My monograph, Martial’s Readers, Rome’s Audiences, examines Martial’s use of figures for audiences in the epigrams. Martial’s abstract concept of the general reader is shaped by concrete topographical and social functions of the city of Rome. While at the Academy, I plan to finish existing chapters on public entertainment, epigrams “in the wild” (e.g., graffiti), Saturnalia, and women readers, especially with a view to topographical context. I also plan to complete a chapter on Martial’s use of epitaphs as a model for his reading and the ways in which they suggest strategies to Martial for the challenges facing an author who wants to address an anonymous general public. To do this, I would like to be able to walk among extant monuments, both in situ and in museums, and emulate the experience of the average, anonymous Roman passerby confronted by tombstones competing for his or her attention.

The portrait of Patricia Larash was painted by Rome Prize Fellow David Humphrey in 2009.