Abstract

In the traditional view, Martial’s epigram 9. 33 makes fun of a fictive character named Maro, who - thanks to his oversized phallus - is applauded in the baths. This paper argues that the real concern of the poem are not physical body parts, but a literary corpus of obscene texts featuring the notorious mentula, namely the Priapea attributed to P. Vergilius Maro.