Epigram

An epigram is a short poem with a clever twist at the end or a concise and witty statement. They are among the best examples of the power of poetry to compress insight and wit.

Ancient Roman

Roman epigrams owe much to their Greek predecessors and contemporaries. Roman epigrams, however, were more often satirical than Greek ones, and at times used obscene language for effect. Latin epigrams could be composed as inscriptions or graffiti, such as this one from Pompeii, which exists in several versions and seems from its inexact meter to have been composed by a less educated person. Its content, of course, makes it clear how popular such poems were:

Related Topics:
Graffiti - Pompeii

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::Admiror, O paries, te non cecidisse ruinis

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::qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas.

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::I'm astonished, wall, that you haven't collapsed into ruins,

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::since you're holding up the weary verse of so many poets.

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However, in the literary world, epigrams were most often gifts to patrons or entertaining verse to be published, not inscriptions. Many Roman writers seem to have composed epigrams, including Domitius Marsus, whose collection 'Cicuta' (now lost) was named after the poisonous hemlock tree for its biting wit, and Lucan, more famous for his epic Pharsalia. Authors whose epigrams survive include Catullus, who wrote both invectives and love epigrams-- his poem 85 is one of the latter.

Related Topics:
Domitius Marsus - Hemlock - Lucan - Pharsalia - Catullus

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::Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris.

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:: Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.

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:: I hate and I love. Perhaps you're asking how I do this?

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:: I don't know, but I feel it happening, and it's torture.

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The master of the Latin epigram, however, is Martial. His technique relies heavily on the satirical poem with a joke in the last line, thus drawing him closer to the modern idea of epigram as a genre. Here he defines his genre against a (probably fictional) critic (in the latter half of 2.77):

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::Disce quod ignoras: Marsi doctique Pedonis

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::saepe duplex unum pagina tractat opus.

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::Non sunt longa quibus nihil est quod demere possis,

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::sed tu, Cosconi, disticha longa facis.

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::Learn what you don't know: one work of (Domitius) Marsus or learned Pedo

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::often stretches out over a doublesided page.

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::A work isn't long if you can't take anything out of it,

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::but you, Cosconius, write even a couplet too long.

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