The epigrams below were written by Martial, a Spanish poet of ancient Rome who lived in the First Century A.D. at a time when love relationships between men were accepted within the range of the norm, especially those involving older men who, it was felt, had earned the right of choice as many had been or were still married and the fathers of children, having thus contributed to the perpetuation of Roman society. This was directly related to a lingering influence of the Greeks, who had no word for "homosexual," but who recognized the glandular impetus of certain men toward their own sex. Both cultures were generally respectful of it and even glorified the attraction of younger men to the wisdom acquired from life experience they found in older men. I hear repeatedly from Foxy Kits that they are attracted as much to the mind of a Silverfox as to his physical maturity.The Likeness
This portrait which I treasure so
Is Marcus painted long ago
When he was young and gay and fair,
Who now is old with silvered hair.Would that the artist's brush could bind
In paint the beauties of his mind,
For then, I swear, the world today
No rarer picture could display.(The above, Epigram 10, 32, appears in translation by Brian Hill in "The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse." All the following epigrams are from the Loeb Classical Library, Martial Epigrams, Vol.1. Translations by D.R. Shackleton Bailey.)
Liber I, XCVI (Book One, 96)
If it's not too much trouble and you don't mind, please, my limping verse, say a few words in friend Maternus' ear, so that he is the only one to hear them. That lover of sad-colored cloaks, who goes about in Baetic wool or grey, thinks people who wear scarlet unmanly, and calls violet clothes dress for women, though he praise native stuff and be always somberly attired - his morals are green. He will ask how I come to suspect the man of effeminacy. We bathe together. He never looks up, but watches the athletes with devouring eyes and his lips work as he gazes at their cocks. Who is it, you ask? The name has escaped me.
Liber II, LXI (Book 2, 61)
In the springtime of your cheeks when the down was still dubious, your shameless tongue licked male middles. Now that your sorry head has earned the scorn of undertakers and the disgust of a wretched executioner, you use your mouth otherwise; delighted by excess of spite, you bark at whatever name is put to you. Better that your noxious tongue stick to genitals. It was cleaner when it sucked.
Liber II, LXII (Book 2, 62)
You pluck your chest and your shins and your arms, and your shaven cock is ringed with short hairs. This, Libienus, you do for your mistress' sake, as everybody knows. For whose sake, Labienus, do you shave your ass?
Liber II, LXX
You don't like anyone to wash in the bath tub before yourself, Cotilus. What is the reason except that you would rather not be washed by irrumated water? But though you are first in the bath, it needs must be that your cock is washed here before your head.
Liber II, LXXXIX (Book 2,89)
You enjoy stretching the evening with overmuch wine. That I forgive you; you have Cato's bad habit, Gaurus. You write verses without Apollo and the Muses. You deserve praise; this habit you have of Cicero's. Your vomiting: a way of Antony's. Your extravagance: of Apicius's. Your sucking: tell me, whose bad habit is that?
Liber III, LXXXVIII (Book 3, 88)
They are twin brothers, but they lick different organs. Say, are they more like or unlike?
Liber I, LVIII (Book 1, 58)
The salesman asked me a hundred thousand for a boy. I laughed, but Phoebus gave it right away. My cock is hurt and grumbles about me to himself, and Phoebus gets a commendation at my expense. But Phoebus' cock presented him with a tidy two million.* Give me that much, you, and I'll go higher.
(*Phoebus received the two million from screwing an old widower.)
Vol. 2., Book 6, 36
So large is your cock, Papylus, and so long your nose, that you can sniff it whenever you are erect.
Vol 1., Book 2, 51
Often you have one silver coin in your entire strongbox, Hyllus, and that worn smoother than your ass. And yet you won't lose it to the baker or innkeeper, but to someone with a big cock. Your unfortunate belly watches your ass' banquet. The one hungers miserably all the time, the other guzzles.
