Chapter 76

'Ut rosa delectat, metitur quae pollice primo' (= the rose which has not yet been plucked).

In iv. 55, 3, Arpi is given as Cicero's birthplace; in v. 30, 2, etc., Calabria instead of Apulia is given as Horace's native district. Catullus is Martial's chief model for hendecasyllabics and choliambics. He mentions no other poet so often. Cf. x. 103, 5,

'Nec sua plus debet tenui Verona Catullo meque velit dici non minus illa suum.'

Ovid, of whom he has more than two hundred reminiscences, is Martial's chief pattern for elegiacs. After these Martial's chief model is Virgil, chiefly the _Priapea_; then Horace to a less extent; Propertius; and Tibullus. Domitius Marsus, Gaetulicus, Calvus, etc., are mentioned frequently, and doubtless imitated.

For Martial's conception of himself as a painter of manners, cf. viii. 3, 19 (ad Musam),

'At tu Romano lepidos sale tinge libellos: adgnoscat mores vita legatque suos. Angusta cantare licet videaris avena, dum tua multorum vincat avena tubas.'