About the book: 1968 / “In them, life itself says: this is me,” Martial wrote about his epigrams. Indeed, Martial’s poetic world is limited to the everyday life of contemporary imperial Rome. However, his powers of observation, which allowed the poet to snatch funny details and amusing characters from the very thick of life, his wit, and the refined form of his verse, made his epigrams one of the most remarkable monuments of Latin poetry. [In this file, with the help of http://ancientrome.ru, all 88 excised from editions of Martial's epigrams, they are marked with an asterisk.]