ABSTRACT
Epigram 4.39 refers to Charinus, an ardent collector of antique works of art. Undoubtedly, the name is fictitious and Charinus probably a stereotype. The emphasis of the epigram is not on collecting per se; Charinus is 'attacked' mainly on the grounds of his private life. He has collected all silver plate, he alone possesses antique works of art by Myron, Praxiteles, Scopas, Phidias and Mentor. He owns genuine works of Grattius, gold-inlaid dishes and ancestral tables. Martial is feigning surprise, that a rich connoisseur of wrought objets d'art and tableware has no argentum punan (pure silver) in his collection. Sullivan (1991: 246-7) argues that this point has direct sexual connotations. The epigram projects the picture of a passionate relationship between the collector and his objects. The use of the words 'all', 'alone' (repeated four times), 'lack', 'collected' and 'owns' are used by Martial consciously to make a point about both Charinus and his collecting activities. They sketch the picture of a man who strives towards his completion and his purification through collecting a 'complete' as well as 'unique' set of the much-admired tokens of the antique, with all their connotations. Very much in the spirit of the theory of contemporary collecting research, Martial suggests that collecting is for Charinus a mechanism of compensation for his lost purity, along with a powerful symbol of his personal inadequacies. The objects selected and collected participate, in other words, in a process of narcissistic projection on behalf of Charinus: he extends himself to the very limits of his collection and he collects his ideal self which, as Martial ruthlessly unveils, far exceeds the actual personal quality of the collector.
