Institute for Classical Studies, part of the Institute for Philosophy, Czech Academyof Sciences in Prague

Liber Spectaculorum by MARTIAL; KATHLEEN M. COLEMANReview by: Eva StehlíkováListy filologické / Folia philologica, Vol. 131, No. 1/2 (2008), pp. 282-284Published by: Institute for Classical Studies, part of the Institute for Philosophy, Czech Academy ofSciences in PragueStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23469119 .

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282 LISTY FILOLOGICKE

Je tedy mozno rici, ze kniha splnuje naroky na zakladni uvod do stu dia pompejskych nast0nnych napisu a muze byt s uzitkem vyuzivana ν seminarich о Pompejich, latinske epigrafice, ale i lingvistiky a his

toric. Jana Kepartovd (Praha)

MARTIAL, Liber Spectaculorum. Edited with introduction, translati on and commentary by KATHLEEN M. COLEMAN.

Oxford, Oxford University Press 2006, pp. 322. ISBN: 0-19-814481-4.

The first edition of the whole book of epigrams with a detailed commen

tary (and also of course with a very detailed introduction, pp. xix-lxxx

vi) has only been only published during the last year due to the effort of Kathleen M. Coleman. This Harvard professor has been interested in the literature of the silver age for a very long time already. She has pub lished a text, translation and commentary to the IV. book of Statius's Silvae (Oxford University Press 1988, 19982). However, her main the mes are the spectacles, to which she has applied herself in many studies. Those that have had the greatest public response were Fatal charades:

Roman executions staged as mythological enactments (Journal of Ro

man Studies 80, 1990, pp. 44-73) and Launching into history: aquatic displays in the early Empire (Journal of Roman Studies 83, 1993, pp. 48-74). We can expect that Bonds of danger: communal life in the glad iatorial barracks of ancient Rome (University of Sydney 2000) will raise a lot of interest, too, as well as her earliest works. As she is com

pletely within the spirit of the age that adores "bloody spectacles", she has written a monograph about Roman public executions and spectacles in the arena. It is then more than clear why she is specifically interested in Martialis's book De Spectaculis.

bhe begins her commentary to Martians with words that could dis

courage a less proficient reader: "All that one can say with moderate

certainty about this book epigrams is that it comprises an untitled collec tion of uncertain length celebrating of unspecified occasions in honour of Caesar (unnamed), and it is attributed to Martial" (p. xix). The scepti cal author is, of course, right. The poems were originally preserved in six different medieval anthologies, two epigrams in Florilegium Galli cum from the 12th century were added to the others by Adrien De Jong

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RECENZE 283

he in his edition published in Antwerp in 1568. Their sequencing and

length are uncertain, the emperor they are dědic ated to is never named

(is it Titus or Domitianus?), we don't even know whether all the poems are connected to the opening of the Colosseum (some of the spectacles more probably took pláce in the stagnum of Augustus in Transtevere).

Because of that, the author adds every epigram with a critical supple ment, accurate translation, an introduction commenting on the epigram, links to literature that deals with the problém in detail, and detailed notes

documenting the quoted verses for a linguistic, epigraphic, historical and literary point of view. The book is naturally supplemented with bib

liographic appendixes (quoted editions, comments and translations -

xvi-xviii, bibliography - pp. 277-303), indexes, concordances and illus trations. Surprisingly, there are some titles that we would expect missing from the bibliography: Auguet, Bartsch, Beacham's Spectacle Enter tainments ofEarly Imperiál Rome, Potteťs study Martyrdom as Specta cle etc., but these are merely a drop in the oceán of the literature.

Those infamous numbers 6, 9, 10, 24, 25, 28, 29 particularly caught my attention (there are problems with numbering the poems, too, this is how the author numbered them!), from which we conclude the shift of the aréna into a theatre. I personally have great doubts already about the brutalization of theatre having been influenced by the bloody spectacles in the aréna - none of the preserved messages (Suet. Cal. 57, Iuv. 8, pp.

185-188, Tert. Adv. Val. 14,4) about the famous and favourite cutthroat

piece on Laurelolus speak about actual killing in the theatre. Only in the aréna does the theatrical "looks like" change into "actually happens". Martialis is emphasizing this reality by such a localization that there's no doubt about it: nonfalsa pendens in cruce Laureolus (De spéct. 9,4).

But not all the epigrams are this persuasive and it is possible to add a hypothetical presentation to everything. De spéct. 24 is ironically twisting the known myth about Orpheus: in the aréna, he's not ripped by Thracian Bacchants, but by the very wild beasts, which, according to the

traditional presentation, gladly listened to Orpheus's singing. Already Della Corte was highlighting in his commentary that there are notable allusions to Ovids Metamorphoses. To what extent is this a poetic de

scription and to what extent a literary play? The same applies to De

spéct. 10, where probably a different convict, who is damnatus ad bes

tias, thrown to a bear. His name Daedalus again refers to a myth with

a completely different ending and the wretchs in the aréna hope for pen nas nunc habuisse is vain. If it really is a bloody spectacle, we can of

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284 LISTY FILOLOGICKÉ

course imagine how such a scene was made. Coleman, just like Carra tello in his comment from the year 1965, thinks that Daedalus must be

easy to identify at first sight, e.g. he's got wings and he's lifted by a machine to the air (like Icarus during the famous incident where a young man fell down next to Neroň - see Suet. Nero 12,2). When he lands in the aréna, he' s deprived of his wings and then a bear is set free. An alternative scenario is even more far-fetched: There's a labyrinth built in the aréna and first Daedalus and the bear following him are let into it. The author is (as always) giving also other opinions, some of which are overly complicated (Daedalus is a name often used by gladia tors and their "pennae", the decoration on some kinds of gladiatorial helmets, are a metaphor for the career of a gladiator.) It is also just as

possible to imagine that the whole thing is just a poetic analogy, as J. K. Ehrman suggests. These uncertainties, connected to this book of Martia lis and so abruptly marked by the author in the very beginning, are huge and can still be widened. What is the role of literary tradition, allusion, the effort to bring stories to a comic punchline? To what extent is it an

image of something truly real? Are these stories from the aréna, these "fatal charades" just a curiosity from the lst century A.D., or was it real

ly the tendency of the time and were such scenes really common? The

small amount of information found leads me to scepticism here as well.

Is it even possible to judge what was happening in all the amphitheatres all round the Roman Empire simply from the city of Rome itself?

These are, however, just questions that arise over the precise com

mentary we need to thank the author for. Perhaps she'll now answer

them in her following book.

Eva Stehlíková (Praha)

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