Martial's Epigrams Book Two

This edition provides an English translation of and detailed commentary on the second book of epigrams published by the Latin poet Marcus Valerius Martialis. This new commentary carefully illuminates the allusions to people, places, things, and cultural practices of late first-century Rome that pervade Martial's poetry. It analyzes the epigrammatist's poems as literary creations, treating such topics as the structure of the individual poems and of the book as a whole, and the influence of earlier texts on Martial's language and themes.