Poems... who said poems had to be sickly and sweet! Martial launches his verbal attacks on various members of the Roman community - including a would-be poet and a woman with false teeth. No wonder he almost gets punched!

Martial, always one to butter-up the Emperors, changes his tone with praise of Domitian's palace on the Palatine Hill, causing our Glabrio to take action... And Diaulus, a doctor, sees his reputation go down the drain!

Six of the best from Martial! Book-sellers, snobbish readers, plug-uglies and doctors all get a verbal lashing in these poems known as epigrams - short, carefully wrought pieces, usually with a twist in the tail.