Waterscape with Black and White: Epigrams, Cycles, and Webs in Martial's Epigrammaton liber quartus

Martial's twelve Epigrammaton libri have been described as a receptacle for previously published poems or groups of poems. An examination of themes, motifs, and leitmotifs in Book 4, however, reveals that there are many different types of connections between individual poems and cycles. Inner cohesion in Martial's works is considerably more pronounced than has often been supposed. Furthermore, the book context of each epigram can imply metapoetic statements and, thus, influences the readers' reception of the respective poem. Given the close-knit web that spans and supports Book 4, it seems unlikely that the eighty-nine epigrams of the liber quartus ever appeared anywhere other than together in this book.