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Martial's Fascination with Lusci

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Patricia A. Watson
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Extract

Readers of Martial may be struck by the frequency with which one-eyed people make their appearance in the epigrams. Sometimes the deformity is satirized in conjunction with a moral failing, as for instance in the case of the one-eyed drunkard (6.78) who prefers his wine to his eyesight (and so, by continuing to imbibe against medical advice, loses the vision of his remaining eye). On other occasions, the physical defect itself gives rise to a witticism which forms the focal point of the poem. A striking example is the neat couplet 3.8: ‘“Thaida Quintusamat.” “Quam Thaida?” “Thaida luscam.” /Unum oculum Thais non habet, ille duos’, where the erotic commonplace of the lover who is ‘blind’ to his beloved's faults is given a novel twist by the suggestion that Quintus must be literally blind to love the repulsive Thais.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , April 1982 , pp. 71 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1982

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References

Notes

1. Luscus can mean either ‘having one eyeball missing’ (e.g. Plaut. Trin. 465, Mart. 8.59.1, Juv. 7.128) or ‘blind in one eye’ (e.g. Mart. 6.78.2, Juv. 10.158).

2. Lusci are found in 12 epigrams; the only physical peculiarity that Martial satirizes more frequently is baldness (14 examples).

3. E.g. Lucr. 4.1153, Hor. Sat. 1.3.39; cf. Plato, , Rep. 474dGoogle Scholar, Ov. A.A. 2.657 ff.

4. Cf. Krauss, F. B., CW 38 (1944), 19Google Scholar.

5. Ridicule of physical appearance was, for instance, a stock tool of invective (see Nisbet, R. G. M. on Cicero, , In Pisonem (Oxford, 1961), p. 194)Google Scholar.

6. Note that many names have to do with the eyes. Pliny, , N.H. 11.55.150Google Scholar, lists Strabo, Paetus, Codes, Ocella and Luscinus; we might add Caecilius (cf. Cic. Inv. 2.9.28, Ernout-Meillet s.v. caecus). Compare also the nicknames sometimes given to women, Ravilla and Caesulla (Fest. p. 274 Müll.; for grey eyes as a flaw cf. Lucr. 4.1161 caesia, Ov. A.A. 2.659 rava.).

7. E.g. A.P. 11.110–111, 406, 407 (Nicarchus) and 75–81, 87–95, 99–101, 103–107, 308 (Lucillius).

8. Aristophanes (Eccl. 398 ff., Plut. 665 f.) mocks the short-sighted Neocleides, though he is described as γλάμων (= lippus, not luscus).

9. Bieber, M., The History of the Greek and Roman Theater (2nd. ed., Princeton, 1961), p. 248Google Scholar fig. 820, shows a mask of farce with one eye severely distorted–could this be a luscus?

10. Curculio is so addressed by Lycus (Plaut. Cure. 505). In this connection, it may be remarked that the word luscus itself is ‘low’ in tone, being absent from elevated prose and poetry (cf. its appearance in a Pompeian graffito (CIL 4.1427): ‘Salvia felat Antiochu(m) luscu(m)’).

11. E.g. 5.15.2: ‘queritur laesus carmine nemo meo’, 1 praef. 1–8; 7.12; 10.3, 5, 33. On the malicious intentions of scurrilitas, see Bramble, J. C., Persius and the Programmatic Satire (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 190 fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. Cf. 2.23; 9.95b. Howell, P.A Commentary on Book One of the Epigrams of Martial (London, 1980), pp. 11, 96)Google Scholar assumes that Martial's characters are fictitious; L. Friedlaender, in the introduction to his commentary (Leipzig, 1886), p. 21, expresses the view that the poet had real people in mind.

13. Laelia is presumably an anus. For Martial's frequent attacks on old women who buy teeth and hair, cf. Howell, , op. cit., on 1.19 and 1.72.8Google Scholar.

14. Epigrammatists, like iambists and satirists, defended themselves against the charge of scurrilitas (see Bramble, , op. cit., pp. 190 ff.Google Scholar).

15. At 9.29 the name refers to an old lenma-cum-witch, at 7.67 and 70 Philaenis is an aggressive tribas who also practises cunnilinctus, at 9.40 she is a fellatrix and at 9.62 has an offensive odour. These poems need not refer to the same individual; M. often uses the same name for different: characters (cf. Friedlaender, , op. cit., intro. pp. 21 ff.Google Scholar).

16. Red hair was considered undesirable: cf. Plaut. Ps. 1218, Ter. H.T. 1061.

17. E.g. Hor. Epod 5, 8, 12, 17, Sat. 1.8; see further Howell's introductory remarks on 1.19 and the bibliography cited there.

18. Assuming that (i) she is the same Lycoris as in 1.72 and (ii) the reference to white lead in that poem indicates old age (see the note on 1.72 in the edition of Book 1 by M. Citroni (Florence, 1975)).

19. For another lusca who is also an anus, cf. 12.70.2.

20. On the appearance of lusci, cf. Tacitus' description of Claudius Sanctus: ‘effosso oculo’ dirus ore’ (Hist. 4.62), or look at the illustrations in a modern textbook such asHenderson, J. W., Orbital Tumors (Philadelphia, 1973)Google Scholar.

21. In every case where the origin of the condition is specified, luscus refers to a person who has lost their sight. According to Pliny (N.H. 11.55.150) the word for congenital blindness in a single eye is ‘codes’, though this term occurs in classical Latin only as a proper name.

22. So Dion. Hal. 5.23.2, Plut. Publ. 16.5. An alternative version, recorded by Plutarch (ibid.), was that he received the name because of his flat nose and eyebrows that met, giving him the appearance of the Cyclops.

23. Plaut. Curc. 394 ff. It should be mentioned that this type of injury does not appear in Martial, whose three male lusci are all sufferers from lippitudo.

24. CP 17 (1922), 313 ffGoogle Scholar.

25. Cf.Esser, A. A. M., Das Antlitz der Blindheir in der Antike (Stuttgart, 1939), p. 132Google Scholar.

26. CW 28 (1935), 183Google Scholar.

27. Cf.Spaeth, J. W. Jr, CJ 24 (1929), 365Google Scholar.

28. Cf. Daremberg-Saglio, 2.2., p. 1585.

29. Ibid., p. 1587.

30. A certain resemblance may be detected between a sword and the handled needles used by oculists for illustrations of the latter, seeMilne, J. S., Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times (Oxford, 1907), plate 16 nos. 2 and 7Google Scholar.

31. See Albutt, T. C., Greek Medicine in Rome (London, 1921), p. 450Google Scholar; Scarborough, J., Roman Medicine (London, 1969), pp. 125 ffGoogle Scholar.

32. Ironically, wine is actually recommended as a cure by Hippocrates (Aph. 6.31; cf. Galen's commentary thereon, Vol. 18.1 p. 45 ff. Kühn), though Celsus (6.6.1E) advises abstinence in the acute stages.

33. Cf. Scarborough, , op. cit., p. 102Google Scholar. On the absence of a public health service in Rome, see Gask, G. E. and Todd, J., ‘The Origin of Hospitals’ in Science, Medicine and History ed. Underwood, E. A. (Oxford, 1953), Vol. 1, pp. 122–5Google Scholar.

34. Glass eyes were not available (cf. Mart. 12.23), though the occasional operation was carried out for cosmetic purposes (Celsus, 6.6.9B-C, Paul. Aeg. 6.19).