Martial's poems carne to fill a gap caused by the decadence
of traditional dramatic gemes, like tragedy and specially comedy: the
Roman audience no longer appreciated those gemes. Besides parodying the
mythological themes, the unusual and complicated words, and seriousness
of tragedy, as well as the three-actor rule, Martial criticised the practice,
adopted by contemporary poets, of writing epistles similar to dramatic
prefaces: nevertheless our author justifies some of his poetic options in his
epistles. The "realism", on drawing characters and situations, comes from
observing the everyday life: he doesn't care about everything he sees, but,
like comedy, only the laughable part of reality. The mime inspired Martial's
latine laqui and our poet is one exceptional example of the Roman genius
that diluted the limits of reality and art.