Martial, Spain, and the dancers from Gades
Travel and identity in Flavian epigram
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20062029 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sarah H Blake, Sarah Blake (0000-0001-7286-3137, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Pages | 157-174 |
| Publication date | 2021-08-06 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Travel, Geography, and Empire in Latin Poetry (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.4324/9781003120773-9-9 |
| OpenAlex | W3190151607 |
| ISBN | 9781003120773 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
This paper examines Martial’s epigrams on Spain and on his own Spanishness alongside his epigrams that refer to the Gaditanae, female dancers from Gades [modern Cádiz]. Martial positions himself throughout his corpus as an author in motion around Rome, Italy, and back and forth to Spain. His epigram books are figured as physical objects providing pleasure as they travel around the empire. Like the epigrams, the dancers from Gades are depicted as multiple and mobile, exchangeable and consumable. In Epigram 11.16, in possibly the only occasion on which his poetry is characterized as female, Martial imagines his own poetry as moving and sounding like the Gaditanae. The dancers from Gades embody Martial’s claim for his poetry as irresistibly seductive to all. This intriguing parallel between Martial and the Gaditanae alerts us to the elasticity of the idea of Spain and Spanishness in the epigrams, and to the potential for epigram as a genre to move between various and even contradictory identities
Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Geography · Visual arts · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical and Architectural Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History
| Citations per year | 0.67 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |