Editing Martial (section)

==Martial's character==
[[Pliny the Younger]], in the short tribute which he pays to him on hearing of his death, wrote, "He had as much good-nature as wit and pungency in his writings".<ref>[[Pliny the Younger]], ''Letters'', [http://www.attalus.org/old/pliny3.html#21 3.21]</ref> Martial professes to avoid personalities in his satire, and honour and sincerity (''fides'' and ''simplicitas'') seem to have been the qualities which he most admires in his friends. Some have found distasteful his apparent servile flattery to the worst of the many bad emperors of Rome in the 1st century. These were emperors Martial would later censure immediately after their death (Mart. 12. 6). However, he seems to have disliked [[hypocrisy]] in its many forms, and seems to be free from [[Hypocrisy|cant]], [[pedantry]], or affectation of any kind.

Though many of his epigrams indicate a cynical disbelief in the female character, yet others prove that he could respect and almost revere a refined and courteous woman. His own life in Rome afforded him no experience of domestic virtue; but his epigrams show that, even in the age which is known to modern readers chiefly from the ''Satires'' of [[Juvenal]], virtue was recognized as the purest source of happiness. The tenderest element in Martial's nature seems, however, to have been his affection for children and for his dependents.