MARTIAL

EPIGRAMS (selection)

[This translation of many of Martial's epigrams was prepared by me in the

interest of exhibiting to the Internet public a picture of what passed for sexual
humor in the Roman empire. A society's sexual humor provides a map to help us
find the boundary lines for that society between prudish, respectable,
acceptable, tolerable, dishonorable, and deplorable forms of sexual expression.
The reader will notice that those lines were drawn very differently in 90 AD than
they are today, which is the point I would like to convey by offering these
epigrams. Please pay attention to the way males [vir], eunuchs [spado], and
castrated men [gallus] are portrayed in terms of their relations with women - it
always takes a woman to make a boy into a full-grown male.

The epigrams are basically social commentary of the type that one might expect today from
someone like the comedian Chris Rock, and you could also compare Martial's prominence in
late first century Roman society with that of Chris Rock in current American society. But
Chris Rock would never dare to tell these jokes! The epigrams include criticism of hypocrisy,
jokes about the appearance of certain ugly women, and jokes about greedy people and other
foolish people, as well as jokes about the skills of other poets, with a few poems praising the
Emperor mixed in. But they also contain a liberal dose of what modern editors call
"pornographic" material, which is mostly what I am presenting in this selection of the
epigrams. They had no qualms about males verbally acknowledging the sexiness of other
males, although they seem to have tolerated homosexual acts between adult males much less
than what we today abhor as homosexual child molestation (sex with early teenaged
"beardless boys"). They also considered giving oral service to another man (or woman) a
more shameful and abhorrent act than being anally penetrated by him. Also, notice that
Martial's love of boys does not make him a homosexual, since he also talks about having sex
with women.
Martial's epigrams were enormously popular in his day and for centuries afterward. Even
current Latin textbooks like "Wheelock's Latin" contain lots epigrams from Martial as
exercises for students to translate.
Many translators of Martial into English have in the past refused to translate the sexually
explicit epigrams. These translators would either leave those particular epigrams in Latin or
else give an Italian translation! But I recently came across an English translation that
translated every epigram faithfully. It was prepared by D. R. Shackleton Bailey and published
in a Harvard Loeb edition in 1993. I would encourage all those, who can afford the threevolume Loeb edition of Martial, to purchase it.
I have relied heavily on Bailey's translation to help me figure out what Martial was saying.
But in the interest of not infringing Harvard's copyright, I have massacred every one of
Bailey's elegant translations of the epigrams in order to give a crude, stilted, and strictly
1

literal translation of my own. If my translation of any particular phrases matches that of

Bailey, it is only because Bailey's translation was already a pretty faithful, literal translation
of the original Latin, which belongs to Martial and thus to the public. The original Latin of
all of Martial's epigrams can be found on a website of the Classics Department at George
Mason University.]
A note on the gender of names in the epigrams: Names ending in "-us" are masculine, while
names ending in "-is" and "-e" are usually feminine (except for Attis, a castrated god).
Names ending in "-a" are usually feminine first names (e.g., Lesbia, Bassa, Vetustina,
Chrestina, Telesina, Galla, Thalia, Polla, Ligeia, Glaphyra, Fulvia, Caelia, Magulla), but
may be surnames of men in some cases (e.g. Cotta, Numa, Cinna, Mamurra, Nasica,
Baccara, Vacerra, Lattara, Tucca).]

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK I

1.23
Cotta, you do not make an invitation to anyone except those with whom you have bathed, and
only the baths provide you with guests. I was wondering why you never invited me, Cotta:
now I realize that you did not like me naked.
--------------------------------------------------1.24
Decianus, do you see that one there with the wild hair, whose stern arrogance makes you
nervous, who is making comments about the champions, the Curii and the Camilli? Don't
believe the appearance: he played the bride [nupsit] yesterday.
--------------------------------------------------1.31
Encolpus, the love of his master the centurion, will sacrifice to you, Apollo, all this hair from
the top of his head down, when Pudens is awarded the hoped-for and deserved prize of a
promotion to chief centurion. Apollo, cut off the long hair as soon as possible, while the
delicate features are not sullied by any down and while a milky neck accompanies the
abundant mane; and so that the master and the boy may enjoy your favors for a long time,
give the haircut soon, but take your time making him a (grown) male [virum].
--------------------------------------------------1.35
2

Cornelius, you complain that I write undoctored verses unlike those taught by teachers in
school: but like husbands with their wives, these little books cannot be pleasing unless they
have dicks. Would you demand that I give a toast without saying "cheers"? Who would
require modest attire at Carnival, or let whores go around wearing long dresses? There is a
law made for joking songs: that they are useless if they do not titillate. Therefore, laying aside
severity, take it easy on my jokes and amusements, and do not seek to castrate my little
books: There's nothing so ugly as an emasculated (statue of) Priapus [gallo Priapo].
--------------------------------------------------1.46
Hedylus, when you say, "I'm in a hurry, if you're going to do it, do it," my disabled love
languishes on the spot and ceases. Order me to wait: I come faster when I am held back.
Hedylus, if you are in a hurry, tell me not to hurry.
--------------------------------------------------1.57
Flaccus, you ask what kind of girl I would want and what kind I would not want? I don't want
one who is too easy or one who is too hard-to-get. Let's try that which is medium and
between both: I want neither that which tortures nor that which satiates.
--------------------------------------------------1.58
The pimp demanded a hundred thousand for the boy: I laughed, but Phoebus gave it right
away. My dick is upset about this and complains about me to itself, and Phoebus is praised
while I am reproached. But Phoebus's dick earned him two million: you bring in that much
for me, and I will spend more.
--------------------------------------------------1.90
Because I never saw you attached to males, Bassa, and because there were never any rumors
about you having an adulterous lover, but a crowd of your own sex always undertook every
service near you, while you never approached a male, I declare, you seemed to be a latter-day
Lucretia: meanwhile, Bassa, you were in fact a fucker (of women). You dare to bring together
two pussies between themselves and your prodigious love [i.e. her clitoris] plays the role of a
male. You are a sign worthy of the fictitious riddle of Thebes: where there is no male [vir], an
adultery occurs.

--------------------------------------------------1.92
Cestus often complains to me, with tears in his eyes, that he has been touched by your finger,
Mamurianus. The finger is not the point: take Cestus all the way for yourself, Mamurianus, if
you lack nothing else. But if you have no hearth, nor the frame of a bare cot, nor a broken cup
of Chione or Antiope, if even your threadbare cloak hangs wax-colored from your loins and
your Gallic jacket covers only half of your butt, and you subsist on the smoke of your black
kitchen and drink filthy water on your knees with the dog: I will poke, with my finger, not
your ass - for it is not an ass if it never shits - but your "third eye"; and you will not say that I
am jealous or spiteful. In a word, Mamurianus, fuck boys when you are well fed.
--------------------------------------------------1.96
If it's not a bother and an annoyance to you, poem, please say a few words in the ear of
Maternus so that he alone hears them. That lover of sad cloaks who dresses in both Baetican
and ash-colored wool, who thinks those who dress in scarlet are not real men and who calls
purple clothing women's wear, although he praises native things, and owns and always
prefers dark colors, nonetheless he has effeminate [literally "chartreuse"] morals. He will ask
why I suspect this male of being soft. We bathe together: he never looks up, but stares with
devouring eyes at the athletes, and looks at their dicks with drooling lips. You ask who this
is? The name escapes me.
---------------------------------------------------

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK II

-----------------------------------------------------------------------2.28
Sextillus, go ahead and laugh out loud at whoever calls you a cinaedus [a passive] and flip
him your middle finger. But you are not a butt-fucker [pedico], Sextillus, or a pussy-fucker
[fututor], nor do you like the hot mouth of Vetustina. I declare that you are none of these
things: so what are you? I do not know; but you know what two things are left.
---------------------------------------------------

2.31
I have fucked Chrestina many times. You want to know how well she gives? Marianus, there
can be nothing beyond it.
--------------------------------------------------2.36
I wouldn't want you to curl your hair, but I wouldn't want you to muss it up, either; I don't
want your skin to shine, nor to be dirty; don't let your chin be smooth like the miter-wearing
(priests of Cybele), nor let your beard be rough like prisoners. I don't want too much of a man
[virum], Pannychus, or too little. As matters stand now, Pannychus, your legs are full of hairs
and your chest is bristly, but your mind is plucked.
--------------------------------------------------2.44
If I buy a boy, or a new woolly toga, or three, maybe, four pounds of silver, then Sextus, that
usurer, whom you know to be an old friend of mine, is immediately afraid that I may ask him
for something [i.e. financial assistance] and he puts up his guard, whispering to himself, but
in order that I will hear it: "I owe seven thousand to Secundus, four to Phoebus, eleven to
Philetus, and I don't have a cent in my safe." What a great genius my friend is! It is cruel to
say no when you are asked for something, Sextus: how much crueler it is before you have
even been asked!
--------------------------------------------------2.45
Glyptus, your dick, which used to not become erect, has been cut off. Idiot! What did you
need a knife for? You were already a gallus.
[Galli were priests of Cybele, and were usually castrated or natural eunuchs. Cf. for example
Augustine's City of God.]
--------------------------------------------------2.47
O Gallus, you who are smoother than Venus's shells, I warn you, flee the deceitful nets of the
famous adulteress. Are you relying on your butt? The husband is not a butt-fucker [pedico];
there are two things that he does: he gets sucked [irrumat] or he fucks pussy [futuit].

[Thus Gallus would have a worse punishment in store than being anally penetrated, namely
being orally penetrated.]
--------------------------------------------------2.48
An innkeeper, a butcher, a bathroom, a barber, a board and game pieces, and a few little
books (but I must choose them): one buddy who is not too crude, and a large boy who will
remain beardless for a long time, and a girl who is dear to my boy: if you offer me these
things, Rufus, even in Calabria, you can keep even the baths of Nero.
--------------------------------------------------2.49
I do not want to take Telesina as a wife: Why not? She is an adulteress. But Telesina favors
boys: okay, I will.
--------------------------------------------------2.50
Lesbia, just because you suck dick and drink water does not mean you are sinning: Lesbia,
you consume water in the part of you where it is needed.
--------------------------------------------------2.51
Hyllus, even though you often have only one silver coin in your whole safe, and even that is
more worn than your ass, you won't spend it at the bakery or in a restaurant, but you will
spend it on whoever has the biggest dick. Your unhappy belly watches the feast enjoyed by
your ass, and while the former always goes hungry, the latter always gorges itself.
--------------------------------------------------2.54
Linus, your wife demonstrated sufficiently, by means of definite indications, what she
suspects about you, and what part of you she would prefer to be more chaste, when she gave
you a eunuch [spadonem] as a chaperone. No one is more satirical or malicious than she is.
--------------------------------------------------2.55
6

Sextus, you want to be cultivated: I wanted to love you. You must be obeyed: because you
command it, you will be tilled; but if I plough you, Sextus, I will not love you.
--------------------------------------------------2.56
Among the Libyans, Gallus, your wife is badly spoken of on account of an excessive greed,
which is a terrible crime. But they are telling mere lies: she never takes anything. What does
she do then? She gives [i.e. she fucks him].
--------------------------------------------------2.60
Boy Hyllus, you are fucking the wife of an armed tribune because you fear nothing more than
the punishment suited for a boy [i.e. being butt-fucked]. Poor thing, as you play, you will be
castrated. Now you're telling me: "That's not allowed." What about it? Is what you are doing
allowed, Hyllus?
--------------------------------------------------2.61
While your young cheeks flourished with a slight down, your restless tongue licked male
groins. Now that your miserable face makes even morticians nauseous and turns the stomach
even of an unfortunate executioner, you use your mouth otherwise, and, seized with excessive
ill-will, you rail at whatever name is applied to you. It would be better for such a poisonous
tongue to cleave to groins: for it was purer when it was giving head.
--------------------------------------------------2.62
Labienus, that you pluck your chest and your legs and your arms, that your shaved dick is
surrounded with clipped pubes, everyone knows that you do this for your girlfriend. But
Labienus, who do you pluck your ass for?
--------------------------------------------------2.70
You do not want anyone to be washed in the tub before you, Cotilus: what can the reason be,
except that you do not want to sit in water that has contained a dick [undis irrumatis]? You
can be the first one in if you like: your dick will inevitably be washed before your head.
7

---------------------------------------------------

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK III

-----------------------------------------------------------------------3.24
A he-goat guilty of gnawing a vine stood about to die on your household altar, a welcome
victim; when the Tuscan fortune-teller was about to sacrifice it, he told a strong and crude
farmer to cut the testicles quickly with a sharp sickle, so that the offensive odor of the
unclean flesh would go away. While he himself was prone on the green altar cutting the
struggling throat and holding it down with his hand, a large hernia appeared in the middle of
the violent rites. The country bumpkin grabbed it and cut it with the knife, believing the
ancient rites of sacrifice demanded it and believing the primitive powers to be cultivated by
such entrails. Thus, fortune-teller, while you were a Tuscan, now you are a Gaul [Gallus], and
while you were cutting the throat of the he-goat, you yourself were made a caper.
--------------------------------------------------3.62
You buy boys for a hundred and often two hundred, you drink wine bottled under the reign of
Numa, a tiny set of furniture stands you a load of money, a pound of silver gets five thousand,
a golden carriage is procured for the price of an estate, your mule was bought for more than a
house: Quintus, do you believe these things equate to a great mind [i.e. generosity]? You are
mistaken: a very small mind [i.e. stupidity] buys these things, Quintus.
--------------------------------------------------3.65
The breath of a tender apple when a girl bites it, the air that comes from Corycian saffron; the
silvery vines when the first bunches flourish, the smell of meadows that a sheep has just been
grazing; myrtle, an Arabian mower, well-worn amber, pale fire that smells of eastern incense;
when the earth is lightly sprinkled with rain in the summer, when you braid a full garland wet
with fragrant ointment: This is how your kisses smell, Diadumenus, you cruel boy. What if
you would give them fully without stinginess?
---------------------------------------------------

3.71
The boy's dick is sore, Naevolus, and so is your ass. I am not a fortune-teller, but I know what
you are doing.
--------------------------------------------------3.73
You sleep with big-dicked boys, Phoebus, and what is erect on them is not erect on you. What
do you want me to think, Phoebus, I ask you? I used to want to believe you were a soft male
[mollem virum], but rumor has it that you are not a cinaedus [a passive].
[Perhaps implying that Phoebus is giving head to these boys, or perhaps that Phoebus is not a
vir (male) at all, but a closet eunuch.]
--------------------------------------------------3.75
Your dick stopped getting hard a long time ago, Lupercus, however, like an crazy man, you
struggle to get an erection. But cabbage and aphrodisiac onions don't help, nor does lowgrade savory seasoning do you any good. You have started to corrupt pure mouths using your
wealth: nonetheless your molested love [i.e. penis] does not come to life. Could anyone
wonder enough at this or believe it, Lupercus, that what does not stand up, stands you in for a
lot?
--------------------------------------------------3.81
What is a female slit to you, Baeticus Gallus? This tongue is supposed to lick male crotches.
Why was your dick cut off with a Samian shard, if the pussy was so satisfying to you,
Baeticus? Your head should be castrated: for though you are admitted because you have the
groin of one of her priests [gallus], nonetheless you betray the rites of Cybele: in the mouth
you are a male [vir].
--------------------------------------------------3.85
Who persuaded you to cut off the nose of the adulteror? This is not the organ that sinned
against you, husband. Fool, what have you done? Your wife has not lost anything this way, as
long as the dick of your usurper is healthy.

--------------------------------------------------3.88
They are twin brothers, but they lick different groins: Tell me, are they more unlike than like?
--------------------------------------------------3.91
While seeking out the fields of his Ravennan homeland, a discharged soldier joined paths
with a half-male gang of Cybele. He had with him a boy named Achillas, a fugitive from his
master, who was conspicuous for his beauty and his wickedness. The sterile males [steriles
viri] noticed him: they asked what side he slept on. But he too noticed their hidden tricks: he
lied, and they believed him. After wine, they sought sleep: The noxious gang immediately
took a knife and cut the old man, who was lying on the outside; meanwhile the boy was
sheltered by the protecting screen. It was once told that a doe was substituted for a virgin girl,
but here a dick was substituted for a stag.
--------------------------------------------------3.92
Gallus, my wife asks me to tolerate an adulteror, one of them. Gallus, shall I not gouge out
his eyes, both of them?
--------------------------------------------------3.95
Naevolus, you never say hello first, but always say it in reply, even though even crows often
speak first. I ask you, tell me, Naevolus, why do you wait for a greeting from me: for I think
you are not better or higher than me, Naevolus. I am talked about by many readers, and fame
has given me a name in the villages without waiting for my death. There is something in this
too: I have been a Roman tribune and I sit in the seat that Oceanus [the manager of Pompey's
Theater] makes you get up from. I have made more citizens through Caesar's favor than you
have slaves, I suspect. But you get butt-fucked, Naevolus; you shake your ass prettily. All
right, fine, you are better, Naevolus, you win: greetings!
--------------------------------------------------3.96
You lick my girl, but don't fuck her, while you chatter like an adulteror and pussy-fucker. If I
catch you, Gargilus, you will shut up.
10

---------------------------------------------------

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK IV

-----------------------------------------------------------------------4.42
If perhaps someone could give me what I ask for, Flaccus, let me tell you what kind of boy I
would want. First of all, let the boy be born in the land of the Nile: no soil knows better how
to instill naughtiness. Let him be whiter than snow: for in dark-skinned Egypt, this color is all
the prettier for being rare. Let his eyes compete with the stars, and soft hair brush against his
neck: I do not like curly hair, Flaccus. Let his forehead be low and let his nose be moderatesized and slightly bent, and let his lips be red to rival the roses of Paestum. Let him often
force me against my will and refuse me when I want it; let him often be more uninhibited
than his master; and let him be afraid of boys, and often shut out girls: let him be a male [vir]
to everyone else, a boy to me alone. "I know already, I get your meaning: I too agree with
your assessment. Such a one," you will say, "was our Amazonicus."
--------------------------------------------------4.43
I did not call you a passive [cinaedus], Coracinus: I am not so thoughtless or bold, or given to
telling lies. If I did call you a passive, Coracinus, let the wrath of Pontia's bottle be upon me,
the wrath of Metilus's chalice [i.e. let me be poisoned]: I swear by the tumors of the Syrian
goddess, I swear by the Berecynthian rage [i.e. may I suffer the castration ceremony of
Cybele priests if I am lying]. What did I say then? Something small and minor, which
everyone knows, which you yourself do not even deny: I said, Coracinus, that you are a
pussy-licker [cunnilingus].
--------------------------------------------------4.48
You enjoy being hammered, Papylus, but after being hammered, you cry: Papylus, why do
you regret what you wanted to be done, once it has been done? Are you sorry about the
obscene horniness? Or do you rather mourn the fact, Papylus, that you are no longer being
hammered?

11

---------------------------------------------------

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK V

-----------------------------------------------------------------------5.41
Although you are more emasculated than a frail eunuch [spado], and softer than the
concubine Attis, bewailed by the cut priest [sectus gallus] of the Divine Mother, (nonetheless)
you speak of theater and ranks and edicts and ceremonial robes and Ides and foreskin clamps
and property rights, and point at poor people with your pumiced hand. I will give thought to
whether you are permitted to sit on the benches of the knights, Didymus: but you are not
allowed to sit among married men.
--------------------------------------------------5.48
What is love incapable of forcing! Encolpus has cut his hair, against the wishes of his master,
although he did not forbid it. Prudens allowed it and then cried over it: thus did Phaethontus's
complaining father turn over the reins to his reckless son; thus did kidnapped Hylas, and thus
did unmasked Achilles get rid of his hair - rejoicing while his mother felt sorry. But you,
beard, do not hurry - do not believe the short haircut - and come late in return for such a great
favor.
--------------------------------------------------5.55
Tell me, whom are you carrying, queen of birds? "The Thunderer." Why is He not carrying
lightning bolts in His hand? "He is in love." What fire is heating up the god? "A boy." Why
are you looking back gently at Jove with an open mouth? "I am speaking of Ganymede."
--------------------------------------------------5.57
When I call you master, Cinna, I am not trying to flatter you: I often return your slave's
greeting that way too.

12

--------------------------------------------------5.83
You chase me, and I flee; when you flee, I chase. This is how my mind works: I do not desire
your willingness, Dindymus, but I desire your unwillingness.
---------------------------------------------------

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK VI

-----------------------------------------------------------------------6.2
It was once a game to deprive sexual intercourse of [its justification through] holy
matrimony, and a game to castrate males [mares] who did not deserve (castration). You
prohibit both things, Caesar, and you help future peoples, whom you command to be born
without fraud. Because of you, O guardian, no one will be either a eunuch [spado] or an
adulteror: formerly - O morals! - even a eunuch was an adulteror.
--------------------------------------------------6.7
Faustinus, the Lex Julia was reborn for the peoples and chastity commanded to enter the
home less than, or certainly not more than, thirty days ago, and already Telesilla has married
her tenth man [viro]. A woman who marries that much is not getting married: she is
committing legal adultery. I am less offended by a more upfront adulteress.
--------------------------------------------------6.16
You who terrify males [viros] with your penis and passives [cinaedos] with your sickle,
protect these few acres of private land. Thus may no poor old thieves enter your orchards, but
only a boy and a girl with pretty long hair.
--------------------------------------------------6.23

13

Lesbia, you always command my penis to be hard for you: Believe me, a dick is not the same
as a finger. You may work hard with your smooth hands and enticing words, but your
domineering face is against you.
--------------------------------------------------6.26
Our Sotades is in danger of losing his head. Do you think Sotades is on trial? He isn't.
Sotades has stopped being able to get an erection: he licks.
--------------------------------------------------6.33
Matho, you have never seen anything more miserable than Sabellus the butt-fucker, who was
once the happiest one of all. That person [hominem] is plagued by thefts, fleeing, deaths of
slaves, fires, and grieving. The wretch is even fucking pussy now.
--------------------------------------------------6.36
Papylus, your dick is big enough, and your nose is long enough, that when you have a hardon you can smell it.
--------------------------------------------------6.37
Charinus's ass is cut all the way up to his belly-button, and yet it itches all the way to his
belly button. O what an itch the poor man suffers from! He has no butt, but he is still a
passive [cinaedus].
--------------------------------------------------6.39
Cinna, you have become a father by Marulla of seven non-sons: for none of them is your son,
nor that of a friend, nor that of a neighbor, but, conceived on army cots and pieces of matting,
they display their mother's deceptions by their heads. This one, who struts around with curly
hair like an African, declares himself to be the offspring of Santra the cook; and that one with
the snub nose and full lips is the spitting image of Pannychus the wrestling coach. What
person who knows and sees half-blind Dama does not know that the third child is the baker's?
The fourth one, with the forehead of a passive [cinaeda fronte] and a fair face was born for
14

you from the concubine Lygdus: fuck your son, if you want: it won't be a crime. This one
with the truly pointed head and long ears that move like a donkey's, who would deny that he
is the son of the fool Cyrta? The two sisters, this one black-haired and that one red-haired,
belong to Crotus the flute-player and Carpus the foreman. Your brood would be larger than
Niobe's if Coresus and Dindymus were not eunuchs [spado].
--------------------------------------------------6.50
When Telesinus, the poor man, cultivated pure friends, he went around dirty in a cold
garment: Now that he has started to take care of obscene passives [cinaedos], he buys silver,
tables, and estates on his own. Do you want to become rich, Bithynicus? Take note of this.
Pure kisses will get you nothing, or very little.
--------------------------------------------------6.56
Because your legs are stiff with bristles and your chest with hairs, Charidemus, you think you
escape rumors. Believe me, you should get rid of the hairs on your whole body and testify
that you depilate your butt. "For what reason?" you ask. You know that many people say
many things: Charidemus, make them think that you get butt-fucked.
--------------------------------------------------6.67
Pannychus, you wonder why your Caelia has so many eunuchs [eunuchos]? Caelia wants to
be fucked, not to give birth.
--------------------------------------------------6.91
The sacred judgment of our supreme leader prohibits and bans the commission of adultery.
Rejoice, Zoilus, you do not fuck (pussy).
---------------------------------------------------

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK VII

15

-----------------------------------------------------------------------7.10
Eros gets fucked, Linus gives head. What business is it of yours what the one or the other
does with his own skin, Olus? Matho pays a hundred thousand to fuck (pussy). What business
is it of yours, Olus? You will not become a pauper because of that, Matho will. Sertorius eats
until daybreak: Olus, what business is that of yours, when you may snore the whole night?
Lupus owes Titus seven hundred thousand. What business is it of yours, Olus? Don't give or
loan a penny to Lupus. You pretend not to know what does pertain to you, Olus, and what
does merit your attention more. You owe for your garment: this pertains to you, Olus. No one
lends you a nickel anymore: this too. Your wife is an adulteress: this pertains to you, Olus.
Your grown daughter is already asking for a dowry: this too. I could note fifteen things that
pertain to you: but what you do, Olus, is none of my business.
--------------------------------------------------7.18
Since you have a face which no (other) woman could criticize, since your body has no
blemishes, do you wonder why it is rare that a fucker desires you and then comes back? You
have a serious flaw, Galla. As soon as I get to work and we move our groins together, your
pussy won't shut up, although you say nothing. If only the gods would make you talk and it
be quiet: I am offended by the talkativeness of your pussy. I had rather you farted:
Symmachus says that is helpful and at the same time it makes you laugh. But who can laugh
at the smacking of a silly cunt? When it makes noise, whose dick and mind does not fail? At
least say something and drown out your noisy pussy; and if you are so speechless, learn to
talk from there.
--------------------------------------------------7.55
Chrestus, if you never return anyone's gifts, then do not give me any or send me any: I will
consider you sufficiently generous. But if you give gifts to Apicius and Lupus and Gallus and
Titius and Caesius, then you can lick, not my dick - which is decent and small - but a dick
from burned Jerusalem, a dick condemned only recently to pay taxes.
--------------------------------------------------7.58
Galla, you have already married six or seven passives [cinaedis], while the neatly combed
hair and beard attracts you too much; then after trying out their flanks and their groins very
like soaked [leather] that do not get hard even when forced by a tired hand, you leave the
16

unfit bedroom and the soft husband, then go back and fall again and again into similar
marriages. Look for someone who is always talking about Curii and Fabii, hairy and fierce
from hard boorishness: you will find him; but the severe crowd also has its passives: it is
hard, Galla, to marry a real male [vero viro].
--------------------------------------------------7.62
You hammer big boys behind open doors, Amillus, and you want to be caught while doing it,
for fear that your freedmen and paternal servants and a malicious client may talk with
insinuations and gossip. Anyone who testifies that he is not butt-fucked, Amillus, often does
what he does without witnesses.
--------------------------------------------------7.67
The girl-rubber Philaenis fucks boys and, with lust worse than a husband, afflicts eleven girls
in a day. She also plays handball with her leggings tied up, and turns yellow from [wrestling
in the] sand, and with her upper arm easily swings weights that are heavy for athletes. She
does not eat dinner until she first vomits up six pints of undiluted wine; to which she thinks
she has the right to come back after she has eaten seven steaks. After all this, when she gets
horny, she does not give head - she doesn't think that is virile enough - but rather she
completely devours the crotches of girls. May the gods give you your mind, Philaenis, since
you think licking pussy is virile.
--------------------------------------------------7.70
Rubber of all girl-rubbers, Philaenis, you quite rightly call the woman you fuck your
girlfriend.
[Note: Philaenis is the name of a woman.]
--------------------------------------------------7.95
It is winter and shivering December stiffens. However, you dare to hold up everyone you
meet, from here and from there, with your wintry smooch, and to kiss all of Rome. What
could you do that would be more severe and cruel, even if you had been beaten and flogged?
In this cold I would not even want to be kissed by my wife with her alluring lips, or by my
daughter with her innocent lips, but you are sweeter and more elegant, from whose canine
17

nose a lead-colored icicle hangs and whose beard is stiffened, like that which a Cilician
barber harvests with upturned shears from a Cinyphian husband. I would rather fall in with a
hundred pussy-lickers and I would have less fear of a freshly-minted priest of Cybele
[Gallus]. So if you have sense and shame, Linus, I ask you to defer your winter kisses until
the month of April.
---------------------------------------------------

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK VIII

-----------------------------------------------------------------------8.44
Titullus, I warn you, live: It is always late for that; though you start when still under the
tutor's supervision, it is already late. And you, poor Titullus, don't even live in your old age,
but rather you wear down every threshold with your greetings, and you sweat in the morning,
wet with the kisses of the city, and in the three forums you appear before all of the horses and
the temple of Mars and the colossus of Augustus, you run through every third hour and fifth
hour. Seize, pile up, carry away, possess: you can't take it with you. Though your proud
temple be yellow with densely packed coins, and a hundred pages of Kalends be settled, your
heir will swear that you left nothing behind, and as you lie upon your bier or stone, while
your bed is crammed with papyrus, the arrogant bastard will kiss your weeping eunuchs
[eunuchos]; and your mourning son, whether you like it or not, will sleep with your (male)
concubine [concubino] on the first night.
--------------------------------------------------8.46
Your modesty is equalled by your outstanding beauty, boy Cestus, more chaste than pure
Hippolytos. Diana would want you to swim with her and would be your teacher, Cybele
would prefer to have you over the Phrygian; you could take Ganymede's place in bed, but,
cruel boy, you give your master only kisses. Happy the bride that will tease her tender
husband, and be the first girl to make you a man [virum]!

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK IX

18

-----------------------------------------------------------------------9.2
While you play the poor man to your friends, Lupus, you do not so to your girlfriend, and
only your dick has no complaint about you. That adulteress gets fat on wheat pussies [?],
while black porridge feeds your guest. Burning Setine wine melts like snow for your mistress,
while we drink the dark poison of a Corsican jar; you buy part of the night with your paternal
estates, while your abandoned partner tills ground that is not his; your bright adulteress shines
with Erythraean gems, and your client is led away enslaved while you fuck (pussy); a litter
borne by eight Syrians is provided for your girl, while your friend will be a nude weight in a
cheap coffin. Hey, Cybele, go ahead and castrate the poor passives [cinaedos]: but this dick,
she was the one worthy of your knife.
[I interpret that Lupus's "girlfriend" is his dick, as the Latin word for dick, mentula, is
feminine. Reading between the lines, it seems that Lupus is saving the female concubines for
himself while giving his guests only boys or eunuchs to fuck.]
-------------------------------------------------------9.5 (9.6)
To you, supreme conqueror of the Rhine and parent of the world, chaste prince, the cities give
thanks: they will have populations; giving birth is no longer a crime. No longer must a boy
grieve for his lost manhood [virilitatis], castrated by the art of the greedy slave-dealer, nor
does the extremely arrogant pimp count the donation given by a miserable mother for her
prostituted infant. Modesty, which at one time before you was found not even in the marriage
bed, has begun to exist, thanks to you, even in the brothel.
-------------------------------------------------------9.7 (9.8)
As if it were a small insult to our sex to prostitute males [mares] to be defiled by the people,
even the cradle belonged to the pimp, so that the boy snatched from the breast begged for
dirty coins: immature bodies were subjected to shameful punishments. The Ausonian father
[i.e. the emperor Domitian] did not tolerate these monstrosities, the one who recently helped
tender youths, so that cruel lust would not make males [viros] sterile. Previously, boys,
youths, and old men appreciated you, and now infants love you too, Caesar.
-------------------------------------------------------9.21

19

Artemidorus has a boy, but he sold his field; Calliodorus has a field in place of a boy. Tell me
which of these two got the better deal, Auctus: Artemidorus loves, Calliodorus plows.
-------------------------------------------------------9.25
Whenever we look at your Hyllus as he pours the wine, Afer, you notice us with a troubled
eye. What crime is it, I ask you, to look at a soft servant? We gaze at the sun, stars, temples,
gods. Shall I turn my face away as though a Gorgon were offering me a cup and attacking our
eyes and faces? Alcides was fierce, but it was permitted to look at Hylas; Mercury was
allowed to play with Ganymede. If you do not want your guests to look at your tender
servants, Afer, then invite Phineas and Oedipus [who were blind].
-------------------------------------------------------9.27
Chrestus, while you have depilated testicles and a dick like a vulture's neck and a head
smoother than prostituted asses, and not a hair lives on your legs, and cruel tweezers purge
your whitened lips; nonetheless you talk about Curii, Camilli, Quintii, Numas, Anci and all
the other hairy men we read about, and you make noise and threaten with big words, and you
fight with the theaters and the times. If, between all this, any athlete comes along, just freed
from his teacher's care and whose swollen dick has been unpinned by the smith, you lead him
off, summoned by a nod, and I am ashamed to say, Chrestus, what you do with your Catonian
tongue.
-------------------------------------------------------9.32
I want an easy girl, who walks around in a cape, I want one who has already given herself to
my boy, I want one who can be bought for a couple of bucks, I want one who can take on
three by herself. Let dense Burdigala's dick have the one who demands coins and makes
noise with big words.
-------------------------------------------------------9.33
If you hear applause in any bath, Flaccus, know that Maro's dick is there.
-------------------------------------------------------9.40
20

When Diodorus left Pharos for Rome, seeking the Tarpeian wreath, Philaenis, the simple girl,
vowed that on the return of her man [viri] she would lick that thing that even chaste Sabine
women love. When his ship was wrecked by the awful storms, and covered in the waves and
sunk, Diodorus swam to land for the fulfillment of the vow. O very late and apathetic
husband! If my girl made such a vow on the beach, I would have returned right away.
-------------------------------------------------------9.41
Ponticus, do you think it is nothing that you never fuck (pussy), but use your left hand as a
mistress and your hand serves as a friend for your lust? It is a crime, believe me, but a huge
one, the force of which even your mind can grasp. Of course, Horace fucked once to produce
three offspring; Mars once for chaste Ilia to give twins. All would have been lost if they both
had masturbated and sent their filthy pleasure to their hands. Believe that nature itself is
telling you how it is: 'That which you are losing in your fingers, Ponticus, is a human being.'
-------------------------------------------------------9.47
You talk of Democritus, Zeno, inexplicable Plato, anyone who is covered with a hairy statue,
almost as if you were Pythagoras' successor and heir. And a healthy beard which is not
smaller than theirs hangs from your chin: but, what is late for the goat-smelling and shameful
for the hairy, you gladly have a stiff one in your soft butt. You who know the origins and
significances of the sects, tell me, Pannychus: getting fucked, what teaching is that?
-------------------------------------------------------9.56
Spendophoros is going to Libya's cities as his lord's armor-bearer: Cupid, prepare shafts to
give the boy, those with which you pierce youths and soft girls: But make sure there is also a
smooth spear in his tender hand. Never mind about a breast-plate, shield, and helmet; and so
that he will enter the battlefield safe, let him be nude: Parthenopaeus was not wounded by a
javelin, a sword, or an arrow, as long as he was free of a metal helmet. Whoever is pierced by
this one, will die of love. O happy one, who has such a good fate in store! Return while you
are a boy, while your face is smooth; and do not let Libya, but your Roma make you a man
[virum].
-------------------------------------------------------9.57

21

Nothing is more worn-out than Hedylus's cloaks: not the handles of old Corinthian bronzes,
not a shin made smooth by a shackle over ten years, not the skinned neck of a broken mule,
not the grooves that cut through the Flaminian Way, not the pebbles sparkling on the beaches,
not a hoe polished by a Tuscan vineyard, not the yellowish toga of a dead relative, not the
shattered wheel of a slow-moving mule-driver, not the flank of a bison shaved by the cage,
not the aged tooth of a fierce boar. But there is one thing that is [as smooth]: he himself will
not deny it - Hedylus's ass is more worn-out than his cloaks.
-------------------------------------------------------9.59
Walking around in the Enclosure [a Roman shopping mall] for a long time and often, there
where golden Rome rummages among its wealth, Mamurra inspected soft boys, devouring
them with his eyes, not those who are prostituted in the first booth, but those preserved on the
decks of the secret slave platforms, whom neither the people nor my crowd see. Then when
he had had enough of that, he stripped the tables and the hidden wheels, and asked for the tall
oiled ivory to be exhibited, and after measuring four times a tortoise couch for six persons, he
sighed that it was not big enough for his table, he consulted his nostrils as to whether the
bronzes smelled of the air of Corinth, and criticized statues, even yours, Polyclites, and,
complaining that the crystals were bothered by small amounts of glass, he marked and set
aside ten stone vases. He weighed old wine cups and any drinking cups made noble by the
hand of Mentor, and counted green gems in painted gold, and anything large that rings from a
snowy ear; he asked for genuine sardonyxes at every table and made a price for large jaspers.
When the tired man finally left after eleven hours, he bought two cups for a penny and carried
them away himself.
-------------------------------------------------------9.60
[Addressed to a female:] Whether you were born in the fields of Paestum or Tibur, or whether
your blossom reddened the ground of Tusculum, or whether a foreman's wife picked you
from a garden in Praeneste, or whether you were recently the glory of the Campanian
countryside: in order to be seen as a more beautiful garland to our Sabinus, let him think you
come from my place at Nomentum.
-------------------------------------------------------9.63
All passives [cinaedi] invite you to dinner, Phoebus. He who is fed by a dick, is not, I think, a
pure person [purus homo].
-------------------------------------------------------22

9.66
Since your wife is beautiful, modest, and young, what need have you of the Right of Three
Children, Fabullus? What you are seeking from our master and god, you will give yourself if
you can get an erection.
-------------------------------------------------------9.67
I enjoyed a lusty girl all night long, whose naughtiness no one can surpass. Tired out by a
thousand different positions, I asked her for the boyish style: before I finished asking, she
gave in at my first words. Laughing and blushing, I asked for something even more
shameless: the lustful girl promised it without delay. But she was pure to me; she will not be
to you, Aeschylus, if you are willing to accept this gift on bad conditions.
-------------------------------------------------------9.69
When you fuck pussy, Polycharmus, you usually take a shit at the end. Polycharmus, what do
you do when you are butt-fucked?
-------------------------------------------------------9.73
You used to work old skins with your teeth and chew an old sole filthy with mud, now you
hold the Praenestine lands of your deceased patron, where I would be upset to see you have
even a cell; drunk, you break crystal with hot Falernian wine and you fool around with your
master's Ganymede. And my stupid parents taught me my letters: what use to me are
grammar and rhetoric teachers? Break your thin pens and tear up your little books, Thalia, if a
shoe can give all that to a shoemaker.
-------------------------------------------------------9.90
Where pebbles are agitated here and there by the whirling waters in sparkling streams, with
all worries banished far away, may you punch through the ice with a black half-pint, your
forehead red with sewn garlands; let there be a passive boy [puer cinaedus] for you alone,
and let the purest girl fool around with you alone: Flaccus, I warn and beg you, beware of
Cyprus, infamous for excessive heat, when the threshing floor threshes the noisy harvests and
the fervent mane of Leo becomes fierce. And you, goddess of Paphos, return our young man

23

unharmed to our vows. So may the Kalends of Mars serve you, and may many cut squares of
cake be offered to you at your white altars, with incense, pure wine, and sacrifices.
-------------------------------------------------------9.92
Condylus, although you groan that you have been a slave for such a long time, you do not
know what evils belong to a master, what comforts to a slave. A cheap piece of mat gives you
sound sleep, while behold Gaius lies awake all night on his featherbed. Gaius, trembling,
greets so many masters from the first light of day, while you, Condylus, do not greet even
your one master. "Pay back what you owe, Gaius," say Phoebus and, from far off, Cinnamus:
no one says that to you, Condylus. Do you fear the torturer? Gaius is cut by arthritis in his
hands and feet, and would rather suffer a thousand lashes. Because you neither vomit in the
morning nor lick pussy, Condylus, wouldn't you rather have your life than Gaius's, three
times over?
-------------------------------------------------------9.95
Athenagoras was once Alfius, but now he has become Olphius ["smeller"], since he took a
wife.
-------------------------------------------------------9.103
What new Leda bore you such similar servants? What nude Laconian girl has been caught by
another swan? Pollux gave his face to Hierus, Castor to Asylus, and in both shines the face of
their sister Tyndaris. If such beauty had been in Therapnaean Amyclae [Helen of Troy's
homeland], when lesser gifts defeated two goddesses, you would have stayed behind, Helen,
and Dardanian Paris would have returned to Phrygian Ida with twin Ganymedes.

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK X

-----------------------------------------------------------------------10.4

24

You who read about Oedipus and darkened Thyestes, about Colchian women and Scyllas,
what else do you read about except wonders? What is kidnapped Hylas to you, what are
Parthenopaeus and Attis, what good will sleeping Endymion do you? Or the boy stripped of
his disintegrating wings, or Hermaphroditus, who dislikes the waters of love? How do the
vain pretenses of a miserable sheet of paper help you? You should read that of which life can
say, "This belongs to me." You won't find centaurs, gorgons, or harpies here: our writing
tastes of man. But, Mamurra, you do not want to get to know your behavior or yourself: so
read the Origins of Callimachus.
[I include this epigram only because of the characterization of the dual-gendered god
Hermaphroditus, "who dislikes the waters of love".]
-------------------------------------------------------10.8
Paula wants to give herself to me in marriage, but I do not want to take Paula in marriage: she
is an old woman [anus with short a]. I would have wanted to if she were a bigger anus [anus
with long a means butthole].
-------------------------------------------------------10.12
Domitius, you who are going to the peoples of the Aemilian Way and the Apollonian town of
Vercellae, and the fields of the Po, Phaethon's river, let me not live unless I let you go freely,
but without you no day will be welcome to me: But missing you is worth it, so that for one
harvest you can rest your sore neck from the urban yoke. I beg you, go and drink up all the
sun with your greedy skin, -- O, how beautiful you will be while you are traveling! And you
will come back unrecognizable to your white friends, and the pale crowd will envy your
cheeks. But the color that the road has given, Rome will soon take away, even if you come
back with the black face of a Nile-resident.
[An example of chaste love for another man. No sex is involved here.]
-------------------------------------------------------10.13
If the Celtiberian river Salo leads me to the gold-bearing lands, if I would love to see the
hanging roofs of my homeland, you are the reason, Manius, you who have been dear to me
since my innocent years, whose friendship I cultivated while I still wore the juvenile toga;
there is no other in Spain sweeter or more worthy of love. With you by my side, I could be a
stranger in the African huts of Carthage or the houses of the Scythians, and love them. If you
feel the same way, if you care for me in return, we two would have Rome wherever we were.
25

[See note for previous epigram.]

-------------------------------------------------------10.22
Philaenis, you ask why I often go out with a bandage on my chin or with my healthy lips
painted with white paint? I do not want to kiss you.
[Again, Philaenis is a woman's name.]
-------------------------------------------------------10.32
You ask, Caedicianus, whose face is portrayed in this picture that I am decorating with violets
and roses? Such was Marcus Antonius Primus in his middle years: in it, the old man sees
himself as a youth. If only art could depict his morals and his soul! There would be no more
beautiful panel in the world.
-------------------------------------------------------10.40
Since I was always being told that my Polla was shut away in secret with a passive [cinaedo],
I intruded, Lupus. He was not a passive [cinaedus].
-------------------------------------------------------10.42
Your down is so dubious, so soft, that a breath or sunshine or a light breeze wears it away.
They disappear like coming Cretan wool, which shines when stripped by a virgin thumb.
Whenever I press on you five strong kisses, I get a beard off of your lips, Dindymus.
-------------------------------------------------------10.52
After having seen Thelys the eunuch [spadonem] wearing a toga, Numa pronounced him a
convicted adulteress.
[Numa was a legendary and famously wise Roman king. Convicted adulteresses were
required to wear the toga, a men's garment.]
-------------------------------------------------------26

10.55
Whenever Marulla has weighed an erect penis with her fingers and measured it for a long
time, she tells the pounds, scruples, and sextules; after the deed and its contortions, when the
same lies like a loose strap, Marulla tells how much lighter it is. Therefore, that is not a hand,
it is a scale.
-------------------------------------------------------10.64
Queen Polla, if you touch my little books, do not receive our amusements with a stern brow.
That poet of yours, the glory of our Helicon, while he sounded fierce wars with a Pierian
trumpet, nonetheless he did not blush to say in lustful verse: "If I am not even getting
buttfucked, Cotta, what am I doing here?"
-------------------------------------------------------10.65
Since you boast of being a fellow citizen of Corinthian wares, and no one contradicts you,
why am I called a brother to you, when I am born of Iberians and Celts and a fellow citizen of
the Tagus river? Do we seem to have similar faces? You go around well-groomed with curled
tresses, I with defiant Spanish hair; you are smooth from a daily hair-remover, I am hairy on
my legs and cheeks; your mouth is lisping and your tongue is weak, even a daughter of mine
will speak louder: An eagle is not more different from a dove, or a fleeing doe from a sturdy
lion. Therefore, Charmenion, stop calling me a "brother", lest I call you a "sister."
-------------------------------------------------------10.66
Who, I ask, was so harsh, who so arrogant, that he ordered that you should be made a cook,
Theopompus? Is anyone capable of injuring this face with a black kitchen, of polluting these
locks with greasy fire? Who is more able to hold ladles or crystal cups? Mixed by what hand
will Falernian wine taste better? If this end awaits such star-like servants, let Jupiter now
employ Ganymede as a cook.
-------------------------------------------------------10.75
Once Galla asked me for twenty thousand, and I declare, she was not too expensive. A year
went by: She said, "You will give ten thousand." She seemed to me to be asking for more
than before. Then after six months, she asked me for two thousand, I gave one thousand
27

coins. She did not want to accept. Two or maybe three months passed, and she herself of her
own accord asked for four gold pieces. I did not give them. She ordered me to send a hundred
coins: But even this sum seemed too high to me. A meager gift provided me with a hundred
nickels; she wanted this: I told her that I had given them to a boy. Could she come down any
lower? She did. She gives it for free, without being asked Galla offers it to me: I decline.
-------------------------------------------------------10.80
Eros cries whenever he inspects cups of spotted murrine or boys or a very nice citrus table,
and heaves sighs from the bottom of his chest, because the wretch is unable to buy up the
whole Enclosure [a Roman shopping mall] and carry it home. How many do what Eros does,
but with dry eyes! The majority laugh at his tears, while having them inside.
-------------------------------------------------------10.81
When two came one morning to Phyllis in order to fuck, and each one desired to take her
first, Phyllis promised to give herself to both of them at the same time, and she did so: One
lifted the foot, the other the tunic.
-------------------------------------------------------10.90
Ligeia, why do you pluck your old pussy? Why do you stir up the ashes of your tomb? Such
refinements are appropriate for girls - for you cannot be seen to be even an old woman believe me, Ligeia, this is a nice practice not for Hector's mother, but for his wife. You are
wrong if this thing seems to you to be a pussy which is never touched by a dick. Therefore, if
you have any shame, Ligeia, do not pluck the beard of a dead lion.
-------------------------------------------------------10.91
Almo has only eunuchs [eunuchos], nor does he himself get an erection: And he complains
that his Polla gives birth to nothing.
-------------------------------------------------------10.95

28

Galla, your man [vir] and your adulterous lover sent your baby back to you. I think that,
without doubt, they are denying having fucked you.
-------------------------------------------------------10.98
When a servant more enervated than Ida's passive [cinaedo] [i.e. Ganymede] pours me
Caecuban wine, whom neither your daughter nor your wife nor your mother nor your sister
lying there surpass in terms of grooming, had you rather I looked at your lamps or your old
citrus table or your Indian tusks? However, so that I should not be suspected while lying here,
supply me from the crowd on your shabby farm, shaved, unsophisticated, crude, puny sons of
a goat-smelling swineherd. This resentment of yours will ruin you: Publius, you cannot
maintain these morals and these servants.
-------------------------------------------------------10.102
By what means, you ask, did Philinus, who never fucks pussy, become a father? Avitus, let
Gaditanus answer that, who never writes anything and yet is a poet.
--------------------------------------------------------

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK XI

-----------------------------------------------------------------------11.8
The aroma of wilted balsam in yesterday's vases, the last smell that falls from the curved
saffron; apples ripening in their winter box, a field luxurious with spring trees; of silks from
our Mistress's Palatine clothes presses, amber thawed in a virgin's hand, a broken bottle of
black Falernian wine, but from far away, or a garden keeping Sicanian bees; the scent of
Cosmus's alabaster and the hearths of the gods, or of a garland just fallen from rich locks:
why do I talk of these things? They are not enough; all mixed together, this is the fragrance of
my boy's morning kisses. You want to know his name? If it's because of the kisses, I will say
it. You swear. Sabinus, you want to know too much.
--------------------------------------------------------

29

11.20
Spiteful person, you who read Latin words with a grim attitude, read six lustful verses by
Augustus Caesar: "Because Antonius fucks Glaphyra, Fulvia set me this punishment that I
should fuck her too. What, me fuck Fulvia? What if Manius begged me to buttfuck him?
Would I do it? I think not, if I have any sense. 'Either fuck, or we will do battle,' she says.
What if my dick is more important to me than life itself? Let the trumpets sound!" Augustus,
you of course absolve my little books, you who know how to speak with Roman plainness.
-------------------------------------------------------11.21
Lydia is as loose as the ass of a bronzed horseman, as a swift hoop that rings with the
melodious bronze, as the wheel so often passed through with the springboard without being
touched, as an old shoe soaked in muddy water, as the sparse nets that wait for errant
thrushes, as the awnings denied to the wind at Pompey's Theater, as a bracelet fallen from a
tuberculotic passive [cinaedo], as a mattress having lost its Leuconian wool, as old trousers of
a Britonic pauper, and as the ugly throat of a Ravennan pelican. I am said to have fucked her
in a marine fishpond. I do not know; I think I fucked the fishpond.
-------------------------------------------------------11.22
That you wear down snowy Galaesius's soft kisses with your hard mouth, that you lie with
nude Ganymede, - who denies it? - this is too much. But let it be enough; at least refrain from
provoking their groins with your hand, letting it be fucked like a pussy. The hand sins more
than the dick with smooth boys, and the fingers make and precipitate [his becoming a] man
[virum]: hence come body-odor and swift hairs and a beard to make a mother amazed, and
baths in the clear daylight are not pleasing. Nature divides the male [marem]: one part is
made for girls, and one part is made for (grown) males [viris]. Use the part that belongs to
you.
-------------------------------------------------------11.23
Sila is prepared to give herself to me in marriage on any terms; but I do not want to take Sila
in marriage on any terms. However, when she insists, I say: "As my fiance, you will give me
as a dowry a million in gold." "No problem." "And I will not fuck you as your husband, not
even on our wedding night, and I will not share my bed with you; and I will embrace my
girlfriend, and you will not forbid it, and when commanded, you will send me your slave girl.
Before your eyes the servant will give me lustful kisses, whether he is mine or yours. You
will come to dinner, but you will lie apart from me so that your gown does not touch mine.
30

You will on rare occasion give me kisses, and not like a bride but like an elderly mother, and
you will not give them to anyone else. If you can put up with these things, if there is nothing
you refuse to tolerate, then you will find someone to marry you, Sila."
-------------------------------------------------------11.25
That too salacious dick, known to no small number of girls, has ceased to become erect for
Linus. Watch out, tongue.
-------------------------------------------------------11.26
O my welcome rest, o charming care, Telesphorus, such a one as has never before been in my
embrace, give me kisses, boy, moist with old Falernian wine, give me cups made smaller by
your lips. If you add on top of this the true joys of love, I will deny that Jupiter is better off
with Ganymede.
-------------------------------------------------------11.28
Nasica, a phrenetic, attacked Doctor Euctus's Hylas and hammered him. This one, I think,
was sane.
-------------------------------------------------------11.29
When you begin to handle my languid male genitals with your old right hand, Phyllis, you
murder me with your thumb. Then when you call me "mouse" or "light of my eyes", I think I
will be able to recover my strength (perhaps) in ten hours. You do not know enticement: say
"I will give you a hundred thousand and I will give you reliable acres of Setine soil; take
wine, a house, boys, gold-inlaid dishes, tables." A finger is not needed: rub me this way,
Phyllis.
-------------------------------------------------------11.30
You say that the mouths of lawyers and poets smell bad. But that of a cocksucker smells
worse, Zoilus.
-------------------------------------------------------31

11.40
Lupercus loves beautiful Glycera and he alone holds her and he alone rules over her. When
the poor guy complained that he had not fucked her in a whole month and then wanted to
give the reason to Aelianus, who was asking, he responded that Glycera's teeth hurt.
-------------------------------------------------------11.43
Wife, you attack me, caught in the act with a boy, with harsh words, and you point out that
you too have an ass. How many times did Juno say the same thing to the Thunderer!
However that one lies with big Ganymede. Tirynthius used to put down his bow and bend
Hylas over: don't you think Megara had a butt? Fugitive Daphne tortured Phoebus: but the
Oebalian boy made those flames go out. Although Briseis lay many times with her back
turned, his smooth friend was closer to the son of Aeacus. Therefore, refrain from giving
masculine names to your things, wife, and think of yourself as having two pussies.
-------------------------------------------------------11.45
Whenever you cross the threshold of a marked cubicle, whether you are attracted by a boy or
a girl, you are not content with doors and a curtain and a bolt, you demand greater secrecy for
yourself: if there is suspicion of the smallest crack or hole punctured by a sharp needle, they
are sealed up. No one has such a tender and worried modesty, Cantharus, who either buttfucks or pussy-fucks.
-------------------------------------------------------11.46
Now you do not get an erection, Mevius, except in your sleep, and your unsheathed penis has
begun to pee in the middle of your feet, your shriveled dick is pulled by your tired fingers
and, thus solicited, does not even lift its extinguished head. Why do you vainly arouse
miserable pussies and asses? You should seek the uppermost part: there an elderly dick is
alive.
-------------------------------------------------------11.47
Why does Lattara avoid all the baths popular with the female crowds? In order not to fuck
pussy. Why does he not take slow walks in the shadow of Pompey's Theater or seek out the
thresholds of the Isis temples? In order not to fuck pussy. Why does he drench his body,
32

covered in Lacedaemonian mud, with Virgin ice water? In order not to fuck pussy. Since he
avoids contact with the female gender in such a way, why does Lattara lick pussy? In order
not to fuck pussy.
-------------------------------------------------------11.49 (11.50)
There is not an hour for you that you do not plunder furious me, Phyllis: you rob me with so
much skill. Now your deceitful slave girl weeps over a mirror left behind, or a gem falls from
your finger or a stone falls from your ear; now stolen silk garments demand to generate
money, now a dry onyx box of Cosmus' is offered to me; now a decayed bottle of black
Falernian wine is asked for, in order that a talkative witch will avert your dreams; now so that
I will buy a large pike or a two-pound red mullet, a rich friend has announced she is coming
to your place for dinner. Have some shame and at last respect for the truth and for fairness: I
do not deny you anything, Phyllis; Phyllis, do not deny me anything.
-------------------------------------------------------11.51
The pillar that hangs down from Titius is as big as the one that the Lampsacian girls revere.
He bathes in large baths all to himself, with no partners or annoyances. Nonetheless, Titius
bathes in a tight space.
-------------------------------------------------------11.56
Charemon, you Stoic, because you praise death too much, do you expect me to admire and
look up to your soul? You possess this virtue because of your broken-handled jug, your
gloomy hearth warmed by no fire, and a mat, and a bedbug, and the frame of a bare cot, and a
short toga that you wear day and night. O what a great person you are, being able to leave
behind the dregs of red vinegar and straw and black bread! Let your cushion be stuffed with
Leuconian wool, and let your couches be lined with purple weaves, and let a boy sleep with
you who recently tormented guests with his rosy face as he mixed Caecuban wine: O how
you will yearn to live three times the years of Nestor and will want to lose nothing of any
day! In dire straits it is easy to condemn life: he who is able to live poorly can boast strength.
-------------------------------------------------------11.58
When you see that I want it, Telesphorus, and you feel my hard-on, you ask for a lot suppose I wanted to refuse: can I? - And unless I say under oath, "I will give it", you take
33

away those buttocks that provide you with many things from me. What if the barber, with the
razor hanging over me, were at that moment to demand freedom and wealth from me? I
would promise it; and at that time it is not a barber asking, but a thief; fear is a powerful
thing. But once the razor is in a safe curved case, I will break the barber's legs and hands as
well. And to you I will do nothing, but with washed wool my dick will tell your covetous
greed to fuck off.
-------------------------------------------------------11.60
You ask whether Phlogis or Chione is more apt for love? Chione is prettier; but Phlogis has a
tender spot; she has a tender spot that could make Priam's soft leather hard, and that would
not allow old man Pelias be old; she has a tender spot that everyone wants his girl to have,
that Criton can heal, but not Hygia. And Chione does not feel the act, or help out with any
words, you would think she was absent or made of marble. Gods, if it is permitted to prevail
upon you for such great things, and if you are willing to give such precious favors, make
Phlogis have the body that Chione has, and let Chione have the tender spot that Phlogis has.
-------------------------------------------------------11.61
A husband with his tongue, an adulteror with his mouth, Nanneius is filthier than
Summemmian cheeks. When obscene Leda sees him nude from a Suburan window, she
closes the brothel and prefers to kiss the middle than the top. He that recently went through
all the abdominal tubes and stated with a definite and knowledgeable voice whether a boy or
girl was in the womb of its mother - rejoice, pussies; this deed is done for your sake - cannot
make his pussy-fucking tongue get hard. For while he was stuck deep in a swelling womb
and heard the bawling infants inside, an indecent disease weakened the gourmet body part.
Now he can be neither pure or impure.
-------------------------------------------------------11.62
Lesbia swears that she has never been fucked for free. It's true. When she wants to be fucked,
she usually pays for it.
-------------------------------------------------------11.63

34

Philomusus, you watch us while we bathe, and you promptly ask why my smooth boys have
such big dicks. I will answer you and your questioning very simply: they butt-fuck nosy
people, Philomusus.
-------------------------------------------------------11.66
You are both an informer and a slanderer, you are both a con-man and a salesman, you are
both a cocksucker and gladiator trainer. I wonder why you haven't got any coin, Vacerra.
-------------------------------------------------------11.70
Tucca, are you capable of selling those you bought for a hundred thousand? Are you capable
of selling your masters with them crying, Tucca? Are you not moved by their charms, their
words, and their rough complaints, by their necks wounded by your tooth? Oh, outrage! With
their tunic lifted, their groins are revealed on both sides, and their dicks, crafted by your hand,
are inspected. If you desire money paid out, then sell silver, tables, murrine stone, land, a
house, sell old slaves, they will forgive you, sell your father's slaves: Sell everything else,
wretch, in order not to sell your boys. It is extravagant to buy them - for who doubts or denies
this? - but it is much more extravagant to sell them.
-------------------------------------------------------11.71
Leda told her old husband that she was hysterical and complained that being fucked is a
necessity for her; but crying and lamenting she denies that this is healthy and reports that she
has rather determined to die. The man [vir] asks her to live and not to desert her green years,
and he permits that, what he no longer does, should be done. Right away the male doctors
come forward and the female doctors step back, and her feet are lifted. What severe
medicine!
-------------------------------------------------------11.72
Natta devours the wee-wee of his athlete, compared to whom Priapus is emasculated [gallus].
-------------------------------------------------------11.73

35

Lygdus, when I ask, you always swear to me that you will come and you set the hour and you
set the place. When I have lain in vain for a long time with my horniness stretched tight, my
left hand often helps me out in your place. What should I wish on you, oh false one, for such
offenses and such behavior? Lygdus, may you bear the parasol of a one-eyed mistress [i.e. the
foreskin of a dick?].
-------------------------------------------------------11.74
Baccara the Rhaetian entrusted his penis for treatment to a rival doctor. Baccara will be a
Gaul [Gallus = emasculated].
-------------------------------------------------------11.75
Caelia, your slave bathes with you while covered in a bronze sheath; for what reason, I ask,
since he is not a lyre-singer or flute-player? I guess you do not want to see his dick. So why
do you bathe in public? Are we all eunuchs [spadones] according to you? Therefore, in order
not to appear stingy, Caelia, drop the safety-pin.
-------------------------------------------------------11.77
Vacerra spends hours in all the public toilets, sitting all day long. Vacerra wants to have a
dinner, not take a shit.
-------------------------------------------------------11.78
Practice feminine embraces, practice, Victor, and let your dick learn an act unknown to it. The
bridal veils of your fiance are being woven, the virgin is already being prepared, soon the
new bride will be shaving your boys [or maybe "your boyish testicles"?]. She will allow her
desirous husband to buttfuck her once, while she fears the first wound of the new shaft: her
nurse and her mother will forbid this to happen more often and will say: "She is your wife,
not your boy." Oh, what agitations, what ordeals you will suffer, if the pussy is a foreign thing
to you! Therefore, hand yourself over as a novice to a Suburan mistress. She will make you a
male [virum]; a virgin is not a good teacher.
-------------------------------------------------------11.81
36

Together with an old man, the eunuch [spado] Dindymus harasses Aeglis and the girl lies dry
on the middle of the bed. In one case, the male powers, in the other case, the useful years are
missing for the deed. Therefore, the work of both arouses to no effect. She humbly begs for
herself and the two wretches, that you, Venus, will make this one a youth, and that one a male
[virum].
-------------------------------------------------------11.85
Zoilus, your tongue was unexpectedly struck by a star [i.e. paralyzed] while you were licking.
Certainly, Zoilus, now you fuck (pussy).
-------------------------------------------------------11.87
You were once rich: but at that time you were a butt-fucker and for a long time no woman
was known to you. Now you run after old women. Oh, how much poverty forces! She makes
you, Charidemus, a pussy-fucker.
-------------------------------------------------------11.88
Lupus, Carisianus says he has been incapable of buttfucking for many days now. When his
friends recently asked the reason, he said his bowels were loose.
-------------------------------------------------------11.94
That you are excessively jealous of my little books and disparage them everywhere, I forgive:
circumsized poet, you have sense. I also do not care that, while you cut my songs to pieces,
you plagiarize them: in this way, too, uncircumsized poet, you have sense. What torments me
is that, while born in Jerusalem itself, you butt-fuck my boy, circumsized poet. Behold, you
deny it and swear to me by the temple of the Thunderer [Jupiter]. I do not believe it: swear,
circumsized one, by Anchiale [the tomb of Sardanapalus, a notoriously licentious Eastern
ruler].
-------------------------------------------------------11.95

37

Whenever you come upon the kisses of cocksuckers, Flaccus, imagine that you are
submerging your head in bathwater.
-------------------------------------------------------11.97
I can do it four times in one night: but I'll be damned if I can do you once in four years,
Telesilla.
-------------------------------------------------------11.100
Flaccus, I do not want a skinny girlfriend, whose upper arms would be encircled by my rings,
who could shave me with her naked butt, and pierce me with her knee, who has a saw
projecting from her back and a spearhead from her butt. But by the same token, I do not want
a girlfriend who weighs a thousand pounds. I'm a meat-lover, not a fat-lover.
-------------------------------------------------------11.103
Your modesty of mind and appearance is such, Safronius, that I wonder that you could
become a father.
--------------------------------------------------------

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK XII

-----------------------------------------------------------------------12.12
After having drunk all night, you promise everything; in the morning you provide nothing.
Pollio, drink in the morning.
-------------------------------------------------------12.16

38

Labienus, you sold three small fields; Labienus, you bought three passives: Labienus, you are
butt-fucking three small fields.
-------------------------------------------------------12.20
Fabullus, you ask why Themison does not have a wife? He has a sister.
-------------------------------------------------------12.33
In order to buy boys, Labienus sold gardens. Now Labienus has nothing but a "fig
plantation".
[Fig is a euphemism for hemorrhoids.]
-------------------------------------------------------12.34
If I remember, Julius, I have had thirty-four summers with you. Their sweetnesses were
mixed with bitternesses, but the pleasantnesses were more; and if every pebble were sorted
on this side and that into two different colored piles, the white pile would exceed the black. If
you want to avoid particular bitternesses and guard against severe bites to the heart, do not
make anyone too close a friend: You will enjoy less and suffer less.
-------------------------------------------------------12.35
Callistratus, you have a habit of telling me often that you have been hammered, as if you
were being upfront with me. You are not as upfront, Callistratus, as you want to be believed.
For anyone who tells so many things, keeps quiet about more.
-------------------------------------------------------12.38
This one who day and night appears by feminine chairs, who is all too well known
throughout the city, with shining hair, black from ointment, very bright in purple, tender of
face, broad of chest, smooth of leg, who often clings to your wife as a shameless companion,
it is not what you fear, Candidus: he doesn't fuck pussy.
-------------------------------------------------------39

12.42
Bearded Callistratus gave himself in marriage to stiff Afer, in the manner in which a virgin
usually gives herself in marriage to a male [viro]. The torches shone in front, the bridal veils
covered his face, and wedding toasts were not absent, either. A dowry was also named. Does
that not seem enough yet for you, Rome? Are you waiting for him to give birth?
-------------------------------------------------------12.49
Linus, educator of the long-haired crowd, whom rich Postumilla calls master of her things
and to whom she entrusts her gems, gold, wine, (male) concubines: You who have been tested
for perpetual faith, may your patroness prefer no one over you: I beg you, aid my miserable
fury and watch negligently sometime over them that cause my heart to burn badly, those that
day and night I longingly wish to see in my bosom, the beautiful, snow-white, equal twins,
the large, not boys, but pearls.
[Note: "Like a pearl" seems to have been a compliment for a beautiful boy. In the Qur'anic
vision of Paradise, the believers will be waited on by boys "the like of scattered pearls."]
-------------------------------------------------------12.64
Cinna has made a cook out of one who surpasses his rosy servants in face and hair. Cinna,
you are a gourmand.
-------------------------------------------------------12.65
After beautiful Phyllis provided me with everything all night long, generous in every way,
and I thought in the morning about what I would give in payment, whether a pound of
Cosmus ointment or Nicerotian perfume, or a full weight of Baetican wool, or ten gold coins
from Caesar's currency: with her arms around my neck and charming me with a kiss as long
as the nuptials of doves, Phyllis begins to ask for a bottle of wine.
-------------------------------------------------------12.70
Recently, when a knock-kneed young home-born slave still carried him his towels and a oneeyed old woman still watched over his gown and a masseur suffering from an intestinal
hernia still gave him his single drop of oil, Aper was a stern and harsh critic of heavy
40

drinkers. He clamored that the cups should be broken, and that the Falernian wine, which a
recently washed knight was drinking, should be poured out. After having received three
hundred thousand from an elderly paternal uncle, now he does not know how to go home
sober from the baths anymore. Oh what strength there is in pierced-work and five long-haired
boys! Back when he was a poor man, Aper was not thirsty.
-------------------------------------------------------12.71
Lygdus, you deny me everything I ask for: yet at one time, Lygdus, you used to deny me
nothing.
-------------------------------------------------------12.75
Polytimus is anxious to be with girls; Hymnus does not like to call himself a boy; Secundus's
buttocks are overfed with "acorns" [i.e. heads of penises]; Dindymus is soft, but does not
want to be; Amphion could have been born a girl. Avitus, I would rather have their
mannerisms and arrogance and complaining contempt, than a dowry of two hundred thousand
sesterces.
-------------------------------------------------------12.85
You say that the mouths of buttfuckers stink. If it is true as you say, Fabullus: What do you
think stinks on a pussy-licker?
-------------------------------------------------------12.86
You have thirty boys and just as many girls: you have one dick, and it does not get hard.
What will you do?
-------------------------------------------------------12.91
Magulla, since you share a small bed as well as a (male) whore [exoletus] with your husband,
tell me why you don't share a cupbearer. You sigh; the reason is, you fear the bottle [of
poison, says Shackleton Bailey].
-------------------------------------------------------41

12.93
Labulla discovered means by which to kiss her adulterous lover in the presence of her
husband. She kisses her small fool continuously; the adulteror immediately catches hold of
him wet with many kisses, and at once sends him back to the smiling lady of the house full of
his own [kisses]. How much more of a fool is the husband!
-------------------------------------------------------12.96
Since you know your husband's life and fidelity belong to you, [my wife,] and no other
woman presses or threatens your marriage bed, why do you torture yourself foolishly because
of servants as though they were mistresses? Love with them is both brief and fleeting. I will
prove to you that boys provide more to you than to their master: They make it so that you are
your man's only woman [femina sola viro]; they give what you, wife, do not want to give.
'But I will give it,' you say, 'so that my spouse's love will not go wandering astray from the
marriage bed.' It is not the same thing: I want a cherry, not a prune: So that you have no doubt
about which is the cherry, yours is the prune. A matron and woman should know her
limitations: Leave their part to the boys, and use yours.
-------------------------------------------------------12.97
Although your wife is like a young girl, such as a shameless husband would hardly dare ask
for in his prayers, rich, noble, educated, and chaste, yet you explode your loins with longhaired boys, Bassus, whom you have paid for with your wife's dowry. And so your dick,
which she paid for with many thousands, returns to your mistress weak; and it won't get hard,
neither excited by charming words nor solicited by a soft thumb. Have some shame, finally,
or we will go to law. This thing does not belong to you, Bassus: you sold it.
--------------------------------------------------------

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS, BOOK XIII XENIA

-----------------------------------------------------------------------26 Sorb apples.

42

We are sorb apples, tightening bellies that are too soft: you will do better to give this apple to
your boy than to yourself.
-------------------------------------------------------34. Onions.
Since your wife is an old woman and your members are dead, you can be sated with nothing
else but onions.
[Onions were considered an aphrodisiac.]
-------------------------------------------------------63. Capons.
So that he will not become too thin from overdraining his groin, the chicken [gallus] lost his
testicles. Now that's what I call a chicken [gallus = castrated male].
-------------------------------------------------------64. The same.
In vain the hen [gallina] submits to her sterile husband. He should have been Mother
Cybele's bird.
[Cybele, the Mother Goddess, had castrated and natural eunuchs as priests, who were called
galli, which also meant chicken.]
--------------------------------------------------------

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS (APOPHORETA)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------205 Boy.
Let me have a boy who is smooth due to age, not due to a pumice stone, because of whom no
girl will be pleasing to me.

43

44