Although they wrote in different genres - Martial was a master of the epigram, while Petronius wrote something resembling a modern novel - the works of these first century CE authors are both written in language that is closer to the street than to the elevated diction of Cicero or Vergil. They are also full of amusing and incisive observations on the daily lives of ordinary, non-elite Romans - their jealousies and desires, their occupations and preoccupations, their dining tastes and favorite entertainments, their philosophies of life and views on death.