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Marcus Valerius Martialis

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Marcus Valerius Martialis, known in English as Martial, was a Latin poet from present-day Spain, best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between 86 and 103 C.E. Martial is considered the father of the modern epigram; his short, witty poems—1,561 in all—provide a brief, vivid, and often extraordinarily humorous portrait of members of the Roman populace. 

Martial wrote a number of epigrams for emperors, generals, and heroes, among others, but what perhaps marks him as the most innovative epigrammatist in ancient history is that he also frequently took ordinary people as his subjects. Martial wrote epigrams on slaves and senators alike, and his work surveys and satirizes every level of the Roman social strata. 

Martial's epigrams, with their brevity and wit, have often fared better in translation and over the centuries than the dense epics and lyrics of his fellow ancient Romans. He remains one of the most enduringly popular of all Latin poets, and he is credited, to this day, as one of the most influential satirical poets of all time.

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Ryan Holiday
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