Let flattery fly to Parthia. Rome is no place for her (ib. 4). Martial had made his name: he was read far and wide throughout the Empire.[646] He could afford to retire from the city that had given him much fame and much pleasure, but had balanced its gifts by a thousand vexations and indignities. Pliny assisted him with journey-money, and after a thirty-four years' sojourn in Italy he returned to Bilbilis to live a life of _dolce far niente_. The kindness of a wealthy friend, a Spanish lady named Marcella,[647] gave him an estate on which he lived in comfort, if not in affluence. He published but one book in Spain, the twelfth, written, he says in the preface, in a very few days. He lived in peace and happiness, though at times he sighed for the welcome of the public for whom he had catered so long,[648] and chafed under the lack of sympathy and culture among his Spanish neighbours.[649] He died in 104. 'Martial is dead,' says Pliny, 'and I am grieved to hear it. He was a man of genius, with a shrewd and vigorous wit. His verses are full of point and sting, and as frank as they are witty. I provided him with money for his journey when he left Rome; I owed it to my friendship for him, and to the verses which he wrote in my honour'--then follows Mart. x. 20--'Was I not right to speed him on his way, and am I not justified in mourning his death, seeing that he wrote thus concerning me? He gave me what he could, he would have given more had he been able. And yet what greater gift can one man give another than by handing down his name and fame to all eternity. I hear you say that Martial's verses will not live to all eternity? You may be right; at any rate, he hoped for their immortality when he wrote them' (Plin. _Ep._ iii. 21). Of Martial's character we shall have occasion to speak later. There is nothing in the slight, but generous, tribute of Pliny that has to be unsaid.