1. For a definition of intratextuality see Boyle, A. J., ‘Martialis Redivivus: Evaluating the Unexpected Classic’, Ramus 24.1 (1995), 96fGoogle Scholar. Note that references to Martial’s text in my article are taken from the Loeb edition of Shackleton Bailey, D.R., Martial: Epigrams, 3 vols. (Cambridge MA & London 1993).Google Scholar

2. Scherf, J., ‘Zur Komposition von Martials Gedichtbüchern 1–12’, in Grewing, F. (ed.), Toto Notus in Orbe: Perspektiven der Martial-Interpretation (Stuttgart 1998), 119–38Google Scholar; and in the same volume, E. Merli, ‘Epigrammzyklen und “serielle Lektüre’ in den Büchern Martials’, 139–56. And see now also Scherf, J., Untersuchungen zur Buchgestaltung Martials (München-Leipzig 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, though for Book 2 at least Scherf seems to add little to his earlier essay.

3. Friedländer, L., M. Vol. Martialis Epigrammaton Libri (repr. Amsterdam 1961), 53Google Scholar, followed by Citroni, M., ‘Publicazione e Dediche dei Libri in Marziale’, Maia 40 (1988), 5n.Google Scholar

4. Barwick, K., ‘Zyklen bei Martial und in den kleinen Gedichten des Catull’, Philologus 102 (1958), 299ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Barwick cites Postumus (2.10, 12, 21–23, [67, 72]); Selius (2.11, 14, 27, [69.6]); Zoilus (2.16, 19, 42, 58, 81).

5. Scherf, Untersuchungen (n.2 above), 50. Scherf follows Barwick in not including either 2.67 or 2.72 in this series. Barwick argued that although both poems address Postumus this is a different individual from the Postumus of the cycle earlier in the book. But Shackleton Bailey (n.1 above, i.l84n.) points out that the humour of 2.72 is sexual, lying in the double meaning of testes as ‘witnesses’ and ‘testicles’. The poem should therefore most likely be seen as a continuation of the cycle on Postumus as fellator. Certainly 2.67 has nothing to do with fellatio or Postumus’ filthy kisses, the topics of the rest of the cycle. But even this does not necessarily signify a different Postumus.

6. To the series on fellatio we should add the series on the related topic of passive homosexuality, i.e. 2.36, 45, 51, 54, 62. If we excerpt the two poems on fellatrices (2.50, 73) we are left with an exceptionally large percentage of epigrams in this book (19 out of 93) on male sexual practices which Martial considers effeminate or unmanly.

7. White, P., ‘The Presentation and Dedication of the Silvae and the Epigrams’, JRS 64 (1974), 58.Google Scholar

8. Fowler, D., ‘Martial and the Book’, Ramus 24 (1995), 31–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with a response from White, P., ‘Martial and Pre-publication Texts’, EMC n.s. 15 (1996), 397–412.Google Scholar

9. Martial also uses the preface to Book 8 to announce the tone of the volume (8 pr. 11–14). For similar opening forecasts about the nature of the book cf. 5.2 and 11.2.

10. The thematic correspondence between the opening and closing sequences of Bock 2 (a concentration on literary issues and addresses to patrons) is noted by Merli, E., ‘Ordinamento degli epigrammi e strategic cortigiane negli esordi dei libri I–XI1 di Marziale’, Maia 45 (1993), 239f.Google Scholar

11. On Decianus as both friend and patron cf. 1.8, 24, 39, 61.10, and Sullivan, J., Martial: The Unexpected Classic (Cambridge 1991), 16f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. The same accusation is levelled against Cotilus in 2.70.

13. Zoilus is a frequent target for Martial’s abuse in later books (cf. the list provided by Friedländer [n.3 above, 381]), habitually accused of being an ex-slave, a fellator and a thief, as well as attacked for his gross ostentation in clothes and food and stinginess toward his guests. Only in Book 2 is he said to be living luxuriously off borrowed money.

14. It is worth noting that Postumus is also reintroduced in the context of the dinner party in 2.72.

15. Candidus will reappear in Book 3 as someone who refuses to share his vast wealth, but unsuspectingly ‘shares’ his wife (3.26); and who demands endless client service which Martial refuses (3.46).

16. There seems to be a pointed contrast between Martial’s generosity in 2.37 and Tongilius’ avarice in 2.40. In the former, Martial unselfishly lays out for his guests expensive food like mullet and pike (mullum dimidium lupumque totum, 2.37.4), while in the latter Tongilius feigns illness to elicit these gifts of food (hamus et in mullum mittitur atque lupum, ‘the hook is being despatched for mullet and pike’, 2.40.4).

17. On Gaums elsewhere in Martial cf. 5.82; 8.27; 9.50; also my article ‘Patronage and Poetic Immortality in Martial, Book 9’, Mnemosyne 51 (1998), 168–70. It is worth noting that of all the poems about Gaurus only 2.89 mentions sexual habits, perhaps a further indication that Martial is exploiting Gaurus in this epigram to present a synthesis of the major themes of Book 2.

18. Sullivan (n.11 above), 210.

19. As noted by Sullivan (n.11 above), 86.

20. For example, Martial approves of a husband’s infliction of irrumation on his wife’s adulterer as punishment (2.47.3f.). The same approval is voiced in 2.83 if we emend irrumare to irrumari (83.5) as argued by Richlin, Amy, ‘The Meaning of irrumare in Catullus and Martial’, CP 76 (1981), 40–46Google Scholar. (though against which see Adams, J.N., ‘Martial 2.83’, CP 78 [1983], 311–15).Google Scholar

21. On the literary background of the genres criticised here see Stephenson, H.M. (ed.), Selected Epigrams of Martial (London 1907), 231ffGoogle Scholar; Friedländer (n.3 above), 278f.

22. E.g. 1.35; 4.49; 8.3; 10.4. Cf. also Art Spisak, L., ‘Martial 6.61: Callimachean Poetics Revalued’, TAPA 124 (1994), 291–308Google Scholar and the sources cited there.

23 Cf. Bramble, J.C., Persius and the Programmatic Satire (Cambridge 1974), 71ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bartsch, S., Actors in the Audience (Cambridge MA 1994), 268 n.12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. The relationship between 2.89 and 90 is interpreted differently by Lorenz and Holzberg, both of whom see Quintilian as a foil for Martial’s humour in 2.90. In Erotik und Panegyrik: Martials epigrammatische Kaiser (forthcoming Tubingen 2002), 19ff., Lorenz suggests that the vocative Quintiliane which begins 2.90 could be taken momentarily by the reader as the answer to the question which ends 2.89; quod fellas, uitium, die mihi, cuius habes?, 2.89.6). Similarly, Holzberg, (Martial und das antike Epigram [forthcoming Darmstadt 2002], 82ff.)Google Scholar notes Catullus 98 for the notion that an interminably bad orator may have a foul tongue in more than one sense and, perhaps more aptly, refers to Martial 11.30 in which the foul breath of lawyers (and poets!) is said to be no match for that of the fellator Zoilus. Such an explanation would not, of course, exclude my own. I am grateful to both scholars for providing me with advance copies of their manuscripts.

25. On the ius trium liberorum see Daube, D., ‘Martial, Father of Three’, AJAH 1 (1976), 145–47Google Scholar; Sherwin-White, A.N., The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary (Oxford 1966), 558.Google Scholar

26. On groupings based on length and metre see Scherf, Untersuchungen (n.2 above), 63ff.

27. Cf. also 2.9–10, 30–31.

28. Martial was most likely unmarried, as argued by Sullivan, J., ‘Was Martial Really Married? A Reply’, CW 72 (1979), 238ff.Google Scholar