Social Commentaries
On the Spectacles, 3 (Ker)
Translated by Walter C. A. Ker (1919–20) · From Epigrams (Loeb, 1919–20)
What race is set so far, what race so barbarous, Caesar, wherefrom a spectator is not in thy city? There has come the farmer of Rhodope from Orphic Haemus, there has come too the Sarmatian fed on draughts of horses' blood, and he who quaffs at its spring the stream of first-found Nile, and he whose shore the wave of farthest Tethys beats; the Arab has sped, Sabaeans have sped, and Cilicians have here been drenched in their own saffron dew. With hair twined in a knot have come Sygambrians, and, with locks twined elsewise, Aethiopians. Diverse sounds the speech of the peoples, yet then is it one when thou art acclaimed thy country's Father true.
This translation is printed as prose in its source edition.
Cite this poem
MLA
Martial. “On the Spectacles, 3 (Ker).” Translated by Walter C. A. Ker. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/martial/303/.
Chicago
Martial. “On the Spectacles, 3 (Ker).” Translated by Walter C. A. Ker. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/martial/303/.
Read this poem with the Codex →