Martial’s Natural History: The Xenia and Apophoreta and Pliny’s Encyclopedia

Abstract

Martial’s two most perplexing collections of epigrams, the Xenia and the Apophoreta , are read in the context of a contemporary Flavian text: Pliny the Elder’s Natural History . Both texts begin with instructions encouraging the reader to create his or her own desired text by selecting what to read and what to ignore. Despite obvious differences in scale and genre, the two works are shown to have thematic and structural similarities. Martial’s epigrams, however, distort the seriousness of Pliny’s encyclopedia through humor, creating an alternate, irreverent Encyclopedia Domestica that challenges the authority and imperialist knowledge projected within Pliny’s text.

Tertullian's Chameleon

“… 59 In both epigrams, the enjoyment of the joke derives as much from an appreciation of the natural world as from linguistic facility. See the illuminating comments of Blake 2011: 353–77.…”