This paper deals with the text of Mart. VIII 3,19. Most modern editors print at tu Romano lepidos sale tinge libellos, preserved in the second manuscript family. However, a new collation of the codex Thuaneus, a witness of the first family, reveals the reading Romanos lepido sale … libellos, which could be an elegant transformation of the epic expression tepido sanguine tingere, appropriate for a programmatic epigram which interacts with Augustan models.