Molorchus Got Wealthy? A Note on Martial Epigrams 4.64

Abstract This paper re-evaluates the meaning and implication of a puzzling phrase in Martial Epigrams 4.64 in which the poet’s friend Julius Martialis is compared to a wealthy Molorchus. The phrase has attracted comment because that figure is paradigmatically associated with his poverty, especially by Martial’s contemporary Statius, and the reference to wealth is most commonly said to stem from a desire not to offend Martialis by associating him with poverty. Responding to a trend in scholarship that foregrounds intratextual connections in epigram, this paper argues instead that Martial’s Molorchus belongs to a sequence of poems in book four on the proper and improper use of wealth and that his newfound wealth is best explained as a counterpart to socially abusive figures like the notorious parvenu Zoilus whose presence recurs in Martial’s Epigrams.