Martial’s Dramatic Prefaces

Katherine Wasdin (Yale University)

The phenomenon of a prose preface to a poetic work is a predominantly Flavian phenomenon, most recently discussed in depth by Johannsen (2006). Within this category, the prefaces to Martial’s first and second books of epigrams are exceptional, since the first has no explicit dedicatee and the second is in fact a recusatio for the practice of writing of epistolary prefaces. Both in these prefaces and in the epigrams themselves, Martial often links his works with the theater and other forms of visual entertainment, and this connection can help us further understand his prefaces. Martial himself makes this association most explicitly in the preface to his second book, when he imagines his addressee Decianus questioning the preface itself: quid hic porro dicturus es quod non possis versibus dicere? video quare tragoedia aut comoedia epistulam accipiant, quibus pro se non licet. Instead of defending his preface, however, Martial agrees with his imaginary interlocutor Decianus and abandons it. Yet Decianus raises a good question, and Martial’s apparent agreement is belied by the fact that the epistle was still published with the book. A comparison with the prologues of Terence can illuminate why Martial employs this dramatic tool for his literary works.

Though Martial does not mention Terence specifically, the comedian’s dramatic prologues provide the most apt comparison with Martial’s prefaces. Comedic prologues, to be sure, do not originate with Terence, but he revolutionized the practice, skipping over the traditional elaboration of the plot and focusing instead on matters of composition, presentation, and audience reaction. As scholars such as Goldberg (1983), Laida-Richards (2004), and Gowers (2004) have pointed out, the prologues are a mix of oratorical technique, literary criticism, and subtle riffs on the plays themselves. In the multiple prologues to the Hecyra, for example, Terence uses the disruptions of previous performances as a way of manipulating the audience to accept his work as ‘classy’, appealing to their higher instincts as consumers of intellectual theater and dismissing previous, unappreciative audiences.

Martial’s first and second prefaces use similar techniques, such as rhetorical self-defence, personification of the work, the defamation of critics, even the questioning of the purpose of the introduction itself. These strategies work to engage the reader and dictate the appropriate way to approach his books, though his aims are slightly different than those of Terence. In 1. praef., he compares his book to the performances at the Floralia, asking any judgmental Catones to leave so that they not disrupt the performance. Whereas Terence figures his audience as higher-brow, and disdains more scurrilous elements, Martial welcomes them. Additionally, Martial’s prefaces, by treating his works as plays, unify the books of often disparate epigrams at the same time as they emphasize the fictional nature of his characters as personae, not satirical attacks on actual Romans, and separate Martial-the-writer from Martial-the-ego of the epigrams.