SOURCE: "Martial: Knight, Publisher, and Poet," The Classical Journal, Vol. 65, No. 8, May, 1970, pp. 345-57.

In the following essay, Allen and a group of his students challenge the image of Martial as a desperately poor poet who regarded his verses as ephemeral or insignificant. Citing a variety of evidence to support their claim that Martial was financially secure and enjoyed a respectable social position, they argue that he was deeply involved in the publication of his books and believed strongly in the merit of his epigrams.

Martial, like Tibullus and Ovid before him,¹ was a Roman knight. That simple fact colors our acceptance of what the poet says about himself and his patrons. While a literal interpretation of Martial's conventional epigrammatic treatment of literary patronage could produce a picture of Martial as the shabby, starving poet of the third-floor garret, our author has deliberately included in his epigrams autobiographical...