An oldie: Martial 1.41

A translation I originally posted early in this blog’s history (2015) and not included in the selection published by The World’s Classics.

You think you’re smart, Caecilius. Trust me: you’re not. So what are you? A troll. A bridge-and-tunnel hawker who barters yellow sulphur matches for broken glassware — that’s what you are. The bloke who sells soggy chickpeas to the tourists — that’s what you are. 

That’s you — the jumped-up snake-charmer, 

That’s you — the vile spawn of the salt-vendors,

That’s you — the bawling cook who touts charred sausages round the cheap tavernas, 

That’s you — a pasquinader, and second-rate at that,  

That’s you — a Cadiz whoremonger, 

That’s you — the big mouth of a clapped-out poof. 

So stop thinking you’re something, Caecilius: no-one else does. Reckon your jokes outperform Gabba, even Tettius Caballus? It’s not just anyone who gets to have style. The man whose ‘jokes’ are stupid smut doesn’t have sass; he’s just an ass.

Reddit AMA on Martial

This is from a few years back, when the World's Classics translation was freshly out. Newer readers might find it interesting background.
https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/41uff1/i_am_gideon_nisbet_classics_professor_and_editor/

An elephant at Rome

9.285

Philip of Thessalonica, anthologist and poet of the first century AD, witnesses an imperial triumph or pageant:

No longer, tower-girt and phalanx-bred,

The elephant with its prodigious tusk

Charges unchecked and eagerly to fight.

He sets his stout neck fearful to the yoke,

And draws the car of Caesar deified.

Even a beast can see the fruits of peace:

He casts aside the gear of bloody war,

Escorts the father of good governance.

The Greek Anthology at Thinktank, Birmingham

A couple of weeks ago I took a selection from my selection from the Greek Anthology to this:

https://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/thinktank/whats-on/thinktank-lates-with-the-university-of-birmingham

It was great fun! I walked people round a couple of the rooms, repurposing modern science exhibits as ancient sites and structures on which to pin the Anthology's little texts. I'd had the opportunity to plan some routes before hand (thanks, Thinktank!) and though I didn't use all of them, it gave me enough structure that I could improvise for the particular twos and threes of people I was catering for. Almost all the other University of Birmingham contributors were from the sciences (and were amazing) and I was pleased to have the chance to represent literature and the arts.

Taking these poems to an interested, non-specialist public with no educational background in classics, and seeing and hearing them 'get it', was a wonderful experience. It has filled me with enthusiasm for finding new audiences for this amazing ancient material.