Martial's Rome: Empire and the Ideology of Epigram

5. This detailed study of Martial's poetics shows how, on every scale, Martial displays epigram's ambition to enact the sociality of urban life, but also to make Rome rise out of epigram's architecture and gestures. Martial's distinctive aesthetic, grounded in paradox and inconsistency, ensures that the humblest poetic form is best poised to capture first-century empire in all its dazzling complexity. As well as investigating many of Martial's central themes - monumentality, economics, carnival, death, exile - the book also questions what kind of mascot Martial is for classics today.