Laudator Temporis Acti

Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen, "McCain unsure how many houses he owns," Politico (August 21, 2008):

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."

Martial 7.73 (tr. D.R. Shackleton Bailey):

You have a house on the Esquiline, and a house on Diana’s hill, and Patrician Row has a roof of yours. From one you view the shrine of bereaved Cybele, from another that of Vesta, from this Jupiter’s new temple, from that the old one. Tell me where I am to meet you, in what quarter to look for you. Who lives everywhere, Maximus, lives nowhere.

Esquiliis domus est, domus est tibi colle Dianae,
    et tua Patricius culmina vicus habet;
hinc viduae Cybeles, illinc sacraria Vestae,
    inde novum, veterem prospicis inde Iovem.
dic ubi conveniam, dic qua te parte requiram:
    quisquis ubique habitat, Maxime, nusquam habitat.

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Dear Mike,

I rather like the Bostonian transposition by Dudley Fitts in Sixty Poems of Martial (New York, Harcourt Brace & World, 1967, p.63), where the verses bear the title '... Are Many Mansions':

That's a fine place you have on Beacon Hill, Max,
and that unlisted duplex out Huntington Avenue,
and the old homestead in Tewksbury.
                                                 From one you can see
the big gilt dome; the second
gives you an uninterrupted ecstatic view
of the Mother Church; the third
commands the County Poorhouse.
                                         And you
invite me to dinner?
                         There?
                                  There?
                                           Or there?
Max, a man who lives everywhere
                                          lives nowhere.

As ever,

Ian [Jackson]