and dedicated by Titus Caesar in 80 CE with a long series of gladiatorial games and wild animal huntings. The festival lasted a hundred days and here at the games Martialis found the subject for his first book of poems, which is called Liber Spectaculorum or Liber de Spectaculis ("the Book of the Games").

The need for the glorification of the Roman past and fame was no longer felt and literators focused on other subjects to write about. Daily life, without its splendor and greatness, was the subject which formed an inexhaustable inspiration source for Martialis.

Without any mercy hij scorned the people around him. In his poetry, he painted the whole Roman society for us, with its human insignificance and fallibility. Imperfection of the body, ugliness and failing bodily performance is what he depicts and mocks in his epigrams without scruples. Not only society, but also his own place within society belongs to the subjects of his poems, for he never could accept his social status in Rome.

From the beginning on, his books were popular items in the bookstores of Rome and Martialis never lacked appreciation and fame. He was friendly with men of esteem and importance: the lawyer Plinius, the poet Juvenalis and the orator Quintillianus, who came from Spain as well. Although he was a bachelor, he was granted by the emperor the ius trium liberum, which means that he was granted the same financial benefits as a father of at least three children, among which exemption of tax payments, a right which had been granted for the first time by the emperor Augustus. Others than fathers of three children could receive this right honoris causa, for honorary reasons. Martialis was also made an eques, a knight. An admirer gave him a small country house in Nomentum, about 20 km to the north-east of Rome.

But all these honors and gift surely didn’t make Martialis a wealthy man. Copyrights didn’t exist in those days and the huge sale of his books went more into the pockets of his publishers than into his own. As a Roman citizen with no fortune he largely had to live on the purses of his patroni and benefactors to earn a living. His existance as a client in Rome is his poetry’s second theme.

In the days of the Republic, the patronus-cliens system had been a social institute of great importance. Free citizens without a fortune of their own and a bad legal status joined a patrician gens (family, tribe) as the lower person within this relationship. Freedmen also often kept their connection to their former master in this way. Foreigners and even whole tribes and peoples could become the clients of a family of patrons. The client had to pay respect and homage to his patron, he had to escort him to war, do certain jobs and tasks for him and he had to vote for him at elections. The patron was obliged to defend and protect his client in court.

In Martialis’ era, only some remnants of this firm social structure remained. The duties and obligations of a client were only formal and ceremonial: every day, he had to pay a visit to his patron and someti-mes he had to accompany him to his daily business. In return, the client received a fee. In the old days, this fee had been a sportula, a basket filled with provisions; later, in Martialis’ era, this basket was replaced by a sum of money. Martialis, for example, was payed a client’s fee of 10 sestertii per day by one patronus. It was very well possible to become the client of more than one patron and to earn a livelihood this way. The patron, in his turn, grew in public esteem as his band of clients around him grew. To be a client was the price a poor citizen had to pay for his social prestige: for his daily bread, earned without really working for it, he often had to endure the humiliating haughtiness of his patron.

Thus, the distichon looks like this (in a scheme):

_ ..| _ ..| _ ..| _ ..| _ ..| _ x|| (or variations with spondei) -> hexameter

_ ..| _ ..| _ || _ ..| _ ..| _ || -> pentameter

The shortness of this two lined verse lead to the short-and-sweetness of the content. The contrast between hexameter and pentameter lead to a smart antithesis of the thoughts displayed in the poem.

Soon, however, other metric verses were used in the genre of the epigram and the two lined verse was enlarged to four verses or more. In that case, the orginal pointiness of the epigram was left. An example of this development, also mentioned and esteemed by Martialis was the poet Catullus, who lived in the 1st century BCE. From Catullus, he adapts two metric verses and uses them many times next to the distichon, namely the hendecasyllabus (the line of eleven syllables) and the choliambus or limping iambus. See these two metric verse schemes below:

_ .| _ ..| _ .| _ .| _ x|| or . _ | _ ..| _ .| _ .| _x|| -> hendecasyllabus

x _| . _| x _| . _| x _| _ x|| -> choliambus

Explication of signs:

_ : long syllable

. : short syllable

x: syllable can be either long or short