I'm a celebrity - send me a new coat

Martial, writing in the first century CE, makes Rome so real that you can almost smell it. You hear the sounds of the city, catch snatches of conversation, see Rome from the street. 

And the emotional content of his stuff is so contemporary that it is hard to believe it comes from two millennia ago.

But almost because of the similarities, you have to remind yourself that Rome was a different place, and that counts in this lovely little poem which has an unasked question at its hidden heart.

The poem is 6.82, and I have stuck it at the end of this post in Latin (wow, but it sounds great in Latin) and in my effort at a translation.

You have to really flex your imagination here to try and see the actual event that the poem describes, and figure out what is happening. The poem only gives some of the details. A Roman audience would not have needed to imagine what was happening, as the scene would have been so much more familiar to them.

Martial is telling a tale to Rufus, his friend along the lines of "You'll never guess what happened to me last week." Martial is out and about in Rome when a stranger spots him. He sizes Martial up, and after a bit of thought, comes across and asks if he is Martial, Martial the poet: ”You” he says. “You.... Aren’t you Martial ? THE Martial ? The Martial whose racy jokes everyone knows who’s not deaf or Dutch ?”  

That hesitation, the slight uncertainty, is right there in the Latin. It's a bit like somebody wondering if it is really Adele leaning over the fish fingers in Tesco.

Martial liked fame, and loved thinking that his books were widely read. So being recognised was just up his via. He nodded (modestly, he hoped) to acknowledge that indeed it was him.

Immediately things go off the rails. The stranger, who clearly had boundary issues and all the tact of a flying hammer, can't believe how scruffy Martial's cloak is, and says so, asking why it is so terrible.

Martial isn't fazed, and is very happy to make himself the butt of the joke. He tells the guy that it is because he is a terrible poet, and then closes the poem by asking Rufus to send him a better cloak to avoid further embarrassment.

You can imagine the exchange so easily.

If the incident actually happened, and wasn't just Martial's elaborate way of asking Rufus for a new cloak, the big question is: how on earth did the stranger recognise Martial in the first place ? The recognition seems visual. But there was no TV, no Internet, no pictures in books. Rome was a huge city by this time - maybe a million people. So how could the guy know it was Martial ?

Martial obviously did not look like a celeb on the loose, at least cloak-wise. Judging by the moth-eaten cloak, he wouldn't be dripping Roman bling. He would not be carrying a large POET badge.

It could be that the stranger had seen Martial at a reading somewhere. Or perhaps he had bumped into him on the circuit of saying hello to patrons that Martial was so glad to say goodbye to.

But maybe the recognition wasn't visual at all.

Is there a clue in what the stranger says to Martial ? He suggests that everyone except a deaf Dutchman had heard Martial's schtick. He does not mention that they might have read him or seen him, but heard him. It might be that from a slight distance, the stranger identified Martial not by sight, but by hearing him.

It couldn't have been the voice alone. That would have been as unfamliar as what Martial looked like. It must have been that he recognised what Martial was saying, or reciting. He clearly knew what Martial's work was about, and well enough to identify Martial himself.

What might have been happening ?

It seems at least possible that Martial was reciting something familiar in public, in the street. Maybe his latest hit, the poem that was doing the rounds at the time, the joke that everyone was laughing at that week.

There is good evidence that Martial was a showman, and even what we might think of as a performance poet. His poem about Issa is a great example of that: he forces you to hear dynamics when reading that can only have been designed for aurally amusing an audience. It is easy to imagine him entertaining a little crowd on a street corner. The laughter would draw attention.

So, though I am no Mary Beard, that's what seems likely to me: Martial was recognised by what he was reciting impromtu to a small audience in public, which was overheard by a stranger who was familiar with the work but had never been to one of his readings, and did not know him by sight.

Was he boosting sales outside Attrectus' bookshop, where we know his books were sold, or outside some other outlet ?

We can only imagine, but the vignette he sketches is so human, so carefully observed that it tempts us to visualise the scene.

The great thing here is that nobody ever damaged poetry by using their imagination. Poetry heals well.

Here is the poem itself. 

Quidam me modo, Rufe, diligenter
inspectum, uelut emptor aut lanista,
cum uoltu digitoque subnotasset,
"Tune es, tune" ait "ille Martialis,
cuius nequitias iocosque nouit
aurem qui modo non habet Batauam?"
Subrisi modice, leuique nutu
me quem dixerat esse non negaui.
"Cur ergo" inquit "habes malas lacernas?"
Respondi: "quia sum malus poeta."
Hoc ne saepius accidat poetae,
mittas, Rufe, mihi bonas lacernas.


Just recently, Rufus, some bloke looked me over carefully
As if he was a buyer, or talent spotting for gladiators.
When he’d measured me with eye and forefinger and had made a mental note
He says: ”You” he says. “You.... Aren’t you Martial ? THE Martial ?
The Martial whose racy jokes everyone knows who’s not deaf or Dutch ?”
I gave a modest flicker of a smile, made an almost imperceptible nod
And did not deny that I was who he thought.
“Then why,” he says, “why do you have such a terrible cloak ?”
“Because" I shot back, "I’m a terrible poet.”
Hey Rufus – so that this doesn’t happen to me more often
How about sending me a decent cloak ?