Editing Martial (section)

==Early life==
Knowledge of his origins and early life are derived almost entirely from his works, which can be more or less dated according to the well-known events to which they refer. In Book X of his ''Epigrams'', composed between 95 and 98, he mentions celebrating his fifty-seventh birthday; hence he was born during March 38, 39, 40 or 41 AD (Mart. 10. 24. 1),<ref>Not necessarily 1 March, on account of the habit of celebrating one's birthday on that day if one had been born during that month: D. R. Shackleton Bailey, ''Martial. Epigrams. Edited and translated by D. R. S. B.'' (Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 1993), vol. I, p. 1 n. 1.</ref>
under [[Caligula]] or [[Claudius]]. 

Martial's name seems to imply that he was born a Roman citizen. His place of birth was [[Augusta Bilbilis]] (now [[Calatayud]]) in [[Hispania Tarraconensis]], an information he gives by speaking of himself as "sprung from the [[Celts]] and [[Hispania|Iberia]]ns, and a countryman of the [[Tagus]]". In contrasting his own masculine appearance with that of an effeminate Greek, he draws particular attention to "his stiff [[Hispania]]n hair" (Mart. 10. 65. 7). Several notable 1st century Latin writers were born in Roman Hispania, including [[Seneca the Elder]] and [[Seneca the Younger]], [[Lucan (poet)|Lucan]] and [[Quintilian]], and Martial's contemporaries Licinianus of Bilbilis, Decianus of [[Emerita Augusta|Emerita]] and [[Cania (gens)|Canius]] of Gades. 

Martial's parents, Fronto and Flaccilla, appear to have died in his youth. His home was evidently one of rude comfort and plenty, sufficiently in the country to afford him the amusements of [[hunting]] and [[fishing]], which he often recalls with keen pleasure, and sufficiently near the town to afford him the companionship of many comrades, the few survivors of whom he looks forward to meeting again after his thirty-four years' absence (Mart. 10. 104). The memories of this old home, and of other spots, the rough names and local associations which he delights to introduce into his verse, attest to the simple pleasures of his early life and were among the influences which kept his spirit alive in the stultifying routines of upper-crust social life in Rome.

Martial professes to be of the school of [[Catullus]], [[Albinovanus Pedo|Pedo]], and [[Domitius Marsus|Marsus]]. The epigram bears to this day the form impressed upon it by his unrivalled skill in wordsmithing.