Prayer to Apollo
ApolloAn offering I gladly give You, Phoebus, a box of fragrant incense, from Palatinu Parthenius on behalf of his son.
An epigram of Martial: Parthenius, Domitian's all-powerful chamberlain, offers incense to Phoebus on behalf of his son Burrus, who is turning five.
Only the opening couplet survives in this card, but the opening is the interesting part. A court poem takes the form of a votive inscription: Martial writes exactly the words Parthenius would have had cut in stone — "these gifts so-and-so brings you on behalf of so-and-so". Poetry doing the work of epigraphy.
The request itself comes later, beyond this card: that the god lengthen the boy's years, and let the father live to see them.
Fons · Source
AuthorMartial
WorkEpigrammata
Section4.45.1-2
Period1st c. AD
Classificatio · Taxonomy