Martial: how unfair that education doesn't make one rich.

Epigrams by Martial are very instructive for our knowledge of daily life at Rome. I never realized that shoemakers had to chew the leather of old shoes to make it supple again: a repulsive practice especially when the shoe was old and dirty (luto putre: dirty (puter, putre) with mud (lutum). A job not to be envied! However the unknown shoemaker in this epigram has inherited an estate at Praeneste from his patron. Praeneste is a city 25 km eastern of Rome and was a favourite summer resort for wealthy Romans due to it cool breezes.

Martial leaves us in the dark about how this shoemaker was made an heir. Some manuscripts read in line 3 decepti patroni: `deceived patron’ and this is the reading of the text at Perseus, but the text below is from the Latin Library. The translation below follows the reading decepti.

Martial is clearly full of resentment against the shoemaker – or at least pretends to be in this poem – and wonders why he as a well-educated man, living from his poems, ever took up his job as an underpaid poet, whereas an uneducated man could become so rich.  A sentiment still valid today for many educated, but poorly paid writers and scholars.

Martial, book 9, LXXIII

Dentibus antiquas solitus producere pelles

       et mordere luto putre vetusque solum,

Praenestina tenes defuncti rura patroni,

       in quibus indignor si tibi cella fuit;

rumpis et ardenti madidus crystalla Falerno              5

       et pruris domini cum Ganymede tui.

at me litterulas stulti docuere parentes:

       quid cum grammaticis rhetoribusque mihi?

Frange leves calamos et scinde, Thalia, libellos,

       si dare sutori calceus ista potest.              10

solitus: used

produco produxi productum:  (here) to make longer, stretch out

pellis –is (f.): skin, hide

mordeo morsi morsum: to bite

solum: sole of a shoe

rus ruris (n.): lands, estate

indignor  indignatus sum: to deem unworthy, be indignant

cella: cell, small room

rumpo rupi ruptum: to break

madidus: drunk

ardenti Falerno: Falernum was expensive wine. The shoemaker mixes it with hot water – as was common praxis (yuck!) – and so breaks the expensive crystal glass.

prurio: to itch

Ganymedes: a reference to the beautiful young man reaped by Zeus from earth to become his wine –pourer. Here also used for toy-boy.

litterula: literary learning

docuere = docuerunt

quid cum...mihi: what have I to do with, wat use was it for me

frango fregi fractum: to break

calamus: reed, pen

Thalia: the muse of poetry

scindo scidi scissum:  to tear

sutor –is (m.): shoe-maker

calceus:  shoe, half-boot

Translation: Bohn's Classical Library (1897), adapted by Roger Pearse (2008).

You, whose business it once was to stretch old skins with your teeth, and to bite old soles of shoes besmeared with mud, now enjoy the lands of your deluded patron at Praeneste, where you are not worthy to occupy even a stall. Intoxicated with strong Falernian wine, too, you dash in pieces the crystal cups, and plunge yourself in debauchery with your patron's favourite. As for me, my foolish parents taught me letters. What did I want with grammarians and rhetoricians? Break up, my muse, your flowing pen, and tear up your books, if a shoe can secure such enjoyments to a cobbler.