Plautus' Erudite Comedy: New Insights into the Work of a doctus poeta 1527545660, 9781527545663

Citation preview

Copyright 2020. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy: New Insights into the Work of a doctus poeta Edited by

Sophia Papaioannou and Chrysanthi Demetriou

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy: New Insights into the Work of a doctus poeta Edited by Sophia Papaioannou and Chrysanthi Demetriou This book first published 2020 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2020 by Sophia Papaioannou, Chrysanthi Demetriou and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-4566-0 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-4566-3

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Illustrations and Tables.............................................................................. vii Preface and Acknowledgements ................................................................. ix Abbreviations ............................................................................................. xi Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Plautus Doctus Sophia Papaioannou and Chrysanthi Demetriou PART I: ADAPTATION AND INNOVATION Chapter One ............................................................................................... 23 Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio Sophia Papaioannou Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 51 What’s New? The Possibilities of Novelty in Plautus’ Casina Emilia A. Barbiero PART II: ETHNOGRAPHY Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 75 Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy: The Case of Hanno in Poenulus Peter Barrios-Lech Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 121 Munchausen in Rome: Plautine Braggarts and Hellenistic Storytelling Ioannis M. Konstantakos Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 153 Plautus and Greekness Gesine Manuwald

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

vi

Table of Contents

PART III: PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, RELIGION Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 175 Friends without Benefits? Philosophical Dimensions of Plautus’ Conception of Friendship Ruth R. Caston Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 195 Twins in Plautus: A Dramatic Motif in Cultural Context Chrysanthi Demetriou Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 217 Meaningful Mispronunciations: Religious Parody in Plautus’ Cistellaria 512-27 Seth A. Jeppesen PART IV: LITERARY HISTORY Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 239 Before Pussy Riot: Free Speech and Censorship in the Age of Plautus Michael Fontaine Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 265 Plautus and the Origins of Roman Satire Ariana Traill Bibliography ............................................................................................ 287 General Index .......................................................................................... 327 Index Locorum ........................................................................................ 331 Contributors ............................................................................................. 349

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES

Fig. 9-1 .................................................................................................... 247 Line drawings of a small bronze bust inscribed “Sotades”, from Anatolia, Eskiúehir Archaeological Museum, inventory number A-283-67. Provenance unknown, but probably of Hadrianic date (120-130 CE) or a little later. Credit: Lucy Plowe, after Peege and Frei 2001. © Michael Fontaine, 2017. Fig. 9-2 .................................................................................................... 253 A charioteer grips the kentron in his right hand. Terracotta Panathenaic prize amphora ca. 520 BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accession Number 56.171.4 Credit Line: Fletcher Fund, 1956. Free, unrestricted reproduction: http://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/gr/original/DP227372.jpg. Table 8-1.................................................................................................. 230 Select Testimonia for Temples or Shrines of Ops at Rome.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The present volume originates from the international workshop “Plautus Doctus: Plautine Comedy and Its Intellectual Context”, held at the Swedish Archaeological Institute at Athens (SIA) on 20 and 21 June 2016, and set out to re-examine Plautus’ work as the first extant witness of Rome’s middle republican milieu and explore various cases through which Plautine comedy interacts with contemporary intellectual and cultural issues and debates. Eight of the ten chapters in the collection are thoroughly revised versions of papers originally delivered at the workshop. The workshop was organized by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Department of Classics, home institution of one of the editors of the volume with the support of the Swedish Institute at Athens. Our superb host, Professor Jenny Wallensten, the director of the SIA, embraced our collaboration with enthusiasm and generously offered the space and the facilities of the Institute for two days of intense and fruitful discussion. To her and to the staff of the Swedish Institute of Athens the volume editors would like to express their gratitude. As editors and students of Plautus and Roman Comedy, we have been blessed to reap the benefits from our collaboration with a group of insightful critics who deeply respect Plautus’ dramaturgy and his contribution to Roman culture, and we are grateful to all contributors in this collection for their insightful readings, their superb cooperation and above all their patience. We are grateful to Peter Barrios-Lech and Mike Fontaine, who eagerly accepted our invitation to join the project and complement it with original and groundbreaking ideas. We would additionally like to single out for thanks the remaining panelists from the workshop, Evangelos Karakasis and Katerina Kounaki-Philippides, whose contributions of scholarship and insight informed the subsequent design of the volume in important implicit ways. We also wish to thank Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and in particular the editors of the Classics Series Pierides, Professors Philip Hardie, Stratis Kyriakidis and Antonis Petrides, for offering an excellent home for this volume. Special thanks are to be offered to Antonis Petrides, who read earlier versions of the introduction, and offered valuable advice that helped improve the entire project. Thanks are also due to the anonymous referees for the press, who have made several very helpful

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

x

Preface and Acknowledgements

suggestions on the individual articles of the volume, and to the editorial team of CSP and the Pierides Series, for their support and prompt assistance throughout the publication process. A certain level of formatting standardization has been imposed to ensure consistency across the volume, but individual stylistic distinctiveness has been respected. This book is intended for the specialist scholars of Roman Comedy but also for the graduate students working in the fields of Classics and Literary History. All long quotations of Greek and Latin are translated. Athens and Nicosia, November 2019 S. Papaioannou Ch. Demetriou

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

ABBREVIATIONS

Blänsdorf = FPL4:

FGrH: FRL I

FRL II

Jocelyn: K.-A.: Kock: Koster:

Lenfant:

Blänsdorf, Jürgen. ed. 2011. Fragmenta Poetarum Latinorum Epicorum et Lyricorum Praeter Enni Annales et Ciceronis Germanicique Aratea post W. Morel et K. Büchner editionem quartam auctam curavit J. B. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter. Jacoby, Felix. ed. 1923-. Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Berlin: Weidmann. Goldberg, Sander M., and Manuwald, Gesine. ed. and transl. 2018. Ennius. Fragmentary Republican Latin, Volume I: Ennius, Testimonia. Epic Fragments. Loeb Classical Library 294. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Goldberg, Sander M., and Manuwald, Gesine. ed. and transl. 2018. Ennius. Fragmentary Republican Latin, Volume II: Ennius, Dramatic Fragments. Minor Works. Loeb Classical Library 537. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jocelyn, Henry David. 1967. The Tragedies of Ennius. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kassel, Rudolf, and Austin, Colin. eds. 1983-2001. Poetae Comici Graeci. Vols. I-VIII. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. Kock, Theodor. 1880-1888. Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta. 3 volumes. Bibliotheca Teubneriana. Leipzig: Teubner. Koster, Willem J. W. ed. 1975. Prolegomena De Comoedia; Scholia in Acharnenses, Equites, Nubes. Fasc. IA Continens Prolegomena de Comoedia. Groningen: Bouma’s Boekhuis. Lenfant, Dominique. 2004. Ctésias de Cnide. La Perse. L’Inde. Autres fragments. Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l’Association Guillaume Budé. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

xii

LS Meineke: PEG:

Powell

R2

Skutsch SV SVF TrGF: TrRF:

Abbreviations

Long, Anthony A., and Sedley, David. eds. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meineke, August. 1839-1857. Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum (FCG). 5 volumes. Berlin: G. Reimer. Bernabé, Albertus. ed. 1996. Poetae Epici Graeci. Testimonia et Fragmenta. Pars I: Poetarum epicorum Graecorum testimonia et fragmenta. Bibliotheca Teubneriana. Leipzig: Teubner. Powell, John U. ed. 1925. Collectanea Alexandrina: reliquiae minores poetarum Graecorum aetatis Ptolemaicae, 323-146 A.C., epicorum, elegiacorum, lyricorum, ethicorum. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ribbeck, Otto. 1871. Scaenicae Romanorum poesis fragmenta: Tragicorum Romanorum fragmenta. Bibliotheca Teubneriana. Second edition. Leipzig: Teubner. Skutsch, Otto. 1985. The Annals of Ennius. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Epicurus, Sententiae Vaticanae von Arnim, Hans. ed. 1903-1905; 1924. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta. 4 volumes. Leipzig: Teubner. Kannicht, Richard, Snell, Bruno, and Radt, Stefan. Eds. 1971-2004. Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. 5 vols. Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht. Schauer, Markus. ed. 2012. Tragicorum Romanorum Fragmenta, Vol. I. Livius Andronicus. Naevius. Tragici Minores. Fragmenta Adespota. Göttingen: Vandernhoeck & Ruprecht; Manuwald, Gesine. ed. 2012. Tragicorum Romanorum Fragmenta, Vol. II. Ennius. Göttingen: Vandernhoeck & Ruprecht.

Abbreviations for journal titles generally follow the system used in L’Année Philologique; lists of standard abbreviations for classical authors and works can be found in LSJ and the OLD.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

xiii

Note on the Critical Editions of the Texts Cited Unless otherwise noted, Plautus’ text follows Lindsay (1904-1905) or de Melo’s (2011-2013) Loeb. Terence’s plays are quoted from the OCT edition of Kauer and Lindsay (1961). Menander’s texts follow the following editions: Dyskolos: Arnott (1979); Epitrepontes: Furley (2009); Samia: Arnott (2000). The texts and translations of Kolax and Misoumenos are those of Arnott (1996b). Plautus’ translations follow Wolfgang de Melo, unless otherwise specified. Translations of other sources either are the authors’ own or follow the authors’ individual choices and when so, clearly noted.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

INTRODUCTION PLAUTUS DOCTUS SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU AND CHRYSANTHI DEMETRIOU

This book, building upon recent innovative studies and following a remarkable revival of interest in Plautus, presents a collection of original essays that contribute to a developing appreciation of Plautus’ comedy as a multi-faceted text that engages in a creative dialogue with various contemporary intellectual and cultural issues. As suggested by the title, the studies in this volume approach Plautus as a ‘learned’ poet, and a skilful and cunning playwright who transformed and composed his materia in a clever way, docte.1 Thus, the following studies approach Plautus’ work not as an exclusively theatrical—or improvisatory—creation nor as a solely popular performative event addressing the masses. This volume instead focuses on several aspects of Plautus’ literary interests, which often stand in a creative dialogue with important contemporary cultural developments. In this context, the term doctus, as used in the subtitle, does not exclusively indicate the ideal poeta doctus of Alexandrian tradition. While it certainly points to Plautus as an ‘erudite’ poet, it simultaneously identifies and highlights broader qualities of Plautus’ poetic output, so as to argue convincingly that the twenty-one plays surviving under his name comprise the oeuvre of a dramatist remarkably skilled and deeply informed of both literary and cultural institutions.2 Along these lines, this

 1

Cf. Plautus’ use of the term doctus in association with dolus, a term related to plays-within-the-plays and intrigues, as for instance in Mil. 147, where the servus callidus Palaestrio boasts that he will deceive his victim doctis dolis. 2 See the illuminating discussion of the use of term in various literary references by Habinek 1998, 123-126; note especially his discussion about the use of the term in Ennius’ Annales (p. 124): “When Ennius describes the good friend of the Roman aristocrat as doctus he means not only that the friend is well-informed but also that he is capable of applying his knowledge in making judgments or offering advice

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

2

Introduction

volume aims to confirm that Plautus’ comedy is docta not only for its knowledge and use of the literary tradition (in its various genres, from drama and satire to philosophical writing and travel legends) but also for its adroit exploitation of various contemporary intellectual trends, cultural vogues, ideological issues and other themes of cultural significance. Given that the Plautine corpus is the earliest surviving literary output by a single Latin author, the studies of this volume aspire to examine comprehensively the first complete expression of the intellectual reception of Hellenistic culture at Rome, and illustrate the complexity of this process. Thus, naturally, part of the book revisits Plautus’ interaction with the earlier dramatic tradition. Some of the papers trace how Plautus’ scripts illustrate his insightful reading of New Comedy even at those points where he pointedly deviates. Significantly, earlier drama—along with other forms of literary production—is explored as a source for inspiring learned compositions that bear Plautus’ individual poetic imprint. However, beyond the (re)examination of Plautus’ relationship to Hellenistic literature and culture, the volume also includes studies that look at the way in which contemporary discussions on various topics, such as the popularization of science and medicine, the reaction to the Romanization of Greek philosophy, or the Roman attitudes towards philosophy in general, are articulated not just on the Roman comic stage, but more generally in the earliest extant literary expressions of crosscultural reception that builds on aemulatio. Plautus’ reaction to contemporary religion as a cultural product subjected to evolution and stirring cultural debates is also a topic attracting strong attention. Finally, as the first Latin poet whose work survives in extant form, Plautus is also examined as a major literary figure who influenced the development of Latin literature significantly. Roman Comedy developed in Rome at the same time as many other genres, and an interaction among them is only natural and expected. In this context, the following discussion also points to Plautus’ reception as a major figure of Latin literature, already from an early stage. All in all, this book treats Plautus as a prominent literary figure whose work is pioneering in the development of Latin literature and simultaneously reflective upon ongoing cultural developments, at a time which identifies with a turning point in Roman (literary) history. Although, as shown below, recent scholarship has examined several aspects of Roman comedy’s ‘contexts’ and Plautus’ work, this collection

 about specific problems.” […] “In short, the doctus vir is both learned and discerning.” Cf. the Greek sophos as used by the comic playwrights, discussed in Wright 2012, 25-30.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus Doctus

3

foremost examines Plautus as a competent poet whose oeuvre stands in a fruitful dialogue with critical moments throughout the development of the Roman history of ideas. Along these lines, while all studies of this book offer close-readings of Plautus’ comedies, they do not simply offer isolated interpretations of the texts under examination but are set to place these interpretations into a ‘framework.’ In this context, as noted, this collection aims to confirm that Plautus’ erudite work does not only correspond with matters of literary history but also succeeds in turning various intellectual and social matters into a multi-faceted poetic composition. *

*

*

We believe that the publication of this volume is timely. In less than a decade, we witnessed an outburst of scholarly interest in the study of Greek and Roman New Comedy, through the publication of important collective volumes and reference works. The massive Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, the first collective work of this kind, covers, for the first time, various themes of both Greek and Roman comic production, from the beginnings up until its revival in Late antiquity and related genres.3 As to the best-known representative of Greek New Comedy, we have recently seen important edited volumes on Menander. The volume New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy, edited by Petrides and Papaioannou, paved the way in accentuating new approaches in the study of New Comedy—primarily Menander—with emphasis on interpretation rather than textual criticism.4 The studies in this volume point to New Comedy both as performance and in relation to its social and cultural context. Another collective volume, edited by Alan Sommerstein (Menander in Contexts),5 aims to place Menandrian comedy into its cultural and literary framework. The volume impacts the study of the history and development of ancient (Greek) comedy overall as it covers a wide range of themes, from Menander’s reflection of contemporary social and intellectual issues to his reception up until the modern stage. The ambitious Encyclopedia of Greek Comedy, a project managed by the same editor, is a monumental work, which stems from the collaboration of many

 3

Fontaine and Scafuro 2014. Petrides and Papaioannou 2010. 5 Sommerstein 2014. 4

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

4

Introduction

international scholars, covering every aspect of the study of Greek comedy.6 On the Latin side, the outburst of scholarship is striking. A number of significant collective volumes have recently appeared, covering different aspects of Roman theatre, either focusing on a specific theme (e.g. Women in Roman Republican Drama),7 or offering a variety of approaches to Latin plays, such as the recent volume Roman Drama and its Contexts in the ‘Trends in Classics’ series,8 which presents a wide range of original studies on all kinds of Latin dramatic genres.9 Contextualization is here taken in its broadest sense: the studies of the volume offer new insights on a wide range of topics, such as the plays’ connection with other literary genres, their dialogue with several cultural and intellectual developments and their reception in later literature. Undoubtedly, this strong interest in Roman theatrical production has been advanced by the publication of the first up-to-date study on Roman theatre by Gesine Manuwald (Roman Republican Theatre),10 which offers a fresh, comprehensive examination of the central aspects of all dramatic genres of the Roman Republic, taking into account the research findings of modern scholarship. Marshall’s earlier study on The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy, although primarily focusing on Plautine drama, opened up new perspectives for a holistic examination of Roman theatrical experience, “[b]y examining the plays as works intended for performance”.11 A few years later, Timothy Moore contributed to the examination of the performance of Roman comedy with a comprehensive study on the plays’ musical elements (the use of tibia, voice and dance, meter and rhythm).12 Roman (Republican) tragedy, for decades mostly neglected in favor of comedy’s fuller and thus more tempting evidence, has finally received a

 6

Sommerstein 2019. Several important monographs on Menander also appeared recently, revisiting various intellectual spectrums of Menandrian comedy: e.g. Nervegna 2013 on Menander’s reception in antiquity, Petrides 2014a on performative contexts, Cinaglia 2014 on Aristotelian analogies. 7 Dutsch, James and Konstan 2015. 8 Frangoulidis, Harrison and Manuwald 2016. 9 For instance, individual contributions discuss several social or philosophical echoes in Plautine comedy (e.g. Slater 2016, on the way Plautus’ Mostellaria mirrors financial practices and philosophical discourses) or complex composition techniques, often in dialogue with the comic tradition (e.g. Konstantakos 2016b on Plautus’ use of folktale and fable material, and Papaioannou 2016 on Plautus’ selfconscious dialogue with dramatic conventions). 10 Manuwald 2011. 11 Marshall 2006, 2. 12 Moore 2012.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus Doctus

5

more comprehensive attention: a new series of editions of Roman tragic texts is under preparation (Tragicorum Romanorum Fragmenta),13 while the first Companion to Roman Tragedy14 aims to revive the interest in this genre, offering new insights on both Seneca’s plays and the remains of the archaic period. New publications on Roman Comedy are overwhelming. Peter Barrios-Lech has recently published a monograph on Linguistic Interaction in Roman Comedy,15 employing quantitative method and data analysis. The Companion to Roman Comedy, the first volume of this kind dedicated exclusively on Roman comedy, has just been published. Its introductory and at the same time rich and thought-provoking chapters aim to offer up-to-date and fresh insights into all ‘contexts’ of the genre.16 The Companion to Terence, published in 2013, is the first comprehensive, indepth examination of Terentian comedies,17 ranging from individual presentations of the six plays to the discussion of themes addressed across the corpus (e.g. connection with literary tradition, social contexts, reception). Terence seems to have been the first of the two main Roman comic representatives to be examined in the light of new research trends. The collection of essays under the title Terence and Interpretation,18 in a unique structure that shows how Terence interpreted previous literary traditions and how his comedy was, in turn, interpreted by subsequent authors and scholars, offers a fresh look at Terence’s position in Latin literature as himself an erudite literary figure; Terence’s reception, on the other hand, has received extensive treatment in Terence between Late Antiquity and the Age of Printing.19 The publication of Wolfgang de Melo’s new Loeb translation reinforced the latest generation of Plautine studies.20 The first Companion to Plautus is also expected to appear soon.21 The well-known, successful

 13

Two volumes have already appeared: Schauer 2012 and Manuwald 2012. Harrison 2015. 15 Barrios-Lech 2016. 16 E.g. Roman comedy’s connection with Italian drama and Greek comedy, matters of composition (e.g. action, music, language), the genre’s social interests (e.g. slavery, religion, legislation), and its reception from antiquity to modern productions; see further Dinter 2019. As the editor notes in his prologue, “this volume accompanies, rather than guides, those approaching Roman comedy” (p. xvii). 17 Augoustakis and Traill 2013. 18 Papaioannou 2014d. 19 Turner and Torello-Hill 2015. 20 de Melo 2011-2013. 21 Dutsch and Franko, forthcoming. 14

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

6

Introduction

series of book-length collections of Plautine essays, Lecturae Plautinae Sarsinates, on individual plays of Plautus, with specialists covering a wide range of themes, including reception, has now approached its conclusion;22 in the meantime, new collective volumes and monographs have enriched Plautine bibliography.23 Plautine Trends,24 a ‘Trends in Classics’ supplementary volume, presents a collection of papers on various Plautine plays and themes, focusing on comic plot and composition as well as on cultural contexts and reception. Ferdinard Stürner’s recent study on Plautine monologues25 is influenced by the line of thought promoted in the past decades by the ‘Freiburg School’ and transcribed in a series of important works founded on the premise that the influences of the native theatrical traditions of Italian popular theater on Plautus are evident in his comic composition. On the other hand, Erik Gunderson, in Laughing Awry: Plautus and Tragicomedy,26 examines Plautus’ dramatic techniques and the plays’ social dimension, mainly in regard to the mechanisms of humour and the audience’s response, while Rodrigo Tadeu Gonçalves, in Performative Plautus,27 reads Plautus in light of the works by Barbara Cassin and Florence Dupont, on the concept of ‘non-Aristotelian’ drama, as a work influenced by sophistic instruction and philosophy, and examines translation practice in archaic literature as a process that heavily depends upon its power of performance. More generally, it seems that, along with more ‘traditional’ studies on Plautus’ performative and metatheatrical elements, plot construction or possible connection with his Greek models, recent scholarship has demonstrated a strong interest also in Plautus’ sophisticated treatment of literary tradition.28 Groundbreaking in the appreciation of Plautus’ and his audience’s (more) elevated interests have been the monographs by Alison Sharrock and Michael Fontaine. Sharrock, in Reading Roman Comedy, shifting the focus from performance, approaches Plautus’ and Terence’s

 22

Edited by Raffaelli and Tontini, 1998 onwards; the last volume (2017) comprises studies is dedicated on Truculentus and Vidularia. 23 For an overview of important bibliography on the basic themes associated with Plautine studies (e.g. Italian theatrical tradition, Roman audience, metatheater, the Freiburg School, stagecraft), see Petrides 2014b, 440-441. Karakasis 2014a xiiixvii gives a comprehensive assessment of the major developments of Plautine bibliography of the fifteen years prior to that volume. The overview in the present introduction aims to single out the most recent additions to this extensive list. 24 Perysinakis and Karakasis 2014. 25 Stürner 2011. 26 Gunderson 2015. 27 Gonçalves 2015. 28 E.g. Traill 2005, Wright 2013.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus Doctus

7

plays as literature,29 challenging the “underlying prejudice about the playwrights as fundamentally different from respectable poets like Vergil, or even Ovid”.30 Similarly, Fontaine, in examining Funny Words in Plautine Comedy proves Plautus as a “philologist of Greek and Latin”,31 who offers linguistic jokes and word-plays of various levels, some of which require an audience that was “elite, philhellenic, and versed in the same classics of Greek literature that were studied throughout the rest of the Hellenistic oecumene”.32 Ever inviting new readings, the old question of Plautus’ debt to his Greek originals is now being revisited through the new, large-scale research project ‘Anchoring Innovation’,33 a collaboration of specialists based in various Dutch institutions: among other authors, Plautus is reexamined as to the creative way he deals with his Greek models through the concept of ‘anchoring’, that is, the audience’s direction to a creation’s sources and, simultaneously, the author’s self-conscious presentation of an innovative work that stands in an antagonistic dialogue with its models.34 The interests of Plautus’ audience are variously addressed anew by several scholars who have directed their attention to further, wide-ranging themes, such as scientific knowledge,35 echoes of contemporary philosophical discussions,36 or even financial concerns.37 The reexamination of Plautus’ audience, which seems to have included Romans of various intellectual capacities,38 stands in line with recent scholarly interest in revisiting the cultural background against which early Republican literature was produced.39 On the other hand, Amy Richlin, recently in her monograph Slave Theater in the Roman Republic: Plautus



29 Goldberg 2005, although focusing on reception, also examines Plautine work as literature. 30 Sharrock 2009, ix. 31 Fontaine 2010b, 249-250. 32 Fontaine 2010b, 255. 33 www.ru.nl/oikos/anchoring-innovation/ 34 See De March 2015, on Pseudolus; on the concept of ‘anchoring’ in Classics more generally, see Sluiter 2016. 35 e.g. Papaioannou 2012, on mathematics; Fontaine 2013 and 2018, on Hellenistic medical practice. 36 e.g. Dutsch 2009, on Pythagorean echoes, and 2014, on Plautus serving as evidence of early Roman acquaintance with Hellenistic philosophy; see also Caston 2014b. 37 Sergi 1997, on the employment of the vocabulary of finance and commerce for the description of interpersonal relationships. 38 On the diversity of Plautine audience, see also Manuwald 2011, 98-103. 39 e.g. Volk 2015, on 2nd century BCE Romans being familiar with Pythagoreanism.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

8

Introduction

and Popular Comedy,40 looks at Plautus’ comedy not as ‘text’ but as popular performance that reflects contemporary social and political developments. Richlin reads Plautus’ plays as works that express the experience of those from lower classes, and specifically as a depiction of the Roman slaves’ harsh lives and desires. In this context, she maintains that Plautus must be interpreted in his historical context, and his comedies must be viewed as works addressed to popular interests and imagination.41 Evidently, Plautine scholarship seems to follow three main approaches: a) studies concerned with ‘form,’ i.e. the analysis of the text, including Plautus’ exploitation of prototypes, often isolated from any cultural associations, b) studies that read Plautus’ comedy against its historical context, i.e. the examination of Plautus against contemporary social and political developments, and c) studies that examine Plautus’ intellectual interests, i.e. the examination of Plautus’ interaction with more ‘elevated’ themes, such as philosophical ones. The question often extends to Plautus’ audience and the extent to which this should be perceived as ‘popular’ or ‘erudite.’ This volume does not pursue a sharp categorization: its aim is neither to advocate or reject any of the approaches presented above nor to argue in favor of a low- or high-class audience. Rather, by acknowledging the heterogeneous character of Plautus’ audience, the aim of this collection is to contribute to the ongoing examination of Plautus’ ‘intellectual’ interests and, at the same time to place the Plautine oeuvre in its contemporary cultural milieu; to re-contextualize, in short, Plautus’ ‘historicity,’ with emphasis on the playwright’s literary as well as cultural interests, with ‘cultural’ here incorporating various kinds of ideological discourses, including philosophical, religious, or, even, scientific ones. All

 40

Richlin 2017; see also Richlin 2014. On Plautus’ slaves, see also the study by Stewart 2012, who treats Plautus’ “dramas as historical artifacts” that “reveal the contours of a Roman discourse about slavery” and “show a range of cases that illustrate an awareness of slavery as a complex problem” (quotations from the Introduction, in p. 2); also Stewart 2008, a contextualization of the activity of Plautus’ slave tricksters “as a staged public performance in a developing slave society,” as exemplified in the Pseudolus (quote from p. 69). 41 Pansiéri 1997 is another notable study that advances the biographical approach of Plautus’ plays, though his arguments are often naïve and flawed, trusting to the letter the ancient sources and reading literally, as reflections of actual social tension, the descriptions of clash between members of the upper vs. the lower social classes in the plays. On occasion, however, he advances arguments that are worth consulting as when he reads key metatheatrical passages, such as the antagonism between the meretrix callida and the servus callidus in Mil. 874-946 for the control and direction of the play’s plot, as reflections of tension between scripted and improvisatory theatre.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus Doctus

9

in all, this volume aims to re-examine Plautus’ work as the first extensive testimony to the cultural developments of its time. While, as seen above, there have been various studies, often following a ‘historicizing’ approach,42 on the way Plautus’ comedy corresponds with various social, contemporary developments, we believe that a study exclusively dedicated to the playwright’s sophisticated treatment of several literary, intellectual and cultural issues and debates is a desideratum. Naturally, Plautus’ oeuvre is firmly linked to its cultural context:43 it is a precious testimony to the Middle Roman Republic, a period of Roman history for which literary sources are scant. Despite its Grecizing character and its generic stylization, the formation of Plautine comedy is determined by its mission as a performance genre that addresses an audience of varied social and intellectual origins. As such it is rooted in contemporary social trends and political anxieties. In this context, although it constitutes an oeuvre whose primal purpose is to secure the audience’s entertainment,44 Plautus’ work has been also seen as a medium for commenting upon—or even criticising—various institutions of contemporary Roman society.45 The stage activity of Plautus’ heroic tricksters, an outstanding Roman improvement on the Greek heritage of the genre, successfully interweaves the playwright’s literary and sociohistorical interests: Plautine slaves have been seen both as entertaining comic innovations and as a medium for social commentaries, perhaps as an opportunity for the playwright to give

 42

See, for instance, more notably, Gruen 1990; McCarthy 2000; Leigh 2004. See also Dressler 2016, who reads “Plautus’ thematic concern with ownership in general against the particular social and historical background of ownership over people as things in the Roman institution of slavery” (p. 16). On Plautus’ exploitation of ideas related to Roman institutions, see also Feeney 2010; the argument is summarized in p. 281: “in Pseudolus Plautus used the concept of financial credit as a key trope for configuring the kind of belief that the audience grants to the stage event.” 43 For a concise but informative discussion of various major elements of historical and social significance traced in the composition of Roman comedies, see now Manuwald 2019, 25-28; as she succinctly notes, “the genre of drama, being performed to mixed audiences, is rooted within contemporary historical and social conditions” (p. 25). 44 Segal 1987 remains the classic study on Plautus’ humor, although it looks at Plautine comedy almost in a one-dimensional way, i.e. its saturnalian context. 45 Gruen 1990, 124-57, provides an excellent basis in this respect; as he succinctly points out, “Plautus did not reproduce current events, but called attention to their implications” (p. 126).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

10

Introduction

voice to a suppressed group of his audience, while at the same time they pose as authority figures of superior erudition.46 Slavery is of course just one example of Plautus’ dexterous exploitation of a basic social structure. Similarly, Plautus’ exploitation of religious practices and beliefs is manifold: ‘serious’ religious elements, often reflecting ongoing practices known to members of the palliata audience, are combined with an entertaining, or even parodic element.47 Curculio offers perhaps one of the best-known instances of comic representation of a religious theme: the description of a religious practice, that of incubation at the temple of Aesculapius, adds a humorous touch to the portrayal of all comic characters involved.48 As Seth A. Jeppesen shows in this volume (Chapter 8), religious parody is dexterously exploited also in Cistellaria. His essay, entitled “Meaningful Mispronunciations: Religious Parody in Plautus’ Cistellaria 512-527,” discusses how Plautus’ reference to a moment of Roman history, through a religious parody vividly enriched by the clever exploitation of a prayer’s performative elements, becomes a vital part of the play’s composition and adds to its central themes. More specifically, for Jeppesen Alcesimarchus’ oath in this play—with its errors—functions as a parody of public religious practices; this is particularly evident if we turn to the performative aspects of the prayer. What is more, the passage might refer to a specific moment in Rome’s history, the dedication of the temple of Ops Opifera. As Jeppesen demonstrates, the audience’s ability to trace this clever, twofold parody—general and (perhaps) specified—is related to the interpretation of central themes exploited in this play and affects the understanding of the whole comedy. If this parody indeed refers to a specific event of Rome’s history, then the comic exploitation of a religious—and possibly historical—moment becomes a vital element of



46 Scholarship on Plautine slaves, and especially the typical servus callidus, is enormous; see most notably the classic studies by Fraenkel 2007, 159-162, and Stace 1968; and more recently McCarthy 2000. On Plautine slaves’ social background, see mostly the work of Amy Richlin (on which see extensively above). 47 Amphitruo is a good case study in this respect: Segal 1987, 171-191, believes that the play is not concerned with anything “elevated” but simply celebrates sexual desire. On the other hand, more recently, Gunderson 2015, 191-202, points to the tragic resonances of the play, as to the gods’ power over men. 48 See, for instance, Jeppesen 2013, 72-75 on the parodic element of this scene. On its comic effects, primarily in regard to the pimp’s representation, see also Demetriou in this volume (pp. 201-202).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus Doctus

11

the play’s composition and accentuates Plautus’ ability of exploiting the social context of his plays in creating a multi-faceted dramatic creation. Plautine twins constitute another dramatic instance that reveals this manifold poetic vis of our playwright. As Chrysanthi Demetriou argues in Chapter 7, this well-known dramatic motif, extensively explored by Plautine scholarship as to its performative and compositional effects,49 can also form an interesting case study for Plautus’ ability to project various theoretical discussions in his comic creation. In her essay, “Twins in Plautus: A Dramatic Motif in Cultural Context,” Demetriou examines possible philosophical echoes in Plautus and, in addition, extends the exploration of Plautus’ theoretical interests to the identification of several scientific dimensions. In this context, this paper shows that Plautus’ exploitation of twins—especially as to their conception and origins—finds parallels in popular beliefs as well as medical treatises. Furthermore, as this discussion suggests, Plautine twins’ rivalry is not just a matter of plot composition; it is represented through a dexterous manipulation of concepts about time as well as various beliefs about mirrors in philosophy and science. Thus, Demetriou’s survey confirms that Plautus’ exploitation of this intriguing phenomenon is deeply informed by several ongoing theoretical discussions and proves much more sophisticated than a first, dramatic reading often suggests. The examination of Plautus’ philosophical interests receives attention also in another essay of this volume. For Ruth R. Caston (“Friends without benefits? Philosophical dimensions of Plautus’ conception of friendship”; Chapter 6), Plautus’ correspondence with philosophical questions can be traced also in cases of ‘unconventional’ friendship, which share significant parallels with—and occasionally counterarguments to— relevant discussions found in philosophical treatises. According to Caston, ‘unconventional’ friendships can be found in cases in which friends do not share the same social status or age. In this context, the paper focuses on two specific cases: Periplectomenus and Pleusicles in Miles gloriosus, and Philocrates and Tyndarus in Captivi. These two cases of friendship, based on virtue rather than self-interest, stand in contrast with other types of friendship presented in each play respectively, while they simultaneously show a remarkable level of correspondence with various philosophical concepts about friendship. More interestingly, this dialogue is often based on Plautus’ subversion of well-known philosophical ideas.

 49

For twins as a dramatic motif in Plautine comedy, see now Demetriou 2019, who shows how Plautus makes use of the standard characteristics of “twins’ comedy,” as these are mainly found in Menaechmi, in the construction of Palaestrio’s first intrigue in Miles gloriosus.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

12

Introduction

The study of Plautus’ interest in philosophy is not just a significant contribution to the interpretation of Plautine comedy per se; it, more importantly, pertains to the investigation of contemporary Romans’ acquaintance with philosophical schools. It is well-known that the traditional view suggests that Greek philosophy was spread in Rome primarily after the famous philosophers’ embassy of 155 BCE.50 However, recent studies have pointed out that early Latin literature shows a certain level of acquaintance with various philosophical questions—and perhaps also certain philosophical groups—while some schools of thought,51 such as Pythagoreanism, seem to have been considered by Romans not as Greek ‘products’ but rather as core elements of the native Italian tradition.52 Of course, another possibility should be always borne in mind: Latin texts might simply reflect elements of philosophical interest that first developed in their Greek originals. It is well-known that New Comedy specifically was heavily influenced by Peripatetic philosophy.53 However, even if Plautus’ debts to his Greek originals is the only firm explanation for his possible correspondence with philosophical concepts, it should be nevertheless emphasized that our playwright naturally addressed themes that were intellectually challenging and as such would win over the members of the Roman elite among his audience. As Caston in this volume reminds us, Hellenistic philosophy of the 3rd and 2nd centuries would have been known to some of Plautus’ contemporary Romans; she thus rightly indicates that “it was not only a question of contact, but also of interest and challenge”.54 In other words, the co-examination of Plautine comedy with several philosophical debates is important not only for tracing exact parallels between the two but also for pointing to comedy as a source that exploits theoretical questions which, although often central in everyday life, were at the same time complex and manifold. On the other hand, we should not forget that the composition of Plautus’ work coincides not only with important intellectual and cultural

 50

See Dutsch 2014, 1, who however argues against this view, by discussing evidence on the Romans’ philosophical interests as attested in Ennius, Plautus, Cato and Lucilius. 51 See, for instance, the study of Caston 2014b (also discussed above). 52 See Volk 2015. 53 Cinaglia 2014 provides an informative analysis of Menander’s comedy in light of Aristotelian philosophy, with emphasis on ethics, psychology and epistemology. Cinaglia does not argue for Menander’s direct dependence upon Aristotle but rather aims to show that the two ancient sources show significant parallels which inevitably find their roots in common cultural contexts. 54 See below p. 177.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus Doctus

13

developments but also with a critical time for Roman history. The emergence of several genres of early Latin literature, including Plautus’ comic drama, takes place in a period during which Rome progressively becomes a major geopolitical agent in the Western Mediterranean;55 the Punic Wars form a decisive turning point to this end.56 The Romans’ relationship with the Carthaginians seems to have gone through various stages, until the two long-term enemies eventually sign a treaty of friendship in 189 BCE. Unsurprisingly, this long hostility and suspicion against the Carthaginians, possibly up to some extent softened in periods of peace, is not absent from early Roman literature.57 In this context, Plautus’ Poenulus testifies to the way the Romans of his time would have looked at their neighbours. More importantly, this play, staged after the end of the Second Punic War, might also reflect the Romans’ changing attitudes towards their former enemies. It is thus not surprising that the portrayal of Hanno in Plautus’ Poenulus has proven manifold and has received various interpretations.58 Peter Barrios-Lech, in Chapter 3, argues for Hanno’s sympathetic characterization, through a co-examination of this Plautine ‘stranger’ along with similar cases from the Greek comic tradition, by focusing on scenes of encounter between foreigners and natives. In his essay “Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy: The Case of Hanno in Poenulus,” Barrios-Lech investigates the figure of the ‘other’ in Plautus’ Poenulus by employing a concept that, to our knowledge, has not been used in Plautine



55 Cf. the title of the work by Leigh 2004, who examines the correspondence of Roman comedy with its historical context, while he simultaneously shows how literature and history stand in a recurrent dialogue. 56 On the important impact of the victory against the Carthaginians upon Rome as well as the establishment of the Ludi Romani in 240 BCE in connection with the Romans’ conquest of Sicily, see Feeney 2016, 122-126. 57 On Carthage in Latin literature, see now Giusti 2018. Although this study focuses on Vergil’s Aeneid, chapter one deals with mid-republican literature, including (fragmentary) dramatic poetry; in pp. 75-87, Giusti turns to Plautus’ Poenulus, the only extant representation of Carthaginians in Middle Republican literature, and explores how the portrayal of Hanno includes not only stereotypical negative characteristics of the Romans’ former enemy but also positive features which would eventually turn this character into a ‘mirror of the self’ for the Romans and the playwright, thus to some extent reflecting the total defeat—and Roman ‘absorption’—of Carthage. 58 Hanno has been seen both positively, as regards for instance his piety, and negatively, mainly as to his incestuous and deceptive methods; see the synopsis of the main scholarly views by Maurice 2004, 267-269, who reads Hanno as a reflection of the well-celebrated Plautine trickster.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

14

Introduction

scholarship yet: the idea of theatergram, a concept that has been used in readings of Italian Renaissance and Shakespearean drama. As BarriosLech explains, this concept can be a useful tool in the examination of the elements that Plautus inherited from the comic tradition: a theatergram is broader than a stock-role, since it encompasses a character’s relationships with other characters, and, at the same time, it stands for a combination of common dramatic actions/scenes, which together form a larger (and sustainable) dramatic unit. By employing this new approach, Barrios-Lech reads the foreigner of Poenulus against scenes from Aristophanes, Euripides, Alexis and mime, and demonstrates that Plautus’ representation of the foreigner forms a theatergram that is based on that of his original and is at the same time enriched by elements from other theatergrams, as found in other sources; all in all, Hanno’s representation, while based on known theatergrams, at the same time challenges the audience’s expectation, forming a unique, Plautine creation. Barrios-Lech’s survey adds an important element to Hanno’s characterization: by looking at the way in which Plautus handles his encounter with the Greeks in light of the relevant literary tradition, we can discern the development of this character. In turn, we can appreciate Plautus’ dexterity in exploiting a theme that deals with recent political history through a clever exploitation of literary tradition. In other words, the employment of a well-known literary theme becomes in this case a vehicle for the playwright to enhance the sympathetic representation of a dramatic character which is firmly connected with a crucial moment of Roman history. Of course, Plautine characters are rarely identified with historical personalities, nor is the playwright interested in creating a historically faithful atmosphere. The reference to the “barbarian poet” in Miles gloriosus is one of the few examples in which Plautine comedy seems to be referring to a real person. This unexpected comment, made by the senex lepidus Periplectomenus in a vivid description of the servus callidus’ effort of concocting a cunning scheme, has been traditionally interpreted as a funny comment on Naevius’ imprisonment.59 However, Michael Fontaine, in his “Before Pussy Riot: Free Speech and Censorship in the Age of Plautus” (Chapter 9), argues that this reference does not allude to Naevius but to Sotades, an Alexandrian Greek poet, who was prosecuted for lèse majesté. In doing so, Fontaine revisits the Romans’ acquaintance with Alexandrian literary history and, in turn, their concerns for free speech. If this proposal is correct, it results in the reassessment of two major cultural developments of early Republican Rome. First, it

 59

See for instance Hammond, Mack and Moskalew 1963, 96 on Mil. 211.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus Doctus

15

illuminates Roman ideas about free speech: Plautus’ allusion to Sotades’ arrest—and not Naevius’—for anti-regime behavior suggests the Romans’ concern for the right of free speech, against the traditional view that treated the reference to Naevius as evidence for the opposite. Second, it suggests that the Romans were aware of important incidents of Alexandria, and its great Library, earlier than usually assumed; consequently, this interpretation throws new light to the Romans’ relationship with Hellenistic culture at large. On the other hand, Fontaine’s new reading makes simultaneously a significant contribution to the long-standing question of Plautus’ ‘Greekness,’ which in this case extends to a crucial moment of Alexandrian Greek literary history. Indeed, Plautus’ relationship with the Greek world seems not to be confined to the Greek originals and, consequently, to Greek places and names. As Gesine Manuwald explains in “Plautus and Greekness” (Chapter 5), the plurality of Plautus’ Greek references, ranging from simple quotations to more complex ideas related not only to mythology but also to literature and philosophy, suggests that the playwright’s audience would include also members that would appreciate a more sophisticated contribution of such ‘Greek’ elements to a play’s comic effects. Through an illuminating examination of Plautine references of Greek character, Manuwald throws light to both Plautus’ dramaturgical methodology and his audience’s capacities. More specifically, Manuwald examines a selection of ‘Greek’ references in Plautus—words, names, personalities, myth, literature, art and philosophy, Greek customs and the concept of the ‘barbarian’—with the purpose of tracing any possible systematization of these references and, moreover, any implications these might have for specifying both Plautus’ alleged ‘Greek’ background and his audience’s cultural characteristics. This survey concludes that, although knowledge of Greek is not in all instances essential for following the action, there are still cases in which acquaintance with the Greek language would be vital and, thus, assumed. More interestingly, Plautus often draws on this knowledge to enhance comic effect. At the same time, Manuwald’s examination confirms the Plautine audience’s familiarity with certain Greek myths, as well as with some pieces of Greek literature and, even, famous artists and philosophers. Thus, the different levels of Plautus’ treatment of Greek themes, from basic to more complex ones, point to a doctus poet while simultaneously

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

16

Introduction

reflect the diversity—and in some cases even the erudition—of his audience.60 The investigation of Plautus’ wide and manifold Greek interests, along with the playwright’s possible acquaintance with certain events of Hellenistic history (cf. Fontaine, above), opens up the possibility that Plautine comedy establishes connections with Greek literature also in regard to other texts, beyond the obvious ones. In this context, Ioannis Konstantakos’ contribution in this volume (Chapter 4) argues for Plautus’ interaction with a particular trend of Hellenistic literature, the narration of marvellous stories. In “Munchausen in Rome: Plautine Braggarts and Hellenistic Storytelling,” Konstantakos examines Plautine braggarts’ fantastic tales and argues that the emphasis on the exotic and extraordinary element found in these narrations corresponds to Hellenistic literature that presented marvellous, ethnographical stories. Konstantakos revisits the unique style of Plautine braggarts’ tales, which finds no counterpart in Greek comic soldiers’ tales, and demonstrates that the fantastic world these depict finds parallels in Hellenistic marvel literature, which was mainly informed by the far-reaching expeditions and exploits of Alexander the Great. These striking parallels suggest that Plautus exploits and incorporates into his work basic themes of Hellenistic wonder storytelling. While some of this material might have derived from the Greek originals, Konstantakos introduces the possibility of Plautus’ direct acquaintance with relevant narrative, historiographical or ethnographical works, and points out that Plautus’ exploration of the aforementioned themes seems to stand in accordance with the literary interests of (learned) Romans of his time. Plautine braggarts’ extraordinary narrations reveal the Romans’ contact with a popular genre that found its roots in (historical) narratives focusing on Alexander’s biography. Undoubtedly, Plautus enjoys an intimate connection with Hellenistic literature,61 and, through it, with Hellenistic culture,62 primarily through

 60

On the Greek side, cf. Wright 2012, 5, on the idea that the audience of Old Comedy was a heterogeneous one and the plays’ humor was constructed upon several levels. In general, Wright 2012 points to the twofold function of Greek Old Comedy, as both performance and text, and his examination centres upon the erudite readers and the comedians’ engagement with literary criticism, placing it in its social and intellectual context. 61 See, for instance the observations by Hunter 2006, 81-83, on Pseudolus 397-405 sharing parallels with Hellenistic poetry and criticism, particularly as to the notions of weaving and inventing veri simile material. 62 See for instance Demetriou 2018, 172-176, on the possibility that the treatment of the miraculous and extraordinary element in Plautus’ Amphitruo is influenced

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus Doctus

17

his debts to Greek New Comedy. The old, long question of Plautus’ manifold interaction with his Greek originals, although, admittedly, extensively explored in scholarship,63 is certainly a recurrent theme found behind any study of Plautus’ exploitation of the literary tradition. Yet, Plautus’ dialogue with his Greek sources is not restricted to the treatment of certain plays or specific comic episodes. The playwright’s sustained critical engagement with his plays’ literary past is inevitably governed by certain theoretical questions that define his methodology and at the same time affect his audience’s reactions and expectations. One of the most prominent methods of composition employed by Roman playwrights is the technique of contaminatio, i.e. the use of scenes or characters from a second original and, thus, the eventual combination of more than one Greek plays. Along these lines, Plautus’ work is a multi-faceted amalgamation: a combination of elements of native Italian theatre with a sophisticated adaptation—and often even combination—of Greek literary drama. Sophia Papaioannou in “Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio” (Chapter 1), re-examines Plautus’ revision of the Greek originals by focusing on this well-known practice. Papaioannou shows that Plautus’ method of contaminatio aimed at satisfying the twofold nature of his audience: the entertainment through spectacles based on physical theatre as well as the intellectual pleasure through the knowledge of the Greek comic production. Through a close reading of selected case studies, Papaioannou argues that Plautus points to his antagonistic relationship with the Greek texts and expects his spectators to identify this process, presupposing their familiarization with the Greek models. The examination focuses on selected cases of Plautus’ exploitation of plot-structure and comic characters, which are read against evidence from Menander. Papaioannou concludes that Plautus’ correspondence with the Greek tradition evokes some basic features of Alexandrian poetics. Plautus’ contaminatio expects the audience to acknowledge the playwright’s competition with his models; it is this antagonistic nature of Plautus’ work that evokes the influence of Alexandrian poetics.

 by the tradition of paradoxography, whose popularity raised in the Hellenistic period and seemed to have been soon spread also in Rome. 63 It is impossible to provide a full list here; we should simply mention Leo (1912) and Fraenkel (2007) as two of the most pioneering scholars that shaped Plautine studies on this matter; see further Papaioannou, in this volume. Classic studies of comparison between Plautus’ Bacchides and Menander’s Dis Exapaton, and Plautus’ methods of adaptation in this case, are Handley 1968 and Anderson 1993, 10-25; see also Bain 1979.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

18

Introduction

Indeed, in the fluidity of its plotline and malleability of script, Plautus’ work bears a certain ‘Callimachean shadow’.64 Plautus’ work is a new creation based on an old one and the playwright himself often directs his audience to his own originality, the seeking of which, as Papaioannou’s conclusion reminds us, is the “driving force of Hellenistic literary artistry” (p. 49). Pseudolus is perhaps one of the most celebrated plays in this respect: the homonymous character, adopting the persona of the poet, manifests his ability to create something new (Ps. 401-405).65 It is this celebrated search for innovation that Emilia Barbiero re-examines in this volume, by focusing on another Plautine instance that manifests its ‘newness.’ In her paper “What’s New? The Possibilities of Novelty in Plautus’ Casina” (Chapter 2), Barbiero focuses on a specific play, which, as she argues, presents the playwright’s reflections on ‘innovation,’ not exclusively in regard to his connection with his Greek originals, but also, more broadly, as to Plautine creation as an expression of the Romans’ ‘translation project.’ Through a new reading of Casina, with emphasis on references that accentuate the play’s ‘new’ and unique characteristics, Barbiero suggests that Plautus’ intentional, repeated references to the play’s ‘newness’ are variously understood by the audience, in relation to the Greek model or the tradition of the fabula Atellana as well as the Romans’ innovative aesthetics of ‘translation.’ More specifically, Barbiero revisits the traditional view that the prologue’s reference to a slave’s marriage (lines 67-74), which is presented as something ‘new’ and unusual, is nothing more than a comment on the subversive character of Plautine comedy. Focusing on the repeated use of the adjective novus and statements on the play’s uniqueness, Barbiero argues that this emphasis on the singularity of this marriage functions as an opportunity to reflect on the meaning and dimensions of ‘innovation.’ It is precisely this consciousness of his role as a Roman literary innovator that establishes Plautus as a major figure in the history of Latin literature. As Ariana Traill shows in her own contribution, Plautus’ influence upon Ennius’ Satires proves the playwright to be a pioneer in the development of new forms of Latin literature. In her “Plautus and the

 64

Cf. the title of Hunter 2006. On Pseudolus’ transformation into a poet, see Slater 1985, 118-146; as Slater concludes, this play “celebrates through the character of Pseudolus himself and through his play-making the heady but anarchic mixture of script and improvisation, stock types and variations, illusory and non-illusory theatre that is Plautus’ hallmark” (p. 146). Since Slater’s work, Pseudolus has benefited by several insightful analyses, including Muecke 1986; Sharrock 1996; and Bungard 2014.

65

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus Doctus

19

Origins of Roman Satire” (Chapter 10), Traill demonstrates that Plautus’ influence upon Ennius’ Satires constitutes another case that confirms the playwright’s crucial role in Latin literary history and major intellectual developments of his time more broadly. Traill investigates this influence as evidenced through linguistic parallels as well as the common employment of various concepts, such as humorous effects, character representation, imagery use and comic situations. Traill’s extensive investigation confirms that Plautus’ work forms part of the intellectual interchange of his time. What is more, Ennius’ literary involvement with figures not of the upper class contradicts the idea that his Satires addressed exclusively the contemporary elite. The association of Plautus with the development of Roman satire constitutes a fitting finale for this volume: a celebration of Plautus’ central position in the history of Latin literature. The essays of this volume do not claim to be exhaustive. That is, they do not aim to discuss every aspect of Plautus’ ‘erudition.’ They aim, however, to offer a number of new, original insights that contribute to the ongoing scholarship developments which prove Plautus to be a poeta doctus, able to deal with complex literary and theoretical discussions and thus eventually become a major milestone of Latin literature. The arrangement of the chapters is based on the authors’ topics, rather than on their methodology, and this structural choice is expected to help the readers trace more clearly the main lines of investigation this volume pursues. The first section, entitled “Adaptation and Innovation,” which includes the papers of Papaioannou and Barbiero, focuses on the thorny issue of Plautus’ dialogue with Greek comic tradition. The title of the second section, which presents the papers of Barrios-Lech, Konstantakos and Manuwald, “Ethnography,” points to Plautus’ interest in ‘other’ cultures, languages, and literatures. The third section of this volume, “Philosophy, Science, Religion,” as its title indicates, deals with Plautus’ dialogue with various contemporary cultural developments and theoretical discussions, showcased in the papers of Caston, Demetriou and Jeppesen. The last section of the volume, which includes the papers of Fontaine and Traill, addresses Plautus’ correspondence with and position in “Literary history.”

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

PART I: ADAPTATION AND INNOVATION

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



CHAPTER ONE MENANDRIAN COMEDY, PLAUTINE DRAMATURGY AND CONTAMINATIO SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

Critics of ancient drama usually identify contaminatio as one of the accusations for plagiarism plaguing Terence, yet as Nervegna has recently pointed out (2013, 7, 88-99), contaminatio was not invented by the Romans but it was a practice in effect already among the Greek playwrights who revived older plays in revised form (the Greek term used for these revivals was įȚĮıțİȣĮȓ).1 Prior to undertaking their own compositions, aspiring playwrights should have attended dozens of plays including adapted reruns of older plays. The compositional process at work in Roman Comedy naturally developed as the continuation of this tradition of edited revivals, probably substantially altered, of some earlier play (or of more than one play, combined). Contaminatio, in this respect, was the norm in the process of composing a successful palliata, not the violation thereof.2 And as it is the case for widely applied artistic devices, it was subject to ongoing evolution.



1 Nervegna 2013, 7: “The Roman contaminatio and the Greek įȚĮıțİȣĮȓ are probably two sides of the same coin.” 2 Contaminatio in the palliata is usually associated with Terence. The altercation between Terence and Luscius Lanuvinus as recorded in Terence’s prologues dramatizes the methodology of two different schools at Rome on the transference of Greek models on the Roman stage; close reproduction of the plot of a single model (Luscius) vs. contaminari or mixing multiple models (the translation of contaminari as “to spoil” obviously represents Luscius’ translation of the term—a translation which Terence kept deliberately, in order to undermine his opponent’s interpretation by recontextualizing it). Terence, in turn, dismissed Lucius’ fidelity to the model as good translation of the Greek original but bad playwriting (Eun. 78). On Terence’s theory of model appropriation see recently Papaioannou 2014e; McGill 2012, 115-145; Manuwald 2011, 150-151; Sharrock 2009, 91-93. The argument advanced in this paper assumes that the same practice of contaminatio

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

24

Chapter One

Two conspicuous innovations of the Roman playwrights were the emphasis on music and dance (the recitativa and the cantica are absent from the Greek plays), which recast the mimetic scripts of the Greek plays into musical performances, and the violation of the three-actor rule, that became the norm in comic drama by the end of the fourth century.3 These alone are groundbreaking changes, and especially the introduction of music and dance transformed the aesthetic experience of comic performances as they made Roman plays seem and sound akin to popular forms of traditional Italian drama. By considering the pursuit of originality to be a foundational principle for the Roman literary artists, and also by never forgetting that two principal goals of a palliata were the entertainment of audiences accustomed to very physical forms of dramatic entertainment, and the intellectual engagement of the spectators who were familiar with the Greek comic tradition in a variety of degrees, I propose to approach Plautus’ contaminatio as a method of studied revision of the original, that was directed by these premises, and also as a strategy that was deliberately antagonistic. My argument presupposes that Plautus anchored his plays by means of strong ties to the Greek tradition.4 He expected his audience to be able to identify the Greek originals behind his plays (and it was expected from him to offer information towards identifying the Greek model(s) of a given work of his), and subsequently to understand that a Plautine play, in the diverse ways it interacted with the Greek precedent, communicated the playwright’s ongoing experimentation with reception strategies and possibilities, dramatized the

 reflects also Plautus’ way of work; see Manuwald 2011, 257. This, as a matter of fact, has been noted by Terence, who mentions Plautus as his precedent in lifting individual characters and scenes from a certain play and then inserting them to a different plotline. 3 On the three-actor rule in New Comedy, see Sandbach 1975, 197-204 with earlier bibliography; Konstantakos 2005, 207-213 argues that the playwrights of the MesƝ used a fourth actor, following after a late-fifth-century trend in comic drama, but the rules were tightened in the last decades of the fourth century. 4 The employment of the term “anchoring” deliberately means to point to the Dutch research project Anchoring Innovation (project website: www.ru.nl/oikos/ anchoring-innovation/) that employs “anchorage” as a technical label more broadly for the many different ways in which people connect the new to the old, the traditional and commonly known; on the application and study of the concept of “anchoring” in Classical Antiquity, see Sluiter 2016, according to the project website, a programmatic paper. Particularly appropriate for my study, as noted already in the Introduction, is the project currently under development (as a doctoral dissertation) by Andrea de March, that studies innovation in Roman Republican comedy in relation to the ‘old,’ the latter being the Greek models.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio

25

transformation of the Greek model into Plautine, and challenged the erudite audience to assess Plautus’ transcendence of the model on several levels. Regrettably, very little of Menander’s corpus has survived and even less has found its way directly among Plautus’ models. In the absence of the Greek originals it is very hard to identify the nature of the particular changes,5 but it is tempting to try to comprehend Plautus’ philosophy of response to the Greek models should we hypothesize that several devices in his dramaturgy may be appreciated in light of the evidence offered by the surviving Menander. To this end, I suggest to take as a stipulation that Menander’s text evidences some of the New Comedy conventions common to all products of the genre. This view is endorsed by the fact that even though Menander’s plots during Menander’s lifetime were the exception rather than the norm in New Comedy plot-writing,6 in the third century they became the most popular plays in the repertory of the travelling Artists of Dionysus, and influenced Hellenistic and Roman culture in a variety of ways.7 At the same time, we need to take into consideration that most of Plautus’ plays were modeled on compositions by Diphilos and Philemon8 and possibly other playwrights, who favored different styles from Menander’s own, though we may only make assumptions about the character of these styles.

 5

The technology of Greek-model appropriation by Roman comic playwrights has attracted so much scholarly attention that Halporn (1993, 191) has called it “the Homeric question of Latin Studies,” with Friedrich Leo (1912) and Edward Fraenkel (1960) at the head of two major schools of Plautine studies in the past century, the former advocating the close dependence of the Roman comedies on the Greek texts, the latter stressing the originality of Plautine texts and investigating the influence of native Italian drama. Since the publication of Menander in the late 1960s critics position themselves in the common ground between the two schools. 6 On the rather modest appeal of Menander to his contemporary audiences, and the rapid popularity of his works beyond Athens shortly after his death see Papaioannou 2015; Nervegna 2013, 13-65 (Nervegna argues that Menander’s popularity grew during his lifetime); Konstantakos 2008, 88-93. 7 Nervegna 2013 is the most recent comprehensive study on the reception of Menander in the Greco-Roman antiquity. 8 Only three of Plautus’ surviving plays mention explicitly Menander as their model (and two others are very likely held to draw from Menander); see below; a conveniently tabulated listing of Plautus’ plays and their respective models is listed in Fontaine 2014a, 517.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

26

Chapter One

Part I: Plautine plot-structuring in the shadow of Menander Three of Plautus’ plays acknowledge a Menandrian model: Bacchides (Dis Exapaton), Cistellaria (Synaristosai) and Stichus (Adelphoi A). In light of the four-decade-old critical discussions that have focused on the interaction between Plautus and his Menandrian models, and the knowledge that has been produced as a result,9 I shall discuss two different methodologies of Plautine plot-making and identify what I define as the philosophy of ‘improvement’ over the Greek tradition, first by looking at the plot of Aulularia, and then by focusing on Curculio. Both plays exhibit distinct Menandrian motifs, even though there is no explicit acknowledgment of a Menandrian (and in the case of Curculio, even of a Greek) precedent. I also assume the plot structure of Menander’s comedies to stand for the canonical plot of a Greek New Comedy.10

 9

On Plautus’ reception of the Greek model see Goldberg 1990 and Batstone 2005 (both reference pieces on the Bacchides’ reception of Dis Exapaton); both studies stress the prominence of metatheatricality, which is pivotal for determining the originality of the Latin plays. 10 The so-called canonical structure and smooth development of the New Comedy plot is maintained once three important principles are observed, according to Lowe 2000a, 191: (i) Plots are construed in terms of transactions. (ii) These transactions should be stable (adoption, purchase, marriage), while all unstable transactions (abduction, embezzlement, rape) must finally be replaced by stable ones. (iii) The plotting of information destabilizes the central transaction(s), but eventually the true state of affairs is generally recognized and a stable transactional outcome is reached. For Lowe (p. 190) New Comedy is “the most rule-bound and programmed of all classical narrative genres” and (on. p. 191) “the only major Western narrative form to pander in such an extreme way to our narrative appetite for systemic closure, while simultaneously professing to reproduce the essential structure of real life.” For Lowe, the plots of Roman comedies differ considerably from those in the Greek originals because the Roman playwrights in part intervene consciously in ways that are “systematic and radical,” and in part draw on plays with plots that do not focus strictly on citizen issues (p. 194). Along this line, Plautine Comedy develops on the basis of deliberate tampering with the canonical transactional mechanisms defining the citizen oikos; a core transaction is subjected to a number of complicating transformations, which may be “horizontal,” affecting the smooth development of the particular transaction, and “vertical,” involving erroneous sub-plots which are generated from the complications of some “horizontal” transformation. Plautus’ plotting strategy dramatizes different ways to reverse the transformations of these complications, though the eventual success of the outcome is often conditioned. My understanding of Plautine contaminatio owes much to Lowe’s ideas about New Comedy plot structure and his meticulous

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio

27

Aulularia is not a typical play plot-wise, because it deploys two different plot themes that do not coordinate, the travails of the miser Euclio and the marriage of Euclio’s daughter who is claimed by two different suitors.11 In this play, which in many respects reminds of Menander’s Dyskolos,12 the role of the young man-in-love is claimed first by the older bachelor Megadorus who, like Menander’s Sostratos, does not wish to receive a dowry from the greedy senex Euclio. In fact, Megadorus’ wealth and his eagerness to marry Euclio’s daughter, Phaedria, without a dowry is precisely what brings him next to Sostratos. Both suitors, further, have to persuade two cranky and misanthropic fathers who are not particularly concerned with marrying off their daughters. Megadorus’ quasi-adulescens conduct is unconventional in the context of Plautine dramaturgy. Plautus’ senes may lust over courtesans (Bacchides) or the young and pretty slaves their sons are enamored with (Casina and Mercator; though in both plays the girls turn out to be freeborn), but they do not wish to conduct legal marriages with young freeborn women acknowledged as such from the beginning. Megadorus, instead, enters the play in order to bring the romantic theme to the foreground. Actually, this is expected from him, according to the informative plot summary delivered by the extra-dramatic Lar familiaris (31-32, eam ego hodie faciam ut hic senex de proxumo / sibi uxorem poscat, “I will make

 readings (on pp. 194-221) of the complications (by “chaining,” “doubling” or “splitting”) that define the plot of several Plautine (as well as Menandrian and Terentian) plays. 11 Despite Plautus’ effort to suggest (in the Lar familiaris’ counterfactual statement at ll. 25-27) potential intersection of the two plots, which may or may not have taken place—unfortunately the fifth and last Act of the play has survived in fragments that do not allow for a detailed reconstruction; cf. my recent discussion of the idiosyncratic plot of Aulularia and the various putative structural problems as a result, in Papaioannou 2014b, esp. 66-69. 12 The bibliography of Greek New Comedy writers surmised as having inspired Aulularia is listed in Lefèvre 2001, 11 nn. 1-5; see comprehensive discussion of the proposed models in Kuiper 1940. Most of these studies argue in favor of a Menandrian model (Lefèvre 2001, 11 n. 5 presents a full list), with Thesauros and Dyskolos as the likeliest prototypes. Questa 2004 draws attention to the conspicuous parallels between Aulularia and Dyskolos. Another model proposed is Alexis’ Levis: see Arnott 1996a, Appendix III, pp. 859-864, including detailed bibliography on the possible relationship between Levis and Aulularia; see also Arnott 1988 and 1989.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

28

Chapter One

this man from next door ask for her hand today”13), in a monologue that follows closely the opening of Menander’s Dyskolos. The way Plautus brings on stage Megadorus and along with him the amatory plot, however, is at least awkward. After a first Act that is devoted primarily to characterization (it introduces the leading theme of Euclio’s obsession with his gold and portrays in detail his paradigmatic type of a miser), the plot proper opens with the first scene of Act II (ll. 120ff.) and features a dialogue between two older siblings, the widow Eunomia and Megadorus. At the beginning of the discussion we learn that Megadorus is a die-hard bachelor. Even though Eunomia presses him to take a wife (149-150 volo te uxorem domum ducere, “I want you to take home a wife”), he has no desire to lose his freedom (154 quidem emoriar prius quam ducam, “certainly, that I die before I marry”). And yet, a little later he acknowledges that he has been nurturing a secret passion for Phaedria and wants to marry the girl (172-173 Eius cupio filiam / virginem mihi desponderi, “I want his daughter, a virgin, to be betrothed to me”), despite her alleged lack of dowry (173-174 verba ne facias, soror. / scio quid dictura es: hanc esse pauperem. haec pauper placet, “Don’t give me a lecture, dear sister. I know what you are going to say: that she is poor. But I like this poor one”). True to his word, in the next scene (178ff.) he walks up to Euclio and asks for his daughter’s hand (217-219) without a dowry (238-239). Euclio gladly agrees and authorizes an official engagement (255-260). This interest of Megadorus in marrying Phaedria not because he is obliged to do so by civic duty (to continue his line) but because he is in love with her is striking and brings him to the level of the adulescens amans of the typical palliata. For the adulescens amans erotic passion, not social status or money, is the leading force in desiring a stable relationship with the object of his love. And his agreement to a marriage for love and without any consideration for a dowry is irresponsible (or at least immature and lacking proper thought), an indication that he wants the girl but not the social responsibilities of the marriage as a civic institution.14

 13

Plautus’ text follows the edition of Lindsay 1904-1905; translations as a rule follow de Melo 2011-2013, with occasional adaptations. 14 Megadorus’ unusual gesture seems to disregard a socially established law: a girl is expected to bring a dowry to her husband. Otherwise she runs the risk of being seen more as a concubine than as a lawfully wedded wife. Plautus says this explicitly in Trinummus 689-691. On the importance of dowry, in the social context of Postclassical Athens as recorded in New Comedy, for the maintenance of a bride’s social position in the marriage, see, e.g., Erdmann 1934, 303; Lacey 1968, 109. Konstan 1983 offers a detailed analysis of the importance of dowry in

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio

29

The superficial way in which Megadorus deals with the cultural obligations of marriage clashes against his original recalcitrance to abandon his bachelor ways, which betrays him as a person of habits, routine and predictability. This split personality is an expression of Plautine contaminatio; it subtly instructs his audience to observe on stage, in the peculiar character change of Megadorus, the transformation process of the Menandrian/Greek model into a Plautine/Roman play. Yet, Megadorus’ marriage to Phaedria does not take place eventually, because the girl has been impregnated in the aftermath of a rape by the young Lyconides, Megadorus’ nephew, who also wishes to marry her but is afraid to ask her father for her hand. As a matter of fact, the Lar familiaris/Plautus has all but admitted the awkwardness of Megadorus’ role in the play, when he confesses that the reason he has modeled Megadorus on the infatuated adulescens is to become the catalyst for the timid adulescens proper, Lyconides, to claim his role (32-36). When Lyconides finds out that Megadorus has made advances to marry Phaedria, he comes forward and reveals the rape to his uncle along with his love for Phaedria (603), and entreats him to give up the girl for Lyconides’ sake. Lyconides fulfills the part of the adulescens amans in every conventional respect, for the rape of the young girl prior to the opening of the play is a typical motif of Menandrian Comedy. A young man in a state of intoxication (cf. Aul. 689 te eam compressisse vinolentum virginem, “that you raped that maiden while you were drunk”) rapes a girl during some nocturnal festival (cf. Aul. 745 vini vitio atque amoris feci, “it was the fault of wine and love that I did it”; ego me iniuriam fecisse filiae fateor tuae Cereris vigiliis per vinum atque impulsu adulescentiae, “I admit that I wronged your daughter during the night-time festival of Ceres because of wine and the impulse of youth”), usually without knowing what he was doing (cf. Aul. 792 si quid ego… imprudens peccavi, “if I made some mistake without thinking”; 752 ob stultitiam meam, “because of my foolishness”) or even realizing the identity of his victim. A pregnancy ensues, but the recognition comes in the end, and the young man acknowledges his fault and always marries his rape victim, who in the meantime has given birth to a baby (cf. Aul. 691-692). This is exactly what happens in Lyconides’ case.15

 the Greek models, being the central theme for the proper understanding of Plautus’ commentary on social exclusion and social integration. 15 Menander’s Moschion, the adulescens and perpetrator of rape under similar circumstances in Samia, readily comes to mind, as does the unnamed adulescens in Menander’s Georgos.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

30

Chapter One

So, in Plautus’ play, a typical Menandrian amatory plot develops into two parallel plotlines that originally antagonize but essentially complement one another.16 The artlessness in the transference of the adulescens role from Magadorus to Lyconides is deliberate, on Plautus’ part, in order to draw the audience’s attention to the blueprint of a bipartite role and underscore the consciousness at work in dramaturgy even as the play unravels on stage. In Dyskolos, an accident, Knemon’s fall into a well, provides a resolution to the situation: the old miser is rescued by the young lover Sostratos, who receives permission to marry Knemon’s daughter as a result, while Knemon realizes, even briefly, the risks of living in social exclusion. In Aulularia, all complication to the marriage between the correct adulescens and the girl simply goes away, no detailed explanations delivered or requested: when Lyconides confesses that he has raped the girl and plans to marry her, his uncle voluntarily steps back—or so we are told, for, notably, we never hear Megadorus himself transferring his fiancé rights onto his nephew—the uncle simply disappears from the rest of the play.17 Plautus has staged the departure of Megadorus and the entrance of Lyconides to proceed as two sequentially developing episodes in the same play, whose main characters are not to interact on stage. The role-transference is carefully crafted: Megadorus leaves the stage to wash for the marriage; in backstage, he is replaced by Lyconides, who enters the play for the remainder in the role of the groom. The transference of the same role from one character to another could be particularly effective when the same actor playing Megadorus in the first part of the play takes up the role of Lyconides in the second part. A different type of experimenting with the integration of Menandrian dramaturgy into the composition process of a palliata is observed in Stichus, a play modeled on Menander’s First Adelphoi, according to the didascalia, and, at 757 lines, is one of Plautus’ shortest plays.18 Plautus’ adaptation has left little to remind of a Menandrian play, but a sensitive reader understands the literary self-awareness of the actors, as they try to maintain the essence of the Menandrian model of their performance—a conduct as realistic as possible, inside a Plautine plot that values foremost exuberance and transgression.

 16

Bettini’s structuralist essay on “the anthropology of intrigue” (Bettini 1982b) explicates some of the structuralist assumptions embraced here. 17 At least as much as one may deduce from the deplorable state of the fragments that survive from the lost fifth Act. 18 The most recent discussion of the atypicality of Stichus’ plot structure is Papaioannou 2016, 185-198.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio

31

This conflict of comedic identities is visible already in the opening scenes (1-87). Stichus lacks an informative monologue, a standard device in Menander and in Plautus’ most popular plays. The omission enables Plautus to evade disclosure of details that require extradramatic knowledge—anticipation of plot development and conclusion. The dialogue between two sisters that opens the play offers some background information: Panygeris and her anonymous sister are ridden with anxiety because their father intends to pressure them to divorce their absent husbands and pursue new marriages (1-57). The sisters are loyal to their absent spouses but do not wish—in fact, they do not have the option—to disobey their father either (53-54 verum postremo in patris potestate est situm: faciendum id nobis quod parentes imperant, “But, in the end, it is placed in our father’s power; that must be done by us, which our parents dictate”). This statement discloses that the socio-political context of Stichus is that of Rome; under Athenian law, the guardian or kyrios of a woman after marriage was her husband, not her father. The intervention of Roman family law so early in the play inhibits the Menandrian themes from developing properly, even though the characterization of the sisters is decidedly informed by Menander: genuine love and devotion to their husbands brings the two sisters closer to the comedic type of the young women in love (unmarried girls and courtesans) than to the matrona (or even uxor dotata) of the palliata, their actual status in the play. Likewise fuzzy is the conduct of the father. Old Antipho as portrayed in the words of his daughters in the opening scene to the play calls to mind the iratus father of the palliata. His entrance speech (75-87), a tirade against his unruly servants, seems to justify this recollection: his acting readily calls to mind the stage conduct of Plautus’ Periplectomenus, the senex in Miles gloriosus, who enters the play in a similar manner, by casting curses and threats against his slaves (Mil. 155ff.). In the same monologue, Antipho is eager to convince his daughters to divorce and remarry, and his determination suggests plot development—being a pater familias, he can enforce his will. And yet, the Romanness of his comedic character is taken over by his Menandrian side: the sisters do know that their father is soft-hearted and vulnerable to entreaties (70 exorando, haud adversando sumendam operam censeo, “by entreating, not by opposing, I think we must use our endeavours”; 74 verum ut exoremus. novi ego nostros: exorabilest, “but rather that we should entreat him. I know our family; he will yield to entreaty”); while the father, on his part, confesses that, even though he will try his best to convince them to follow his advice and seek a divorce (75-79; 84-87), he does not intend to impose his will against his daughters’ wishes should they eventually stay firm on their

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

32

Chapter One

marriages (80-83 si manere hic sese malint quam alio nubere, / non faciam. quid mi opust decurso aetatis spatio cum meis / gerere bellum…? / minime, nolo turbas… “If they should prefer to remain here rather than to marry afresh, why, let them do so. What need is there for me, the term of my life run out, to be waging war with my children…? By no means; I’ll have no disturbances”). His speech echoes the speech of Demeas, the father of Moschion in Samia, who is disturbed by—what he misunderstands as—his son’s reckless conduct (the alleged amorous liaison with the courtesan Chrysis whom Demeas falsely believes to be the mother of Moschion’s baby) at the eve of Moschion’s marriage to the girl Plangon (the true mother of the baby—a fact that Demeas ignores), yet he loves Moschion very much and promptly forgives him; and he does so again later on, when he learns the truth (Moschion raped Plangon and impregnated her), which Moschion initially was ashamed to confess. In Stichus, as in Samia and also in Epitrepontes, none of the main characters is villainous. In Menander’s plays the complications of the plot result from misunderstandings and emotional reactions, or from family tensions; Plautus here does away with complications and as a result his Stichus has no plot.19 And the absence of an ‘evil’ character in all three plays, results to the other characters all transcending their comic types. The sisters are truly faithful wives. Gelasimus, the parasite, who appears in 155-273, is just an entertaining performer with no particular mission; he simply sets out to realize his comedic identity, to secure an invitation to some dinner party. Antipho is a genuinely loving father who does not have the willpower to maintain an iratus act. His refusal, as early as the second scene into the play, to become the play’s blocking character, cancels subsequent complication, which in turn renders the presence of a callidus agent unnecessary. To make up for the lack of plotting and emphasize the comicality of the acting of characters who develop in a dramatic environment hostile to dramatization, Plautus takes recourse to an exaggerated treatment of the musical aspect of the play—hence the tipsy ȤȠȡઁȢ țȦȝĮȗȫȞIJȦȞ, the typical entr’ acte in Menander, becomes part of the plot. The țȦȝȐȗȠȞIJİȢ are the play’s servi, whom the lack of comic peripeteia renders decorative, with no functional mission, and the second half of the play, the staging of their banquet, is truly a very long ȋȅȇȅȊ ȀȅȂȂǹȉǿȅȃ—or in the Plautine comedic environment, a very long closural celebratory dinner, both off and on stage.

 19

Lowe 2000a, 191 n. 5: [Stichus]’s plot… seems to have been radically dismantled in Plautus’ version.”

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio

33

A different experiment with contaminatio involves the interfusion of multiple canonical comic plots as this is observed in the structure of Curculio. This play has been dismissed as bad adaptation of some (lost, unidentified) Greek original, because it manifests several problems20 with the smooth development of the intrigue and the roles of various characters, and results in several plot inconsistencies. In reality, Curculio is an extraordinary play in the sense that in its compact narrative (at a mere 729 lines it is the shortest palliata) it combines two different plotlines which read better as parts of two different plays than the two halves of a single play. Young Phaedromus is desperately in love with the courtesan Planesion but unable to purchase her due to lack of money. Phaedromus is miserable because he has an erotic antagonist, a wealthy miles gloriosus, who has the advantage over the young man because he has already paid for the girl. In a conventionally developing palliata plot, the young man, assisted by his cunning slave, is expected to come up with the amount of money required for the purchase of Planesion and overcome his opponent, who ultimately is humbled and ridiculed. In an alternative scenario, popular with Menander,21 the money eventually is not necessary because the girl turns out to be free-born, a daughter or blood-relative to some of the characters in the play, who gladly agrees to her legal betrothal to her young lover. In Curculio, these two independent plot lines converge— more correctly, the first turns into the second—and the catalyst that facilitates this convergence is the transformation of the soldier. The anagnorismos of Planesion’s free-born status is attached to the revelation that the long-lost brother of the (pseudo) meretrix is the miles gloriosus and her suitor in the first half of the play. The reversal of dramatic identities is drastic for the soldier, to his surprise (Curc. 641 Qui credam ego istuc? “Why should I believe this?”), as he is transformed from an ‘evil’ character (miles gloriosus/rival to the adulescens) into a ‘good’ character (ally of the adulescens). The transformation of the miles, in-performance, is introduced seventy or so lines before the end of the play, it happens in rapid speed, in less than eighty lines (599-676), and it rivals the anagnorismos of Planesion for the culminating moment of the play. As a matter of fact, the

 20

Cf. the discussion of these and other problems of Curculio in Fantham 1965; several of the problems had been briefly identified already in Fraenkel 2007, 9798, with n. 3. Full bibliography on the topic in Papaioannou 2008/9. 21 The device of anagnorismos of the free-born status of a girl believed to be a courtesan occurs in Menander’s Perikeiromene, and in several Roman plays, including Terence’s Andria and Eunuch, and Plautus’ Cistellaria, all three of which use Menandrian models.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

34

Chapter One

persistence of Phaedromus in Act I on the chaste status of his beloved (along with the mask of the pseudokore Planesium wears22) is code for the revelation of her free-born status in the end, but nothing in the first half of the play even hints at the transformation of the soldier Therapontigonus’ comedic identity. On the contrary, up to the fifth and final Act, Plautus capitalizes on stereotypical comic instances revolving around the miles gloriosus. Midway into the play, at 371-461, Plautus situates a detailed portrayal of Therapontigonus according to established comic convention, and records a series of anecdotes drawn from elsewhere in Plautus, potentially from the opening of Miles gloriosus, where a very similar set of anecdotes describe the conduct of the braggart soldier in that play (Mil. 25-57). Distinctly, the identity marker of both soldiers is a truncated elephant: Therapontigonus’ signet ring depicts a soldier cutting an elephant in half with his sword (Curc. 423-424); Pyrgopolynices’ superhuman strength is able to transfix an elephant (Mil. 25-30). Therapontigonus allegedly has conquered half of the known world, including nations that never existed, with made-up names, in twenty days (Curc. 438-448), while Pyrgopolynices kills seven thousand men in one day likewise from nations in different parts of the world, including imaginary ones (Mil. 42-47).23 The reproduction of the anecdotes does not necessarily prove intertextual discourse between these two plays, but more likely suggests that these anecdotes were drawn from a commonly circulating collection of miles-gloriosus-jokes which may have originated in the Greek tradition, or, metapoetically, from a set stock of quotes used to designate standardized miles gloriosus characterization.24

 22

Even though the anagnorismos happens in the last Act of the play, the audience anticipates the transformation of Planesion’s identity because she wears the mask of the pseudokore, which is different from that of the meretrix (notably the former has a visibly smaller mouth, suggesting propriety); on the pseudokore mask see Gilula 1977, 247-250; Wiles 2004, 77, 89, 137, 177-184. 23 On these two braggarts as narrators of incredible stories, see Konstantakos in this volume. 24 Suggested as much by Artotrogus, who in Mil. 36-37 cryptically notes that he always knows and remembers what his soldier master wishes to say: Ehem, scio iam quid vis dicere. / factum hercle est, memini fieri (“Oh, I know what you were going to say just now. By Hercules, it was bravely done; I remember its being done”); also in 40-41, Novisse mores tuos me meditate decet / curamque adhibere, ut praeolat mihi quod tu velis (“It is appropriate that I know your preferences meticulously, and pay close attention so that first I should sense in the air whatever you may wish”). On both occasions the parasite significantly notes that he always knows what he needs to say because he knows the character of his master; in metaliterary terms, the parasite acknowledges the type of the miles gloriosus and

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio

35

When Therapontigonus appears in person at 533 he looks every bit the stereotypical miles gloriosus: he is angry and prone to physical violence (his opening sentence includes two anger-meaning terms set one after the other: Non ego nunc mediocri incedo iratus iracundia “now I march on with a rage not moderate” (533)), and he picks fights first with the pimp and then with the banker, the other two typically ‘evil’ characters of a New Comedy. In the course of this second brawl and while still on stage, Therapontigonus witnesses the anagnorismos of Planesium, who enters the stage in the meantime along with the callidus parasite Curculio and Phaedromus. This event will transform the soldier’s dramatic character by necessity—he is now the brother and, by law, the kyrios of the girl, not her suitor and owner—a transformation, recorded at Curc. 628-661, which he cannot control but has to accept. And so he agrees in the end to give his newly-discovered sister to marriage to the man who only minutes ago was his rival in the erotic pursuit of his sister, and whose existence Therapontigonus hardly knew of. Plautus here toys with the incompatibility of actual psychology and stage psychology. In real life and also in Greek New Comedy such rapid transformations of behavior are inconceivable.25 Likewise, on the Plautine stage rapid transformation in the pace of the narrative, as it happens in Curculio following the arrival of the parasite on stage, are expressions of originality and agents of entertainment. Finally, the extra-dramatic interlude of the Choragus, which divides the play into two parts, underscores the self-consciousness of Plautus’ dramaturgy vis-à-vis the Greek models. The first part observes the traditional script of a New Comedy: a penniless adulescens is in love with a girl whom he cannot have because he does not have the money to buy her from the pimp who owns her. The girl is expressly said to be chaste as yet, a piece of information that tips the audience off the eventual anagnorismos of her free-born status. The adulescens is accompanied by his loyal servant who nonetheless is not a callidus character but rather a

 his own knowledge of a set of anecdotal exploits he can recall on occasion; note also the recurrence of ‘memini’ (later to be designated marker of conscious crosstextual dialogue) and ‘scio’ or ‘nosco’—at least ten times in less than twenty-five lines: 32 sciam, 36 scio, 37 memini, 40 novisse, 42 meministi, memini, 48 memini, 49 memoria… optuma, 55 omnes… sciunt; on the use in later poetry of memorywords as signposts of allusion/metapoetics see the discussion in the opening pages of Hinds 1998. 25 Lowe 2000a, 190, aptly describes New Comedy as a “humane, realistic narrative genre… and quite simply, the most rule-bound and programmed of all classical narrative genres.”

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

36

Chapter One

typical New and Middle Comedy bomolochus.26 The plot is infused with comic gigs that involve additional typical characters of the Postclassical comic drama, such as the cook (mageiros), the lena (drunk old-hag) and the pimp (pornoboskos). It is notable that, as long as Curculio moves along the standards of a typical amatory comedy, the plot develops slowly. The pace picks up and the stage reality begins to change when Curculio arrives and enters the stage in the manner of the stormy servus currens (at Curc. 280ff.)—another stereotypical character of the comic tradition, according to the list provided in Terence’s Eunuch 36-41. Curculio holds the part of the servus callidus, the authentically Plautine character, who may have failed to find the money for the purchase of the girl but has a scheme that will make up for it. Once the implementation of the scheme is activated the plot moves rapidly, and the speed in action is accompanied by the unique on-stage transformation of the miles gloriosus’ comedic identity and several inconsistencies in the plot (timeframe of Curculio’s departure and return from Caria; sum of money promised; pattern of money exchange), which traditionally are attributed to Plautus’ drastic compression of the original,27 but in our reading, are statements of metapoetics, that denote the transition from the Menandrian world to the world of Plautus.

Part II: Plautine characters against their Menandrian blueprint a. Developing further Menander’s braggart soldier The identity transformation of Therapontigonus calls to mind several moments in the narrative of Menander’s fragmentary Perikeiromene. The Greek play similarly features a soldier, Polemon, who enters the play as an ‘evil’ character: he is in love with the slave-girl Glykera whom he owns, but his jealousy makes him wrongfully suspect her of infidelity and cut off her hair in rage. This defiant act of physical violence inspires the dismissal of soldiers, in the early part of the play, as thugs and untrustworthy (186-

 26

Papaioannou 2008/9, on Palinurus as bomolochus and on the tripartite division of the servus callidus character in Curculio, among Palinurus, the cook and the parasite Curculio. 27 See the close discussions of the play in Lefèvre 1991, esp. 71-74 and 97-99, and Fantham 1965, and their assessments of the so-defined problems in the structure; both critics engage with earlier critical views on these alleged problems.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio

37

187),28 but in essence toys with Menander’s systematic undermining of the stock character of the miles gloriosus, for, with the likely exception of Bias, the soldier in Kolax (e.g. frr. 2-4 Arnott), no other soldier in Menander’s corpus follows the gloriosus type as known from Roman Comedy and emblematized in Plautus’ Pyrgopolynices and Terence’s Thraso. Polemon is genuinely in love, and when the girl runs away to the house of a friend next door, he feels remorse at his unfair act and pleads with his neighbor Pataikos to mediate (Per. 177ff., 354ff.), too embarrassed himself to face his ill-treated beloved. And later on he threatens to commit suicide (Per. 504ff., 976ff.), according to the ethos of the elegiac exclusus amator or the comedic adulescens amans. Another unconventional case of a miles gloriosus acting as an amator is Thrasonides, the hero in Menander’s Misoumenos, who is in genuine love with the girl Krateia but his love is not returned. Thrasonides opens the play with a pathetic monologue through which, dressed in the costume of the alazon, he confesses his infatuation for the girl (Misoum. 1-14 Arnott). The incongruity between his acting and his looks must have been expected to arrest instantly the audience’s attention and generate mixed reactions of amusement and curiosity, verbalized in the aside comments of the slave Getas (Misoum. 15-17 Arnott). THRASONIDES. O Night—for you’ve the largest share in sex / of all the gods, and in your shades are spoken / most words of love and thoughts charged with desire—/ have you seen any other man more racked / with misery (ਙȞșȡȦʌȩȞ IJȚȞ’ ਕșȜȚȫIJİȡȠȞ)? A lover more ill-starred (ਥȡ૵ȞIJĮ įȣıʌȠIJȝȫIJİȡȠȞ)? / Now either at my own front door I stand, / here in the alley, or I saunter up / and down, back and forth, when I could lie asleep / till now, when you, O Night, have nearly run / half course, and clasp my love. She’s in there—in / my house, I’ve got the chance, I want it just / as much as the most ardent lover (țĮ੿ ȕȠȪȜȠȝĮȚ IJȠ૨ș’ ੪Ȣ ਗȞ ਥȝȝĮȞȑıIJĮIJĮ/ ਥȡ૵Ȟ IJȚȢ)—yet / I don’t… I’d rather stand here shivering / beneath a wintry sky—chatting to you!

 28

A little later his rival Moschion calls him “the plumed captain, hateful to the gods” (294), referring to the crested helmet worn over the long, curly hair as the typical mark of appearance of the braggart soldier, according to Pollux 4.147, in the catalogue of the masks of Greek New Comedy. The long, curly, scented hair is repeatedly stressed in the description of Pyrgopolynices in Miles gloriosus (64, 768, 923-924).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

38

Chapter One GETAS. Dear gods! It isn’t fit even to allow / a dog [outside] now, as [they say]! My master, / though, tramps round like a professor (ʌİȡȚʌĮIJİ૙ ijȚȜȠıȠ[ij૵Ȟ), just as if / it were midsummer! (Trans. Arnott 1996b)29

As the plot of Perikeiromene unravels Polemon guided by Pataikos’ advice drops off his braggart-soldier façade and exhibits talent in eloquent and persuasive speech, promising obedience to the authority of the law (492-503).30 Character transformation, then, in the course of a play, from an ‘evil’ character to a ‘good’ one, and in association with a braggart soldier, may also have its precedent in Menander. There is however a crucial difference: Menandrian soldiers, as seen in the two most prominent examples offered by the surviving fragments, are genuinely good by nature and truly in love already from the beginning of the play. The plot brings this good nature to the fore and illustrates it gradually on stage. The miles gloriosus in Curculio is forced, against his will and under the development of the plot, to transform his nature because he has to transform his dramatic identity as well, and from a dramatically ‘evil’ character to become a ‘good’ one. And yet, Perikeiromene does include a drastic character change, in the transformation of Moschion, and in this respect it may have inspired Plautus, after all.31 Moschion is the young man next door to the soldier, who is secretly in love with the same Glykera. When Glykera runs away from the soldier’s house and seeks refuge with Moschion’s mother, the youth erroneously believes (misled by his own intertextual memory—his familiarity with typical such conduct of lovers in other comedies) that the girl is in love with him. When he finds out that she is his long-lost twin sister, he discloses feelings of genuine despair (ll. 774-778; text Arnott 1996b): ȂȠ. Ƞ੝ IJ૵Ȟ] ਕįȣȞȐIJȦȞ ਥıIJȓ, IJȠȣIJȓ ȝȠȚ įȠțİ૙ ıțȠʌȠ૨Ȟ]IJȚ, IJ੽Ȟ ਥȝ੽Ȟ IJİțȠ૨ıĮȞ ȝȘIJȑȡĮ ਚȝ’ ਥȝȠ੿ ʌȡȠ]ȑıșĮȚ șȣȖĮIJȑȡ’ Į੝IJોȚ ȖİȞȠȝȑȞȘȞ·

775

 29

Turner 1979, is the first detailed reconstruction of the opening 18 lines of the play; cf. also Turner’s review by Brown 1980. 30 Brown 2003/4, 8, noting, further, in his discussion of Polemon (pp. 8-10) that towards the end of the play, when all confusion has scattered and the soldier is welcomed to marry Glykera, the girl’s father cautions him “to forget about being a soldier and not act hastily again” (1016-1017). 31 Ireland 2010, 362, argues that Menander deliberately transferred to Moschion and the slave Sosias traits that are part of the typical braggart soldier; in this way all three characters performed a varied version of their role.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio

39

İੁ į੻ ȖİȖȑȞȘIJ]ĮȚ IJȠ૨IJ’, ਕįİȜij੽ į’ ਩ıIJ’ ਥȝ੽ Į੢IJȘ, țȐțȚıIJ’] ਩ijșĮȡȝ’ ੒ įȣıIJȣȤ੽Ȣ ਥȖȫ. A thing not at all impossible is this, I think, as I now reflect upon it, that my mother gave birth and exposed the daughter born to her. But if this happened and if she’s my sister… why, then I am ruined utterly, wretched me!

Part of Menander’s success in Perikeiromene is owed to his recasting the role of typical comic figures, specifically the braggart soldier and the young lover, and this initiative suggests the potential for experimenting with generic norms. Plautus develops further this recasting by making its development part of the plot. Then, he adds a twist to it, by applying the same mode of character experimentation to a different role. In so doing, the Roman playwright makes a statement for the unlimited possibilities for engaging dynamically and in a creative fashion with the Greek comic tradition. In Curculio, the precedent of the miles gloriosus becomes the core of comic peripeteia in the two thirds of the play; while the abrupt transformation of a stereotypical comic character, enforced by dramatic economy rather than initiated by the character’s own free will, generates laughter and underscores that studied unconventionality is the trademark of Plautine dramaturgy.

b. What is Menandrian in the servus callidus? Since Fraenkel’s hugely influential Plautinisches im Plautus it is commonly agreed that the “wily slave” is Plautus’ major contribution to the evolution of the New Comedy genre. It is true that slave characters like Pseudolus, Palaestrio or Chrysalus have no parallel in the surviving Greek tradition. All the same, the surviving texts of New Comedy are not sizeable enough to give a clear picture of a typical Menandrian clever slave. From the available evidence, however, it is possible to put together a picture that anticipates several of their ‘cunning’ Plautine counterparts. ȉhe study of Plautus’ slaves communicates their awareness of their Greek models, and more importantly, the subtle evolution that took place in plot and character development in the plays of Menander, despite an impression of repetitiveness and conventionality—impression cultivated by the Roman playwrights themselves evidently in order to undermine their Greek models as repetitive. Terence’s comment in his Andria prologue (9-12) is a prominent example of this strategy of subtle modeldismissal: “Menander wrote an Andria and a Perinthia. Get to know one, and you know them both: They don’t differ in their plots but in their

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

40

Chapter One

dialogue and style.” In reality, however, neither the Greek plays were recycling earlier plots uncritically,32 nor the Romans themselves truly believed this.33 Their condescending comments are subtle window references, serving as interface, against which more or less explicit statements of originality are formulated. Plautus’ Chrysalus and Pseudolus are self-conscious of the expectations raised for their performance as “witty slaves,” but also of the fact that the particular character is informed by tradition. Both characters deliver memorable monologues which are elaborate diatribes on the dynamics and limitless possibilities of metatheater. In Pseudolus, metatheatrical self-awareness is pervasive, unrivalled in frequency and sophistication, and distinguishes most characters in the play; references, however, to the Greek tradition are absent. And yet, the short performance of the anonymous cook, who has been hired to prepare the food for the pimp Ballio’s birthday party (790-891), and unabashedly claims to be able to cook the most delicious culinary compositions by administering the proper spices (extra touches) to conventional dishes (plots), is, next to Pseudolus, the most explicit metatheatrical double for the playwright: this cook is modeled on the character of the “braggart cook” (mageiros alazon) of Middle Comedy.34

 32

Nick Lowe 2000a, 189-190, nicely describes the original character of the deterministic story material of the New Comedy plays in his remark that “predictability” in New Comedy is similar to that observed in Greek tragedy, and in both genres “resides at the level not of story but of narrative, in the generic rulesystem of the corpus” (Lowe’s emphasis); the same narrative outcome may be articulated in several different stories, and the knowledge of the chosen story and its development is “extrapolated” on the audience’s part. It is also worth revisiting Antiphanes fr. 189 K.-A., from a comedy titled Poiesis (“Poetry” or “Literary Composition”), a very self-conscious text that has received much discussion; in this fragment the speaker (the comic poet himself?) complains about the difficulties confronting the comic playwright of the post-Aristophanic tradition (compared to the poet of tragedy) because he has to devise the plot and characters anew for each of his plays; on the fragment see Farmer 2017, 83-85; Konstantakos 2003-2004, 22-23; Lowe 2000b; Slater 1995, 37-39; Nesselrath 1990, 240-241. 33 In Mostellaria 1149-1151, the following comment by the slave Tranio, apart from its explicit metatheatricality (about which see, e.g., Anderson 1993, 30-59), clearly conveys that the plays of Diphilus and Philemon features cunning slaves and Plautus was aware of it: Si amicus Diphilo aut Philemoni es / dicito is quo pacto tuo te servos ludificaverit / optumas frustrationes dederis in comoediis “if you are a friend of Diphilus or Philemon, tell them in what why your slave deceived you: you will contribute excellent deceptions for comedies.” 34 On the allegiance of the Pseudolus cook to the mageiros alazon see Gowers 1993, 93-107; Hallett 1993.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio

41

Chrysalus is more revealing. In his triumphant soliloquy (640-662), he explicitly pits himself against slave characters of New Comedy when he remarks that “I don’t like those Parmenos and Syruses who steal two or three minae from their masters” (649-650 non mihi isti placent Parmenones, Syri, / qui duas aut tris minas auferunt eris). Parmeno and Syrus were standard slave names in Greek New Comedy,35 but more to the point, Syrus was the name of Chrysalus’ counterpart in the Menandrian original of Bacchides, Dis Exapaton. In drawing the audience’s attention to the Menandrian model, both in a very specific and in a general way, Chrysalus calls for a comparison between the slaves in the two traditions: CHRYSALVS Hunc hominem decet auro expendi, huic decet statuam statui exauro; 640 nam duplex hodie facinus feci, duplicibus spoliis sum adfectus. erum maiorem meum ut ego hodie lusi lepide, ut ludificatust. callidum senem callidis dolis compuli et perpuli, mi omnia ut crederet. nunc amanti ero filio senis, 645 quicum ego bibo, quicum edo et amo, regias copias aureasque optuli, ut domo sumeret neu foris quaereret. non mihi isti placent Parmenones, Syri, qui duas aut tris minas auferunt eris. 650 nequius nil est quam egens consili servos, nisi habet multi potens pectus: ubicumque usus siet, pectore expromat suo. nullus frugi esse potest homo, nisi qui et bene et male facere tenet. 655 improbis cum improbus sit, harpaget furibus, furetur quod queat, vorsipellem frugi convenit esse hominem, pectus quoi sapit: bonus sit bonis, malus sit malis; 659-660 ut cumque res sit, ita animum habeat. 662 CHRYS. This man is worth his weight in gold, for this man a statue of gold ought to be set up: I did a double deed today. I’m carrying off double spoils. How beautifully I tricked my elder master today, how he was made fun of! With my clever tricks I compelled and coerced the clever old boy to

 35

Parmenon, Syros, Davos and Getas are the standard slave names in Menander (and later in Terence; Barsby 1986, 153). In particular, the name Syros is found in Georgos, Dis Exapaton, Epitrepontes and Phasma, and probably in Dyskolos (959, if Maas’ emendation is accepted). For McElduff (2013, 214 n. 53), Plautus here is making an in-joke about rejecting the names and qualities of the Menandrian slave character; similarly Williams 1983, 215.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

42

Chapter One believe me in everything. To my lovesick master, the old man’s son, with whom I drink, with whom I eat and love, I have now brought the golden wealth of a king, so that he can take from his own pocket and doesn’t have to look outside. I don’t like those Parmenos and Syruses, who take two or three minas away from their masters. Nothing is more worthless than a slave who lacks intelligence, if he doesn’t have a versatile mind; whenever necessary, he should draw a plan from his own mind. Nobody can be any good unless he knows how to do both good and bad. Let him be a rascal with rascals, let him grab and steal with thieves as much as he can; a man who has cleverness in his heart should be able to change his spots. Let him be good to the good, let him be bad to the bad. Whatever the situation is like, he should adapt to it.

A comparison is most effective when the two parts share things in common; and what the two slaves share foremost is wit—for, this is at stake in Chrysalus’ monologue: Chrysalus turns his back to the paradigm of the Menandrian slave, including his own model, Syrus, because the Greek slaves lack adequate intelligence.36 This inhibits them from effective stealing, which is a prerequisite in a palliata, since typically a clever slave is requested to procure money for his cash-strap young master. The entwinement of wit and money, and the importance the extraction of money has for validating the identity of the cunning slave is ideally illustrated in Bacchides and Pseudolus, and in memorable ways. Pseudolus revolves around the two meanings of credit, financial and theatrical, which are entwined in the course of the play. Theatrical credit, in turn, also is two-fold: the audience and the young adulescens should trust the clever slave Pseudolus’ wit, while the pimp and the senex should distrust him. And Pseudolus magisterially emphasizes his credit (merit on account of his superior intelligence) and his ability to extract the desired profit from it, by urging everybody around him not to give him credit (in a way, by tempting his audience both on and off stage to resist acknowledging his intelligence as a personal incentive to continue displaying his wit).37 Theatrical credit relies on superior wit and presupposes the ability to adapt: to assume multiple roles and identities, assess correctly the situation at hand, and then make a large profit by stealing when the circumstances are favorable. Identity transformation and strategic thinking distinguish the rhetoric of Chrysalus. His own definition of playacting is nothing short of “skin changing,” at Bacch. 658 vorsipellem frugi convenit esse hominem

 36

The servus callidus character in Terence’s Hautontimorumenos, an adaptation of a Menandrian play under the same title, is named Syrus (Brothers 2000, 32). 37 Finely argued in Feeney 2010, 291-298.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio

43

(“it is appropriate for a successful man to be someone you can change his skin”),38 an experience that calls for thorough transformation. ‘Skinchanging’ transformation requires supernatural powers, such as those owned by gods or magicians. In the literary tradition it occurs famously in the Odyssey, and it is the territory of Circe but also of Odysseus, both literally (with the aid of Athena) and figuratively. It is hardly unexpected then for Chrysalus to model his strategic thinking on that of Odysseus as he compares, in his second triumphant soliloquy in the play, his swindling of the senex Nicobulus to the capture of Troy and downfall of Priam through the deceiving artistry of Odysseus (Bacch. 925-974; 987).39 The emphasis on the antagonistic element that underlies the ways in which Chrysalus and Pseudolus refer to their cunningness in their soliloquies throughout is arresting. In the few samples of Greek New Comedies we possess, the slave characters as a rule are not preoccupied with theft or are self-consciously displaying their cunningness, but a careful reading of several instances may suggest that Menander’s slaves were endowed with wit and they could employ it when the situation called for it. This aptitude of the Menandrian slave in intrigue is met with denial by Plautus’ servi callidi. Pseudolus’ decision to embrace the typical Menandrian slave-name, Syrus, the very name of Chrysalus’ counterpart in the Greek original, when, mid-play, he has intercepted Harpax and introduces himself as another of Ballio’s slaves (Pseud. 636-639), may

 38

Plautus crucially renders the ability of the wily slave to assume many different identities depending on the circumstances with the adjective vorsipellis, which describes someone “who changes his skin” literally; in Petronius the same term describes a werewolf. Literal transformation and transformation of conduct or role interfuse once again in Plautus, in the description of Jupiter in Amphitruo (Amph. 123); in the play the god took the form and the role of King Amphitruo, but he habitually assumes different forms, including animal forms, in New Comedy in order to perform the same role of the amator. Slater 2000, 104 n. 16. 39 It is worth a footnote to point out that William Gager, the 15th century preeminent academic playwright at Oxford, in his tragedy, or rather, tragicomedy, Ulysses Redux, written in Latin, in which he undertakes a close reworking of the Odyssey (at the time no English translation of the epic existed) has Minerva address Odysseus as “manufacturer of stratagems,” “skin-changer” and “artist at trickery and deception” (UR I.117-120: Astutiarum semper ingenuus faber. O versipellis! O doli ac fraudum artifex! / Nimis esse oportet callidum, te qui artibus / praetereat istis, sit licet is aliquis deum, “you are always a cunning manufacturer of stratagems. Oh, you skin-changer! Oh, you artist at trickery and deception! He would have to be extremely wily if he were to outdo you at those skills, even if he were some god”) as if drawing on Chrysalus’ speech; for a recent analysis of this play see Buckley 2018.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

44

Chapter One

wink at Menander. By assuming Harpax’s familiarity with the Menandrian tradition, Pseudolus tries to convince his rival that he, Pseudolus, is a Menandrian-like slave. Harpax appears hesitant to accept it (to Pseudolus’ self-introduction: Syrus sum… id est nomen mihi (637), and responds with a question: Syrus? (637)), and his reaction may well be attributed to his awareness of the difference in the performance or mission of the slaves in the two traditions.40 Menander’s evidence, limited as it may be, is not bereft of intriguing slaves.41 Like Plautus’ plays, the surviving texts of Menander are inhabited by slaves that are individuals, marked by diversity in character and in the roles they enact, and not bereft of wit.42 In the only fully surviving play of Menander, Dyskolos, there is no intriguing slave, though Getas, the slave of young Sostratos’ father, has the reputation of being “red-hot” and “experienced in every sort of business” (183-184). The only use to which Getas seems to put his intelligence is to devise the prank that annoys Knemon at the end of the play, but hardly one would call this ragging an ‘intrigue.’ Why does Menander introduce Getas as “red-hot” if he did not plan to make a display in action of the skills that justify this characterization? Menander seems to generate deliberately false expectations, for a variety of possible reasons, including tempting the audience, alluding to potential script development (which never materializes), or even drawing attention, after the completion of the play, to the unfulfilled expectation of a cunning-slave performance.43 The most fully-developed cunning slave in the Menandrian corpus is Daos of Aspis, who, upon hearing that Smikrines wishes to marry his young niece in order to take possession of her newly acquired dowry, sets

 40

According to Marshall 2006, 147-148, Harpax’s reaction upon hearing Pseudolus being introduced as ‘Syrus’ discloses disbelief. In Marshall’s analysis this is “an example of ethnographic humour,” built on appearances, specifically the slave mask Pseudolus is wearing (his own), as opposed to the one he should be wearing (that of a Syrian guy, with dark features and hair). In my reading, Harpax’s hesitation discloses anxiety emanating from his awareness of selfconscious intertextuality: he puzzles over what Greek ‘Syrus’-part the slave before him is about to perform. 41 At least Ovid, Am. 1.15.17 hardly believed so. 42 On the role of slaves in dramaturgy in New Comedy, see Harsh 1955, 135-142; MacCary 1969, 277-294; Anderson 1970, 229-236. 43 Dover 1972, 207, believes (without producing, however, any solid evidence) that in describing Getas as “red hot” Menander likely is inspired by trickster slaves in the works of other dramatists, which in turn may suggest that the character of the wily slave may have been established already in the tradition of Greek New Comedy.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio

45

on foot an intrigue that combines intelligence and erudition.44 He conceives the idea of Chairestratos’ fake lethal illness and the plan with the fake doctor who would come on stage to verify it. Daos’ scriptwriting ability is combined with authorial talent and director’s skill, as he instructs all characters involved in the stage performance of his meta-plot of Chairestratos’ fake death. At the same time, he is a great actor himself, putting up as he does before Smikrinis an exemplary performance of a tragic character in distraught. He is, also, well-educated, for his para-tragic performance is full of actual quotations from different plays of Greek tragedy, and therefore all the more believable in its tragic color. In fact, the comic element of Daos’ performance is enhanced by the realization that this considerable knowledge of tragedy distinguishes someone who is not only a slave but a Phrygian one at that—a detail that is repeatedly underscored in the play, at 206, when Daos brings up his Phrygian origin as an excuse for disapproving of Smikrines’ intention to marry his much younger niece, and again at 242, when a cook pokes fun at Daos’ honesty which he considers a trait of an effeminate Phrygian.45 To be sure, the Menandrian scheming slaves are aware of the demand to meet the expectations associated with the particular role. In Epitrepontes, where the schemer in the play is the hetaira Habrotonon rather than some male slave, the slave character most fitting for this role in the play, Onesimos, can only grumble, self-consciously, about his failure to come forth with such ingenuity (at 557ff.) and perform the role of the trickster expected from him. The antagonism between a slave and a courtesan for the part of the auctor is present in several Plautine comedies, most notably Bacchides and Truculentus, less so in Miles gloriosus. In light of the above, Chrysalus’ boasts of superiority over his Greek counterparts are disorienting, for they silence the improvisation-cumtrickster element that is present already in the blueprint of the slave character of New Comedy, and misleadingly project it instead as an invention of the Roman stage. What does Plautus contribute to a mechanism of plot development already in place in the tradition is the ability of the slave/auctor to transform himself consciously into a schemer

 44

On an early comparison between Plautus’ scheming slaves with Daos in Aspis, see Arnott 1970, 1-18. 45 Ireland 2010, 363, offers a complementary reading of the “variety of character form” performed by Daos in Aspis, by noting that Daos’ character evolves according to the circumstances, but the audience does not notice the shift in performance “since in every case the adaptation can be seen as a natural reaction by the slave to changed circumstances.” This change of character form is necessary, according to Ireland, to prevent monotony.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

46

Chapter One

or agent of deception as the plot develops, and to improvise multiple schemes in the context of a single play, when the original intrigue has been usurped or failed to come to fruition and resolve the complication. Chrysalus’ self-comparison to the Parmenos and Syruses of Menander exemplifies the ever-present, though not always explicit, selfconsciousness of the Plautine clever slave. Palaestrio’s in-performance transformation from a prankster slave into a callidus one as recorded in the eyewitness description of the senex Periplectomenus (a projection of the audience on stage in this scene), is another outstanding dramatization of this literary device. Per. illuc sis vide, 200 quem ad modum adstitit, severo fronte curans cogitans. pectus digitis pultat, cor credo evocaturust foras; ecce avortit: nixus laevo in femine habet laevam manum, dextera digitis rationem computat, ferit femur dexterum. Ita vehementer icit: quod agat aegre suppetit. 205 concrepuit digitis: laborat; crebro commutat status, eccere autem capite nutat: non placet quod repperit. quidquidest, incoctum non expromet, bene coctum dabit. […] euge, euscheme hercle astitit et dulice et comoedice; 213 numquam hodie quiescent prius quam id quod petit perfecerit. Look at that, will you, how he’s positioned himself, worrying and thinking with an earnest countenance. He’s tapping his chest with his fingers, I think he’s going to call out his heart. Look, he’s turned away; he has his left hand leaning on his left thigh. He’s beating so strongly, he can hardly think of anything to do. He’s snapped his fingers: he’s anxious, he’s frequently changing positions. But look, he’s shaking his head: he doesn’t like what he’s found. Whatever it is, he won’t produce it half-baked, he’ll give it done to a turn. […] Hurray! He’s set himself up in a graceful position, right for a slave and a comedy. He’ll never rest today until he’s finished what he’s seeking. He’s got it, I think.

Periplectomenus’ recapitulating description of Palaestrio’s pantomime at 207ff., communicates Plautus’ (and his characters’) awareness that their performance is under ongoing scrutiny, for they have to meet two different sets of expectations: they should conform to certain standards determined through comparison to a Greek prototype: a scheming slave should look the part, that is, follow a widely accepted model, take a specific, approved pose (eu-schema) that befits a cunning Greek slave (doulos) of New

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio

47

Comedy (comoedia) (213); and he should be able to devise an elaborate and faultless intrigue (207-208; 214). This two-fold anxiety is best recorded in Pseudolus, as we saw earlier. In that play Plautus dramatizes the pressing need for scheming on demand, both in the reassurances delivered publicly by the slave Pseudolus (even though he has absolutely no device in mind at the particular moment he reassures his audience that he does) and in the monologues addressed to the audience by the same character, which transcribe in detail the agony to come up with some plot, not only because the play needs an intrigue to move forward but because Pseudolus is expected to deliver one in order to justify his prescribed part. Relatively early in the play, Pseudolus informs the spectators that he “does not have a first spot from where he may begin to weave nor certain limits for removing the warp” (neque exordiri primum unde occipias habes, / neque ad detexundam telam certos terminus, 399-400). Further, through numerous soliloquies (which are more than those delivered by any other scheming slave in Plautus), he makes a motif of announcing that a plot of his is in danger of failing, or that it actually has failed (394-408, 562-568, 600Į-602, 667-686, 908-910, 984-985, 1019-1036). These soliloquies do not advertise his strength at improvising more than transcribe his agony to meet expectations: to be able to construe an effective plot at all circumstances while avoid repeating other scheming slaves in the tradition.46 A representative such poetically self-conscious monologue is Pseudolus’ confession, at 562-568, that he does not really know how to fulfil the stereotypical promise he has made but somehow he will find a way to do so: suspicio est mihi nunc vos suspicarier, me idcirco haec tanta facinora promittere, quo vos oblectem, hanc fabulam dum transigam, ne quesim facturus quod facturum dixeram. non demutabo. atque etiam certum, quod sciam, quo id sim facturus pacto nil etiam scio, nisi quia futurumst.

565

 46

To be prepared “to find surplus potentials that emerge when it looks as if a plot has failed,” in Bungard’s words (Bungard 2014, 93); Bungard is the latest in a series of very informative treatments of Pseudolus’ complex and pervasive metatheatricality. Bungard’s pivotal thesis is that Pseudolus (or any charismatic callidus servus) “rather than bemoaning his failures, he ultimately welcomes each new moment as a chance to play his role slightly differently” (p. 93). Earlier notable studies include Feeney 2010, esp. 281-290; Moore 1998b, 92-107; Sharrock 1996; Slater 1985, 118-146; Wright 1974; Barchiesi 1970, 127-129. See also Barbiero in the present volume.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

48

Chapter One It is my suspicion that you now suspect that I am promising these great deeds so, as to entice you while I act out this play. You suspect that I may not do what I said I would. I will not budge, and I still know for sure that I still have no clue how I might do this, except it is just going to happen.

This comment for several critics is a statement of self-confidence. According to my reading, and considering the anxiety of comparison with Pseudolus’ predecessors, it is an admission of obligation, on Plautus’ part, to meet up the standards of the scheming slave ever able to plot inperformance, which the tradition of the palliata, near the end of its second generation by that time, has developed in conscious differentiation from the Greek comic tradition. Pseudolus in the text above is set not just to develop the servus callidus into a higher art-form but also to voice repeatedly the stress this ongoing demand by the Roman dramatic tradition has exercised upon him. To fight back against the oppressive conventions of the genre, Plautus in several plays turns the stereotypes on their heads, and in doing so reaches back to the Greek tradition and deliberately reproduces it very closely. Thus, in plays such as Trinummus, Stichus or Truculentus, the servus callidus character is a shadow of his own Plautine self47 and resembles instead the slaves in Menander, such as the prankster Getas of Dyskolos or the colorless Parmeno of Samia.

Conclusion Proper appreciation of Plautus’ plot structure and characterization may lead to comprehending the ‘Callimachean’ blueprint of Plautus’ composition methodology—his experimenting with the combination of multiple plots, known as contaminatio. Menander’s plays and fragments are the only extant textual material from the large pool of comedies that influenced the Roman playwright, and even though Menander was not Plautus’ preferred model, he did inspire several Plautine plays explicitly, and very likely as many implicitly. In this respect, once properly illustrated the diverse ways in which Plautus interacts with his Menandrian model may be understood as insightful responses at once literary and artistic. This elaborate process of aemulatio furnishes a prime expression of the considerably more complex phenomenon of the formation of Roman cultural identity in the aftermath of the Second Carthaginian war.

 47

The view that the servus callidus often becomes a self-projection of Plautus has been repeatedly noted; detailed reference treatments include Dupont 1976; Muecke 1986; Sharrock 1996 and 2009, 116; Slater 2000.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Menandrian Comedy, Plautine Dramaturgy and Contaminatio

49

As this chapter illustrated, Plautus’ plays often are expressly selfconscious of their Hellenistic models and involve erudite dramaturgical experiments that betray deep familiarity with the essence of Alexandrian doctrina; in this respect they may be defined as protoneoteric. Plautine plots boldly dramatize an ongoing experimentation with the playwright’s concern to ‘Romanize’ his model(s). The structure of the Plautine plot in several plays is based on the combination of ‘Menandrian’ elements, that is, dramaturgical techniques that may be identified in Menander’s plays and New Comedy plays more generally, and ‘Plautine’ elements, tropes that are not likely to have some Greek precedent. My analysis of Aulularia and Curculio showed that Plautine dramaturgy at work theorizes on the transformation of the Greek model into Roman. Both plays feature openings that evoke typical New Comedy settings but as the intrigue develops they become more ‘Plautine’: the plot moves faster, often accompanied by inconsistencies about which the playwright is aware but unconcerned, the characters are confronted with plot twists that force them to reconsider their next move and reform their behavior independently from their Greek counterpart. The structure of the Stichus plot presents a different type of experimenting with the integration of Menandrian dramaturgy into the composition process of a palliata. The appropriation of the Greek model is so drastic that only an erudite and experienced student of Plautus is able to detect the Menandrian blueprint behind the poetically self-consciousness acting of the characters, and their anxiety to stay on (Menandrian track) inside a Plautine plot that enforces decomposition and exuberance on a variety of levels. The ever-renewable ways of accommodating the Greek into the Roman is a studied confession of ongoing preoccupation with creative reception. Likewise, the identity transformation of typical comic portraits on Plautus’ stage is mindful of the fact that it continues a process that was already developing in Menander’s plays. The braggart soldier and the cunning slave, two core characters of the palliata, are informed by an elaborate process of evolution recorded in Menander’s fragments. Inspired by Menander, Plautus takes on the very mechanics of comic characterization, aspiring not just to surpass his model but to reinvent the formula that governs comic characterization—and in doing so, to reinvent the very essence of originality and newness, the driving force of Hellenistic literary artistry.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



CHAPTER TWO WHAT’S NEW? THE POSSIBILITIES OF NOVELTY IN PLAUTUS’ CASINA EMILIA A. BARBIERO

1. Introduction Denis Feeney has recently shown that Livius Andronicus’ ‘invention’ of Roman literature in 240 BCǼ by translating a Greek play into Latin marked the start of something new. The freeform experimentation with Greek theatre that had been occurring throughout the Italian peninsula was at Rome now replaced with literary translation, a new kind of reception that sought deliberately to create a literature in Latin by reproducing the original texts more faithfully: “…the new poets, with their revolutionary translations, were trying to get it right in a novel kind of way”.1 Authors of this ‘translation project’ inhabit two literary spheres at once, for they see themselves as both pioneers in a new tradition and continuators of a preceding one.2 Of the comic playwrights specifically, Feeney says this: We find many discussions of how the comic poets see their literary predecessors embedded in the prologues to their plays, as a reflex of how the theatrical performances are becoming an acknowledged tradition, with authorities to wrangle over. Plautus often refers to the Greek prototypes for his plays, but the sense of literary background within a doubly Greek and Roman tradition is more dense in Terence, where the prologues regularly engage in literary-critical debate and polemic.3

 1

Feeney 2016, 146. Feeney 2016, 157: “The first texts of Roman literature were translations, and their composers’ decision to pick out certain Greek texts as the object of translation inevitably marked out the new Latin versions as having a special relationship with the source texts, as being in some sense participants in or continuators of that literary tradition.” 3 Feeney 2016, 167. 2

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

52

Chapter Two

Posing as a response to accusations of plagiarism and literary theft, the prologues express a fundamental paradox by asserting Terence’s originality while acknowledging his double debt to predecessors both Greek and Latin. Thus in the prologue to the Adelphoe, where it is admitted that, in addition to his main Greek original (one of Menander’s ݃įİȜijȠȓ), Terence has used an untranslated scene from the Diphilean original to Plautus’ Commorientes. In spite of this—or perhaps because of it, the prologus insists that the Adelphoe is “new”: eam nos acturi sumu’ novam (“We’re putting it on as a brand-new play,” Ter. Ad. 12). The adjective novus is in fact ubiquitous throughout Terence’s prologues,4 used to describe both the plays and the playwright himself.5 But the novus poeta’s revolutionary work is, in various ways, patently not new: Greek models, Latin forerunners, comic convention and even previous performances6 condition his “new” plays and problematize their status as such. This, too, is conceded in the prologues. Indeed, the possibility of comic novelty is altogether dismissed in the prologue to the Eunuchus, a response to accusations that Terence has lifted characters from a Menandrian play already translated into Latin by both Naevius and Plautus:7 nullumst iam dictum quod non dictum sit prius.8 qua re aequom est vos cognoscere atque ignoscere quae veteres factitarunt si faciunt novi. Ter. Eun. 41-43

 4

The adjective appears at Hec. ll. 2, 5, 12, 14, 19, 37, 57; Eun. l. 43; Phor. ll. 9, 14, 24; Haut. ll. 7, 29, 34, 43. 5 According to Papaioannou 2014e, 43-50 the opposition of novus and vetus in Terence’s prologues constitutes “…a code through which Terence would announce his intention to inaugurate a new methodology of comic dramaturgy” (46). In yet another paper (Papaioannou 2014c, 231-232), Papaioannou connects Terence’s self-styling as a “new” poet to the presentation of his plays as fixed texts, a novelty, according to Papaioannou, in a palliata tradition previously oral and thus fluid. But what, then, of Plautus’ multiple references to and depictions of writing on stage? See, e.g., Pseudolus’ literary poiesis at Ps. 395-405, discussed below (pp. 59-61). 6 So the Hecyra, which is twice called “new” in its second performance (ll. 5 and 37). See further below (p. 64) on novus as referring to repetition without change, but also the idea that every single iteration of a play is “something new.” 7 For the problem of belatedness in the Eunuchus, see Caston 2014a and Fontaine 2014b. 8 This is a common poetic complaint. The first surviving instance is found in the fragments of an epic poet writing in the late classical age, Choerilus of Samos (Choerilus fr. 2 PEG). D’Angour 2011, 57-61 discusses Choerilus’ claim and its many descendants.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

What’s New? The Possibilities of Novelty in Plautus’ Casina

53

Nothing is now said which has not been said before. It’s right, then, for you to recognize [that] and to forgive it, if those things that the old [poets] used to do, the new [poets] do.

If Terence is doing what Naevius and Plautus did before him, and if these forerunners were themselves translating Greek plays into Latin, how can he himself be “new”? The following paper argues that this sense of double literary place and the paradox it implies is being worked out earlier than Feeney allows. In the generation before Terence, Plautus was doing more than just naming his Greek models. Rather, the playwright self-consciously reflects upon his role as an innovator and a latecomer, demonstrating awareness of the intellectual project to which he was contributing by translating Greek comedy for a new literature in Latin. To show this dynamic at play, I focus on the Casina, a comedy that more than any other in the corpus explores its status by depicting itself as both an unprecedented comic original and a repeat latine of what has already been done graece. My reading centers on lines 67-74 of the prologue, which foreground an emphasis throughout the play on the novelty of Cleostrata’s ludus nuptialis. Via insistent repetition of the adjective novus and metatheatrical statements of the ploy’s singularity, the Casina tells us again and again that it contains “something new”.9 And yet it problematizes the status to which it lays claim. We shall see that the prologus equivocates on the precise meaning of novum in l. 70 by means of a pun, creating ambiguity that raises the question: what, exactly, does the Casina’s novelty comprise? After all, Plautine comedy challenges the possibility of novelty by its very ontology: how can a translated play within a highly conventionalized genre be “new”? My paper demonstrates that Plautus recognizes this problem and exploits

 9

This trope in the Casina and elsewhere in the Plautine corpus has gone unnoticed in criticism, with the exception of discussion in Letessier 2011. Letessier argues that novelty in Plautus is limited to innovation within the genre of Roman comedy and was, further, somehow a ritual prerequisite of the religious games: “Pour célébrer les jeux, il faut, après les différents sacrifices et banquets, représenter une pièce, traduite comme les autres du grec, qui plaise aux dieux et aux hommes; et pour cela, il faut que la pièce contienne du nouveau—c’est-à-dire qu’elle ressemble aux autres sans leur ressembler. On pourrait résumer cela comme suit: il y a du nouveau dans chacune des comédies de Plaute; et c’est précisément ce qui fait qu’elles se ressemblent toutes” (p. 62). On Letessier’s comments about the Casina specifically, see n. 36. Although he deserves credit for picking up on a crucial topos, Letessier’s take on Plautus is outdated (“Plaute, comme les premiers poètes, n’a jamais prétendu faire œuvre originale,” p. 49) and his understanding of novelty somewhat schematic. Novelty in Plautus requires another look.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

54

Chapter Two

novelty’s multiple rhetorical dimensions to invite reflection on the ironic and sincere possibilities of the Casina’s newness in relation to reality, the strictures of comic convention and of literary translation, as well as the diversity of Italian theatrical forms.

2. What in the World is New? The Casina is about a sordid family quarrel. Father and son have both fallen in love with a foundling called Casina, who has been raised in their household since she was a baby. The senex amator, to whom I will refer as Lysidamus, although he is likely an unnamed persona called simply Senex,10 has sent his son and rival, Euthynicus, away from Athens to indulge his lust unimpeded. Lysidamus then sets about fixing a marriage for Casina to the slave Olympio, who is to act as stand-in and allow his master to deflower the girl in secret on their wedding night. Opposing Lysidamus in this plan is his wife Cleostrata. She supports Euthynicus and so promotes the candidacy of yet another slave as Casina’s potential bridegroom, Chalinus, who serves as a straw man for the adulescens’ desire. This conflict over which slave will get to marry the girl is resolved via a sortitio that gives the comedy its original Greek and Latin titles, ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ and Sortientes.11 Lots are drawn, and Casina is awarded to Olympio—that is, to Lysidamus. The senex is denied sexual satisfaction, however, by Cleostrata’s trick. After inventing a fiction in which a maddened Casina is threatening to kill both Olympio and Lysidamus with swords, Cleostrata dresses Chalinus up as a bride and has him act Casina’s part in the wedding ceremony as well as in the highly anticipated ‘honeymoon.’ A hysterical fallout results when the unsuspecting suitors encounter something they did not expect to find between the sheets: a ‘sword’.12 This plot is sketched out in the narratio portion of the prologue at ll. 35-66. Although its cross-dressing twist is not yet revealed, the Casina’s slave wedding is nevertheless novel and therefore shocking to the audience13—or so the prologus claims:

 10

Thus Duckworth 1994, 280-282; so, too, Chiarini 1978, 119. For the hypothesis that the senex’s name is actually ‘Casinus,’ see n. 38. 11 Sortientes is the play’s original title. For the controversy over when it became Casina, see n. 40. 12 For discussion of the text’s military imagery that revolves around this double entendre, see Chiarini, “Casina, o della metamorfosi” and Umbrico 2009. 13 On the “psychology of novelty” and the various responses that the new can provoke in percipients, see D’Angour 2011, 27-32.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

What’s New? The Possibilities of Novelty in Plautus’ Casina

55

sunt hic inter se quos nunc credo dicere: ‘quaeso, hercle, quid istuc est? serviles nuptiae? servin uxorem ducent aut poscent sibi? novum attulerunt, quod fit nusquam gentium’14 Cas. 67-70 There are people here who, I think, now say amongst themselves: “Please—what’s that, by Hercules? A slave marriage?! So slaves will take a wife or request one for themselves?! They’ve brought on a new thing, which happens nowhere at all”.15

The speaker ‘replies’ to this incredulity with a satirical apologia that plays on Roman comedy’s ethnic dimension: at ego aio id fieri in Graecia et Carthagini, et hic nostra terra in Apulia, maioreque opere ibi serviles nuptiae quam liberalis etiam curari solent. Cas. 71-74 But I say that it happens in Greece and in Carthage, and here in our land Apulia, where they make a greater effort for slave weddings than they do for those of the free.

This fictional exchange between spectators and prologus is conventionally read as a throwaway joke on the plot’s impossibility, a “piece of satirical nonsense”16 that tells us what we already know; viz. Roman comedy does not mirror reality but perverts it. The slave wedding motif’s novelty, then, lies in its transgression of social and legal convention, and Plautus is hereby ironically acknowledging that he is bringing “something new” on stage by depicting a practice alien to Roman society off stage. Thus the communis opinio.17 More, however, remains to be said about this passage.

 14

Quotations from the Casina are from the text of Questa 2001. All other Plautine plays are quoted from Lindsay’s OCT. 15 All translations are my own. 16 Sharrock 2009, 38. 17 So Forehand 1973, 236 (on whose reading of the Casina’s novelty see n. 36); Chiarini 1978, 111-112; MacCary and Willcock 1976, 107-108; Lefèvre, 1979, 315-316; Waltenberger 1981, 442; O’Bryhim 1989, 100 n. 70; McCarthy 2000, 166; Hersch 2010, 30 and Konstan 2014, 6.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

56

Chapter Two

In voicing the spectators’ alarm, the prologus employs prokatalepsis, a rhetorical device designed to forestall potential objections and preserve the audience’s goodwill.18 But this rhetorical pose is just that: the speaker does not actually register the spectators’ reaction,19 which is bound to vary amongst individuals in a particular audience as well as across performances in different places and times.20 Rather, this oratorical move serves to guide the spectators’ response. For by having his speaker act out their dismay whether they are in fact dismayed or not, Plautus illustrates the slave wedding’s intended effect. We are being urged to notice that this wedding element is new. Reminders of its status persist throughout the play proper where novus appears another 12 times, in all but one instance to describe elements of the ludus nuptialis.21 The ‘bride,’ groom and the events of their wedding night (l. 878) are repeatedly labeled as “new”: primum omnium huic lucebis novae nuptae facem (Cas. 118) First of all, you shall light a torch for this new bride. nam novum maritum et novam nuptam volo / rus prosequi. (Cas. 782-783) I want to follow the new husband and his new bride to the country. age tibicen, dum illam educunt huc novam nuptam foras (Cas. 798) Go on, tibicen, while they lead this new bride outside. sensim super attolle limen pedes mea nova nupta (Cas. 815) Softly lift your feet above the threshold, my new bride. lubet Calinum quid agat scire, novum nuptum cum novo marito (Cas. 859) I’d love to know what Chalinus is doing—the new ‘he-bride’ with the new husband.

 18

On prokatalepsis, see Arist. Rh. Al. 1432b11 and Rhet. Her. 4.13. For the argument that Plautus is acquainted with Greek rhetorical theory and uses it in his plays, see Barbiero, forthcoming. 19 This particular point has escaped scholarly attention or has at least gone unsaid. So it is worth emphasizing that Plautus is here putting words into the spectators’ mouths, and thereby effecting a particular rhetorical strategy. 20 On the relative perception of novelty, see pp. 71-72 below. 21 On the use of novus to describe Casina’s alleged madness in l.626, see pp. 69-70 below. Commentators of the play have failed to notice this recurrence of novus throughout the text. Letessier 2011, 58-59, however, does observe that nova nupta has the double meaning of ‘newlywed bride’/‘unprecedented bride’ and, further, connects the pairing to the play’s interest in novelty as he reads it, on which see n. 36.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

What’s New? The Possibilities of Novelty in Plautus’ Casina

57

sed ego insipiens nova nunc facio (Cas. 878)22 But stupid as I am, I’m now doing new things. ubi intro hanc novam nuptam deduxi, recta via in conclave abduxi (Cas. 881) When I led this new bride inside, I shooed her directly into a bedroom. opsecro, ubi tua nova nupta est? (Cas. 892) Please, tell me: where’s your new bride? duobus nupsi, neuter fecit quod novae nuptae solet (Cas. 1011) I married two men, but neither did what one usually does to a new bride.

So, what’s “new” about the ludus nuptialis? Novus’ wide semantic range presents multiple possibilities. This adjective encompasses both qualitative and temporal senses (new in kind vs. new in time) and can mean, inter alia, “innovative,” “fresh,” “recent,” “newfangled,” “alien,” “again,” “other” or “additional”.23 Its valences are variously descriptive (objectively new in time or in a series) and subjective (perceived as a departure from what has come before), and often overlap but can equally contradict. Something “hitherto not in existence” may also be “innovative,” although not necessarily so, and the same entity may be considered “alien” or not.24 Novelty is also a dynamic whose essence shifts based on factors such as time and perception. What is “new” today may no longer be so tomorrow; what is “alien” to some may be familiar to others.25 We have seen that critics take their interpretive cue from the prologus’ reply in reading novum in l.70 as “something strange,” and thereby understand the referent of the slave wedding’s novelty to be contemporary Roman society in which it is unheard of for slaves to wed. But a close reading of the verses in question reveals that the speaker leaves the precise meaning of novum ambiguous by his jokingly literal take on nusquam gentium. Nusquam gentium is a frequent idiom in Plautus. There are 7 instances in the corpus, and another 19 in which gentium is paired with other

 22

On this verse, see further pp. 62-63 below. The OLD lists 17 definitions of novus. At the time of writing the TLL had not yet gotten to novus. 24 My discussion of novus’ valences is indebted to D’Angour 2011, 19-27, who explores the multiplicity of Greek expressions for the new. 25 Thus Jameson 2002, 19: “It can be argued that ‘modern’ demands to be ranged under the category of what Jesperson called ‘shifters’: namely those empty vehicles of ‘deixis’ or reference to the context of enunciation, whose meaning and content vary from speaker to speaker throughout time.” 23

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

58

Chapter Two

adverbs.26 In these expressions the partitive genitive of gens works as an intensifier akin to our English adverb “at all” and does not carry its literal meaning, just as the interrogative phrase “where in the world?” (e.g. “Where in the world did I leave that book?”) is not employed to ask about a specific location on planet Earth. But the Casina’s prologus takes nusquam gentium literally. As if the spectators had proclaimed that serviles nuptiae happen “in no nation whatsoever,” the speaker proceeds to list three gentes in which such a thing does actually happen (or so he alleges). Such jokes on the literal meaning of a word or phrase are again very common in the corpus. Take, for instance, the exchange between Milphidippa and Pyrgopolynices in the Miles gloriosus, when the scheming slave girl misconstrues her victim’s use of a common expression of gratitude, ‘understanding’ its literal meaning in order to butter him up for the forthcoming ruse in which her mistress will pretend to be desperately in love with him: PYRG: si quid vis, adi mulier. MI: pulcher, salve. PYRG: meum cognomentum commemoravit. di tibi dent quaequomque optes. MI: tecum aetatem exigere ut liceat! PYRG. nimium optas. MI: non me dico, sed eram meam quae te demoritur.27 Mil. 1037-1040 PYRG: If you want something, come over here, woman. MI: Hello, handsome. PYRG: (aside) She mentioned my name. (To Milphidippa) Thank you! (But literally: May the gods grant you whatsoever you ask). MI: Oh, to be able to spend a lifetime with you! PYRG: You ask for too much. MI: I don’t mean me, but my mistress who is positively dying for you.

Thus while a wedding between slaves is “culturally strange” vis-à-vis the audience’s social reality, as are the play’s ‘he-bride,’ slave-groom and homoerotic wedding night, the prologus’ understanding of novum is based on a twisted interpretation of the phrase that specifies its referent. For the

 26

nusquam gentium: Amph. 621, 686; Cas. 70; Merc. 606; Men. 262; Ps. 401, 405. usquam gentium: Aul. 413; Ps. 98; Mil. 685; Poen. 825. minime gentium: Merc. 418; Poen. 691. quo gentium: Bacch. 831; Rud. 824. unde gentium: As. 90; Cist. 668; Epid. 483; Ps. 966. ubi gentium: As. 287 (ubiubi); Epid. 678; Ps. 619; Mil. 1344, 1379 (ubiubi); Rud. 469; Truc. 914. 27 On Milphidippa’s joke in these verses, see Fontaine 2010b, 140.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

What’s New? The Possibilities of Novelty in Plautus’ Casina

59

element’s novelty consists precisely in the fact that it happens “nowhere at all”; the serviles nuptiae’s newness, that is, is defined by and depends upon nusquam gentium. By literally ‘misconstruing’ this expression, the Casina’s prologizon effects an equivocation on novum that illustrates the adjective’s ability to connote more than one quality of newness simultaneously. Novus’ polyvalence is thereby activated in the text, and we are invited to consider its multiplicity. How else might we understand nusquam gentium, and what else is “new” about the Casina’s slave wedding? To find out, I suggest we look to another occurrence of this same expression in a play that likewise contains “something new”: the Pseudolus.

3. novo modo novum aliquid inventum The Pseudolus comes to a slow start. Its eponymous hero spends half the comedy inventing and subsequently discarding a series of ploys to help the adulescens Calidorus purchase his girlfriend.28 In the following passage Pseudolus admits that although he does not yet know how, he is nevertheless certain that he will succeed in solving the crux: quid nunc acturu’s, postquam erili filio largitu’s dictis dapsilis? ubi sunt ea? quoi neque paratast gutta certi consili, neque adeo argenti—neque nunc quid faciam scio. neque exordiri primum unde occipias habes, neque ad detexundam telam certos terminos. sed quasi poeta, tabulas quom cepit sibi, quaerit quod nusquam gentiumst, reperit tamen, facit illud veri simile quod mendacium est, nunc ego poeta fiam: viginti minas, quae nunc nusquam sunt gentium, inveniam tamen. Ps. 395-405 Now what are you going to do after on master’s son you have lavished sumptuous promises? Where are they? You, for whom not a speck of certain advice lies in wait, nor, for that matter, of money, nor... do I know what I should do now. You don’t have a place to start weaving nor defined limits for completing your web. But just like a poet, when he takes to his writing tablets,

 28

Barsby 1995 and Sharrock 1996 explain the Pseudolus’ meandering start as a deliberate pose of improvised artlessness. The comedy pretends to be a ragtag show that comes together extemporaneously, but its trouble getting started is all part of the script.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

60

Chapter Two seeks what is nowhere on earth and yet finds it, and makes that which is a lie resemble the truth, now I shall become a poet: twenty minae, which are now nowhere on earth, I shall yet invent.

Pseudolus summons his creative genius to morph into the text’s internal playwright, a figure endowed with sufficient comic power to take the reins of the performance in course and make the play. He depicts his imminent dramatic poiesis as the literal and literary pursuit of novelty: putting pen to paper, the poet searches out what is, before the moment of composition, “nowhere at all”—that is, something new. The product of this creative process (a plot for the play, equivalent to twenty minae to buy the girl) is signposted as such later in the text. For upon encountering a messenger who bears the epistle he will steal to save the day, Pseudolus declares that he has hit upon a new plot: novo consilio nunc mi opus est, nova res haec subito mi obiectast: 601a hoc praevortar principio; illaec omnia missa habeo quae ante agere occepi. Ps. 601-602 Now I need a new plan, A new plot has suddenly been tossed before me: I’ll attend to this first of all; I’m dismissing all those other things that I started doing before.

The appearance of this novel epistolary plot29 is foreshadowed by Pseudolus 30 lines earlier in the following metatheatrical manifesto of novelty: nam qui in scaenam provenit, novo modo novum aliquid inventum adferre addecet; si id facere nequeat, det locum illi qui queat. Ps. 568-570 For he who comes forth on stage ought to bring on something newly contrived in a new way; if he can’t do it, let him give way to one who can.

 29

In fact, the Pseudolus’ stolen epistle is “something new” vis-à-vis Plautus’ other letter plays, which all contain forged letters, adding yet another dimension of novelty to the Pseudolus’ novum aliquid. On the letters in Plautus, see Barbiero 2014.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

What’s New? The Possibilities of Novelty in Plautus’ Casina

61

This declaration amounts to a programmatic statement of Plautine poetics that qualifies the play in course.30 Novelty is a comic desiderandum, and the Pseudolus deserves its place on stage because it contains just that. Good comedy is new comedy, and vice versa. But what kind of newness is at stake? A lexical echo of the text’s earlier metareflection on poiesis (395405, quoted above) confirms that the novelty Pseudolus extols is poetic originality, and specifically a new dramatic plot (res): inventum in l. 569 recalls the creative quest for quod nusquam gentiumst via repeated words for searching (quaerit, reperit, inveniam). The Pseudolus’ claim to novelty resembles that of the Casina. Both texts advertise that they contain “something new” and label it with the buzzword novus. What is more, the Casina’s personae likewise proclaim the play’s superiority. Thus Pardalisca as Lysidamus and Olympio fall into the trap and lead off the ‘bride’ for the main event (or so they think!): nec pol ego Nemeae credo neque ego Olympiae neque usquam ludos tam festivos fieri quam hic intus fiunt ludi ludificabiles seni nostro et nostro Olimpioni vilico. Cas. 759-762 By Pollux, neither at Nemea or at Olympia, or indeed anywhere, I think, have there been ludi as fun as the ludicrous ludi being held here, inside, on our old man and our bailiff Olympio.

Pardalisca’s statement underscores the self-consciousness of Plautine comedy in which characters devise and put on a play within the play they themselves inhabit, folding theatre and metatheatre in on themselves.31

 30

Aliter Letessier 2011, 54-55, who argues that nothing Pseudolus does is new; rather the slave’s statement refers to metrical novelty (literally novo modo) in the scene to follow. His point about metre is well taken, but what do we do with novum aliquid inventum? To say nothing of the fact that the letter scheme is, as I point out in n. 29, actually a novelty in Plautus’ epistolary corpus as we have it. On these lines, see also Sharrock 1996, 169, who raises the question of poetic originality: “…is he [Pseudolus] pretending not to know the Greek original, as he pretends not to know all sorts of things? Or is he telling us that there is no original, that for this trick at any rate this is the original? The joke works either way, but it would be fun to know which is right.” On the multiple possibilities of Plautus’ claims to novelty, see further below, pp. 63-71. 31 For the metatheatricality of Plautine theatre, see the seminal works of Barchiesi 1969, Chiarini 1979 and Slater 2000.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

62

Chapter Two

This is reflected in the coincidence of terminology for the setting of dramatic performance and the stuff of the performance itself that serves as the basis of a pun: the Casina’s protagonists have put on a ludus at the ludi32—and the best one ever at that. Pardalisca declares that Cleostrata’s deception is an unsurpassed unicum, confirming what the text tells us at its outset: the wedding trick is new. Fellow schemer Myrrhina echoes Pardalisca’s sentiment twice: numquam ecastor ullo die risi adaeque, neque hoc quod relicuom est plus risuram opinor. Cas. 857-858 By Castor, I’ve never ever laughed so hard on any other day, nor do I think that I’ll ever do so again. nec fallaciam astutiorem ullus fecit poeta atque ut haec est fabre facta ab nobis.33 Cas. 860-861 Nor a more artful trick did any poet ever make as this trick has been cleverly constructed by us.

And victim Olympio implies the same thing when he admits that the shame he has suffered as a result of trying to bed what he now knows to be a ‘he-bride’ is unprecedented: sed ego insipiens nova nunc facio: pudet quem prius non puditum umquam est. Cas. 878

 32

Convinced that Pardalisca’s pun would not work in Greek, Fraenkel concludes that these lines are most definitely Plautine, and leads off his discussion of Plautinisches im Plautus with this very passage: Fraenkel 2007, 5. But Fontaine has pointed out to me in litteris that there could be a Greek origin behind Plautus’ wordplay: “Fraenkel and others say it won’t work in Greek, but that’s only true of ludificabiles (probably ਥȟĮʌĮIJȐȦ in Greek). Ludos and ludi both correspond exactly to ਕȖ૵ȞİȢ while ʌĮȞȘȖȣȡȚțȩȢ means both “festive” and “flattering, false,” so in that sense could easily correspond to both festivos and ludificabiles. Cut out the adjective and you have a fine Greek wordplay (perhaps also metapoetic, referring to the ਕȖȫȞ of the comedy?).” 33 These lines have been taken as proof that Plautus made drastic changes to his model. Thus Ladewig 1845, 192 and Lefèvre 1979, 336. In their commentary MacCary and Willcock 1976, 194, also seem to perceive a hint of Plautine originality here, noting that “[d]ramatic invention may be effectively alluded to in comedy,” whereas Konstan 2014, 9, calls Myrrhina’s statement an “extra-dramatic hint that the finale represents a novel twist.”

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

What’s New? The Possibilities of Novelty in Plautus’ Casina

63

But stupid as I am, I’m now doing new things: I’m ashamed—I who have never been ashamed before.

This line is typical Plautine doublespeak. Olympio plays on the ancient commonplace that slaves were incapable of feeling shame34 and simultaneously makes a metatheatrical statement about the deception’s newness. He has never before been ashamed because Cleostrata’s ludus is novus.35 In this way, the Casina signals its novelty as consisting also in dramatic originality. Its ludus nuptialis plot is somehow new to the comic stage. Is the fact of slave marriage itself new, or perhaps the play’s depiction of the wedding ceremony? Or does newness lie in the crossdressing bride and resulting male-male wedding? It is impossible to tell, and yet these repeated metatheatrical declarations clearly draw our attention to theatrical innovation. For Cleostrata’s trick is claimed to be not only unparalleled but also innovative in its comic effect. The characters declare that her scheme is the most fun, funniest and cleverest ruse ever. Plautus once again dictates his audience’s response to novelty, although in this instance it is the subjective aspect of newness that he attributes to his plot. The Casina’s ingenious ruse brings comedy to new heights.

4. Parsing the Possibilities of Novelty It is not only what is new about the Casina that eludes us, but also how: the possible referents for this play’s dramatic innovation are multiple. Its novelty could be generic, in that a slave wedding may constitute a variation on the same old wedding story of stock comic plots.36 On the

 34

Thus Konstan 2014, 9. Could Olympio’s statement also be a metaliterary reference to the Casina’s Greek model? See below p. 70. 36 Forehand 1973 raises the possibility that the Casina defies the audience’s generic expectations in order to establish “a thematic significance beyond simply evoking laughter” (p. 246), specifically a commentary “on improper and abusive conduct beyond accepted standards of behaviour” (p. 254). However, Forehand does not make the connection to the play’s claim to novelty or to the serviles nuptiae specifically. In fact, on this point he comments that despite the plot’s “departure from the expected,” “[Plautus] is careful to maintain the basic credibility of certain details, with his discourse on slave marriages, for example, assuring that no one will be occupied with trivia while he should be taking in the play” (p. 236). Letessier 2011, 57-61, also sees generic novelty in the Casina, 35

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

64

Chapter Two

other hand, the Casina’s insistence on its own novelty could be ironic,37 a tongue-in-cheek take on New Comedy’s conventionality that makes it impossible to say anything new at all. Yet another, particularly fascinating possibility is generic crossover. Based on surviving titles such as Maccus Virgo and Sponsa Pappi, critics have postulated that the transvestite wedding motif may have been influenced by the tradition of Atellan Farce.38 Could Plautus be highlighting his originality in transplanting a plot characteristic of the Atellana to New Comedy? Translation adds yet another layer of potential meaning, further complicating the matter of the Casina’s novelty. Whose (non-?)innovation is this? Plautus, after all, may have simply ‘transferred’ Diphilus’ (ironically?) innovative plot into Latin along with the novelty trope itself, a scenario that has interesting implications for the meaning of novus throughout the play. The adjective’s recurrence would at once be ironic (the slave wedding is not actually new, but only a repetition of a former novelty) and new per se by virtue of its repurposing to connote different kinds of newness, viz. the comedy’s recontextualization and repetition.39 For a plot initially new to the comic stage that is made anew in Latin and (re)performed at Rome is a new entity by virtue of its translation and transportation but also simultaneously a redo. Novus can in fact signify repetition without any necessary implication of change in the process, a valence the text seems to gesture at in its didascalic notice:40

 postulating that the play’s marriage between men, its conclusion with a wedding ceremony, metrical novelties and unusual characters constitute a novelty in the genre of New Comedy. 37 As D’Angour 2011, 29, brilliantly perceives, “…asserting one’s newness may be used to create inclinations and expectations in reader or audience. When something may be experienced as new simply because it is said to be new, rhetoric creates its own version of reality.” 38 This hypothesis was first articulated by Ladewig 1845, 192. O’Bryhim 1989, 9196, makes a case in support of Atellan influence, positing that the senex is in fact called ‘Casinus,’ the Latin version for the Oscan adjective for ‘old,’ casnar, which is (according to Varro LL 7.29) the name for the senex character of Atellan farce. Thus Plautus would be gesturing at the influence of this Oscan genre by giving his own senex an Oscan name. O’Bryhim’s argument is ingenious even if it requires that we wait until l. 814 to learn the old man’s name. 39 On repurposing novelty in ancient epigram collections, see Höschele 2017. 40 On the long history of scholarship on this didascalic notation, see Chiarini 1981. Critical controversies include the discrepancy between the play’s title as given by the text itself, Sortientes, and the transmitted title Casina, which also features in the late-antique acrostic and is attested to by Festus (Fest. Paul. p. 259, I Lindsay). Although MacCary and Willcock 1976, 102, think that the play was already called

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

What’s New? The Possibilities of Novelty in Plautus’ Casina

65

Cleroumenoi vocatur haec comoedia graece, latine Sortientes. Deiphilus hanc graece scripsit, postid rursum denuo latine Plautus cum latranti nomine. Cas. 31-34 This comedy is called ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ in Greek, in Latin Sortientes. Diphilus wrote this in Greek; afterwards, again, anew, Plautus with a ‘barking’ name [wrote it] in Latin.

Via threefold repetition of adverbs conveying his ‘secondness,’ Plautus reminds the audience that he is making this play after Diphilus did it before him.41 Two comedies with the same title, ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ and Sortientes, form a pair—the Greek original and its Latin copy, a formulation suggested by double repetition of graece/latine, adverbs juxtaposed twice in chronological order of comic production. The Casina is very emphatically a repeat.

 Casina upon the revival attested to by the second prologue, Chiarini 1981, 139-140 and on n. 58, argues that the play was still called Sortientes and remained so called until the late second-century edition of Plautus’ plays. It should be noted, however, that the date of this revival (and indeed of the Casina’s first performance) is entirely unknown to us, although the suggestion in l. 14 of the prologue that older members of the audience have already approved this play suggests that the revival took place within one generation of the original staging. For a review of the various hypotheses of the Casina’s original date and its revival, see Lefèvre 1979, 311 n. 2. Lefèvre himself posits 189 BCE for the original performance, but other commentators put it even later; the play is universally claimed to be one of Plautus’ last based on the reference in Cas. 979-981 to the imaginary bacchantes who have stolen Lysidamus’ staff (does the text refer to the famous SC de Bacchanalibus that prohibited Bacchic worship throughout Roman territory?) but also on the premise that it contains much original Plautine material, for the poet would have become a more liberal translator in his old age. This latter point is pure speculation. Besides the problem of separating Greek material from that added in translation without the source texts (on which see pp. 67-69), the notion that a poet’s aesthetic changes predictably with age is ludicrous. 41 Aliter Damen 1985, 247 n. 17, who sees denuo as a joke implying that there was a Latin version of this plot preceding Diphilus’ comedy and so Plautus put the fabula ‘back’ (denuo) into Latin. O’Bryhim 1989, 102, advances yet another view, according to which denuo means de integro and thus refers to Plautus’ radical rewriting of his Greek model. Other critics have similarly asserted that the didascalic reference is indicative of Plautine originality. Thus Abel 1955, 59; Cody 1976, 466 and Chiarini 1981, 141.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

66

Chapter Two

This reflection on reperformance is picked up in the section of the prologue apparently from a later revival of the play:42 qui utuntur vino vetere sapientis puto et qui libenter veteres spectant fabulas. antiqua opera et verba quom vobis placent, aequum est placere ante veteres fabulas. nam nunc novae quae prodeunt comoediae multo sunt nequiores quam nummi novi. nos postquam populi rumore intelleximus studiose expetere vos Plautinas fabulas, antiquam eius edimus comoediam, quam uos probastis qui estis in senioribus. Cas. 5-14 I consider wise those who drink old wine, as well as those who watch old plays with delight. Since old works and old words please you, it’s right that old plays please you above others. After all, the new comedies that are coming out are even worse than the new coinage. Since we heard the word on the street that you’re all eager for Plautine plays, we’re staging an ancient comedy, which those seniors among you have already approved.

Upon its reperformance, a play that bills itself as “new” has become a vetus fabula whose very verba are antiqua. The original prologue’s depiction of the Casina’s ‘secondness’ is thereby doubled: it is now a



42 The matter of the Casina’s revival prologue is controversial. Which lines belong to the play’s first prologue, and which to the second? In their 1976 edition of the text MacCary and Willcock conservatively assign lines 5-22 to the play’s revival, lines which unambiguously refer to a later performance. Chiarini 1981 deals with the problem at length and gives essential bibliography. See also Slater 2000, 57-60, in whose view the entire prologue as we have it is likely post-Plautine. He argues that the “irrelevant information” about Diphilus’ play and use of the verb scribere in ll. 33-4 to describe Plautus’ playwriting rather than the usual vortere point to a later composition. His skepticism is unwarranted. As I show below, the Casina hints at its Greek original throughout, continuing the metaliterary focus on Diphilus’ ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ foregrounded in the prologue. As for scribere, we have seen that Plautus depicts his poetic composition as specifically textual in the Pseudolus, ll. 401-405. For the frequent occurrence of this verb in Terence’s prologues and a possible connection to novelty, see n. 5.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

What’s New? The Possibilities of Novelty in Plautus’ Casina

67

repeat of a repeat.43 Even still, novae comoediae yield to it their place on stage. In a reversal of Pseudolus’ manifesto, the old is desirable and new is nequam—or is it? Here novus means “chronologically recent” and perhaps “newfangled,” but evidently does not connote the desirable sort of newness Plautus repeatedly ascribes to his own work, a quality the Casina continues to possess; the popularity attested to by the second prologue suggests that its innovativeness persisted for ancient audiences. In fact, this perennial freshness is a kind of novelty that the text claims for itself when Myrrhina declares that she has never laughed as hard nor will she ever laugh so much again (ll. 857-858, quoted above). Cleostrata’s wedding trick is still new even when the script is old. And yet the script is forever being renewed via performance. A different audience, a different time and place, different timing and different staging, different props, actors and perhaps even different lines—the list continues ad infinitum: every single performance of any dramatic text is “something new.” Like any other play that is staged and restaged, the Casina is always denuo. Another possibility is that novelty in the Casina points us towards translation and Plautus’ originality vis-à-vis his Greek model. The text has indeed been the subject of much critical speculation in this vein.44 Scholars have put forth a plethora of hypotheses about what is Plautinisches in der Casina, which range from positing absolute fidelity to the Diphilean model to asserting the translator’s absolute freedom in rendering it into Latin. The comedy itself piques our curiosity when it tells us in the prologue that Plautus has exercised authorial volition in keeping the adulescens Euthynicus out of his play: is, ne expectetis, hodie in hac comoedia in urbem non redibit: Plautus noluit, pontem interrupit, qui erat ei in itinere. Cas. 64-66

 43

But when was this antiqua comoedia chronologically new from the perspective of the revival prologue? In l. 17 we are told that haec quom primum actast, vicit omnis fabulas (“When this play was first staged it triumphed over all other comedies”), but there do not appear to have been theatrical contests at the Roman ludi (see, however, the theatrical ambitio referred to at Amph. 64-74 and Stasimus’ acclaim of Lysiteles’ performance at Trin. 705-708). Could this be a reference to the success of Diphilus’ ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ at Athens? If so, then already at its first performance the Casina was perceived as “old,” or at least from the revival audience’s point of view. 44 In the following discussion I cite only the most recent scholarship because the bibliography on the Casina’s relation to Diphilus’ ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ is vast. For a thorough review of older criticism, see Lefèvre 1979.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

68

Chapter Two

As for him—lest you expect him, today in this comedy he won’t return to the city: Plautus didn’t want him to, he demolished a bridge which was on his way.

These verses have prompted most critics to conclude that Plautus is announcing a change to his model, namely that Euthynicus’ Greek equivalent appeared in the ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ but has been cut from the Casina.45 Other issues debated include the possibility of an ਕȞĮȖȞȫȡȚıȚȢ (has Plautus removed Casina’s recognition as Myrrhina’s daughter?46), the sick slave mentioned in l. 37 (has Plautus excised the slave who effected this hypothetical recognition in the ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ?47), a fourth actor in the lotdrawing scene,48 Pardalisca’s paratragic performance (is this element Greek

 45

Thus most recently MacCary 1973, 195; Cody 1976, 462; MacCary and Willcock 1976, 107; Chiarini 1978, 109-110; Lefèvre 1979; Chiarini 1981, 149; O’Bryhim 1989, 82; Arnott 2002, 28, Lowe 2003, 175 and Umbrico 2009, 39. Aliter Damen 1985, 207-208. Rightly unwilling to speculate on whether a Roman paradigm is being superimposed upon a Greek one vel sim., Konstan 2014, 5, gives the most reasoned response to these lines, observing that “[t]he audience would have recognized… that not just the son but the plot itself was being shunted off in a new direction.” He goes on to frame the storyline that others attribute to Diphilus as a product of audience expectation: like us, seasoned spectators of New Comedy will naturally expect that Casina (whose eventual recognition is foreshadowed in the prologue, ll. 81-82) will marry Euthynicus. 46 This point has also gained critical consensus, although with some interesting variations on what critics think Diphilus’ recognition scene entailed. Those who have most recently argued in favor of an excised recognition include MacCary 1973, 195; Cody 1976, 476; MacCary and Willcock 1976, 37; Chiarini 1978, 119; Lefèvre 1979, according to whom the recognition was effected by the ring mentioned in Cas. 710; Chiarini 1981, 149; O’Bryhim 1989, 83-84; Arnott 2002, 28; Lowe 2003, 175 and Umbrico 2009, 39, in whose view the ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ featured cross-dressing in the false madness scene. Umbrico argues that Chalinus played the raging Casina and that the recognition occurred when the female schemers were dressing him up in Casina’s own bedroom. Myrrhina at this point saw some of the girl’s trinkets and realized that she was her long-lost daughter. Aliter Damen 1985, 209. 47 Those who believe that Plautus removed the slave who had exposed Casina so that he could not bring about the girl’s recognition before the end of the play include MacCary 1973, 195; MacCary and Willcock 1976, 103; Lefèvre, 1979; Chiarini 1981, 149 and O’Bryhim 1989, 83 n. 10. Cody 1976, 462, admits the possibility, whereas Arnott 2002, 42, excludes it. 48 For discussion of this ‘ensemble scene,’ one of many such 4-actor scenes in the corpus to which it is supposed that Plautus added a fourth persona (Greek comedy

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

What’s New? The Possibilities of Novelty in Plautus’ Casina

69

or not?49) and, most of all, the slave wedding motif. Commentators have argued at length for Diphilean or Plautine parentage of this element, basing their cases on a dissection of the ceremony’s features (are they mostly Greek or Roman?) and its generally farcical flavor, which some view as characteristic of Diphilus,50 and others of Plautus.51 But all such arguments remain speculative given their reliance on conjectural reconstructions of Diphilus’ play. We know nothing at all about the ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ, and so it is anyone’s guess whether, e.g., it contained the young girl’s recognition or not. What critics have failed to see is that the Casina itself provides some insight into this vexata quaestio of its relationship to the source text. After all, the Latin play repeatedly highlights its own novelty. Could the ludus nuptialis constitute a new addition to the model?52 Such a metaliterary dimension of the Casina’s newness is suggested by the prologue, where so many possible layers of newness coexist. A necessary condition of novelty is its relation to something else from the percipient’s point of view. As D’Angour well puts it: “Novelty can be recognized and asserted only against a pre-existent background—be it of

 appears to have had a 3-actor limit), see Lefèvre 1979, 327-328; Arnott 2002, 30; Lowe 2003 and Franko 2004, 46. 49 Most critics judge Pardalisca’s paratragic performance to be Greek. Thus MacCary 1973; Cody 1976, 476 n. 115; MacCary and Willcock 1976, 36-38; Lefèvre 1979, in whose view, however, the girl’s fury in the model comedy was ‘real,’ brought on by the thought of marrying someone other than her beloved (Euthynicus’ Greek equivalent), and Umbrico 2009, 36. Aliter O’Bryhim 1989, 36. 50 Lefèvre 1979 traces the critical trends of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which shifted from positing Plautus’ independence in composing the Casina to seeing a Diphilean model behind the entire plot and then back again. More recently, those who see a Greek original behind the wedding include MacCary 1973, according to whom Diphilus based the cross-dressing motif on the myth of Hercules and Omphale; Cody 1976, 475-476; Waltenberger 1981 and Arnott 2002, 28. 51 Thus Chiarini 1978, according to whose reconstruction the ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ featured a slave marriage between the foundling and another household slave, which was avoided by the girl’s recognition as Myrrhina’s daughter; O’Bryhim 1989, 90 and Umbrico 2009, 39, who argues that a ‘real’ Greek marriage has been replaced with the farcical male-male wedding. Yet another hypothesis is contaminatio: Plautus has combined two Greek models in composing his Casina or has added scenes from a second play to his original. This is the hypothesis of Fraenkel 2007, 199-214. It is endorsed by O’Bryhim 1989 and explored by Konstan 2014 who suggests that it may have even been Diphilus to originally ‘contaminate’ in composing the ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ by combining two plots from earlier Greek comedy. 52 Chiarini 1978, 112 comes closest to discerning in the prologus’ claim to novelty an announcement of Plautine innovation vis-à-vis Diphilus but does not quite make the connection.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

70

Chapter Two

tradition, of the past, or of the obsolete”.53 Thus the didascalic notation’s emphasis on Diphilus’ primacy and Plautus’ ‘secondness’ could work as a launching pad for innovation, showing us what’s old so that we can appreciate what’s new. Allusive references throughout the Casina appear to signal its divergence from the model, adding strength to this hypothesis. In addition to the characters’ metatheatrical declarations discussed above (of particular significance here is Olympio’s unprecedented shame at l. 878), consider what Pardalisca says to Lysidamus when reporting on Casina’s (alleged) psychotic episode: intus vidi novam atque integram audaciam (Cas. 626) Inside I saw a new and unprecedented boldness.

In the buzzword’s only occurrence in the play outside the context of Cleostrata’s scheme, Casina’s feigned madness is called novus but also integer: it is doubly new. That this status may gesture specifically at an innovation on the ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ is suggested by Pardalisca’s description of Casina’s rage several lines later: malum pessumumque hic modo intus apud nos tua ancilla hoc pacto exordiri coepit, quod haud Atticam condecet disciplinam. Cas. 649/50-652 Just now, here, inside, at our house, your slave girl started doing something bad and really bad in this way, something that doesn’t exactly suit Attic manners.

Could the description of Casina’s behavior as ‘unAttic’ allude to the fact that this scene does not belong to the Greek source text?54 Likewise during the lot-drawing scene Olympio appears to acknowledge Plautus’ addition of a fourth character to the model when he tells Chalinus that his presence makes one too many: te uno adest plus quam ego uolo (“With you there’s one more present than I would like,” 359).55

 53

D’Angour 2011, 88. Although Diphilus was a native of Sinope, he lived most of his life in Athens where his comedies were staged (his name appears in the victors lists: cf. IG 22 2325.163) and in any case New Comedy as a genre is closely associated with the city. 55 This potential metaliterary reference is noted only by Waltenberger 1981, 445 and Konstan 2014, 7. Waltenberger postulates that four actors were present in the Greek sortitio scene, but that Chalinus’ equivalent was silent. Most other critics 54

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

What’s New? The Possibilities of Novelty in Plautus’ Casina

71

Of course, reading the Casina’s newness against its Diphilean model can work the other way around, too. Perhaps the play is a carbon copy of its original, its fixation on novelty acting as an ironic acknowledgement of literary translation’s creative constraints. In this light, the prologus’ assertion of the Casina’s singularity sitting cheek to jowl with the didascalic reference—an admission of the same play’s reliance on an earlier play that (potentially) suggests precisely the opposite (viz. that the slave wedding comes from another text) resembles the so-called paradoxical claims to primacy of later Latin literature, primus ego declarations undermined by allusions to another text that actually is first. The locus classicus for this self-sabotaging posturing is the opening of Vergil Georgics 3, where the poet claims to be primus to bring the (epic) muses to Italy in language laced with allusions to Ennian epic. Hinds observes the following: In a sense, what Geo. 3.10-11 does is not so much proclaim a beginning for Virgil as proclaim the end of Ennius. To generalize the lesson, proclamations of one poet’s newness are inevitably proclamations of another poet’s oldness.56

By advertising its newness, then, the Casina reflects and prompts reflection upon its place in dramatic history. Plautus is new and so Diphilus is old, his ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ at once matrice generativa and ‘last year’s model’ against which the Casina’s novelty takes shape.

5. Conclusion We have not succeeded in nailing down what’s new about Plautus’ Casina, but as I said at the beginning of this paper, that is precisely the point. This play claims a status for itself that is endlessly slippery, and not just for modern readers. Given novelty’s dependence on the discernment of difference, understanding of the Casina’s newness will have inevitably varied amongst audience members at the comedy’s performances and

 (whose notice this line has escaped entirely) conclude that Cleostrata has been added to the ensemble scene on the supposition that Plautus is more likely to have put a woman on stage than his Greek model. Thus Lefèvre 1979, 327; Arnott 2002, 31 and Franko 2004, 46 (although Konstan likewise calls Cleostrata a “supernumerary in the scene”). 56 Hinds 1998, 55. Fontaine 2014b, 189-192 discerns this paradoxical primus ego trope at work in Terence’s Eunuchus.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

72

Chapter Two

reperformances at Rome and elsewhere.57 Those acquainted with the Greek model will have recognized Plautus’ claim to innovation as either sincere or ironic, whereas those who had not seen or read Diphilus’ ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ will have had to take the prologus’ word for it—or not. So, too, avid theatregoers (or well-read spectators) may have known of yet another plot featuring a slave wedding that contradicted the Casina’s claim,58 and audience members who had never seen a fabula Atellana would not have picked up on a potential reference to generic crossover. A plurality of responses is acknowledged and encouraged by the prologus’ equivocation on the adjective novus, as each spectator will have understood the emulation of his response differently, and perhaps on more than one level at once. And there is indeed one last level to consider. Could the Casina’s claims to newness work as an acknowledgement of the Romans’ novel intellectual project in creating a Grecizing literature in Latin? After all, the play’s paradoxical claim to novelty replicates the status of Plautus himself: the playwright’s ‘secondness’ to the Greek comic poets is precisely what makes him primus in his role as one of the first translators (the third, to be exact, and the first to compose comedy exclusively) to bring Greek literature to Italy in a radically new way. This brings us full circle, as it were, back to the prologizon’s literal take on the ‘spectators’’ exclamation. The creation of a literature on the Greek model had indeed happened before nusquam gentium; like Livius Andronicus and Naevius before him, Plautus is doing something entirely new.



57 For the evidence of reperformance of Roman drama throughout Latium, Campania and elsewhere, see Feeney 2016, 146 and in n. 122. New work on Middle republican festival culture has demonstrated that the ludi attracted a diverse audience of Romans, Italians and even Greeks; thus Padilla Peralta 2014. What would a Greek speaker armed with a Hellenistic education think of Plautus’ claims to originality? 58 There are hints of slave marriage elsewhere in New Comedy. The Miles gloriosus’ clever slave Palaestrio declares (albeit deceptively) that he is engaged to Milphidippa (mi haec desponsa est, 1007) and Ariana Traill has pointed out to me in litteris that the hypothesis of Menander’s Heros suggests the possibility of marriage between Daos and Plangon, both slaves until the latter is recognized as freeborn.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



PART II: ETHNOGRAPHY

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



CHAPTER THREE THEATERGRAMS IN PLAUTINE COMEDY: THE CASE OF HANNO IN POENULUS* PETER BARRIOS-LECH

1. Introduction When Plautus’ Poenulus premiered in the 180’s BCE, Roman attitudes towards the Carthaginians were changing. During the 2nd Punic War (218202 BCE), Carthaginians had been typecast as cruel, greedy and treacherous, a rhetoric about the “other” typical during times of conflict.1 But after thirteen years of peace, in 189 BCE, the two powers of the Western Mediterranean signed a treaty of friendship.2 Very likely, Roman views of the Carthaginian had softened during this time, when Carthage became Rome’s ally, trading partner and friend.3 For a modern parallel, we may compare Americans’ changing attitudes towards the Russians in the seventies and eighties: in general, these attitudes deteriorated as a result of

 *

I would like to thank the editors of this volume, Chrysanthi Demetriou and Sophia Papaioannou, not only for requesting that I contribute, but for many helpful suggestions on a draft. Also, warm thanks go to the many readers who took time to give useful comments: àukasz Berger, Richard Freed, Federica Iurescia, Rosario Lopez-Gregoris, Dimitris Mantzilas, Sophie Roesch and Kenneth Rothwell, who drew from his redoubtable knowledge of Aristophanes to give me useful pointers and bibliographical tips. An anonymous reader also pushed me to rethink the section on theatergrams. As always, only I am responsible for any shortcomings. 1 Isaac 2006, 327. 2 Poen. 524-5 fixes the date post 202 BCE, the conclusion of the second Punic War. Schutter 1952, 124-125, argues for around 189 BCE, on the ground that lines 524-525 refer to a time of significant peace at Rome. See e.g. Gratwick 1969, 513517, following Schutter; and de Melo 2011-2013 (v. 4), 10 who mentions the treaty of friendship. 3 See Faller 2004, 170 on archaeological evidence for a reflowering of trade relations between Carthage and Rome after the war.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

76

Chapter Three

the Soviet arms build-up and military activities abroad, but improved during periods of improved diplomatic ties.4 Soviet-American relations and resulting American attitudes affected the representation of the Soviet “Other” in film. Under Reagan’s presidency, generally a period of tense relations with the Soviets, popular xenophobic movies were produced, like Red Dawn, Firefox and Rocky IV. But by the time Gorbachev had declared peace, Americans watched the sympathetic portrayal of a Russian admiral in the Hollywood blockbuster film Hunt for Red October.5 Similarly—if one may be so bold as to compare a late eighties Hollywood hit film and an early 2nd century BCE Roman drama—around 189 BCE, again, in a time of renewed peace between Carthage and Rome, Roman audiences witnessed the humane and sympathetic portrayal of a Carthaginian father in Poenulus. Of course, Roman audience members’ reaction was not uniform. Some perhaps saw in Hanno’s depiction a confirmation of their Romano-centric views of the Carthaginian “other”;6 others may have recognized a refreshing counter to longstanding bigoted views of the Poeni.7 The reason for such divergent views was Hanno’s puzzling persona. He combines austere piety (e.g. Poen. 1137, 1255) with cunning (1223); he is an upright paterfamilias (1186-1190) inclined to Schadenfreude (1223-1250).8 These opposite traits, residing in the same character, lead one scholar to call the Carthaginian father’s persona “schizophrenic,” as “the attractive aspects of his portrayal are offset by some unsavory ethnic stereotyping”.9 Others explain the contradictions by appealing to conventions of the palliata, suggesting that Plautus has creatively combined several conventional theater-masks in one figure: callidus servus, pater pius, senex Lepidus—

 4

Smith 1983, contains polls and discussion. Shaw and Youngblood 2010, 32-36. As R. Freed reminds me, while Clancy’s book came out in 1984, the movie was released in 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the USSR in 1989. It is, of course, telling that the book was adapted for film at this important moment in USSR-US relations. 6 Hofmann 1992, 150, for instance, thinks that “die Artikulation der Hanno-Figur durch den Schauspieler bewirkten eine Bagatellisierung des punischen Gegners.” That may be true for some in the Roman audience. 7 Maurach 1988, 219: “[d]er Grundzug dieses Charakters ist Gottvertrauen un Feinfühligkeit—für einen Karthager auf römischer Bühne ein nicht alltäglicher Charakter.” 8 There are many fine appreciations of this character. Maurice 2004, 267-269 provides an overview. 9 Franko 1996, 426. 5

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

77

even senex amator.10 Some critics link the Carthaginian’s calliditas (“cunning”) not only to the callidus servus type, but also to the deceitfulness stereotypically ascribed to Punic foreigners.11 In sum, many readers have found it difficult to reconcile the figure’s stereotypical “ethnic” traits (greed, deceitfulness) with his role as the play’s protagonist, as a father reuniting with his family. My initial paragraph has made clear my own stance. I find the Carthaginian to be a thoroughly sympathetic figure. Most of the xenophobic and negative characterizations of him ultimately come from characters—the lackluster tricky slave and the bilious soldier—who prove to be utterly mistaken about the Carthaginian. And this “stereotype-busting,” dramatized before the audience’s eyes, may not only be good entertainment, but didactic in its force, as well.12 In this essay, we will understand Hanno’s encounter with the Greeks in Poenulus as an instantiation of a traditional theatrical encounter: that between foreigner and native. In doing so, we will further appreciate how ‘progressive’—both ideologically and theatrically speaking—his character is.13 To properly contextualize the scenes which feature Hanno, we will survey dramatic encounters between foreigner and native in comedy



10 Gratwick 1982, 110; López-Gregoris 2012, 58-69, esp. 63, adds the mask of the senex amator. 11 López-Gregoris 2012, 71-72 thinks that Hanno’s usurping the role of callidus servus from Milphio and his cunning “non è il modo d’agire d’un romano o almeno non deve esserlo.” Leigh 2004, 33, 37 compares Hanno’s cunning with that of Hannibal. Maurice 2004, 288 seems to see Hanno as thoroughly representing the stereotype of the cunning Carthaginian: “[i]n the end, Hanno does emerge victorious. Not because he is virtuous… but because he is clever, crafty, and a superb actor, which is exactly what a Roman audience would have expected from a Poenulus.” 12 I side with Faller 2004, 168-169, who observes that the audience’s expectations about a “lusty” and dishonest Carthaginian (in the prologue, 106-111) are disappointed in the last scenes; much of the negative characterization comes from Milphio, who fundamentally misunderstands the situation; or else the soldier, a villain in the play. Starks 2000, 181-182 has similar views, ruling at 182 that Plautus gives Hanno a “balanced treatment” that “removes [him] from the realm of pure stereotype.” Maurice 2004, 278-288 disagrees, concluding that in the Hanno scenes “the stereotype of the Punic is not undermined here, but actually strengthened.” 13 For a more progressive interpretation of Plautus’ characterizations and theatrical impact, see now Richlin 2017, who at 375-377, argues convincingly that Carthaginian slaves or former slaves in the audience might have sympathized with the Carthaginians Hanno, Giddenis and the rest, who, at play’s end, get to go home.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

78

Chapter Three

previous to Poenulus, all from Greek drama. The Greek scenes typically introduce the foreigner and convey his or her interaction with native (typically Greek) characters. Yet unlike 5th century Athenian spectators of Old Comedy, Roman audiences of the palliata consumed comic spectacles populated entirely by foreigners: typically, Greeks. To a certain extent, these Greek characters were built on stereotypes, but Roman audiences of palliata would also identify with the Greek ‘foreigner,’ the ‘other,’ in the process experimenting “with ‘being’ Greek, for the masked performers of […] comedy enabled the audience to try out what it was like to look at the word like a Greek,” as Denis Feeney writes.14 Of course, Athenian audiences of tragedy were also drawn into the viewpoints of foreign characters—the audiences of Aeschylus’ Persae, or Euripides’ Helen. But in extant Greek comedy foreign characters inspired sneers, not sympathy. Plautus, as we will see, diverged from these comic depictions of the ‘other.’ He was able to so diverge because he worked within a medium whose characteristic move was to decenter its audience-members, having them alternatively mock and identify with the Greek ‘other.’ Hanno, too, invites both these reactions, as we have already seen. Yet the play to which Hanno gives his name differs from a typical palliata production, for Plautus carefully differentiates foreigner from ‘Greek,’ distinguishing Hanno as ‘other’ by having him speak Punic, dress differently and look differently (facies quidem edepol Punicast, 977) from the other characters. In the meantime, the ‘native’ characters—the adulescens, the servus callidus and their allies—in appearance conform with the stock character’s mask, speak Latin and are conversant with Roman law.15 The encounter between Greek and foreigner staged in Poenulus has no known counterparts in palliata, but plenty in earlier Greek comedy: in Acharnians, the meeting between the Eye of the King and Dicaeopolis; in Birds, the embassy of Heracles, Poseidon and Triballos to

 14

Feeney 2016, 140. See Gratwick 1969, 379: “The countless Roman puns, and the style of the verse in general contribute to the impression that the site of the play is not really Calydon at all but contemporary Rome.” More recently however, scholars have preferred the view that the play is neither here (Rome) or there (Athens), but in some “other, fantastical” place, a “Plautinopolis” to use Gratwick’s 1993, 34 term. Fontaine 2010b, 35-36, argues against this “Plautinopolis” view, asserting that Plautus insists on the Greek setting of this plays. Whatever one chooses to believe, it seems Plautus wants at least superficially to distinguish Hanno from the rest of the characters in the play. 15

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

79

Cloudcuckooland; in Thesmophoriazousae, Euripides’ and In-Law’s (țȘįİıIJȒȢ) attempts to escape the Skythian archer; finally, the encounter between Greek and foreign King in Euripides’ Iphigeneia among the Taurians and Helen. These are the true heirs to the Hanno scenes. With their help, we can explain the famous contradictions in the Carthaginian’s character and also appreciate how radically different he is from typical comic foreigners. At this point, the reader will reasonably ask whether we should credit Alexis, the author of Plautus’ Greek model, for the innovative characterization of Hanno. The short answer: probably, yes, some of the innovation will go back to Alexis, but some should definitely be credited to the Umbrian. The longer answer now follows (the reader may feel free to skip the next section if she or he wishes).

a. Plautus’ Poenulus and Alexis’ Karchedonios Now, as is well known, the Poenulus consists of two tricks. The first is an entrapment scheme that runs as follows. The young man Agorastocles will give his slave-foreman Collybiscus 300 Philippics (165-166). This slaveforeman (vilicus) will next identify himself to the procurer, Lycus, as a Spartan traveler in need of entertainment—and ready to pay for it (174175). The procurer will not be able to see the ‘Spartan’ for who he really is—Agorastocles’ slave-foreman—because Lycus has never laid eyes on the vilicus. The slave-foreman, plan in mind and cash in hand, approaches the pimp and requests lodging and the usual entertainments; Lycus eagerly welcomes the “Spartan guest”—and his money (684-706). The transaction, moreover, happens in the presence of witnesses, who could attest to its truth during a trial (707-712). Next, while the “guest” takes advantage of the brothel’s entertainments, Agorastocles approaches Lycus and asks if the pimp has absconded with the youth’s slave, servus (761787). The pimp thinks that Agorastocles refers to Milphio, the boy’s tricky slave (181-183). Accordingly, and in the presence of the witnesses, Lycus strenuously denies he has Agorastocles’ slave, until he’s made to realize that he has indeed absconded with the young man’s servant—just not Milphio; rather, the vilicus and the 300 Philippics (181-184; 561-563; 735737). The penalty for this furtum manifestum, predicted by Milphio, Agorastocles’ ‘clever slave,’ is severe: for having stolen the boy’s slave, the pimp will need to ascribe his entire property to Agorastocles.16 That

 16

There was a double penalty involved in the Athenian įȓțȘ țȜȠʌોȢ, and this was probably the penalty mentioned in the Greek original, a penalty to which the

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

80

Chapter Three

property includes, importantly, the two Carthaginian girls whom he was to employ as prostitutes, Anterastilis and Adelphasium. As Gratwick points out, the penalty was not so severe in Plautus’ source, Alexis’ Karchedonios, for “the bond slavery presented by addictio does not have an Athenian equivalent as a penalty.” The Athenian equivalent, very likely a widespread Greek ȞȩȝȠȢ, was a penalty set at double the value of the stolen property.17 The second trick is provoked by the discovery that the girls— Adelphasium and Anterastilis—are free (894-895). With this information, Milphio, the callidus servus, plans to ruin the pimp (908-910). The arrival of Hanno provides the slave the necessary point of departure for his plan. He will have the Carthaginian pretend to be the father of free citizen girls and to manu liberali caussa adserere ambas puellas (1099-1103, 11021103). “The proof that they are freeborn will ensure their release; the information that the pimp bought them dolo malo—knowing that they were free—will guarantee his punishment”.18 The legal background is Roman, either the lex Fabia or a law like it which protected Romans against wrongful enslavement.19 By contrast, in the Greek play, such a suit

 Plautine verses partly cited above refer: quid tu dubitas quin extempulo / dupli tibi, auri et hominis, fur leno siet? / …ubi in ius venerit / addicet praetor familiam totam tibi (“Why do you doubt that the pimp will instantly be a thief obliged to pay to you a double sum, for money and man? / …When he comes to court, the praetor will adjudge the entire household to you,” Poen. 182-186). Thus, in the Greek original the pimp would have restored the stolen slave and yielded two slaves (twice the value of the stolen property), viz. Adelphasium and Anterastilis; he would also need to sell his household to pay the 600 Philippics, twice the value of the money stolen: see Gratwick 1969, 397 and Scafuro 1997, 459. Yet later in the play, the crime is treated as a Roman furtum manifestum [an open theft, when the thief is caught in the act or found anywhere with a stolen object] (manufesto fur es, 785), the penalty for which, as prescribed in the XII Tables, was flogging and personal addictio. At some point after the XII Tables were published, a praetorian edict prescribed a quadruple penalty instead of the harsher penalties by (Gaius Inst. 3.189 for the XII Tables Law and edict). For detailed discussion of the legal background, see Gratwick 1969, 393-407 and Scafuro 1997, 458-460. I agree with Gratwick 1969, 405-406 that Plautus introduced the manifestum furtum with its legal penalty, addictio, in order to make “the effect of the trial sound more devastating than it is” and to magnify Milphio’s role. 17 Gratwick 1969, 396-397, 399. 18 Gratwick 1969, 418. 19 Gratwick 1969, 215, 410-411. On the possibility that a Carthaginian could avail himself of this legal relief (though he would have needed a patronus to be the actor of a case), see Gratwick 1969, 412-414.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

81

would not have been possible, since Hanno, a foreigner, cannot bring a claim against a Greek citizen.20 The first trick had already effected the girls’ release, a fact which makes the second trick unnecessary. To explain this inconsistency, scholars argued that Plautus had merged two different plays to create his Poenulus, a theory that gained considerable traction until Fraenkel argued that both the play’s two “parts” came from a single source. This view now forms the communis opinio.21 In my analysis, I will assume that Plautus uses a single source— Alexis’ Karchedonios—for his original.22 I will also take it as a given that the second trick is owed to Plautus, since it relies on a legal argument (vindicatio alienae liberatis) that would make sense only to a Roman audience.23 By contrast, Alexis’ play had a simpler dénouement. The girls return from the forum, and reunite with their father. Hanno retains possession of the girls, on moral, not legal grounds.24 As I will show below, the main vehicle for understanding Hanno’s character—his Punic speeches and characters’ reactions to them—are mostly down to Plautus: two of the total three Punic speeches.

 20

Gratwick 1969, 214, and de Melo 2012, 10. Zwierlein 1990, 138-139, who believes that Poenulus is based on a single source, itemizes six reasons for which the play was held to stem from two separate plays: for instance, differences in the characterization of the two sisters, on which, see Langen 1886, 182-184; for one possible scenario of so-called contamination, see Leo 1912, 170-178, who argues that Plautus inserted material from a play featuring the confidence trick into his adaptation of Alexis’ Karchedonios, which itself revolved around the discovery that the girls were free. I have found Gratwick’s 1969, 456-458 (cf. Gratwick 1982, 98-101) reconstruction of the play most compelling; it is followed in the main by de Melo 2012, 9-11. A convenient doxography on the issue of contamination will be found at Arnott 2004, 63 with nn.11-12. 22 Arnott 1996a, 285-286 makes a strong case that the Alexis play stands, at least in part, behind Plautus’ Poenulus; the arguments are summarized and updated at Arnott 2004, 60-62. 23 Gratwick 1969, 454. 24 In the original, the leno was not to be prosecuted until “tomorrow,” anyway; with the girls’ free-birth brought to light, the leno does the right thing by not insisting on his claim to them. Still, as Gratwick 1969, v, 445-446 notes: “the ʌȠȡȞȠȕȠıțȩȢ would not have been guilty in the eyes of the average Greek of the 4th or 3rd century of even a very serious moral offense, let alone guilty of breaking a law, in having bought two little Carthaginian girls long ago in another ʌȩȜȚȢ,” barring any treaty between Carthage and Aetolia, for which there is no evidence. The drama of the original, for Gratwick 1969, 458, would consist in precisely the lack of any specific legal remedy for the girls. 21

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

82

Chapter Three

b. Plautus’ knowledge of Euripides and Aristophanes Plautus, therefore, did not imitate Alexis; rather he made creative use of the Greek author.25 The question now becomes: how did Plautus access scenes of the type “dramatic encounter between ‘self’ and ‘other’” in the plays of Aristophanes and Euripides, whose extant comedies contained such encounters? Did Plautus (and his audience) know Aristophanes (it goes without saying that the palliata author knew, at least indirectly, Euripides)?26 I present first a conservative scenario, and then a more speculative one. According to the conservative view, it is unlikely that Plautus knew Aristophanes directly, that is, by watching performances of the Old Comic poet. But he probably knew the Athenian playwright indirectly.27 Thus, the Umbrian might have viewed scenes in Atellan farce inspired by the Aristophanic material. The mime, which also mediated Aristophanes, could have been a likely source, as Gratwick suggests.28 Similarly Middle and New Comedy plays, no longer accessible to us, might have adapted Aristophanic scenic elements, channeling them for Roman playwrights.29

 25

Nor is this surprising, given what we now know about how these poets worked, thanks to the seminal work of Fraenkel 2007. 26 At least for Euripides IT, Plautus knew the play indirectly through Naevius’ version: Iphigeneia. Ribbeck 1875, 50-53 argues tentatively for ascribing a fragment from Naevius’ Iphigenia to a play based on Euripides’ IT. 27 Leo 1895, 123, in Plautinische Forschungen, claims that Plautus knew Aristophanes directly; but his revision of that passage in Leo 1912, 137 suggests the scholar had changed his mind on Plautus’ direct knowledge of Aristophanes. Indeed, Dover 1988, 199 had claimed that there was no evidence that Aristophanes was ever performed after the Old Comic poet’s lifetime. Yet as Taplin 1993, 3047; 89-99 definitively shows through vase evidence, Attic Old Comedy was performed in Magna Graecia, at least in the first quarter, maybe even first half of the 4th century. The famous South Italian Würzburg Telephus, for instance, dated to 380 BCE, doubtless alludes to Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae. This play, then, was likely produced in Southern Italy; and middle comic poets like Eubulus and Alexis, who bridged the Old and New Comedy, could have adapted the elements from that Aristophanic play for one or more of their own dramas. Still, were it not for the vase evidence, it would be reasonable to conclude that Aristophanes was not known in S. Italy, for we have few indications for the circulation of Aristophanic texts after the 4th century BCE: see Wilson 2014, 656657. 28 Gratwick 1969, 377; see further the helpful stemma at Marshall 2006, 2. 29 Leo 1912, 138 and Arnott 2004, 75.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

83

Denis Feeney, however, has recently challenged us to rethink this scenario. He writes that during the First Punic War, soldiers will have watched Greek plays in Sicily. After the war, the Sicilian troupes, who had performed for Roman military personnel, may very well have taken advantage of the new market afforded by peacetime in order to bring their reperformances of Greek plays as far north as Rome. “At the very least” Feeney adds, “we should take very seriously the argument that the new Latin productions beginning in 240 will have required skilled and trained personnel, and the most likely source for them will have been Greek dramatic companies from Sicily or Southern Italy”.30 Plautus, on this scenario, will have been a boy when he saw his first performances of Greek drama in Rome; of Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae, or the Iphigeneia at Tauris of Euripides. Yet, for the purposes of this essay, I will abide by the more conservative view, that Plautus at least had indirect knowledge of Old Comedy and Euripides (the latter through Latin adaptations), though we should always be mindful of the possibility that he had actually viewed reperformances. And from the drama that mediated his ‘deep’ Greek sources—Aristophanes and Euripides—he will have drawn scenic elements, which were now the common inheritance and vocabulary of the Roman comic playwrights: in this essay, I dub these elements theatergrams, after Louise Clubb, in her work on Shakespeare’s debts to Italian Cinquecento Comedy.31 I will now explicate this concept, with which we will be able to better appreciate the various theatrical influences impacting Hanno’s characterization.

c. Theatergrams Italian Renaissance theater scholar Louise Clubb defines theatergrams as “streamlined structures for svelte playmaking and elements of high specific density, weighty with significance from previous incarnations”.32 An example drawn from the Italian Cinquencento drama analyzed by Clubb is the “figure of the woman desired and desiring,” the giovane inamorata, a theatergram that “called for and partly defined itself by another,” that of the “confidant, encourager, agent, messenger, or perhaps

 30

Feeney 2016, 107. This concept, developed by Italian Renaissance drama scholar Louise Clubb, was first adapted by a Classicist, to my knowledge, in Traill 2015, 213-231, an essay that inspired the present one. 32 Clubb 1989, (a reprint of Clubb 1986), at 6. 31

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

84

Chapter Three

all of these.” The result, a “theatergram of association” constitutes one of several theatergrams: “of person, association, action, or design”.33 The pairing of inamorata and nutrice, or nurse, triggers associated actions and speeches: for instance, the nurse “may natter earthily about maidenheads… and invite reprimand… she can be a flirt… encouraged or rejected; or rather than flirt, she may indulge in slanging matches with insulting boys”.34 Additionally, the nurse in Cinquecento comedy aids in forming contrasts, of character, such as youth versus old age, or of principles, monogamy (desired by the young lover) versus plurality of lovers (as advocated by a nurse). Further, she functions within the plot in different ways: she might aid and abet, sending messages, arranging clandestine meetings; or she may try to thwart the union between the young lovers.35 In order to lend more precision to these notions we draw on the terminology from Manfred Pfister’s Theory and Analysis of Drama. Here, Pfister distinguishes between figure and character; we introduce a third distinction, relevant to the highly formulaic palliata genre, the persona or mask. For Pfister, the term “figure” distinguishes a fictional construct, “produced or constructed for a particular purpose.” The word “figure” “evokes the impression of functionality rather than individual autonomy,” just as each figure in a game of chess performs a function on a regularly delimited rectangular grid.36 From this notion of figure, Pfister distinguishes “the character (in the neutral sense of identity) of a figure [that is] the sum of the contrasts and correspondences linking it with other figures in the text” (emphasis added).37 In Roman Comedy, the masks each signal a set of functions and characteristics conventionally associated with the mask; put another way, the mask constrains the figure and character of the dramatic agent in a play.38 For instance, the figure of the adulescens in a given Roman Comedy play typically conform with the adulescens mask, as the boy’s desire stimulates his associate, a callidus servus, a parasitus, or even another adulescens to secure access to the beloved. The same adulescens mask is associated with a particular character, typified by exaggerated displays of emotion, and a certain dull-

 33

Clubb 1989, 8. Clubb 1989, 12. 35 Clubb 1989, 8-11. 36 Pfister 1988, 161: Pfister goes on to develop the analogy with chess later at 164. 37 Pfister 1988, 163. 38 It is telling that in a standard treatment on the subject of Roman comedy, Duckworth 1952, the author divides discussion of the mask first as a figure, then as a character in the play. 34

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

85

wittedness, and ineffectual rebellion (contrast the servus callidus in these respects). Within a given play, the poet utilizes the mask as an additional resource, having the dramatic agent “play to” or “against” it.39 I now provide a redefinition, first, of the theatergram of person. This is the sum of specific enactments of a particular figure, the range of whose functionality, defined and refined by its connection to other figures, slowly develops over the life of a theatrical tradition.40 Similarly, the theatergram of association is a figure constellation, to use to use Pfister’s term, refined and delimited across the life of a theatrical tradition.41 Consider, as examples of such constellations, the recently-mentioned adulescenscallidus servus pairing in Roman comedy; or in Renaissance drama, that of the “woman desiring” and “aged confidant.” We now illustrate how playwrights use this vocabulary—of theatergrams—to novel effect, first in Romeo and Juliet (“woman desiring” and “aged confidant”) and then in Roman comedy (for the theatergram of action, a “senex punishes an errant son”). As his source for Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare had employed a versified narrative by Arthur Brooke, who in turn claimed that “he saw the same argument lately set forth on stage”.42 In adapting this material, Shakespeare made use of the “woman desiring” and “aged confidant” pair. The poet has retained much of the traditional speeches and dialogue, for instance, the nurse’s “bawdy nattering,” the “rebuke from her padrona, Lady Capulet” and insulting dialogue between the serva and a ragazzo (a role assumed Mercutio).43 But Shakespeare makes “tragic” use of the comic theatergram in that “the Nurse’s function as messenger… takes its place in the pattern of missed messages, disastrous gaps in

 39

On the richness and depth of character obtained by playing against the mask, see Marshall 2006, 153-154. 40 Clubb 1989, 8 implies as much, calling “the figure of the woman desired and desiring, a requisite datum of plot that with usage would become the staple giovane inamorata” a “theatergram of person.” 41 Pfister 1988, 170-171 for “figure constellations” and 199 for the definition of action, where he notes its triadic structure, with “the existing situation, the attempt to change it, and the new situation.” Bettini 1982, 46 says that every Plautine plot involves the transfer of an object (C) across a border of permissibility from B (the current possessor) to A, the desiring subject. This model, however, does not apply neatly to every Plautine play, and Bettini admits that it does not work for Terence: See Lowe 1994, 221-222. At any rate, Bettini aims to uncover the deep structure of Roman comedy and interpret it and its manifestations as a product of Roman culture; my own is a contribution to a theatre history. 42 Gibbons 1980, 240. 43 Clubb 1989, 23.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

86

Chapter Three

misunderstanding, and crossed stars that finally illuminates the tragic nature of the play”.44 Sometimes a theatergram consists not of an action (the situation of lack which motivates the adulescens to enlist the help of his accomplice, for instance), but of an action-sequence.45 Let us consider the following, precedent and necessary for the action sequence we want to consider. A young man spends the family money on a courtesan, his father finds out; in a penultimate scene, the father angrily encounters the son. The senex severely punishes, or threatens to punish, the boy (We will call this last “Action A”). Now a third party intervenes to cool the father’s temper, heading off the severe and ultimately unnecessary punishment (“Action B”). Each could be considered separately, but we consider them together, Actions A and B, as one, because treated together in this way, the action sequence comprises a particularly effective dramatic unit. I call this particular action-sequence a “theatergram of action” because it recurs across the history of New Comedy performances. Its recurrence can be easily explained: the theatergram affords the dramatist the opportunity to convey the most intense of emotions—anger, regret, shame—and forms the conclusion to a satisfying arc, consisting of the father’s anger (which had originated in the paterfamilias’ painful realization of his son’s malfeasance), and placation of that anger. By the time Terence adapted this theatergram of action to his Hautontimoroumenos, in the mid-2nd century BCE, he had encountered it—this specific tense face-off and its dénouement—in both the Latin and Greek comedic traditions. Menander had included it in Samia in the late 4rd, early 3rd century. About two generations later, Naevius worked the theatergram into his Tarentilla. Another generation later, Plautus used the theatergram in Mostellaria’s final moments, though the slave stands in for the son. Finally, Terence used it twice, once at the end of Andria and once in Hautontimoroumenos. The theatergram of action involves a predictable set of figures, each with the characteristics traditionally associated with it: angry father(s), worried about their reputations… and finances;46 guilty son(s), fearful of their father’s imminent and severe punishment;47 and an intermediary (or

 44

Clubb 1989, 23-24. Pfister 1988 for action sequences, “in which a number of actions are linked together”; for his definition of ‘action,’ see above, note 41. 46 Menander Samia 459, 506-513; Naevius 83-84 Ribbeck; Pl. Mos. 1146-1147; Ter. Hau. 1037. 47 Menander, Samia 474-475 (a complete rift is imminent); Pl. Mos. 1167-1168; Ter. An. 889-890, Ter. Hau. 960-968. 45

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

87

intermediaries), between the two, who promise(s) to restore the paternalfilial bond.48 Conventionally associated with this theatergram are scenes of insult,49 and supplication.50 The whole theatergram naturally forms a prelude to a betrothal. Let us consider each recurrence of our theatergram in chronological order. Menander juxtaposes two of the relevant theatergram of action, in Samia (454-537; 537-615); or better, he interweaves them. They involve Demeas, an old man who has been carrying on a relationship with Chrysis, a concubine. He has seen her nursing a child (265-266), and believes his son, Moschion, to be the father (268-356). In reality, Moschion has had a child by the girl next door, who is daughter of Nikeratos (a friend of Demeas). Menander has Nikeratos serve unwittingly as the third party to resolve the first instance of this “theatergram of action.” Nikeratos, storming out of his house, exclaims that he found his daughter suckling a nursling (535536). This outburst confirms for Demeas what his son had claimed: that Nikeratos’ daughter, and not Demeas’ girlfriend, is the child’s mother. But now Nikeratos, angered that his daughter has had a child out of wedlock, must be placated. Nikeratos first threatens Chrysis, then turns on Moschion. Demeas assumes the role of diplomat as he gradually placates Nikeratos. From the fragments of his Tarentilla, we see that Naevius chose to duplicate angry fathers and errant sons. Perhaps the slave for each wayward adulescens interceded, getting each adulescens to promise that he would now follow the straight and narrow path (com. 86R2; cf. 83-84; 92-93R2). Plautus’ use of the theatergram in Mostellaria emphasizes his own concerns: anger directed towards the son, displaced and redirected towards a substitute, usually a tricky slave; and the comic antagonism between senex and tricky slave—like that between Wiley Coyote and the RoadRunner—deferred for “now”.51 In Mostellaria, then, the old man, angry at being duped, confronts the slave who duped him. The latter, Tranio, takes refuge at an altar, thus

 48

Menander, Samia, 521-537 (the son himself); Naevius 86 Ribbeck, possibly the boy’s slaves; Pl. Mos. 1143, the boy’s friend; Ter. An. 894, 901 (the father’s friend); Ter. Hau. 1004-1023 and 1045-1067, the matrona and a friend. 49 Men. Samia, 481; 493-494; Ter. An. 873; Hau. 1033-1034. 50 Men. Samia 537; 614-615; Naevius 83-84 Ribbeck might have initiated such a scene; Plautus Most. 1053-1165; 1168-1180; Ter. An. 894; 901, Hau. 1004-1023. 51 I thank Franco Cirulli for the excellent parallel with the Looney Tunes characters.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

88

Chapter Three

securing the protection of the sacred. No third party could possibly placate the father’s anger: “if some third party were to mediate between us, he’d die of hunger,” the slave confesses (huc si quis intercedat tertius pereat fame, Most. 1106). The old man, Theopropides, asks why. “Because,” replies his slave, “he’d gain nothing. We’re both terrible people” (qui nil quaesti sit. mali hercle ambo sumus, 1107).52 Now enter the son’s friend, Callidamates, as an orator (1126); that is, an ambassador, and substitute for the son. (Plautus, as indicated above, famously avoids the more traditional variant of the theatergram, featuring direct confrontation between angry father and wrongdoing son). Callidamates, the ambassador, takes the place of Tranio at the altar (1143-1146), thus assuming the role of both wrongdoers, adulescens and tricky slave. Theopropides, the father, has been embarrassed by his slave, and he wants revenge, but how (1149)? Plautus famously has Tranio respond: “tell Diphilus and Philemon (two Greek New Comic playwrights) how your slave tricked you: you’ll give them excellent comic deception scenes” (1149-1151). The playwright boasts of the superiority of his own play, replete with re-interpretations of familiar theatergrams. Plautus’ own innovation on our “theatergram of action” is to mischievously undermine the device’s guarantee of a happy ending for all. The third-party mediator, Callidamates, effectively wards off punishment for the son, and finally, after much pleading, for the slave (1153-1165; 1168-1180). But the mediation solves nothing, for Tranio promises to be up to his old tricks “already tomorrow” (1178). For now, however, the slave is let off, to the audience’s applause. Terence knows this scene. As his counterpart in Mostellaria, so, too, does Chremes, in Terence’s Self Punisher, recognize the important role the slave has played in covering up a costly affair. But Chremes does not direct the anger towards his slave, much less compel him to do what tricky slaves usually do to evade their master’s ire, namely, to take refuge near the altar on-stage and seek an intermediary, both of which had saved Tranio of Mostellaria: SY. ere, licetne? CH. loquere. SY. at tuto. CH. loquere. SY. quaƟ Ʊstast pravit quaeve amentiast, quod peccavi ego, id obesse huic? CH. ilicet. ne te admisce: nemo accusat, Syre, te: nec tu aram tibi nec precatorem pararis. SY. quid agi’? CH. nil suscenseo neque tibi nec tibi; nec vos est aequom quod facio mihi.— Ter. Hau. 973-977

 52

Translations of ancient sources throughout are mine.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

89

SY. Master, may I? CH. Go ahead. SY. But I want to speak with impunity. CH. Go ahead. SY. What is this perverse conduct, this madness, that what I did wrong, disadvantages him [sc. the young man]. CH. It’s done. Keep out of this. No one is accusing you, Syrus. And don’t procure an altar or someone to intercede for you. SY. What are you doing? CH. I’m not angry at you or you [sc. Clitipho] Nor should you be angry at me because of what I’m doing.

Terence intends a marked contrast to the famous last scene of Mostellaria: Chremes says he is angry neither at his slave—who needs no protecting altar or intermediary—nor at his son, Clitipho. Terence’s departure from Plautus is not meant simply to signal the ambitious younger playwright’s divergence from an earlier master. Note that Terence has Chremes claim, falsely, not to be angry at his own son, Clitipho, even though the old man acts cruelly towards his son, ostensibly disinheriting him (940-948), and gravely insulting him in the sequel (1033-1035), all clear signs of Chremes’ anger. The false claim, not to be angry underscores Chremes’ duplicitousness—he says one thing, but feels another. Indeed, Terence has written a play that turns on Chremes’ hypocrisy. Early in the play, Chremes flaunts his humanitas and lenitas, urging openness between estranged son and father (Hau. 151-157). When, however, Chremes finds that his son has engaged in a costly affair with a courtesan, the old man’s true nature shows, as he threatens to inflict a terrible punishment on his son: not only will he divest the boy of his inheritance, but he shows no concern at all whether the son, now impoverished of his patrimony, lives or dies.53 Indeed, his actions are not signs of humanitas, but their opposite: “Chremes tortures his son too heavily and inhumanely,” says Chremes friend and neighbor (enimvero Chremes nimis graviter cruciat adulescentulum / nimisque inhumane, 1045-1046) at the beginning of the ‘scene of placation.’ Terence’s use of the theatergram—angry father, and his successful placation—exposes Chremes’ hypocrisy. Hopefully these illustrations show how the concept of “theatergram” can be applied to Roman comedy. I believe using these larger units to be more fruitful in analyzing and appreciating the interaction between the plays of our chosen tradition, Greek and Latin New Comedy. Scholars of the plays have recently applied ‘intertextual analysis’—an interpretive method suited for Augustan poetry—in order to elucidate the New Comedy plays. But the applicability of such intertextual analysis to this



53 Ter. Hau. 971-972, for the father’s apparent lack of concern over his son’s survival.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

90

Chapter Three

body of drama has been rightly questioned.54 After all, playwrights usually did not write for a reader lucubrating over a text. They wrote, instead, to win and maintain the audience’s interest, often in the face of competing entertainments.55 Thus, the theatergram, whose survival and efficacy depends on earlier successful deployments, might be the appropriate unit of analysis as we seek to place the comedy within a larger network of dramas. Plautus, and even his source, Alexis, might not necessarily have known the ambassador scene of Acharnians directly, a scene which seems to stand as an ancestor to that in both Alexis’ and Plautus’ plays. But ultimately, this Aristophanes play constitutes the ‘deep source’ which informs Alexis, and in turn Plautus. By following this chain of influence from our Plautine text to its ‘deep source(s)’ we will be in a better position to appreciate how a theatergram changes over time, under the influence of new audiences and the creative talents of the dramatist himself.56 If we analyze the connections between texts in this way, we are avoiding the common hesitation in ‘intertextual’ criticism, namely whether a given word or phrase is ‘really’ an allusion or an ‘accidental confluence,’ arising because “the two writers are indebted to a common source, or because they are describing similar or conventional situations”.57 Our project, in other words, is not to engage with the dramatic poet in an allusive game which requires an ‘Alexandrianized’ poet (Plautus, say) and a learned reader (us, hopefully).58 Instead, we are recovering specific facets of the theatrical memory shared by both poet and spectator. Indeed, Hinds, in his study of intertextuality, argues that, essentially, as members of the same community, author and reader share a common cultural background which inevitably affects the reader’s ‘uptake’ of the author’s

 54

For criticism of approaches to Roman comedy that rely on detecting literary allusions, see Goldberg 2011, 210: “critical methods (and attendant presumptions) devised to explicate their [i.e. Vergil, Horace, Ovid and Statius’] world may require modification to work effectively in this earlier one.” To mention just a few examples of the “intertextual” approach: Sharrock 2009 and 2014, and BarriosLech 2015. 55 Famously documented in Terence’s prologue to Hecyra, 29-36. 56 For the notion of ‘deep sources’ in criticism of Shakespeare, see Miola 1994, 16. For Shakespeare, Plautus and Terence are “‘deep sources’… possessors of a comedic gene pool that shapes in various mediated ways succeeding generations.” Aristophanes and Euripides may similarly be ‘deep sources’ for our Roman playwrights. 57 Thomas 1982 and West and Woodman 1979 as quoted in Hinds 1998, 19. 58 On Plautus’ engagement with ‘Alexandrian’ poetics, see Papaioannou and Fontaine in this volume.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

91

words. Thus, when Ovid exclaims me miserum in his first and programmatic poem of Amores (1.1.25), he may allude not only to Propertius’ own programmatic exclamation in the first poem of the Monobiblos (miserum me, 1.1.1); but also invokes practices of lament within Roman society and the origins of the elegiac genre itself.59 In tracing the use of me miserum through elegy and rhetoric back to Roman funerary practices, Hinds has engaged in the very activity we will be engaging here: tracing the use of two theatergrams, present in Plautus, back to 5th century Attic drama. For Poenulus combines two theatergrams featuring an encounter with the foreigner. “Foreign ambassador requiring an interpreter” and “Foreigner as blocking character.” The first is a figure constellation (ambassador, interpreter and onlookers) which itself does not always instigate subsequent action, but may better be characterized as an event: such “‘events,’” says Pfister, “…appl[y] to those stories, or parts of stories, in which either the human subjects are incapable of making a deliberate choice or the situation does not allow any change”.60 Aristophanes includes such an event, as we will see, partly to incite laughter, but also to develop character. As for the second theatergram, because the audience usually identify with the protagonist, the antagonist is by definition “other,” the role most suitably assumed by a foreigner. As we will see, the “foreigner as blocking character,” takes root in Euripidean comedy. Before we observe the operation of these theatergrams in Poenulus, it will be useful briefly to consider the life of the foreigners on the Greco-Roman stage.61

2. Foreigners in ancient drama The subject of barbarians in Greek and Roman theater first came to prominent light with Edith Hall’s excellent Inventing the Barbarian (1989).62 Hall shows that the trope of “barbarian as antithesis to free

 59

Hinds 1998, 30-34. Pfister 1988, 200. 61 In the following discussion, only those comic passages which mimic foreign speech will be discussed, not passages featuring dialect. For discussion of both types of passages, see e.g. Faller 2004, 163-165. 62 Of course, the subject was discussed prior to Hall: see e.g. Long 1986 for comedy and Bacon 1961 for tragedy. For work “post-Hall” see Isaac 2006, with useful sections on Greco-Roman attitudes towards various ethnic groups, and in specific, Carthaginians; Hall 1997, on the construction of ethnicity within the Greek world, is only tangentially relevant to my purposes here. Hofmann 1992, 60

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

92

Chapter Three

Athenians” first emerged in the 5th century BCE, in the context of the Persian Wars and their aftermath. Aeschylus’ Persians is the first extant play to engage this binary opposition between civilized Greek and barbarous Other.63 This powerful antithesis, of course, provides little useful insight into Persians, but tells us more about Athenian selfdefinition: if barbarians are enslaved to a despot, in a rigidly hierarchical society, then Athenians freely live in an egalitarian community; if barbarians are characterized by immoderate luxury, then Athenians are austere; if barbarians lack restraint in their self-expression, then Athenians are self-disciplined, and so on.64 Most importantly, the “invention of the barbarian” is not a phenomenon unique to the Athenians of the 5th century BCE. Political centralization and conflict with an outside people are shown to have resulted in a similar antithesis in the literature of the Chinese Han dynasty; we might also think of the xenophobic presentations of Russians in American cinema of the mid-eighties. To return to mid-Republican Rome, 264 BCE represented a kind of watershed: for in that year, Roman subordination of the Italian peninsula south of the Po was complete; and conflict with Carthage erupted. These two factors—unification and expansionism—likely resulted in a sharper antithesis pitting the cruel, treacherous, greedy Carthaginian against the humane, frank, generous, and self-controlled Roman.65 Plautus, who came of age during the second Punic war, had been steeped in this (savage Carthaginian vs. civilized Roman) rhetoric, but he also found “Greek vs. Barbarous Carthaginian” rhetoric reflected in Greek drama, since there, too, the antithesis could pit the impious Carthaginian against the god-fearing Greek.66

 143 offers a sample of later playwrights who introduce foreigners’ language or dialect in their plays. 63 Hall 1989a, 16, 54-55, 62 and passim. Long 1986, is also relevant, particularly 93-128; at 108-111 he discusses the situations in which Athenians may have encountered barbarians in everyday life. 64 Hall 1989a, 81. 65 Hall 1989a, 60-62 for the parallels from China and the observation about political unification and conflict with an outside people leading to the rhetoric of “civilized self” vs. “savage other.” As for Roman views of the Carthaginian, see Isaac 2006, 324-335, a most useful starting point. The traditional traits are embodied in Hannibal: cruel, treacherous, greedy: compare Livy’s portrait of Hannibal (21.4.9-10; 21.41.8, 13), which, along with that in Polybius (9.22), probably reflects an earlier tradition. 66 Carthaginians, associated with human sacrifice, would have been identified as “barbarian” to the normative and civilized Greeks, at least in tragedy: see Hall

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

93

Let us now observe how Plautus staged the Carthaginian-Roman encounter in his play, by considering now the impact of the two theatergrams upon that encounter: (1.) the visit of the foreign ambassador and (2.) the foreigner as blocking character.67

a. Theatergram one: The foreign ambassador As mentioned, Plautus, in composing Poenulus, drew on two “foreigner” theatergrams. Of these, one involves the arrival of a foreigner, typically an ambassador, who delivers bad news or begs his hosts for a favor. Emerging from this encounter between ambassador and host are the following. First, and principally, the foreigner’s language, far from signifying anything at all, becomes itself a ludic object, its strange sounds and accents driving, in part, the humor of the scene.68 The imitation of language has been a perennial source of humor. Such mimicry stands akin to any ethnic humor that trades in stereotypes and distortions, and plays a role in corroborating a community’s sense of itself, its identity.69 Second, the foreigner’s appearance and striking arrival complement the aural effects of the scene to complete a picture of the “barbaros,” the antithesis of civilized (Greek) norms.70 The play’s protagonist engages with this barbarian, against whom the former’s cunning intelligence and simplicity of life stand in sharp relief. As we will see, all the barbarians in Aristophanes are portrayed negatively, as fit only for ridicule. In Euripides, the characterization of foreigners is more complex. i. Aristophanes’ Acharnians Our earliest attestation of this theatergram (“foreign ambassador arrives; and speaks through an interpreter”) occurs in Aristophanes’ Acharnians, written and produced at the beginning of the Archidamian war (425 BCE),

 1989a, 147-148. In comedy, too, the contrast between Carthaginian and Greek could be activated: see Menander fr. 229. 67 I have isolated these theatergrams from my reading of the plays; they are not original with Clubb. Nevertheless, Hall 1989b has anticipated me in isolating one of these theatrical units, although she does not call it a theatergram. 68 Strange noises of the foreigner’s tongue: Ar. Av. 1521, referring to Illyrian gods, the ੉ȜȜȣȡȚȠ੿ țİțȡȚȖȩIJİȢ; Long 1986, 12-13 on comic poets who play upon the “distinctive sound” of the names of certain nationalities. 69 Hall 1989a, 17. As a parallel, consider the use of Spanish on the Elizabethan comic stage. Gratwick 1969, 261-262 adduces the example of Ben Jonson’s Alchemist (esp. IV.3). 70 See Petersmann 1995, 123-136, and Long 1986, 10-11.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

94

Chapter Three

a play which won the comic poet first prize. The play’s protagonist, Dicaeopolis, presents to the gathered Athenian citizenry its own idealized self-image. For “Just-City” (or “Just Citizen”) is the quintessential hardworking (33-36) and dutiful (19-22) Attic farmer, forced to remain in the city while the Spartans ravage the Attic countryside (71-72). The play begins with an assembly meeting, during which an Athenian ambassador to Persia and the “Eye of the King,” a Persian envoy, intend to make a report on potential Persian aid.71 In the play’s opening scenes, Aristophanes contrasts “Just Citizen” with corrupt city officials. Thus, presiding officials come late to an assembly meeting; Dicaeopolis, however, had dutifully arrived early (2829; 40). An Athenian ambassador, freshly arrived from Persia, had, while abroad, luxuriated in covered carriages (70),72 drunk and eaten sumptuously (77-78)—and that from vessels of crystal and gold (73-75)— all the while getting paid two drachmai a day (65-67). In the meantime, Dicaeopolis, that representative of the citizenry, remains within the city walls, reclining nightly on a mattress of wood chips (71-72), while the Spartan army, outside the walls, pillages the countryside. From the play’s “assembly” scene, then, we gain the impression that the common citizen, represented by Dicaeopolis, suffers under a corrupt Athenian administration, represented by the tardy ʌȡȣIJȐȞİȚȢ, the dictatorial herald (54, 59, 123), and especially by the decadent Athenian ambassador to Persia. It is an exaggerated picture whose purpose is to help us understand why Dicaeopolis chooses to alienate himself from Athens—which is corrupt anyway—to forge a separate peace with Sparta. The “Eye of the King’s” appearance provokes striking commentary from “Just City.” Dicaeopolis compares the foreigner with a trireme: ‘Sham-artabas’ “looks like a ship of war” (ʌȡઁȢ IJ૵Ȟ șİ૵Ȟ, ਙȞșȡȦʌİ ȞĮȪijĮȡțIJȠȞ ȕȜȑʌȦȞ, Ach. 95); his eyes—or part of them—are compared to the leather padding of the row-lock (96). His movements are perhaps exaggeratedly slow, for the foreigner-as-trireme “watches out while [he] rounds the edge of a ship-yard” (਷ ʌİȡ੿ ਙțȡĮȞ țȐȝʌIJȦȞ ȞİȫıȠȚțȠȞ ıțȠʌİ૙Ȣ, 96). And he is accompanied by two eunuchs (117).



71 Long 1986, has an extensive reading of this scene in his chapter on foreign arrivals. My own differs in that it focuses on connections with Plautus’ Poenulus. 72 This was the ਖȡȝȐȝĮȟĮ, a covered chariot. Hall 1989a, 96 points out that mentions of conveyance by this kind of vehicle in tragedy “pertain either to a barbarian character or to one of the ‘barbaric Greeks’… Greeks portrayed as lapsing into the excessive luxury or despotism appropriate only to barbarians,” for instance, Agamemnon in Agamemnon.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

95

As parallel to his visual appearance are the strange sounds of the foreigner’s speech. The Athenian ambassador urges the so-called “eye of the king” (94) to speak:73 ȌǼȊǻǹȇȉǹǺǹȈ ੁĮȡIJĮȝ੹Ȟ ਥȟȐȡȟĮȞ ਕʌȚııȩȞĮ ıȐIJȡĮ. Ȇȡ. ȟȣȞȒțĮș’ ੔ ȜȑȖİȚ; ǻȚ. ȝ੹ IJઁȞ ਝʌȩȜȜȦ ’Ȗઅ ȝ੻Ȟ Ƞ੡. Ȇȡ. ʌȑȝȥİȚȞ ȕĮıȚȜȑĮ ijȘı੿Ȟ ਫ਼ȝ૙Ȟ ȤȡȣıȓȠȞ. Ar. Ach. 100-102 PSEUDARTABAS. iartaman exarxan apissona satra. ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR. Did you understand what he’s saying? DICAEOPOLIS. Good god, no. AMB. He says that the King will send you gold.

“Just-Citizen’s” inability to understand the Persian tongue highlights his identity as a “pure” Athenian citizen. The ambassador’s apparent facility with Persian, however, suggests that he has gone native: not only has he adapted to Persian ways while abroad—drinking and eating excessively as they do—he understands their language. “The Eye of the King” is now asked to clarify: Ȇȡ. ȜȑȖİ į੽ ıઃ ȝİ૙ȗȠȞ țĮ੿ ıĮij૵Ȣ IJઁ ȤȡȣıȓȠȞ. Ȍİ. Ƞ੝ ȜોȥȚ Ȥȡȣıȩ, ȤĮȣȞȩʌȡȦțIJ’ ੉ĮȠȞĮ૨. ǻȚ. Ƞ੅ȝȠȚ țĮțȠįĮȓȝȦȞ, ੪Ȣ ıĮij૵Ȣ. Ȇȡ. IJȓ įĮ੿ ȜȑȖİȚ; ǻȚ. ੖ IJȚ; ȤĮȣȞȠʌȡȫțIJȠȣȢ IJȠઃȢ ੉ȐȠȞĮȢ ȜȑȖİȚ, İੁ ʌȡȠıįȠț૵ıȚ ȤȡȣıȓȠȞ ਥț IJ૵Ȟ ȕĮȡȕȐȡȦȞ. Ȇȡ. Ƞ੡ț, ਕȜȜ’ ਕȤȐȞĮȢ ੖įİ Ȗİ ȤȡȣıȓȠȣ ȜȑȖİȚ. ǻȚ. ʌȠȓĮȢ ਕȤȐȞĮȢ; ıઃ ȝ੻Ȟ ਕȜĮȗઅȞ İੇ ȝȑȖĮȢ. ਕȜȜ’ ਙʌȚș’· ਥȖઅ į੻ ȕĮıĮȞȚ૵ IJȠ૨IJȠȞ ȝȩȞȠȢ. Ar. Ach. 103-110 AMB. (to the Eye of the King) You! Mention the gold more loudly and clearly! PSEUD. You not get gold, gaping-arsed Ionian. DI. Oh my god, how clear that was!



73 For the Persian in this passage, see Colvin 1999, 288-289, with bibliography at 288 n. 29; see also Long 1986, 134. Dover 1987, 289-290 (=Dover 1963, 7-8) believes a line reflecting actual Persian has been damaged in transmission; West 1968, 6 thinks it “gibberish… made from Persian noises,” that is, based loosely on the language of messages from the Persian king, that the audience may have heard in assembly. On the rumor—probably untrue—that the Persian king’s trusted confidants were called his “eyes” and “ears” see Hall 1989a, 94 with n. 178.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Chapter Three

96

AMB. What is he saying then? DI. You’re asking? He says the Ionians are gaping-arsed if they expect to get money from barbarians. AMB. No, no! Assets - in gold - is what he means. DI. What assets? You’re a BS artist. Get out of here! I’m going to put this man to the test on my own.

In this scene the ambassador’s words are clear to understand. The Herald insists that the Persian really does promise gold to Athens, by singling out the similarity in sound between Ȥȡȣı - ȩ ȤĮȣ - (Ƞ੝ ȜોȥȚ Ȥȡȣıȩ, ȤĮȣȞȩʌȡȦțIJ’ ੉ĮȠȞĮ૨, 104) and the Greek ਕȤȐȞĮȢ (107), Persian “measures”—of gold the Athenians will receive. But “Just City,” embodying the wariness of his fellow citizens, dismisses the herald as a charlatan, an ਕȜĮȗȫȞ (109). He will now take charge of interviewing the “eye of the king” (ਥȖઅ į੻ ȕĮıĮȞȚ૵ IJȠ૨IJȠȞ ȝȩȞȠȢ, 110). Turning to the King’s two eunuchs for help, Dikaeopolis learns that no gold is forthcoming from Persia; the culmination of the scene is his discovery that the eunuchs are effeminate Athenians, one of them that perpetual butt of Aristophanic humor, Kleisthenes (117-118). Let this first exemplum of our theatergram stand as a ȕȐıĮȞȠȢ, a touchstone, against which to measure its later manifestations. In this staged encounter with the foreigner, the trireme-like appearance of the Eye of the King provokes comment and excites laughter. The audience also laugh not only at the foreigner’s appearance, but also the sounds of his language and the silly attempts to decode it. The theatergram as instanced in this play contrasts both Athenian against foreigner; also, “true” Athenians like Dicaeopolis against lazy, decadent, “Persianized” Athenians.74 The “Interpreter Scene” within the theatergram, “foreign ambassador’s encounter with Greeks” will feature in all later versions of our theatergram, down to Plautus’ and one in a 2nd century CE mime. For now, let us consider how Aristophanes reworks, in a later play, this moment from Acharnians. ii. Aristophanes’ Birds Aristophanes employs the same theatergram some 11 years later in his Birds (produced 414 BCE). Like Dicaeopolis, Peisetairos, disgruntled with

 74

For Long 1986, 104-105, the prologue, with the archers pushing the Athenians into the assembly, as well as subsequent scenes show, at 105, “the barbarian gain[ing] the upper hand over the Athenians, in the Greek mind a condition against nature.”

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

97

city life, leaves Athens, and takes refuge with the birds. “Companionpersuader,” true to his name, persuades his avian hosts to build a polis, over which he will ultimately preside. So successful is “Cloudcuckooland” that the bird residents award their non-bird founder a gold crown “for [his] wisdom” (Av. 1274-1275). Among his policies, Peisetairos has ordered his bird-citizens to protect their city by building a fabulous wall, compared with the famous wall of Babylon (551-552; 1575-1576). This fortification ultimately cuts the gods off from their much-needed sacrifices, and without the fatty steam and smoke, the țȞ૙ıĮ, from those sacrifices, the deities above go hungry (1264-1267; 1516-1520). In the final act, three gods—a straitlaced Poseidon, a starving Heracles, and an incomprehensible, but similarly starving Triballian god—arrive, fully empowered to negotiate a peace (1595). Hungry and desperate, they cave in almost immediately to Peisetairos’ demand—for Zeus’ power (15991602). The inclusion of the Triballian god is intended to show that the effects of Peisetairos’ embargo are global, affecting not only Greek, but foreign gods (1520-1524).75 This foreign god, Triballos, moreover, serves a minor function in the plot:76 he breaks the tie in the vote. For Hercules has voted to grant universal dominion—represented by the Goddess “Monarchy” (Basileia) —to Peisetairos, while Poseidon has voted against (1674-1679). Triballos ends up aligning with Heracles against Poseidon. Thus the two hungry, savage gods—Heracles and Triballos—ratify first the transfer of Zeus’ scepter, then that of supreme power, Basileia, to a cunning old Athenian, Peisetairos. Triballos’ tie-breaking vote had been foreshadowed in the exchanges leading up to ballot-casting. From these scenes, it emerged that Heracles and Triballos are quite similar in their lack of civility (1567-1573; 1575; 1579-1580). No wonder, then, that only Heracles appears to understand Triballos, while Poseidon, civilized representative of Athens, doesn’t. Heracles, then can interpret (1616: ੒ȡઽȢ, ਥʌĮȚȞİ૙ ȤȠ੣IJȠȢ, 1629: ijȘıȓ ȝ’ İ੣

 75

For the Triballians, “a Thracian tribe who lived… in what is now W. Bulgaria” and who apparently had a reputation for violence and savagery, see Dunbar 1997, ad Aves 1529. 76 The name Triballos itself is an indicator of uncivilized behavior. As Kanavou 2011, 125 n. 558 writes, “Triballoi was a slang term for misbehaving young men (Demosthenes 54.39); a mischievous dwarf in a comedy by Cratinus (fr. 13 K.-A.) is called Triballos, and Eubulus (fr. 75.3 K.-A.) coined the word IJȡȚȕĮȜȜȠʌĮȞȩșȡİʌIJĮ for young men trained by Pan in promiscuity.” I thank the editors for this reference.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

98

Chapter Three

ȜȑȖİȚȞ ʌȐȞȣ, 1679: ʌĮȡĮįȠ૨ȞĮȚ ȜȑȖİȚ) a language that Poseidon describes as “babble,” similar to the chirping of swallows (1681).77 But does Heracles really get Triballos? Let us take the second of the three exchanges as our first example: Ǿȡ. IJઁ ıțોʌIJȡȠȞ ਕʌȠįȠ૨ȞĮȚ ʌȐȜȚȞ ȥȘijȓȗȠȝĮȚ IJȠȪIJȠȚȢ ਥȖȫ. ȆȠ. țĮ੿ IJઁȞ ȉȡȚȕĮȜȜȩȞ ȞȣȞ ਥȡȠ૨. Ǿȡ. ੒ ȉȡȚȕĮȜȜȩȢ, ȠੁȝȫȗİȚȞ įȠțİ૙ ıȠȚ; ȉȡ. ıĮઃ ȞȐțĮ ȕĮțIJ઼ȡȚ țȡȠ૨ıĮ. Ǿȡ. ijȘıȓ ȝ’ İ੣ ȜȑȖİȚȞ ʌȐȞȣ. ȆȠ. İ੅ IJȠȚ įȠțİ૙ ıij૶Ȟ IJĮ૨IJĮ, țਕȝȠ੿ ıȣȞįȠțİ૙. Ar. Av. 1626-1630 HER. I vote to give the scepter back to them [sc. the birds]. PO. Now ask Triballos. HER. Hey, Triballos: do you decree to howl in pain? TR. Yo hide club striking! HER. He says that I speak altogether well. PO. If you both decide so, then I do, too.

The three discuss whether to give Zeus’ power, symbolized by the scepter, to the birds. Heracles, famished, unthinkingly agrees. He then turns to Triballos, and asks, threateningly, whether the Thracian god thinks it’s a good idea to howl in pain (1628). The Thracian god’s response contains reference to a stick or cane (ȕĮțIJ઼ȡȚ = ȕĮțIJȘȡȓĮ), and maybe to a “wooly hide” (ȞȐțĮ = ȞȐțȘ?). So the foreign god could be saying “you (ıĮȪ = ıȪ) are striking (țȡȠ૨ıĮ = țȡȠȪİȚȢ; țȡȠȪıİȚȢ) hide (ȞȐțĮ = ȞȐțȘ?) with stick?” Perhaps, with this utterance, Triballos caves in. Or maybe he says “I am striking your (ıĮȪ = ıȠ૨) hide with stick,” a counter-threat.78 Heracles’ interpretation appears to be self-serving, much like the Athenian ambassador’s misinterpretation, discussed above. Similarly ambiguous are Triballos’ words in the following passage, on whether to surrender universal dominion (Basileia) to Peisetairos: Ǿȡ. įȓțĮȚ’ ਩ȝȠȚȖİ țĮ੿ ʌȐȜĮȚ įȠțİ૙Ȣ ȜȑȖİȚȞ ʌİȡ੿ IJોȢ țȩȡȘȢ, țਙȖȦȖİ ʌĮȡĮįȓįȦȝȓ ıȠȚ. Ȇİ. IJȓ įĮ੿ ıઃ ij૊Ȣ; ȆȠ. IJਕȞĮȞIJȓĮ ȥȘijȓȗȠȝĮȚ.

 77

See Colvin 1999, 288-289 for brief discussion of the characteristic features of Triballos’ language, with bibliography at 289 n. 34. 78 Dunbar 1997, ad 1626-1629.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

99

Ȇİ. ਥȞ IJ૶ ȉȡȚȕĮȜȜ૶ ʌ઼Ȟ IJઁ ʌȡ઼ȖȝĮ. IJȓ ıઃ ȜȑȖİȚȢ; ȉȡ. țĮȜȐȞȚ țȩȡĮȣȞĮ țĮ੿ ȝİȖȐȜĮ ȕĮıȚȜȚȞĮ૨ ੕ȡȞȚIJȠ ʌĮȡĮįȓįȦȝȚ. Ǿȡ. ʌĮȡĮįȠ૨ȞĮȚ ȜȑȖİȚ. ȆȠ. ȝ੹ IJઁȞ ǻȓ’ Ƞ੝Ȥ Ƞ੤IJȩȢ Ȗİ ʌĮȡĮįȠ૨ȞĮȚ ȜȑȖİȚ, İੁ ȝ੽ ȕĮȕȐȗİȚ Ȗ’ ੮ıʌİȡ Įੂ ȤİȜȚįȩȞİȢ. Ȇİ. Ƞ੝țȠ૨Ȟ ʌĮȡĮįȠ૨ȞĮȚ IJĮ૙Ȣ ȤİȜȚįȩıȚȞ ȜȑȖİȚ. ȆȠ. ıijȫ ȞȣȞ įȚĮȜȜȐIJIJİıșİ țĮ੿ ȟȣȝȕĮȓȞİIJİ· ਥȖઅ į’, ਥʌİȚį੽ ıij૶Ȟ įȠțİ૙, ıȚȖȒıȠȝĮȚ. Ar. Av. 1674-1684 HER. (to Peisetairos) Earlier, too, you spoke justly regarding the girl, it seems to me; and I transfer her to you. PEIS. What do you say? PO. I vote the opposite way. PEIS. That means the final decision is in Triballos’ power. What do you say? TR. Beauty queen and Great Birds King I doffer. HE. He says he “offers.” PO. Good god, he says he doesn’t offer her, unless he’s twittering like the swallows do. PEIS. Surely he means “offer her to the swallows!” PO. You two, then, are reconciled and in agreement. As for me, since you both so decree, I will remain silent.

Here the three argue whether to hand over Basileia herself. With her transfer, Peisetairos will obtain power over all things, human, divine, and animal. The hungry Heracles, again, has no qualms, but Poseidon opposes such an outrageous surrender of supremacy to one old Athenian (IJਕȞĮȞIJȓĮ ȥȘijȓȗȠȝĮȚ, 1675). Everything turns on Triballos’ vote. The foreign god says, țĮȜȐȞȚ țȩȡĮȣȞĮ țĮ੿ ȝİȖȐȜĮ ȕĮıȚȜȚȞĮ૨ / ੕ȡȞȚIJȠ ʌĮȡĮįȓįȦȝȚ. It sounds like he agrees, “I transfer” (ʌĮȡĮįȓįȦȝȚ) the queen. But he could be saying the opposite “I don’t transfer” (੕ȡȞȚIJ-Ƞ(੝) ʌĮȡĮįȓįȦȝȚ).79 Hence the stark disagreement between Heracles (ʌĮȡĮįȠ૨ȞĮȚ ȜȑȖİȚ, “he says to transfer [her], 1679); and Poseidon (ȝ੹ IJઁȞ ǻȓ’ Ƞ੝Ȥ Ƞ੤IJȩȢ Ȗİ ʌĮȡĮįȠ૨ȞĮȚ ȜȑȖİȚ, “no, good God, he’s saying he doesn’t transfer her to him” 1680). Poseidon raises the possibility that Triballos’ words could mean nothing at all (İੁ ȝ੽ ȕĮȕȐȗİȚ Ȗ’ ੮ıʌİȡ Įੂ ȤİȜȚįȩȞİȢ, “unless that is he’s twittering like swallows do,” 1682). But Peisetairos steps in to offer a selfinterested translation: “Surely he means “transfer it to the swallows!” With this, Neptune caves in, and the scene concludes in a facile and silly way.

 79

Dunbar 1997, ad loc.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

100

Chapter Three

It is time now to sum up the “foreign embassy to Athens” theatergram. First, the ambassador always comes to Athens (Acharnians), or a land like it (Birds; recall that Cloudcuckooland stands as an allegory for Athens and Athenian imperialism.) Second, these foreign visitors wear ridiculous costumes. In Acharnians, the foreigner’s trireme-like appearance excites laughter.80 In Birds, the Triballian is hairy and carries a club; the foreign god, then, looked much like Heracles. This similarity of Triballos and Heracles in appearance highlights their similarity in personality— appetitive and impulsive—and in opinion. Third, once the foreigner has arrived, he speaks in an exaggerated mimicry of foreign speech or pidgin Greek, which provides laughs grounded in ethnic stereotyping. Fourth, a “barbarized” Greek pretends to interpret this foreign speech for an Athenian. Thus, the Persianized Athenian ambassador tries to interpret for Dicaeopolis, without success, and Heracles interprets for Poseidon to some success (Peisetairos eventually has to step in to help, Av. 1682). Initially, the “barbarized Greek’s” seeming ability to understand places him in a liminal space, between the world of the spectators and that of the foreign people. Heracles is a Greek god, but possessed also of an animal-like hunger and lack of restraint. It makes sense, then, that Heracles can “speak his [Triballos’] language”.81 The Persianized ambassador’s apparent facility with Persian augments the impression that he’s a Greek who’s “gone native.” Fifth, and finally, the cunning, voluble Athenian (Dicaeopolis in Acharnians or Peisetairos in Birds) wrests interpretive control from the “barbaric Greek,” who now, along with the foreigner, finds himself a laughingstock and utterly marginalized.

b. Theatergram two: The foreigner as blocking character Now, the “Eye of the King” (Acharnians) and Triballos (Birds) are two of only three Aristophanic barbarians given speaking parts. The third is the Skythian archer in Thesmophoriazousae.82 The first two plays, Acharnians and Birds, partake in our first “theatergram” which has the foreigner arriving to Greece (or a land like it) to deliver his message or make his

 80

Long 1986, at 134-135: “[a]t first the appearance of the Triballian is more amusing than his speech.” 81 Long 1986, 135: “the game is roughly the same as Acharnians 101-2, that is, trying to tell whether anyone can understand the barbarian reply at all”; for further comparison of the two scenes see Long 1986, 134-136, with bibliography on the extent to which the Triballian’s speech is intelligible. 82 Hall 1989b, 38, who says that “[t]he fragments of Old Comedy suggest… that this kind of linguistic caricature was not uncommon.”

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

101

plea to Greeks. The Thesmophoriazousae, however, contains an example of our second theatergram, with an opposite movement: the Greek arrives in a foreign land and encounters its hostile barbarian leader, who, in turn, bars access to a Greek beloved or relative, a ijȓȜȠȢ/ijȓȜȘ.83 This theatergram is featured in Euripides’ Helen and Iphigeneia among the Taurians [hence, IT]. Famously, Aristophanes lampoons Euripides’ versions of the theatergram in Thesmophoriazousae. To appreciate Aristophanes’ parody, it will be worthwhile first to look at the tragedian’s versions of this, our second theatergram, “foreigner as blocking character.” i. Euripides There are few surviving plays more important for understanding New Comedy than the rescue dramas, Helen and IT, and probably no author more interested in the contrast between Greek and barbarian than Euripides.84 Hall, in an article on the Skythian archer, succinctly identifies the main features of Euripides’ version of what Clubb would call a theatergram (I have made some modifications and additions):85 (1.) Foreign Setting. The setting must be a foreign locale (coast of the Black Sea, IT; island of Pharos, Egypt, Helen). In his lampoon of the Helen, Aristophanes trades foreign locale for the “other” female world of the festival of the Thesmophoria.86 (2.) Heroine, not Hero. The heroine proves to be much more than a passive object wrestled over by Greek rescuer and foreign king, for the heroine—not hero—adopts trickery and disguise to elude the barbarian captor (Helen 1049-1054; 1077-1078; 1204; IT 1029). (3.) Anagnorisis, the recognition succeeding through tokens and arrival of timely evidence (IT 810-826; Hel. 563-624).



83 Hall 1989b, 41-43 succinctly discusses Aristophanes’ lampoon of the “barbarian as blocking character” scenario: at 42 she says “[t]he comedy [i.e. Thesmophoriazousae], therefore, is not only a repository of close parodies from various tragedies… in its overall structure [it] is consciously modelled on the familiar escape-from-the-barbarian type of plot which Euripides had made his own.” 84 Satyrus, in the Vita Euripidis, preserved on papyrus, claims that Euripides stands behinds the elements of New Comedy: Vit. Eur. fr. 39.7.8-22. “Euripides… was more interested in the contrast between barbarian and Greek than was any other dramatist” cf. Bacon 1961, 151; Long 1986, 123. Hall 1989a, 160-161 notes that as the 5th c. progressed, and under pressure from the Sophists, the “barbarian-Greek” antithesis was subjected to scrutiny; in particular, for Euripides’ challenging of that antithesis in his tragedies, see Hall 1989a, 216-223. 85 Hall, however, does not use the term “theatergram”; see n. 67 above. 86 Hall 1989b, 42.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

102

Chapter Three

(4.) Foreigner’s Late Appearance. The Egyptian king Theoclymenus’ late introductory monologue partly subverts the impression we have gained of him. Well before meeting the tyrant, we hear that he will detain and kill any Greek upon arrival (țIJİȓȞİȚ Ȗ੹ȡ ਰȜȜȘȞ’ ੖ȞIJȚȞ’ ਗȞ ȜȐȕȘȚ ȟȑȞȠȞ, 155). Indeed, when we first meet him, he threatens to kill the recently arrived Greek interloper when found (1173-1176). Then, discovering Helen is gone from her suppliant position at the base of Proteus’ statue, the Egyptian tyrant prepares in haste to pursue her (11771183). Yet in that same introductory monologue we also witness his piety towards his father, Proteus (1165-1168). (5.) Deception. Hellenic brain wins out over the foreigner’s gullibility and lack of self-control. Iphigeneia convinces Thoas to let her ritually purify the statue—and the Greek captives (1163-1202); Thoas, the gullible barbaros (1172, 1181), predictably falls for Iphigeneia’s ruse. Helen, with Menelaus’ help, persuades Theoclymenus to let her go out to sea and bury the presumably dead Menelaus. Helen cleverly appeals to Theoclymenus’ desire to marry her: she gives the king hope for a future marriage, thus ensuring that the king is favorably disposed to her requests (1231-1236; and 1183: Helen is the woman ਸȢ ਥijȓİȝĮȚ, says Theoclymenus at 1183). (6.) Foreigner fulminates. The duped barbarian fulminates, determined to chase down the Greek rescuer and company. Theoclymenus threatens to kill his own sister for having helped Menelaus and Helen (1624-1626); when Thoas of IT discovers that he’s been duped, he aims to punish the Greeks in a particularly savage way, by impaling their bodies on a stake (1429-1430), which the Hellenes viewed as barbaric.87 (7.) Foreigner Isolated. Speaking of IT, Hall notes that “their [sc. Orestes’ and Pylades’] supreme loyalty to each other is markedly contrasted with the isolation of the barbarian Thoas”.88 By the end of the play, if not before, even the chorus aligns against the foreigner and with the Greek protagonists.89 The characterization of the barbarian in Euripides in fact turns out to be more subtle than this summary, and indeed cursory viewing of the plays would suggest. To be sure, both barbarian kings exhibit the stereotypical traits. Thoas, the barbarian king rules a people who engage in human sacrifice (53, 75, 94), a practice the Greeks saw as alien to their culture.90 Theoclymenus is a lawless despot, his subjects, slaves (273-276; 542, 785, 1021). Yet although the audience has been told that Theoclymenus will

 87

Hall 1989a, 158-159. Hall 1989a, 195. 89 Hall 1989b, 41-42; 52. 90 Hall 1989a, 146-148. 88

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

103

kill any Greeks he finds, when the Egyptian king learns that the “shipwrecked sailor” (really Menelaus) is Greek, he does not kill him (1206-1208). On the contrary, Theoclymenus generously provides all that is needed for the sham burial rite (1250-1273), shows respect for Greek customs (1278), and gives the “shipwreck” hospitality (1281-1284).91 In the IT, Euripides blurs the lines between foreigner and Greek, as he “uses imagery to link Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter with the human sacrifices practiced by the Taurians”.92 In fact, in one respect at least, the barbarians of the play claim superiority over the Greeks, for Euripides has Thoas say of Orestes that not even a barbarian would kill his own mother (IT 1174). ii. Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae The year after Helen was performed, Aristophanes parodied the play in his Thesmophoriazousae.93 Women engaged in sex-exclusive worship of the goddesses Persephone and Demeter hold “Euripides’ in-law,” captive. “Inlaw” had entered into the women’s assembly in drag, and thus gone undetected. “In-law’s” aim had been to convince the women not to sentence Euripides to death for the slanderous treatment of women in his plays (76-85). But when țȘįİıIJȒȢ cannot answer detailed questions about what had happened in the mystery rites the year before, he is discovered (626-635). Aristophanes repeatedly changes the scene where the play is laid: first, the playwright invokes the Trojan battlefield as Euripides’ relative, like Palamedes from Euripides’ eponymous play, sends out SOS “telegrams” to Euripides by scratching messages onto wooden votive offerings (773774). When Euripides doesn’t come, the poet’s kinsman changes tack, deciding to imitate “the recent (i.e. the previous year’s) Helen” (IJ੽Ȟ țĮȚȞ੽Ȟ ਬȜȑȞȘȞ ȝȚȝȒıȠȝĮȚ, 850), quoting verses from the beginning of that play (856-857 ~ Eur. Hel. 1-3). We are now in Egypt. Euripides duly arrives, shipwrecked and seeking hospitality, a comic Menelaus (871-873).

 91

Bacon 1961, 149 notes that Theoclymenus’ respect for foreign custom “seems to contradict Egyptian belief”; and his “hostility to Greeks is attributed not to xenophobia but to jealousy over Helen.” 92 Hall 1989a, 211. 93 Farmer’s 2017, 154-194 concern is to show that Thesmophoriazousae is a reflection on the themes of secondariness or belatedness in both Euripides and Aristophanes, as each author, in various ways, cites or refers to previous dramas in Helen and Thesmophoriazousae.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Chapter Three

104

In this way, Aristophanes invokes the “foreign blocking character” theatergram; Hall has even remarked that “[t]he whole structure of Thesmo. is reminiscent of the ancient theme of Greeks escaping from nonGreeks”.94 For “Menelaus” tries to abscond with “Helen,” but an old priestess refuses to buy the fiction. She thus temporarily assumes the role of the “foreign blocking character” (917-918), only to hand off the duty to a real foreigner, the Skythian archer, now appointed to guard in-law (929934). His appearance is striking, reminding us of the “othered” look of foreign kings in Euripides’s escape dramas.95 The archer is “strongly built” with “long, loose hair… whip (1125), shortsword (1127), and archery equipment (1197)”.96 Now for a third time, Euripides will try to free kinsman, bound to a plank of wood and still dressed in drag.97 At a hint from Euripides, the in-law becomes Andromeda enchained, helpless before the predations of the “sea monster”—or Skythian (1009-1014). The scene, then, changes for a third time: we are now in Ethiopia. We expect Euripides to fly in on winged sandals as Perseus. That will come later, but first the tragedian arrives onstage as Echo, “who answers to speech in mockery” (ȜȩȖȦȞ ਕȞIJ૳įઁȢ ਥʌȚțȠțțȐıIJȡȚĮ, 1059). “Echo” now joins in “Andromeda’s” lament precisely by echoing the last bits of “her” speech. It takes only two exchanges like this to annoy the “heroine” (1065-1081). Next, the Skythian archer’s words come up for mockery (1083-1097).98 Some lines will give the flavor of this scene:99 ȉȠ. Ƞ੣IJȠȢ, IJȓ ȜĮȜ૙Ȣ; ǾȤ. Ƞ੣IJȠȢ, IJȓ ȜĮȜ૙Ȣ; ȉȠ. ʌȡȣIJȐȞİȚȢ țĮȜȑıȦ.

 94

Hall 1989b, 41. Eur. Hel. 1132, with mention of ȕĮȡȕȐȡȠȣ ıIJȠȜ઼Ȣ; presumably both Theoclymenus and Thoas looked the part. 96 Hall 1989b, 48. 97 Austin and Olson 2004, ad 1001. 98 Long 1986, 137, calls 1070-1175 “Aristophanes’ most elaborate representation of a foreigner’s speech,” with a brief overview of the linguistic peculiarities. The difference between the Scythian and the other foreigners, the Persian “Eye of the King” and the Triballian god is that “[o]ne can always understand the Scythian,” says Long at 137; “but every statement he makes is an assault upon the highly developed sensibilities of the Athenian public.” 99 See Willi 2003, 198-225 for a discussion of the Skythian’s language, characterized by smooth pronunciation of aspirated voiceless stops, iotacism and dropping of final nu and sigma. Colvin 1999, 290-291 has a convenient list of the features characteristic of the Skythian’s foreigner talk. 95

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy ǾȤ. ʌȡȣIJȐȞİȚȢ țĮȜȑıȦ. ȉȠ. IJȓ țĮțȩȞ; ǾȤ. IJȓ țĮțȩȞ; ȉȠ. ʌ૵IJİ IJઁ ʌȦȞȒ; ǾȤ. ʌ૵IJİ IJઁ ʌȦȞȒ;

105

Ar. Thesmo. 1083-1086

ARCHER. Hey you, what you say? ECHO. Hey you, what you say? ARCHER. I call ‘ficials. ECHO. I call ‘ficials. ARCHER. What the… ECHO. What the… ARCHER. Why de boice? ECHO. Why de boice?

In the first theatergram—in Acharnians and Birds—the foreigner’s speech, besides serving as object of laughter, also needed interpretation. Here, the Skythian archer’s broken speech serves as a vehicle to arouse derision and further to characterize him as “cloddish”.100 And unlike similar scenes in Acharnians and Birds, this particular scene with Echo does nothing to move forward the play’s plot.101 We note, in passing, a comic device Plautus will later make use of: the parechesis, or “echoic pun.” In our first example, Andromeda claims Echo flees (țĮ੿ į੽ ijİȪȖİȚ, 1092). The archer responds, “you’ll be sorry” Ƞ੝ țĮȚȡȒıİȚȢ (1093). Echo replies with Ƞ੝ț ĮੁȡȒıİȚȢ (1094). When, later in the scene, Euripides/Perseus arrives, the latter announces his name, and identifies the Gorgon’s head he carries: ȆİȡıİઃȢ ʌȡઁȢ ਡȡȖȠȢ ȞĮȣıIJȠȜ૵Ȟ, IJઁ īȠȡȖȩȞȠȢ / țȐȡĮ țȠȝȓȗȦȞ (1101-1102). The Skythian archer mishears IJઁ īȠȡȖȩȞȠȢ, thinking Euripides refers first to a Gorgias, perhaps the famous sophist; then to the traditional bogeyperson of children’s stories, Gorgo (11001104).102 In the scene with “Perseus” come to rescue “Andromeda” (again, played by the relative: 1098-1135), the Skythian archer’s broken Attic continues to provoke laughter, as the archer interrupts the dialogue shared between “Andromeda” and “Perseus” (e.g. 1110-1120). As Sier well notes, the Skythian has a tin ear, unable to appreciate tragic register. In

 100

Sier 1992, 73. Austin and Olson 2004, ad 1056-1097. 102 See also Hall 1989b, 49 on this passage and Austin and Olson 2004, 326 on Euripides’ appearance: The poet wears winged sandals, carries Medusa’s head and perhaps sports “a winged cap and a short dagger.” 101

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

106

Chapter Three

other words, he remains a world apart from that of the sophisticated connoisseur of tragic language, as Kritylla—the Skythian’s counterpart— appears to be. For in her dialogue with the pair—Euripides and the Inlaw—she knows how to “complete” tragic utterances in a witty way.103 Besides further characterizing the Skythian in this way (inept, unsophisticated), the scene provides a humor arising this time not from simple repetition (as in the Echo scene) but from contrast. For while the couple of legend speak in the high-flown registers of tragedy, the Skythian’s comments are coarse and bathetic, reminding us that we are firmly rooted in comedy.104 Ǽȣ. ijȑȡİ, ȈțȪș’· ਕȞșȡȫʌȠȚıȚ Ȗ੹ȡ ȞȠıȒȝĮIJĮ ਚʌĮıȓȞ ਥıIJȚȞ· ਥȝ੻ į੻ țĮ੝IJઁȞ IJોȢ țȩȡȘȢ IJĮȪIJȘȢ ਩ȡȦȢ İ੆ȜȘijİȞ. ȉȠ. Ƞ੝ ȗȘȜ૵ıȓ ıİ· ਕIJ੹ȡ İੁ IJઁ ʌȡȦțIJઁ įİ૨ȡȠ ʌİȡȚİıIJȡĮȝȝȑȞȠȞ, Ƞ੝ț ਥʌIJȩȞȘıȐ ı’ Į੝IJઁ ʌȣȖȓȗİȚȢ ਙȖȦȞ. Ǽȣ. IJȓ į’ Ƞ੝ț ਥઽȢ ȜȪıĮȞIJȐ ȝ’ Į੝IJȒȞ, ੯ ȈțȪșĮ, ʌİıİ૙Ȟ ਥȢ İ੝Ȟ੽Ȟ țĮ੿ ȖĮȝȒȜȚȠȞ ȜȑȤȠȢ; ȉȠ. İੁ ıʌȩįȡ’ ਥʌȚIJȣȝİ૙Ȣ IJ੽ ȖȑȡȠȞIJȠ ʌȪȖȚıȠ, IJ੽ ıĮȞȓįȠ IJȡȒıĮȢ ਥȟȩʌȚıIJȠ ʌȡȫțIJȚıȠȞ.

Ar. Thesmo. 1116-1124

EU. Say, Skythian: All men have their ailments. As for me, a desire for this maiden has lain hold of me. TO. Not be envy you. But if the ass turned round in this direction, I not grudge you go and bugger him. EU. Why dost thou not, O Skythian, give me leave to loose her bonds, and fall amorously upon a marriage bed and couch? To. If you want to bugger old man, boring hole in plank and go from behind.

The Skythian believes that the poet only wants the relative for sexual gratification (1119-1120); he threatens savage violence if Euripides attempts to rescue “Andromeda” (1125-1127): indeed, one of his threats—

 103

Sier 1992, 70, 78. See Thesm. 865, 868. Hall 1989b, too, well notes the contrast: “[t]he two worlds of the imaginary Ethiopia [where Andromeda takes place, PGBL] and the ‘real’ Athens, the kinsman’s feminine charade and his masculine identity, romantic love and earthly sexuality, the rival genres of tragedy and comedy, are all verbally framed and juxtaposed in the elevated and banal diction of ‘Perseus’ and the Scythian respectively.”

104

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

107

decapitation—recalls Thoas’ threat in IT. Libidinous and aggressive, the Skythian is “barbaros” to Euripides’ “cunning Greek.” Yet Euripides’ poetry has had no effect on this brutish audience member, for the ȕȐȡȕĮȡȠȢ ijȪıȚȢ of the archer refused to accept Euripides’ attempts at reasoned persuasion (ĮੁĮ૙ǜ IJ઀ įȡ੺ıȦ; ʌȡઁȢ IJ઀ȞĮȢ ıIJȡİijș૵ ȜંȖȠȣȢ; / ਕȜȜૅ Ƞ੝ț ਗȞ ਥȞį੼ȟĮȚIJȠ ȕ੺ȡȕĮȡȠȢ ij઄ıȚȢ, 1128-1129).105 Euripides, then, turns to the one group who will attend to his persuasive speech: the poet reveals himself to the Thesmophoriazousae of the title and promises them that he won’t further slander women in his plays if they, in turn, will release his in-law (1160-1163; 1165-1169). Thus does the chorus side with the play’s protagonist, as it had done in Euripides’ barbarian plays. In this way, women and men align as one against the Skythian; and all Greeks, of whatever gender, oppose the usual punching bag: the uncivilized foreigner. The effect is to isolate the Skythian, whom Euripides will find a way to circumvent in order to rescue his in-law (1170-1171). There follows accordingly a fourth attempt to circumvent the foreign blocking character. In this attempt, Euripides relies not on words, but on the Skythian’s animal-like impulsiveness—and on a new costume.106 For the tragic poet now reappears as a madam, along with a flautist and a dancer (1172-1175, 1210). And in contrast to the tragedizing scenes, this time the Skythian “buys in” to the illusion, because Euripides has adjusted his “play” to the circumstances: comedy, not tragedy is needed.107 More specifically, Aristophanes has taken the Euripidean theatergram and shown its farcical potential. For, in Euripides’ play, Helen appeals to Theoclymenus’ desire to marry her in order to facilitate her escape: she does so by playing the part of bereaved wife open to remarrying (Helen 1231-1236). But now as a comic poet, Euripides abandons ȜȩȖȠȚ, substituting instead “the charm of a well-proportioned female body”.108 Of course, both the tragic-romantic Helen and the “madam” of Thesmophoriazousae hoist a foreigner by the foreigner’s own petard—his lust; but each protagonist uses the techniques appropriate to the genre: persuasion on the one hand (Helen); broad slapstick on the other (Euripides in Thesmo.). Thus does the “madam” have the slave-girl perform a lap-dance for the Archer (ij੼ȡİ șȠੁȝ੺IJȚȠȞ ਙȞȦșİȞ, ੯ IJ੼țȞȠȞ, IJȠį઀ǜ/ țĮșȚȗȠȝ੼ȞȘ įૅ ਥʌ੿ IJȠ૙ıȚ ȖંȞĮıȚ IJȠ૨ Ȉț઄șȠȣ / IJઅ ʌંįİ ʌȡંIJİȚȞȠȞ, ੆Ȟૅ ਫ਼ʌȠȜ઄ıȦ, 1181-1183),

 105

Sier 1992, 73. Sier 1992, 82-83 rightly compares Agathon’s words at the play’s beginning (155-156): “what we don’t possess, mimêsis acquires for us.” 107 Sier 1992, 81; cf. Farmer 2017, 192. 108 Sier 1992, 81. 106

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

108

Chapter Three

teasing the policeman until he can take it no longer, surrendering his quiver, as collateral, in order to enjoy the slave-girl’s attentions (1197).109 But when the policeman returns from the assignation, both poet and kinsman have gone. The farcical twist to the Euripidean theatergram is appreciable in other ways. For “what Thoas in IT and Theoclymenus in Helen learn from messengers, the Skythian recognizes with his own eyes” (1210-1217).110 And where in the Helen and IT we hear angry reactions from Theoclymenus and Thoas, in Thesmophoriazousae, we also see the Skythian running distractedly to and fro across the stage, as he tries to find Euripides and in-law (1223-1225).111 In part, we experience Thesmophoriazousae as a comic “heightening” of the “foreign blocking character” theatergram.112 For instead of one foreign locale, we get four: from the “other” space of the feminine assembly, to Troy, Egypt and Ethiopia; and instead of one “foreign blocking character” we get two: first the old woman (frequently a grotesque “other” in Aristophanes), then a “true” foreigner—a Skythian archer.113 If the Euripidean chorus is a silent co-conspirator with the protagonists (suspiciously silent after Helen 1512; and see IT 1309-1310), in Aristophanes, it participates in the farce, making the Skythian run in circles (Thesmo. 1223-1227). Overall, audience members might experience the same play as an attempt to “fit” the theatergram into its new comic world—first the three failed “tragic” attempts, followed by a successful “comic” one, when Euripides finally decides not simply to borrow the theatergram unaltered

 109

Hall 1989b, 52 takes the bowcase as “the very emblem of his race.” Sier 1992, 81, emphasis mine. 111 Long 1986, 107 finds, in the Skythian of Thesmophoriazousae, “the most biting portrayal of the foreigner in Aristophanes. In him are combined the cruelty and stupidity which the Greeks felt separated the Hellene from the rest of humanity.” See also Hall 1989b, 51. 112 For Rau 1975, 356, it is “die parodistische reductio ad absurdum der euripideischen Rettungsmechanemata.” For Sier 1992, 82, it is “die Signatur des İ੝ȡȚʌȚįĮȡȚıIJȠijĮȞȓȗİȚȞ.” I have been arguing for the fourth, successful, attempt as Aristophanes’ “naturalizing” a tragic theatergram. 113 Sier 1992, 70 with n. 21 sees the scenes with the Skythian as “not much more than a repetition of the Kritylla” scene; he does not agree with Hall that the feminine assembly is a kind of “other” space like the foreign locale of Euripidean Romance, with the duping of the Skythian analogous to that e.g. of Thoas. After all, even though the Skythian is a foreign body in this exclusively feminine space (so Sier 1992, 732), he is not “out of place” in the context of an Athenian assembly. But this is to overlook the malleability of the theatergram in question: it can be adapted, its components altered to suit the new context. 110

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

109

from his tragedies, but instead to tweak it for its new environment, comedy.114 Indeed, Aristophanes’ experiment—to “naturalize” a Euripidean theatergram for his Thesmophoriazousae—would facilitate the adoption of this theatergram by later comic poets, perhaps Alexis of Thurii, but certainly Plautus of Sarsina. iii. Middle and New Comedy In Euripides and Aristophanes, the barbaros acts as blocking character (Thoas in IT; Theoclymenus in Helen; the Skythian archer in Thesmophoriazousae). Later, in New Comedy plays, a bombastic mercenary soldier or a rapacious pimp would function as obstacle to the beloved, thus replacing the role of the Euripidean foreigner.115 Before we consider Alexis’ Karchedonios (and, of course, Plautus’ adaptation), it is worth noting that Greek attitudes towards Carthaginians during the period of the Greek Middle and New Comedy were ambivalent. For instance, Aristotle, in his Politeia, praised the Carthaginian constitution, comparing it to Greek constitutions; yet other passages from other Greek authors demonstrate Greek suspicion of the Carthaginians: in the Odyssey, Phoenicians generally are crafty merchants; Plato says they are greedy and untrustworthy; other Greek authors allude to Phoenician deceitfulness and wiles.116 Did Alexis’ Carthaginian father conform to these stereotypes?

 114

Hall 1989b, 50: “Euripides must find another strategy [that of the lap dance] which makes no intellectual demands on the Skythian, because he can only be defeated on a physical level.” Farmer 2017, 188-194 says that only when Euripides finally abandons “tragedy” can he succeed in freeing his relative. 115 Segal 2001 (repr. 2009), 150-152 on Euripides as a precursor of New Comedy, but esp. 151: where Segal discusses “the ‘blocking character,’ who in Euripides is a non-Greek (the barbarians Thoas in IT and Theoclymenus in Helen, but who characteristically becomes in Menander a non-Athenian.” I thank the editors for bringing this reference to my attention. See also Long 1986, 120 whose investigations reveal “the absence of active barbarians in New Comedy.” For developments in Middle Comedy, see Long 1986, 114-118: the titles of the plays reflect the reality that Greeks became more engaged with foreigners during this period. 116 Greek views of Carthaginians as deceitful: Diog. Laert. 7.25 (Life of Zeno), the philosopher is said to steal IJ੹ įંȖȝĮIJĮ of one Polemon, who accuses him of “disguising them in Phoenician wise,” ĭȠȚȞȚțȚț૵Ȣ ȝİIJĮȝijȚİȞȞ઄Ȣ, Polyb. 3.78.1, Hannibal’s use of a ĭȠȚȞȚțȚț૶ ıIJȡĮIJȘȖȒȝĮIJȚ, namely disguise; Com. Adesp. 1293 KȠck = 179 Meineke: ĭȠȚȞȚțİȜȓțIJȘȞ țĮ੿ ȜȩȖȦȞ ਕȜĮȗȩȞĮ, associating Phoenicians with lying speech. But Aristotle praises the Carthaginian constitution, comparing it to the Cretan and Spartan ones (Pol. 1272b24). I owe these references to Gratwick

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

110

Chapter Three

c. Plautus’ Poenulus, Alexis’ Karchedonios and creative imitation Before we begin, a few caveats. From Alexis’ Karchedonios we have a single fragment: ȕȐțȘȜȠȢ İੇ (fr. 105 K.-A.), “you’re a pansy,” perhaps the model for the soldier’s disdainful comment directed at a young man at Poenulus 1318: nam te cinaedum esse arbitror magi’ quam virum.117 Any reconstructions of Alexis’ play, then, will be necessarily based on deductions and guesswork from text of Poenulus. While analytic critics have, in this way, allowed us to catch glimpses of the Greek drama that lies beneath Poenulus, we are in the dark on an issue crucial to our purpose: which poet added the Punic passages? I believe Plautus inserted at least the first two of three total Punic passages, for reasons I will shortly explain. The Punic passages in question are: (1.) Hanno’s entrance monologue (930-960); (2.) The Interpreter Scene (990-1038); (3.) The nurse Giddenis reuniting with her son, a porter of Hanno’s (1141-1142). Hanno’s entrance monologue consists of three separate speeches, spanning verses 930-960. Two monologues in Punic are followed by one in Latin. Of the two Punic speeches, the first, attested only in the Palatine recension (930-939) is a version of the text directly following, at lines 940-949. The former text (930-939) constitutes an attempt to restore sense to the latter text (940-949), which was already corrupt when it arrived in the hands of the redactor of lines 930-939. The content of the two Punic speeches is essentially the same, and the Latin version translates it.118 In this Latin prayer, then, Hanno asks the gods and goddesses to permit him to find his daughters and his nephew; he says that he has come rite, “in a proper/due manner,” indicating the religiosity characteristic of him. He then moves right on to business: Antidamas, the family ȟȑȞȠȢ, guest friend, has died, and Hanno comes in search of Antidamas’ young ward, Agorastocles (950-960).119 To have a barbaros deliver a lengthy speech in a foreign language is an invention both “brilliant and unique,” as far as the available evidence

 1969, 443. For thorough discussion of the Greek sources expressing attitudes towards Carthaginians see Isaac 2006, 324-335, esp. 324-326. 117 Additionally, Arnott 1959, 258-260 and 1996, on 265 K.-A., has argued that this Alexis fragment, about an orderly gait, was the model for Plautus’ Poenulus 522-525. This is convincing, but by no means certain. 118 Gratwick 1971, 35-39, a thorough and accessible treatment. 119 I won’t discuss the issue of whether the original performance had both Punic and Latin versions: Gratwick 1969, 350 doesn’t think so; de Melo 2012, 7-8, however, believes Plautus included both.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

111

demonstrates.120 I join a number of others who believe that the Punic monologue was Plautus’ contribution.121 First, Plautus liked to try to outdo his Greek source(s). In Bacchides for instance, the tricky slave Chrysalus boasts that he has surpassed the Parmenos and Syruses of New Comedy in daring; the tricky slave of Haunted House may invite a similar comparison with his Greek antecedents.122 Second, as Fraenkel demonstrated, Plautus liked to expand the monologues he found in his original.123 In composing the Hanno scene, Plautus may have wanted to outdo the previous versions, by adding a farcical element: (more) speech and dialogue in a foreign tongue. If, then, the Punic speech is Plautus’ invention, this means Alexis had his titular ȀĮȡȤȘįȩȞȚȠȢ speak the entrance monologue in Greek only. This is likely for several reasons. First, there were probably no precedents in Greek drama for such a lengthy monologue in a foreign tongue, and, then, too, Alexis would not have wanted to convey crucial information to his audience in a tongue they couldn’t understand.124 We have to concede, however, that we ultimately cannot know, in the absence of further evidence, which poet first contrived to have his Carthaginian speak at length in Punic.125 Let us, however, take for granted that Plautus innovated on his source play by including a Punic monologue, in order to see what consequences emerge from this—in my view, likely—assumption. We first ask what a Greek entrance monologue in Alexis’ play might have

 120

Gratwick 1969, 351 finds no parallels in “French, Greek, and English drama.” See, for a recent discussion in favor, Faller 2004, 181-189 and Arnott 2004, 58 n. 25 for the doxography. 122 Slater 1985, 103 and Bacch. 649-650: non mihi isti placent Parmenones, Syri, / qui duas aut tris minas auferunt eris; Most. 1149-1151. See also the discussion of Bacch. 640-650 in Papaioannou’ chapter in the present volume (pp. 41-42). 123 Fraenkel 2007, 96-144. The paradigmatic example is Sostratos’ speech in Dis Exapaton, a pithy thirteen lines (Dis Ex. 18-30). Plautus’ adaptation of this in Bacchides runs twice as long at 25 lines (500-525). 124 Certainly in the more austere genre, tragedy, foreign characters always speak Greek; on the absence of extended foreigner’s speeches in comedy, see Zwierlein 1990, 180-181 and Gratwick 1971, 34: “Although there are many examples of the comic or atmospheric exploration of foreign languages in drama from Aristophanes to John Arden, I know of nothing quite like this passage in which dramatically significant information is passed on in unknown languages.” 125 See Gratwick 1969, 351-353, at 351, that “[t]here seems no way of deciding whether the invention is Plautus’ or the Greek author’s,” and cf. Gratwick 1971, 35: “[i]t is impossible to determine who thought of the idea, the Greek poet, Plautus, or a later producer: but it is so good that it is worthy of Alexis or Plautus.” 121

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

112

Chapter Three

been like. For the sake of clarity, I will designate the character of Hanno in Alexis’ play like this: “Hanno.”

d. Alexis’ Karchedonios By having his ȀĮȡȤȘįȩȞȚȠȢ speak in Greek, Alexis could secure his Greek audience’s sympathy while defying their prejudices: a (presumably) stereotypical Carthaginian—impious, cunning—turns out to be a concerned father searching for his daughters, and he speaks Attic Greek. “Hanno’s” introductory monologue, coming late in the play, draws, directly or indirectly, on the similar late arrivals of Thoas in Iphigeneia among the Taurians, and especially Theoclymenus in Helen. Theoclymenus’ entrance monologue, as we saw above, displays his piety towards his deceased father, and expresses an aggressiveness and desire for Helen that confirm earlier hints. Similarly, “Hanno’s” entrance monologue—with its prayer and desire to find his guest-friend—expresses and confirms a piety hinted at earlier in the play, as he prays to the gods and quickly gets down to the business of finding his guest-friend. Alexis’ staging, kept by Plautus, has “Hanno” entering an empty stage.126 We do not know how “Hanno” appeared, but very likely, he was costumed in a striking way, so as to suggest his origins. But Alexis diverges from the foreigner theatergrams precisely by having Hanno enter an empty stage. For the barbaroi from Old Comedy—Shamartabas, Triballos—had come onto an already occupied stage; their appearances announced right before arrival (Ach. 91-92; Birds 1531-1533). Nor do foreigners in the “foreign blocking figure” theatergram enter an empty stage. Theoclymenus, his arrival not announced, enters a stage occupied by Helen in mourning garments and Melenaus, posing as an anonymous shipwreck (Helen 1165-1205). Thoas similarly arrives late, unannounced, and on a stage occupied already by Iphigeneia (IT 1153-1155). In New Comedy, arrivals from abroad comparable to “Hanno’s” typically occur with an eavesdropper present.127 Thus, Alexis avoids the initial confrontation between “Greek” and “Other” present in all the other versions of the theatergram, both “foreign envoy” and “foreign blocking figure.” Moreover, by entering an empty stage, then uttering a prayer to

 126

Gratwick 1969, 364 argues that “the whole of Hanno’s monologue, and the beginning of V.i as far as 974 reproduces the arrangement of the Greek play.” Lowe 2004, 259-261 sees evidence of Plautine workmanship starting at 961 (the point at which Agorastocles and Milphio come onstage). The point for us is that the Hanno’s entry, with a monologue, was certainly in the Greek original. 127 Gratwick 1969, 340-343.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

113

the gods, “Hanno” appears isolated, even tragically so, as a father prosecuting a seemingly hopeless search, his drive and faith in the gods the only recourse. (This tragic isolation, of course, will contrast sharply with the joyful reunion, soon to come.) Finally, without eavesdroppers present to cast a humorous light on what “Hanno” says, the audience is less inclined to view the Carthaginian as an object of ridicule. To sum up, when the audience initially saw “Hanno” looking the part of a Carthaginian, it might have expected a confrontation between Carthaginian and Greek; or that “Hanno” might speak gibberish. But “Hanno” probably entered an empty stage, so that Alexis avoided any opportunities for an eavesdropper to provide ironic commentary or offer telling contrasts. Spectators may then have been further surprised to hear “Hanno” speaking Greek, as he prayed and announced his intention to continue searching for his long-lost daughters. Alexis thus hints at the kind of foreigner this will be: his “Hanno” will not furnish the tritely stereotypical portrayal of the “Other.” In this, the poet from Thurii drew lessons from Euripides, who had similarly challenged his audience’s comfortable stereotypes, that set “savage” Other against “civilized” Greek.128 Alexis’ treatment of “Hanno,” if correct, also accords with the more humane characterizations of foreigners and marginal figures generally in the New Comedy. Gratwick, too, surmised that the Carthaginian of Karchedonios was a noble and comparatively serious figure.129 Yet, even if we cannot know whether Alexis had “Hanno” speak only Greek, we can at least be certain about one thing. Alexis had completely inverted the scheme of the “foreign blocking figure” theatergram. Recall that, per this theatergram, a Greek seeks a long-lost Greek relative or beloved in barbarian-land; but the Greek traveler’s (e.g. Orestes’) access to that ijȓȜȠȢ/ijȓȜȘ is barred by a barbarian blocking figure (e.g. Thoas). In Alexis’ Karchedonios, these terms are inverted: for in that play, a “barbarian” sought a long-lost “barbarian” relative, in Greece; the blocking figure is not foreign, but Greek: the ʌȠȡȞȠȕȠıțȩȢ Lycus. Indeed, all the protagonists directly involved in Alexis’ scenario were “barbarian”

 128

Arnott 2004, 75-77 even suggests a debt to Euripides in the later impersonation scheme, although this may very well come from Menander’s Sicyonioi. 129 Gratwick 1982a, 101. If Alexis “Hanno” was typical of the Thurian’s characterizations, then Alexis and Menander would have been similar. Indeed, the testimonia that Menander learned from Alexis (Anon. De Com. 45 p. 10 Koster = test. 2 K.-A.), or the Suda entry (1138Į = test. 1 K.-A.) claiming Alexis as Menander’s paternal uncle, even if not true, probably emerged from an artistic affinity that was felt between the two. See Arnott 1959, 255.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

114

Chapter Three

(that is, Carthaginian). The two major antagonists and blocking figures, Lycus and Antamoenides, are Greeks. In this respect, then, Alexis has certainly upended the relevant theatergram.130

e. Plautus’ Poenulus Plautus invokes the “theatergram” of the “foreign ambassador” in two ways. First, the Umbrian preserves and perhaps even augments Hanno’s visually arresting entrance.131 Hanno arrives wearing an unbelted tunic (975-976; demissiciis tunicis, 1303) colored in characteristic Carthaginian purple. He is accompanied by several slaves who carry his baggage and wear old patched-up clothes (978-979) and hoop-earrings (980-981). That is what the audience sees. They also hear Hanno, speaking for 10 lines in Punic, miming a prayerful posture. How this will have struck spectators is a matter of speculation (funny? serious? both? depends on the audience member?). But however Plautus intended audiences to react to Hanno’s entrance monologue, to have the Carthaginian father arriving on stage speaking a foreign tongue would associate him with the figure of the Aristophanic foreign ambassador at least in the minds of some spectators.132 From his Aristophanic source material, then, Plautus was inspired to insert a long-standing element of the “foreign ambassador” theatergram: an Interpreter Scene. That this scene, at lines 994-1038, is Plautine is nearly certain.133 In order to remind ourselves of the Plautine Interpreter

 130

Arnott 2004, 69, on Alexis’ “powerful imagination” and ideas that are “unhackneyed and striking.” 131 See Gratwick 1969, 344 for appearance and also 678-679, esp. 679 for the pun on sarcinatos. The pun on sarcinatos and the joke sequence at 980-981 are probably Plautine; they occur in a section that both Gratwick and Lowe recognize as containing Plautine workmanship. If correct, this means that the “patchy clothes” and the hoop earrings were probably Plautus’ contributions to the striking costumes. 132 Leo 1912, 137 had already made the connection between Hanno and Shamartabas. 133 Gratwick’s 1969, 355-377 arguments for treating this as a Plautine insertion are convincing. First, the scene is not necessary for the forward movement of the plot. Hanno spotted the pair, slave and young man, and line 982 (adibo hosce atque appellabo Punice) implies that he goes up to them and introduces himself immediately. Yet his approach is delayed for 58 lines and finally comes at 1039 (HAN. O mi popularis, salve. AGOR. Et tu edepol, quisquis es.). Second, there are no parallels for the mutual asides at 975 and following; this is a Plautine technique; there are no parallels in Menander or Terence: Gratwick 1969, 371. For the

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

115

scene’s content, let us briefly compare it with the similar ones in Aristophanes. In the Plautine scene, the tricky slave pretends to interpret Hanno’s Punic for thirty-five lines (994-1028). In this passage, Milphio offers ridiculous guesses at what the Carthaginian might mean.134 Hanno, angered at the slave’s incompetence, finally switches to Latin to reveal that Milphio understood almost nothing (Poen. 1029-1031). Similarly, in Acharnians, the Athenian Ambassador pretends to understand the Eye of the King’s first utterance (Ach. 100), which likely imitates the standardized introduction to an official announcement from the Great King, viz., “Says Artaxerxes, great King, King of Kings”.135 But when the Persian switches to pidgin Greek, Dicaeopolis can pick up enough to recognize the “Eye of the King’s” meaning (106-107)—and that his “interpreter,” the Athenian Ambassador, is in fact a charlatan, whom Dicaeopolis curtly dismisses (ਕȜȜ’ ਙʌȚș’, 110). The parallelism between Aristophanic and Plautine Interpreter scenes is unmistakable: the interpreter pretends to know the language; his pretense is exposed, and exposed as a pseudo-interpreter, he is banished. After Hanno exposes Milphio’s ignorance of Punic, the callidus servus can do nothing but aim petty insults at the Carthaginian (1032-1034), for which reason Agorastocles tells his slave to shut up (1035-1039). With the slave silenced, the serious business of the anagnorisis proceeds, as Hanno and Agorastocles discover that they are related. Not long after this, the slave makes his final exit, not to be seen again (1169-1173). Milphio’s trajectory, then, parallels that of the Athenian Ambassador and Heracles: all are upstaged by a cunning protagonist (Hanno, Dicaeopolis, Peisetairos).136 Note that Plautus began the “Interpreter” scene by invoking the relevant theatergram and its attendant associations. That is, as Hanno and Milphio begin to interact, we expect the Carthaginian to be the buffoonish, passive foreign visitor, a Shamartabas or Triballos to Milphio’s cunning Dicaeopolis or Peisetairos. And indeed, up to line 1002 of the scene, while Milphio accurately translates Hanno’s Punic, he does appear a cunning Peisetairos to Hanno’s hapless “Eye of the King.” But after that crucial line (1002), Hanno makes a decision to continue speaking Carthaginian in

 “Interpreter Scene” (990-1038) as Plautine, see also e.g. Zwierlein 1990, 183-184 and Hofmann 1992, 150. 134 Hofmann 1992, 149-150 lists Milphio’s misinterpretations of Hanno’s Punic. 135 West 1968, 6. 136 Gratwick 1969, 376. Starks 2000, 174 rightly observes that Hanno’s role expands at the expense of Milphio’s as the play progresses.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

116

Chapter Three

order to show up Milphio’s poor understanding of Punic.137 The little Punic, who had triggered in the audience’s mind the characters of Shamartabas and Triballos, now diverges from these models. For the laughable barbaros not only gains the upper hand over his erstwhile interpreter, he also himself later becomes a Dicaeopolis or Peistetairos— cunning interpreter of a foreign tongue. For not long after the “Dolmetscher” scene, Hanno, not Milphio, interprets Carthaginian for Agorastocles, in our third Punic passage (nurse reuniting with her son: 1141-1142).138 Plautus turns the “foreign ambassador” theatergram on its head, by making the foreign ambassador the protagonist. Beyond this, the Umbrian also supersedes previous versions of this theatergram in various ways. First, Milphio’s understanding of the Punic is, at least to begin with, accurate, while there is no similar competency in the interpreters of Acharnians or Birds. Second, the “Interpreter Scene” contains more passages of foreign language than do the similar Aristophanic scenes. In fact, the only parallel for quantity of foreign tongue represented is Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae, but, then, this is not even an accurate parallel, for the Archer’s language is in fact a creole, and not a foreign tongue.139 Third, the sheer number of verbal jokes in Plautus supersedes what we find in Aristophanes. While there are echoic puns in the relevant Acharnians passage (Ach. 104-109) and in Thesmophoriazousae (874-876; 1093-1094; 1100-1104), in Poenulus, Milphio’s proliferate, at six in a forty-line span.

 137

Faller 2004, 190-195 contains a detailed discussion of the exchange between Hanno and Milphio. He well points out how Milphio’s understanding of Punic is exhausted by line 1002. Earlier critics, believed that Hanno should have switched to Punic immediately when he saw that Milphio did not understand him, and sought to exclude the exchange entirely, from around l. 1003: see Langen 1886, 197. 138 Maurach 1988, ad loc. takes this “kleine Anagnorisis,” which follows after that between Hanno and Agorastocles, as Alexis’; Gratwick 1969, 707 calls this dramatic invention “elegant: the minor characters have their own reunion to make. This is worthy of the Greek author of the Karchedonios, and the use of Punic here may derive from the Greek original, even if there were no Punic elsewhere in the Karchedonios.” 139 Hall 1989b, 39: calls it “a cacophonous pidgin Greek,” which is nevertheless understandable; at 38, she identifies the archer’s utterances together as “quite the most extensive example of caricature of barbarized Greek speech.”

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

117

Finally, and in general, the Punic in Plautus’ play is of a linguistically higher quality than its congeners in Aristophanes.140 We have compared Plautus’ “Dolmetscher” with similar ones in Aristophanes, to appreciate just how innovative the Umbrian is. To this same end, let us also compare the same Plautine scene with a similar one from a 2nd century CE mime.

f. Plautus and Mime Among the Greek mimes existing in fragments we encounter the very interesting P. Oxy. 413, dated to the middle of the second c. CE.141 The recto contains a mime script, with a cast containing a young man, his parasite (presumably), the crew of a ship, and the young man’s sister. The whole scene takes place in a distant land, ruled by an Indian King. Euripides’ Iphigeneia at Tauris has obviously been the point of departure for our farcical but fragmentary mime scenario. For the young man, with the help of his parasite, has come to India, in order to rescue his captive sister. The rescue is underway, but the Indian King and his entourage are soon to arrive. The usual stereotypes of the foreigner can be found here: they want their wine neat, and the women, in opposition to the Greek counterparts, hunt (115-116). Near the beginning of the papyrus as we now have it, the sister has been freed, but the King and his company are on their way. So the young woman advises her brother and the parasite to give the King and his company unmixed wine to facilitate the rescue (49-50). The Indians arrive to the accompaniment of percussion instruments, and speaking incomprehensibly. The young man and his irreverent parasite encounter the foreigners speaking in their native tongue, just as Milphio and Agorastocles had encountered Hanno in Poenulus (990-1028). The parasite in the Greek mime appears not to understand the King, and so insults him (ȕ੺ıțૅ, ਙȜĮıIJİ, 60; 69), just as Milphio ultimately admits he cannot understand Hanno, before launching insults at him (Poen. 1029, 1032-1034; 1028). In the mime, the young man and his sister need to interpret for the clownish parasite (58-59; 64-65, 92-93, 126-127); to give an example:

 140

Feller 2004, 196, contrasts the passages with those in Aristophanes: the latter are of “geringerer linguistischer Qualität” and “ohnehin vorher bereits feststehende Bedeutung unterstellt.” 141 Page, Select Papyri: Poetry no. 76, with bibliography; Hultzsch 1904 argues that the language represented is a Dravidian language, Kannada, and that the scene takes place on the south-west coast of India.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

118

Chapter Three

Ȁȅǿ. țȠIJIJȦȢ. B. țȠIJIJȦȢ ਫ਼ȝ઼Ȣ ȜĮțIJ઀ıĮȚIJȠ. ǺǹȈ. ȗȠʌȚIJ (IJȣȝʌ.) B. IJ઀ Ȝ੼ȖȠȣıȚ; ī. ʌİ૙Ȟ įઁȢ IJĮȤ੼ȦȢ. ALL. Kottos. PARASITE. May “Kottos” kick you. KING. Zopit (drums) PARASITE. What are they saying? YOUNG MAN. Give them drink quickly. (P. Oxy. 413 recto ll. 64-66 Loeb tr.)

With this passage, compare, for instance: HAN. Lech lachanna nilimniichto. AGOR. Quid nunc ait? MIL. Ligulas, canalis ait se advexisse et nuces: nunc orat, operam ut des sibi, ut ea veneant. Plaut. Poen. 1013-1015 HAN. Lech lachannani limini chot. AGOR. What does he say now? MIL. He says he’s brought spoons, funnels and nuts; now he asks you to help him so that they can be sold.

The contrasts highlight what Plautus is doing. In the Greek mime, the young man and woman retain an authoritative stance, as they interpret the foreigners; the parasite cannot. The parasite is a source of humor, of a scatological, slapstick, and irreverent kind (2, 17, 49, 72-73). In Plautus’ play, it is the exact reverse. Agorastocles’ role is a passive one, while Milphio appears to have access to the Punic that his master doesn’t understand. And the source of Milphio’s humor is nothing like the parasite’s in the Greek mime, since the callidus’ humor resides mainly in his (the callidus’) language, and particularly, the parecheseis, the echoic puns on Hanno’s lines.142 The mime trades in the stereotype of the unrestrained foreigner who overdrinks; Milphio’s “translation” relies on the stereotype of the Carthaginian as an untrustworthy merchant.143 The difference is that the foreigners really do live up to the caricature, while Hanno, of course does not: he arrives in Aetolia not to peddle, but to reunite his family.

 142

For similar jokes in Latin depending on reanalysis of prosodic sequence to give other, unexpected words (and meanings) see e.g. Pet. 56.7.1-56.9.5. I thank Federica Iurescia for pointing this out to me. 143 On Greek stereotypes of Phoenicians as greedy and wealthy, see Isaac 2006, 324-326.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy

119

3. Conclusion In composing scenes with foreigners, Alexis and Plautus did not work in a vacuum. They turned to the theatergrams available to them: “foreigner blocking character” (Iphigeneia among the Taurians, Helen, Thesmophoriazousae) and “foreign ambassador in Greece” (Acharnians, Birds). Alexis inverts the first of these: instead of the Greek hero who abducts his Greek relative from a savage barbarian, a civilized barbarian takes his barbarian relative from a savage Greek. In Alexis, “Hanno’s” late arrival and Greek entrance monologue encourages the audience to associate him with Theoclymenus. Later, however, in the drawn-out recognition scene between the Carthaginian and his daughters, the audience may be reminded of the Greek hero reuniting with Greek heroine: Helen with Menelaus or Orestes with Iphigeneia (Poen. 12111270; cf. Helen 528-629; IT 725-830), the latter also drawn-out recognition scenes. Thus Alexis’ “Hanno” contains within him both the misunderstood foreign King (Theoclymenus) and the Greek rescuer (Orestes). In a similar way, Plautus’ Hanno oscillates between the foreign ambassador and the cunning interpreter. The audience, encouraged by Plautus, first wants to cast Hanno in the role of a ridiculous Shamartabas. The foreigner enters the stage, speaking incomprehensibly.144 And just as Dicaeopolis ridicules Shamartabas’ appearance, so too does Milphio make fun of Hanno’s looks (Poen. 979-981). In this way, Plautus invokes the theatergram to frame the spectator’s reception of Hanno, only to then turn the tables. For ultimately the cunning Milphio submits to the superior interpretative ability of Hanno, and the roles are reversed, as Hanno’s character channels, to begin with, farcical figures like Shamartabas and Triballos but ends up recalling Dicaeopolis and Peisetairos.145 Alexis and Plautus invoked the relevant theatergram, with all its concomitant expectations, only to upend those expectations. This is great

 144

Faller 2004, 195 believes that the knowledge of foreign languages in the Roman audience was minimal. It is a fair guess that some at least might have been able to understand the Punic. Cf. Hofmann 1992, 147, for a similar view. 145 Perhaps, Hanno also “becomes” the Euripides of Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae. Like the poet-playwright of Aristophanes’ parody, Hanno, too, is compared to a poet-playwright (1110), who “stages” a court-summons right before revealing himself to his daughters (Poen. 1211-1270). Starks 2000 and Maurice 2004 both similarly take a metatheatrical view of Hanno. And, of course, Hanno springs his daughters free, just as Euripides removed his relative from the clutches of a not-to-bright foreign blocking character, the Skythian archer.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

120

Chapter Three

theater. The figure of Hanno is “schizophrenic” in the sense that he oscillates between both the “native” and the “foreigner” character-types in the theatergrams surveyed above. That is, both figures—“Shamartabas” and “Dicaeopolis,” “Theoclymenus” and “Orestes”; “Self” and “Other”— reside within the characterization of the little Punic, and account, in part, for the difficulty critics have had in pinning Hanno down. This oscillation, incidentally, accounts for the odd presence of sexual lust noted in Hanno. This lust is a residual characteristic resulting from the merger within the Carthaginian of the lustful barbarian (Triballos, Theoclymenus) with cunning yet noble Greek (Dicaeopolis, Peisetairos, Orestes).146 More importantly, the theatergram, much like a mental prejudice, frames the viewer’s expectations for the foreigner. It is the brilliant artistry of Alexis and Plautus that challenges, upends, those expectations, resulting in a ‘progressively’ sympathetic portrayal of a Carthaginian on the Greek/Roman stage.

 146

Franko 1995 discusses the relevant passages.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



CHAPTER FOUR MUNCHAUSEN IN ROME: PLAUTINE BRAGGARTS AND HELLENISTIC STORYTELLING IOANNIS M. KONSTANTAKOS

1. Plautine and Greek comic braggadocio Bragging in Plautine comedy is commonly practiced by milites gloriosi and their slaves or parasites, who frequently imitate their masters’ characteristic, blustering mode of expression.1 Occasionally, the same kind of fanciful speech is placed in the mouth of other comic impostors, such as the Sycophanta of the Trinummus. Though unrelated to the military, this latter charlatan has certain traits in common with the typical miles of the stage, notably the proneness to exaggerated lies and the false claims about faraway travels. Plautus, of course, did not invent this category of characters. Boastful soldiers are plentiful already in the Greek comic tradition, which also sparsely includes other, kindred types of impostor, such as grandiloquent travelers, pompous ambassadors, garrulous cicerones and itinerant liars. There is, however, a conspicuous difference between the Hellenic and the Plautine comic blowhards, which relates to the contents and especially the thematic focus of their fanciful discourses. As will transpire from the comparative study of a range of examples below, Plautus’ gloriosi concentrate on marvellous elements and fairytale adventures, while the

 1

On the braggart soldiers of Plautus in general see most notably Wysk 1921, 9-19; Wehrli 1936, 102, 107-110; Perna 1955, 179-203; Hanson 1965; Della Corte 1967, 237-239; Hofmann and Wartenberg 1973, 85-156; Leach 1979, 192-196; Hunter 1985, 69-71; Anderson 1993, 144-146; Duckworth 1994, 264-265, 322-323, 349350; Pansiéri 1997, 163-168, 311-316, 654-664, 712-726; Cagniart 1999; Brown 2003-2004, 1-7; Mastromarco 2009; Papaioannou 2009; Petrides 2014a, 217-245.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

122

Chapter Four

Greek alazones are more intensely preoccupied with the pleasures of feasting and the world of the symposium. The investigation and explanation of this divergence forms the main concern of the present essay, because it may bring to light an interesting aspect of Plautus’ interaction with the vogues of Hellenistic literature and the predilections of his contemporary audience. It will be argued that the Roman playwright’s emphasis on the fabulous betrays the influence of a considerable trend of marvel writing, which thrived in Greek literature in the wake of Alexander’s Asiatic expeditions and the discovery of the wonders of the East. However, in order to savor the argument in full, the reader needs to patiently follow the examination and comparison of a large number of passages, both from Roman plays and from Greek sources. The nature and extent of Plautus’ debt to Hellenistic marvellous storytelling will emerge only through the meticulous sifting and collation of a broad textual corpus. The Plautine braggarts are wonderful storytellers. They fill the stage with their tales of impossible feats, immense treasures, exotic wonders and extraordinary adventures in far-off lands.2 Narrative, especially imaginary narrative abounding in supernatural, marvellous and incredible motifs, is their trademark.3 Thus, Antamoenides in Poenulus (470-492) describes a battle against flying men waged with slings and balls of bird-lime. The Sycophanta (Trin. 928-945) recounts how he sailed in a small fishing-boat upstream the river that flows from the middle of the sky. Pyrgopolynices, the eponymous miles gloriosus, is glorified as a superhuman warrior who once shattered the leg of an elephant with a blow of his fist (Mil. 25-30). A



2 On the comic miles as a storyteller cf. Frangoulidis 1994; Petrides 2014a, 218, 238. 3 This is hardly the place to indulge in theorization about the idea of narrative and the definition of the fantastic or the imaginary. For a good exposition of theoretical background and critical discussion concerning the fantastic, with special reference to the ancient world, see Whitman 1964, 16-20, 259-280; Sutton 1980, 151-179; Winkler 1985, 80-86; Reckford 1987, 76-104; Romm 1992, 172-214; Li Causi 2003, 17-55; Ruffell 2011, 29-53. Among modern theoretical works, the most influential are Todorov 1970 and Jackson 1981. Both give a rather restrictive definition of the fantastic per se and would rather classify the kind of tales examined in this essay under the typologies of the ‘marvellous.’ But they mostly concentrate on western literary production from the 18th century onwards, and their insights are not easily applied to Classical works exploiting the fantastic mode, from Aristophanes to Apuleius and Lucian. On the other hand, regarding the concept and practices of storytelling in antiquity see the seminal essay of Scobie 1983, 1-73, and also Anderson 2000, 1-23, 167-172; Hansen 2002, 6-31; Anderson 2006, 45-115; Hansen 2017, 1-46.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

123

comparable feat is engraved on the personal seal of captain Therapontigonus Platagidorus (Curc. 424), who is also said to have vanquished half of the known and the unknown world in twenty days (Curc. 438-452). Pyrgopolynices also boasts of being an Übermensch of immense age, born only a day after Jupiter himself; his children live for a thousand years and grow into indomitable warriors (Mil. 1077-1083). Similarly, Stratophanes in Truculentus takes pride in his infant son who asked for a sword and shield as soon as he was born and is now expected to enlist in a legion and win war spoils (505-511). In the Greek comic tradition parallels for this kind of braggadocio are mainly found in Aristophanes and Middle Comedy, earlier than the generation of Menander and his contemporaries, who provided the immediate models for most of Plautus’ plays.4 The tales of these Greek blowhards also revolve around unusual feats, preternatural abilities, wondrous phenomena and marvels of faraway lands; and they include imaginary motifs which closely resemble some of the Plautine details. For instance, in Aristophanes’ Acharnians (81-84) the envoys returning from an embassy to Persia report about golden mountains to which the Great King retires in order to defecate. This recalls the huge mountains of silver that Pyrgopolynices is supposed to possess (Mil. 1065-1066). Nevertheless, the Greek comic travelogues are distinguished, as a whole, by a special thematic emphasis. The braggarts of the Attic stage concentrate almost invariably on the extreme luxury which characterizes the exotic places they have purportedly visited. They highlight elements of voluptuousness and hedonism, such as the huge amounts of food that are consumed, the bizarre sensuality of customs and above all the banquet and its pleasures. The Hellenic comic tradition is strongly preoccupied with the symposium, and its tall tales often represent grotesque distortions of common sympotic practices or delights. For example, the title hero of Antiphanes’ Soldier (fr. 200 K.-A.) returns from a war at Cyprus and describes the extraordinary spectacle of the king of Paphos, who was fanned at dinner by doves flapping their wings. The king anointed himself with a special kind of perfume which attracted the birds with its smell, while a number of attendants strove to keep the birds at the required distance and harmoniously distributed

 4

On the braggarts (especially soldiers) of Greek comedy see most recently Konstantakos 2015a and Konstantakos 2016a, with extensive references to earlier bibliography and detailed comparisons to the Roman specimens. See also Wehrli 1936, 101-113; Gil 1975, 74-82, 86-88; Gil 1981-1983; MacCary 1972; Hofmann and Wartenberg 1973, 9-61; Hunter 1985, 66-69; Nesselrath 1990, 325-329; Blume 2001; Brown 2003-2004; Mastromarco 2009; Petrides 2014a, 202-217.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

124

Chapter Four

around their master’s figure, so that the breath of air would be smooth and pleasant. A similar story in Alexis’ Eisoikizomenos (fr. 63 K.-A.) may also have been recited by a braggart soldier. This time, the host has the doves dipped into perfume and lets them loose to fly around and sprinkle the guests and the couches. Two comedies by Ephippus, the Geryones and the Peltast, included a tirade about a gigantic fish, larger than Crete and cooked in a proportionately oversized casserole to satisfy a fabulous king (fr. 5 and 19 K.-A.). Similarly, the envoys of Aristophanes’ Acharnians focus on the exorbitant gluttony and food consumption of the weird Persian monarch, whose royal table is loaded with whole roasted oxen and gigantic birds (85-89). Possibly as a result of his overeating, the king needs eight months to empty his bowels (81-84). These Persian gastronomic excesses are accompanied by extreme costliness with regard to the other accessories of the banquet, the golden cups and soft mattresses enjoyed by the guests (69-75). Further, in Mnesimachus’ Philip (fr. 7 K.-A.) a warrior boasts in outrageous terms about the martial valor of himself and his companions: they use to swallow swords and broken javelins at dinner, gulp down flaming torches as a side-dish, lie on shields and breastplates instead of cushions and wear catapults instead of wreaths on their heads. The weapons of war take here the place of the foodstuffs and equipment of the banquet, so as to surreally highlight the braggart’s superhuman militarism. Another satirical comedy from the same period, Timocles’ Icarian Satyrs, included a lengthy speech of travel instructions, addressed to a voyager by a knowledgeable guide, in which contemporary Athenian celebrities were allegorically pictured as marvels to be encountered during a long journey. For instance, the orator Hypereides is depicted as a river which the traveler has to cross (Timocles fr. 17 K.-A.). The traits of this geographical landmark symbolically allude to the satirized orator’s personal and political faults: the river bubbles with boastful and dense rhetoric, waters the fields of anyone that offers bribes, and is full of fishes—a taunting allusion to Hypereides’ fondness for seafood. Once again, food consumption is one of the main points of focus. Even in New Comedy, the few extant relics of such marvellous narratives remain true to the preoccupation with the culinary or the sympotic. In Menander’s Halieus a returning soldier reported on the voracity of Dionysius, the tyrant of Heraclea on the Pontus, about whom he had heard stories from a group of refugees (fr. 25 K.-A.). The tyrant, obese like a pig, lay down in his rolls of fat and wished to die from overeating and rot away in pleasure—a worthy counterpart of

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

125

Aristophanes’ and Ephippus’ royal trenchermen.5 The boastful captain Bias in Kolax, faithfully reflected in this respect by the Thraso of Terence’s Eunuch, also largely confines his braggadocio to his distinctions in the symposium. He boasts about the witty jokes he made in banquets, the boon companionship he offered to the king in convivial occasions, and the amounts of wine he gulped down (Men. Kolax fr. 2-6 Arnott; Ter. Eun. 397-433). Although there are no stories of wonders in Kolax and its Roman offshoot, the typically Greek emphasis on banqueting and its pleasures is retained.6 Greek comic bragging, therefore, is traditionally linked with food or the symposium. The pleasures of feasting and the paraphernalia of sympotic well-being (foodstuffs and desserts, utensils, furniture, perfumes, wreaths, attendant slaves) are ludicrously exaggerated and transformed into grotesque spectacles. In the comic plot the braggart (alazon) is usually the hero’s main adversary, the opponent that must be ridiculed and defeated in the end, so that the protagonist may triumph. Since the comic hero’s final victory is standardly celebrated with a great feast of eating and drinking, it seems natural that the braggart antagonist should be associated with an exorbitant distortion of these same pleasures. In this respect, the Greek practice corresponds to a primordial constituent of the comic genre. By contrast, the Plautine braggarts’ tales, as becomes evident from the overview given above, display a different emphasis. Although feasting is an integral part of Plautus’ stage fictions as well, the narratives of the Roman blowhards do not highlight so much the aspects of culinary consumption or banqueting but rather focus on genuinely fabulous and fairytale elements, on pure imaginary storytelling. The main interest lies now in supernatural and marvellous motifs: superhuman powers, extraordinary voyages to imaginary lands, fabulous creatures and miraculous exploits. The Greek bragging, in short, is “Rabelaisian”; the Plautine is “Munchausenesque”.7



5 On the marvellous narratives of the Greek comic braggarts see Konstantakos 2016a, 126-128. For analyses of particular examples see Petersmann 1972, 241246; Nesselrath 1990, 276-277, 326-328; Arnott 1996a, 188-192; Konstantakos 2000, 216-231; Cipolla 2003, 322-331; Papachrysostomou 2008, 210-219; Konstantakos 2011a; Konstantakos 2011b, 59-99; Apostolakis 2014, 111-115; Rusten 2013; Konstantakos, forthcoming. 6 On Bias’ and Thraso’s sympotic preoccupations cf. Legrand 1917, 96-97; Hofmann and Wartenberg 1973, 125-130; Barsby 1999, 157-158; Pernerstorfer 2009, 126. 7 Cf. Questa 2004, 81.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

126

Chapter Four

An explanation of this divergence may be sought in a significant body of marvel literature, which appeared precisely between the end of Middle or the beginnings of New Comedy and Plautus’ period of activity, about a century later. The Hellenistic age saw the rise of a number of genres of writing which can be collectively categorized as “travel narrative” or “ethnographical fiction.” The roots of this literary vogue can be traced back to considerably earlier times, to the beginnings of Greek historiography (e.g. the abundant fabulous materials in the works of Scylax, Herodotus and Ctesias) or even to the dawn of heroic myth; epic adventures of faraway travel, including combats with monstrous beings and weird magical experiences, were a staple of the Odyssey and of the Argonauts’ saga. During the Hellenistic age, however, the wide-ranging conquests of Alexander the Great gave a new impetus to this kind of composition. The depths of the Orient were now opened up to the gaze of the Greeks and were presented to the collective consciousness of the Hellenic public with unprecedented intensity. The audiences of metropolitan Greece were fascinated by the exotic accounts of these distant countries brought back by army veterans, envoys and adventurers of all kinds. As a result, narratives about travelers’ adventures and marvels of far-off lands became enormously popular and infiltrated into a wide range of literary genres.8 A synoptic survey of this multifarious literature is in order here, because this is the comparative material with which the Plautine blowhards’ tales will be associated in the following sections. An extensive corpus of works was produced in direct connection with Alexander’s expedition. In the decades after the Macedonian conqueror’s death, many histories of his wars were authored by men who had served in the eastern campaigns as army officers, technical staff or members of Alexander’s entourage (Nearchus, Aristobulus, Onesicritus, Chares, Baeton, Polycleitus), or by writers who could have obtained first-hand information from the participants (e.g. Cleitarchus). These works, apart from proper historical accounts of battles and conquests, also incorporated much fabulous lore concerning the extraordinary sights, natural wonders or strange populations encountered by the Greek troops in Asia, especially in the most distant regions, such as Iran, Bactria and India. Other historians and ethnographers, such as Megasthenes, who served as ambassador of Seleucus Nicator at the court of the Indian emperor

 8

On the rise of fabulous ethnographical and travel literature in the Hellenistic period see Prescott 1908; Rohde 1914, 188-262; Winston 1956, 59-68; Ferguson 1975, 122-124; Gabba 1981; Romm 1992, 82-108, 196-202; Sassi 1993; Aerts 1994; Fusillo 1994, 267-273; Schepens and Delcroix 1996, 376-389, 400-409, 440-441; Hansen 1996, 2-16.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

127

Chandragupta and wrote a comprehensive work about the civilization of India, reproduced the same kind of marvellous material. Soon, Alexander’s adventures were fictionalized and became the subject-matter of a novelistic genre, the so-called “letters of wonders” (Wunderbriefe): that is, fictitious epistles, supposedly penned by Alexander himself or by his marshals, which recounted the experiences of the Macedonian army in the remotest areas of the Orient. In these epistolary narratives Alexander was depicted as the hero of a travelogue, an explorer who wandered around the edges of the world and encountered marvellous places, monsters and imaginary peoples. Many compositions of this kind must have been circulating in the Hellenistic age. The letter format was a felicitous convention for fabulous writing. The extraordinary sights were dressed up as “authentic” eyewitness accounts given by the Macedonian king himself or by his commanders, and thus placed less strain on credibility. Some of the letters of wonders are known only from brief references in later writers; Strabo quotes from a letter attributed to Craterus, one of Alexander’s marshals (15.1.35, FGrH 153 F2), which presented Alexander reaching the Ganges and described the river’s gigantic creatures. One epistle, supposedly addressed by Alexander to Aristotle and regarding the marvels of India, is preserved in a later Latin translation of the lost Greek original, under the title Epistula Alexandri Macedonis ad Aristotelem magistrum suum de itinere suo et de situ Indiae.9 This letter and others of the same kind were later absorbed into the Alexander Romance by Pseudo-Callisthenes, a lengthy biographical fiction about the great Macedonian conqueror’s life and exploits. This historical novel survives today in a series of successive textual redactions (traditionally designated with letters of the alphabet: Į, ȕ, Ȗ, L, Ȝ), which date from the third century CE until well into the Byzantine period; but its main narrative materials, including many of the episodes of marvellous voyages, have been drawn from Hellenistic sources.10 Indeed, a small portion of one of the Wunderbriefe of the romance (3.27-28, the letter to Olympias

 9

For editions of the Latin text see Feldbusch 1976; Callu 2010, 363-375; cf. Alexander Romance 3.17. 10 These are the editions of reference for the main versions of Pseudo-Callisthenes: for the earliest redaction Į see Kroll 1926 and Stoneman 2007-2012, 1:6-121 (book 1), 2:6-75 (book 2). For redaction ȕ see Bergson 1965 and Stoneman 2007-2012, 1:122-223 (book 1), 2:76-139 (book 2). For the variant text of codex L see van Thiel 1974. For redaction Ȗ see von Lauenstein 1962 and Stoneman 2007-2012, 1: 224-355 (book 1); Engelmann 1963 and Stoneman 2007-2012, 2:140-299 (book 2); Parthe 1969 (book 3).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

128

Chapter Four

concerning the treasures of the Persian palaces and various fabulous countries of the Orient) survives on a papyrus of the first century BCE.11 The other epistles included in Pseudo-Callisthenes contain topical references, old legendary themes and characteristic parallels with early historical accounts of Alexander, which also indicate that these texts essentially go back to Hellenistic compositions. All these writings must have been pieced together from fabulous travel lore current in the fourth and third centuries BCE.12 The love of wonders and paradox left strong marks on the literary production of the Hellenistic age. Many other writings of the time incorporated stories of outlandish marvels and exotic voyages. Paradoxographers frequently cite brief anecdotes about incredible creatures at far-off places.13 A group of authors, including Euhemerus, Iambulus and Hecataeus of Abdera, cultivated the new genre of “utopian fiction,” which narrated novelistic travels to the edges of the earth (the extreme north of the Hyperboreans or the islands far to the south of Arabia and India) and described imaginary ideal societies encountered there by the narrator-protagonist.14 Later, Lucian will delightfully parody all this multifarious literature of travels and marvels in his comic travelogue novel, the True Histories. Lucian’s travesties offer a good idea of the

 11

See Huys and Wouters 1993; Gallo 1996, 242-243. The “letter of Alexander to Aristotle regarding the marvels of India” contains topical references to the fate of Alexander’s mother and sisters, which point to an early Hellenistic dating of the original work; see Merkelbach 1977, 59-61; Gunderson 1980; Zaganelli 1995; Jouanno 2002, 23-25, 46-47; Koulakiotis 2009; Koulakiotis 2011. The long epistle to Olympias and Aristotle, which chronicles Alexander’s journey to the edge of the earth (ȕ and L 2.23-41), includes legendary traditions of very early date: Alexander’s desire for immortality, referred to already by the third-century Cynic teacher Teles (fr. IVA, p. 43 Hense); the march into the land of darkness, the water of life and Alexander’s flight to the sky, which draw on age-old Mesopotamian and Iranian myths from the second and first millennium BCE (Gilgamesh, Etana, Kai Kaus). See Merkelbach 1977, 63-65, 132-136; Konstantakos 2017 with further bibliography. Generally on the Wunderbriefe and their Hellenistic provenance see van Thiel 1974, xiii-xiv, xxiv-xxix; Merkelbach 1977, 55-72; Gunderson 1980, 76-90, 118-122; Samuel 1986, 434; Centanni 1988, xvi-xviii; Romm 1992, 108-116; Fraser 1996, 224-226; Stoneman 2007-2012, 1:xxvi-xxvii, xliii-xliv, lvii, lxxvii-lxxix. 13 See Sassi 1993; Schepens and Delcroix 1996; Hansen 1996, 2-16. 14 For enlightening grammatological overviews and literary analysis of these works see Rohde 1914, 223-260; Winston 1956; Kytzler 1988; Müller 1988; Kuch 1989; Fusillo 1994, 267-269; Holzberg 2003, 621-628; Futre Pinheiro 2006; Winiarczyk 2011, 1-27, 45-71, 117-203; Winiarczyk 2013; von Möllendorff 2015. Especially Holzberg and Winiarczyk provide rich further bibliography. 12

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

129

richness and diversity of this genre of writings, which must have been exceedingly popular in Hellenistic times but survive now only in fragments. Comparison between the extant remains of Greek marvel literature and the discourses of Plautus’ braggarts reveals a large amount of parallels, often extending to striking details. Unsurprisingly, the greatest number of similarities comes from the works regarding Alexander’s campaigns, both the historians’ accounts and the novelistic Wunderbriefe. These compositions were authored by veteran officers of Alexander’s expedition or were fictitiously presented as the reports of the Macedonian conqueror himself or of his marshals. Collectively they made up the largest body of “soldiers’ tales” in Hellenistic literature. Most of Plautus’ fabulous narratives are similarly placed in the mouths of military men, the boastful soldiers or their attendants. Nevertheless, several analogues are also traced in other Hellenistic genres. In the following sections the most salient of these parallels will be extensively discussed. Individual motifs and narrative patterns of the Plautine fabulous tales will be associated with a wide range of Greek marvel texts, in an effort to illustrate what kinds of material may have been taken over from Hellenistic ethnographical fictions and humorously reworked in the comic braggarts’ tirades. The reader is entreated to bear with the profusion of disparate textual references (a necessity, due to the fragmentary nature of the Hellenistic evidence and the wide dispersion of sources) and not to be disorientated; in the end, a clear and detailed picture will emerge concerning the stuff that Plautine wonder tales are made on. But it must be noted that this is primarily a study of motifs and narrative lore; it is the fabulous elements themselves, the marvels, monsters and extraordinary adventures of the comic blowhards, which bear comparison to the Greek sources. “Close readings” of particular Plautine passages, oriented towards hermeneutical issues, performative analysis or stylistic minutiae, lie outside the scope of this approach. The gist is in the comparison of stories; the tale’s the thing.

2. Plautine fictions and Hellenistic marvels 2.1. The flying men One of the longest and most striking examples of Plautine bragging narrative is Antamoenides’ account of his battle against the flying men (Poen. 470-487):

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

130

Chapter Four (ANTAMOENIDES) ita ut occepi dicere, lenulle, de illac pugna Pentetronica, quom sexaginta milia hominum uno die volaticorum manibus occidi meis— (LYCUS) volaticorum hominum? (ANT.) ita dico quidem. (LY.) an, opsecro, usquam sunt homines volatici? (ANT.) fuere. verum ego interfeci. (LY.) quo modo potuisti? (ANT.) dicam. viscum legioni dedi fundasque; eo praesternebant folia farferi. (LY.) quoi rei? (ANT.) ad fundas viscus ne adhaeresceret. (LY.) perge. optume hercle periuras. quid postea? (ANT.) in fundas visci indebant grandiculos globos, eo illos volantis iussi funditarier. quid multa verba? quemquem visco offenderant, tam crebri ad terram reccidebant quam pira. ut quisque acciderat, eum necabam ilico per cerebrum pinna sua sibi quasi turturem. (ANT.) As I began to tell you, my little pimp, about that Pentetronian battle, when I killed sixty thousand flying men with my hands in one day— (LY.) Flying men? (ANT.) That’s what I’m saying. (LY.) Please, there aren’t flying men anywhere, are there? (ANT.) There were. But I killed them. (LY.) How could you do that? (ANT.) I’ll tell you. I gave birdlime and slings to my legion; within they placed coltsfoot leaves. (LY.) What for? (ANT.) So that the birdlime wouldn’t stick to the slings. (LY.) Continue. You’re perjuring yourself perfectly. What next? (ANT.) They put largish blobs of birdlime into the slings, and with that I told them to shoot down those flying men. Why should I use many words? Those who they hit with the birdlime fell back on the ground as thickly as pears. As soon as each one fell down, I killed him on the spot with his own feather through his brains like a turtle-dove. (Transl. de Melo).

Antamoenides’ story evolves through a tripartite sequence of military incidents: encounter with a monstrous army of hybrid creatures; invention of an appropriate stratagem to counter these creatures; and final victory over them. Both in the general outline and in several characteristic details, this Plautine narrative essentially reproduces a type of tale which recurs many times in the Wunderbriefe about Alexander’s expedition. Typically, such episodes are set during the march of Alexander and his army through the remotest areas of the East, in India or Central Asia. The troops encounter a monstrous, hybrid population with mixed human and animal characteristics: for example, giant men with lions’ faces and bodies overgrown with thick hair (Alexander Romance ȕ 2.33.1-4, L 3.28); centaurs with a man’s upper torso and the lower parts of horses (Ȗ 2.42.613); dog-headed humans (Į 3.28.2, Ȗ 2.34.6, Epistula ad Aristotelem 40) or

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

131

men covered with fur and barking like dogs (ȕ 2.33.8-13); enormous shaggy women with wild boar’s hair, long beastly nails and the legs of wild asses (Ȗ 2.29.4-11); little one-legged people with sheep’s tails (Ȗ 2.44.4-7); shaggy amphibious males and females that subsist on raw fish (Epistula 40, 73); or furry humanoids without heads (ȕ 2.37.4-5).15 Usually, Alexander and his army give battle against these monstrous populations, which prove to be highly resistant and difficult to subdue. In many cases, the Macedonian hero finally conceives and puts to practice an artifice by which he manages to overcome the hybrid monsters and kill large numbers of them. The essence of this stratagem consists precisely in treating the opponents like beasts, in accordance with their zoomorphic parts, rather than like a regular human army to be confronted in tactical warfare. Sometimes Alexander’s scheme is simple: a fire is lit and used to scare away the beastly humanoids (ȕ 2.33.3-4, 2.33.12-13, Ȗ 2.34.4, 2.34.6, Į 3.17.21); or the Macedonian soldiers emit loud cries and blow trumpets, the sound of which puts the monsters to flight (ȕ 2.32.4); or the bloodhounds of the Greek army are set on the half-animal enemies (Ȗ 2.29.10-11). Occasionally more elaborate methods may be devised in order to trap the weird creatures. In the battle against the centaurs Alexander has a large ditch dug around the Greek camp and covered with reeds and straw. The Macedonian soldiers provoke the monsters by shooting at them harmless arrows of plain wood. Thus, the thoughtless centaurs underestimate the danger of the human army and are lured into vehemently galloping against the Greek camp, only to fall into the concealed ditch (Ȗ 2.42.7-12). The same type of episode is repeatedly parodied in Lucian’s True Histories. The narrator and his companions come across hybrid populations which combine human bodies with animal or fish parts. These encounters invariably lead to conflicts or regular war, which the human protagonists win thanks to their superior weapons (1.35-39, 2.44, cf. 2.46). Possibly this kind of narrative was widely diffused in Hellenistic marvel literature, beyond the legends of Alexander. Indeed, reports about monstrous, zoomorphic populations living in India or the Far East (dog-

 15

See also Į 3.17.20, ȕ 2.32.3-4, Ȗ 2.34.3-5, L 3.28, for further varieties of creatures. Apart from the Wunderbriefe, a few episodes of this kind also turn up in the historiographers, albeit in a variant or curtailed form. On this tale-type in Alexander’s legends generally cf. Merkelbach 1977, 66-68; Gunderson 1980, 91123; Aerts 1994, 33-36; Stoneman 1994, 93-99; Infurna 1995, 173-178; Jouanno 2002, 215-217, 237-240, 265-266, 289-290; Stoneman 2007-2012, 1:lvi-lix, 2: 423-433, 448-451; Stoneman 2008, 69-77, 171-173; Koulakiotis 2009, 423-426; Koulakiotis 2011, 171-172.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

132

Chapter Four

heads, strap-foots, monopods, men with hippopotamus’ skin or wild fur, mixed beasts with human faces etc.) had very old roots in Greek ethnographical writing, from Scylax of Caryanda to Ctesias’ and Megasthenes’ books about India.16 Occasionally, the historians and ethnographers describe artifices for killing or capturing members of the beastly tribes. For example, the hunters ride on elephants and strike the monsters from above (Ctesias fr. 45.15 Lenfant, from Photius, Bibliotheca 46a1-12); or they break the creatures’ deadly stings with stones (Ctesias fr. 45dȕ, from Aelian, NA 4.21); compare Antamoenides’ stratagem of disabling the flying men’s wings with balls of sticky birdlime. Antamoenides’ tall tale displays the same storyline and structure as these narratives. The Plautine captain also encounters a population of hybrid creatures which combine the human figure with animal elements. The homines volatici have birds’ wings and feathers, and their heads are similar to the heads of turtle-doves, fragile enough to be pierced through with a feather (485-487). Plautus uses a classic technique of parody in order to trivialize and mock the wondrous conceptions of Hellenistic storytelling. The sinister and menacing aspects of the legendary monsters are replaced by anodyne or entirely ludicrous features. Instead of the grim and dangerous accoutrements of savage deadly beasts (the shaggy fur of wild boars, the sharp nails of predatory animals, the hindquarters of strong stallions or wild asses, the heads of hounds, lions or bulls), the Plautine hybrids are equipped with harmless feathers and the brittle heads of small birds, which produce an innocuous and laughable spectacle. Lucian uses the same method in some of his own parodies, when he makes his heroes encounter humanoids with heads of eels and tunas, faces of langoustes, tails of turbots and swordfishes or lizards’ legs (True Histories 1.35-39).17 The horrendous monsters of thrilling fiction, which had something of the nightmarish quality of Hieronymus Bosch, are turned into preposterous conglomerates, fit for illustrating the pages of Lewis Carroll’s Alice. Like Alexander and his men, Antamoenides gives battle against the hybrid creatures and defeats them by means of a stratagem. The Plautine captain uses the standard tools of fowling; balls of birdlime are shot from slings against the flying men and presumably stick on their wings and

 16

See Wittkower 1942, 159-166; Bianchi 1981; Romm 1992, 78-108. On Lucian’s droll creatures as travesties of ethnographical monsters cf. Fauth 1979, 51; von Koppenfels 1981, 34; Aerts 1994, 36; Georgiadou and Larmour 1994, 1500; von Möllendorff 2000, 243-252; Stoneman 2007-2012, 2:423. On possible parody of the Alexander Romance in the True Histories see Aerts 1994; Georgiadou and Larmour 1998, 38; von Möllendorff 2000, 77-78, 90, 110, 249, 265, 320, 418, 420, 492. 17

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

133

immobilize them, thus bringing the creatures down. Antamoenides then kills each one of them by thrusting a quill-feather into his brain—another method borrowed from the practices of bird-hunters.18 Like Alexander’s artifices in Hellenistic wonder literature, the extravagant Plautine trick relies upon the animal nature and the zoomorphic parts of the hybrid enemies. Antamoenides beats the bird-men precisely because he treats them like birds, rather than as a regular human army, and uses against them the traditional means of fowling instead of war tactics. Thus, the comic miles reproduces Alexander’s feats on a light-hearted level. Another means of parody employed with gusto in the Plautine script is grotesque inflation. In Pseudo-Callisthenes’ stories the victims slain by the Macedonian army number at the most a few hundred (ȕ 2.32.4; cf. ȕ 2.33.13, Ȗ 2.29.11, 2.42.12-13; similarly in Lucian, True Histories 1.37, 2.44). But Antamoenides ludicrously raises the death toll exacted by his heroic hands to a vertiginous sixty thousand (Poen. 472).19 Further, in some of Pseudo-Callisthenes’ episodes Alexander strives to capture specimens of the monstrous population alive and keep them in custody, presumably in order to bring them back to the civilized world as memorials of his marvellous adventure. However, the captives do not survive more than a few days, because they cannot bear the separation from their tribe or because they are unsuited to the diet of the Macedonian camp (ȕ 2.33.13, Ȗ 2.34.5, 2.42.13). This is implicitly forwarded as the reason why no such marvellous creatures can be found in our familiar world.20 Antamoenides’ account includes a comparable detail: the soldier asserts that his homines volatici existed in point of fact, but they cannot be seen any longer, because Antamoenides himself exterminated all of them in his decimating Pentetronic battle. With regard to the form of Antamoenides’ monstrous opponents, the beings with mixed human and avian features, Alexander’s legendarium offers further examples, even outside the narrative type examined above. In one of the Wunderbriefe Alexander marches into the fabulous land of the blessed, and after a long journey he comes across two large birds with human faces, which fly overhead and speak with human voices. These creatures warn the Macedonian hero not to proceed any further into the domain of the gods; instead, they promise him the victory in his impending war against the Indian king Porus (Alexander Romance ȕ

 18

See Rose 1926; Maurach 1988, 110-111. For the comically exaggerated number of slain enemies cf. Plaut. Mil. 46; Herescu 1959; Hofmann and Wartenberg 1973, 93, 119, 139. 20 The same motif is found in Megasthenes, FGrH 715 F27 (from Strabo 15.1.57) and Baeton, FGrH 119 F5 (from Pliny, HN 7.11); cf. Stoneman 2007-2012, 2:427. 19

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

134

Chapter Four

2.40.1-3). Later, Alexander attempts to fly in the air in a basket carried aloft by two vultures. He ascends to a great height but finally meets a bird with human form and voice, which warns him of the danger and advises him to return to earth (L 2.41).21 Lucian also parodies these conceptions in his account of his adventures on the moon (True Histories 1.11-20), which teem with flying creatures, winged centaurs and warriors that ride on the back of vultures. As is the case with many marvellous legends of Alexander, the humanavian crossbreeds may ultimately reflect actual sights experienced by the Greek army veterans during their long march in the East. Reliefs and pictures of winged anthropomorphic genii were a standard decorative motif in the royal palaces and temples of Mesopotamia. Usually, they are portrayed as human figures equipped with large wings on their back; sometimes they also have an eagle’s or vulture’s head—compare the turtle-doves’ heads in Antamoenides’ comic travesty. These figures represented deities or wise spirits (apkallu) from antediluvian times, which guarded and protected the buildings. Many such reliefs are found in the palaces, shrines and other edifices of Assyria (Nimrud, Khorsabad, Nineveh) from the age of Assurnasirpal II, Sargon II and Sennacherib (9th to 7th centuries BCE).22 From Assyria this ornamental theme also passed into Achaemenid Iran. Reliefs of winged genii decorated the jamb of a gate in Cyrus’ palace at Pasargadae, as well as bronze plaques fastened on doors at the royal complex of Persepolis. Winged anthropomorphic creatures are also frequently depicted on Achaemenid seals, usually in heroic combat against monsters; they clearly were a recurrent motif of royal Iranian iconography.23 Alexander’s men might have seen images of

 21

On these creatures in the Wunderbriefe cf. Pfister 1959, 17-18; Jouanno 2002, 269-270, 273, 293. 22 See Gadd 1936, 130-147, 159-160, 198-199, 208-212, 220-245; Mallowan 1966, 1:97-103, 226-229, 250-252, 2:396-399, 487-491, 594-595; Rittig 1977, 70-77, 164, 215; Wiggermann 1992, 65-67, 73-79; Wiggermann and Green 1993, 222225, 239-255, 262; Russell 1998; Porter 2003, 5-37, 91, 96; Konstantakos 2013, 433-437 with more references. The same figures are also represented on a large number of smaller cult and art objects (clay and wooden figurines, engraved ivory plaques and gems, furniture decorations, cylinder seals) throughout the first millennium BCE and down to the Seleucid age. But such artefacts would have been more difficult for the Greek soldiers to come about and notice, by comparison to large monumental sculptures. 23 On the Achaemenid monuments see Sarre and Herzfeld 1910, 155-165; Schmidt 1953-1957, 1:13 (and fig. 7B), 22, 159, 174, 189, 192-194, 2:7, 11, 15, 32, 38-39; Stronach 1978, 44-55; Garrison and Root 2001, 519; Garrison 2009, 11-13, 45-46; Garrison 2013, 570-574, 583-585.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

135

these figures in the course of the expedition, for example during the march towards Babylon after the battle of Arbela, or at the capture of Persepolis, or when the Macedonian king visited Pasargadae. Thus, Antamoenides’ bird-like humanoids turn out to represent the ultimate fictional metamorphosis of an age-old theme of Near-Eastern art.24

2.2. The soldier and the elephant Two of Plautus’ captains boast of wondrous feats against elephants. Pyrgopolynices is said to have crashed the leg of an elephant with a blow of his fist (Mil. 25-30): (ARTOTROGUS) edepol vel elephanto in India, quo pacto ei pugno praefregisti bracchium. (PYRGOPOLYNICES) quid, “bracchium”? (AR.) illud dicere volui, “femur”. (PY.) at indiligenter iceram. (AR.) pol si quidem conixus esses, per corium, per viscera perque os elephanti transmineret bracchium. (AR.) Or take the elephant in India, how you broke its arm with your fist. (PY.) What? Its “arm”? (AR.) I meant to say its “leg”. (PY.) But I only hit it casually. (AR.) Indeed, if you’d made an effort, your arm would have pierced through the elephant’s skin, through its innards, and through its bones. (Transl. de Melo).

Therapontigonus has had the same kind of deed pictured on his sealring: its engraving depicts a man with a shield who is cutting an elephant in two with his sword (Curc. 424, clupeatus elephantum ubi machaera diligit). These extravagant exploits have sometimes been associated with the images of elephants on Seleucid coins and celebratory monuments, or

 24

Greek mythology and folk imagination also offer examples of winged figures (Nike, Iris) and human-avian crossbreeds (Harpies, Sirens, magicians that transform themselves into birds); cf. Pfister 1948; Maurach 1988, 109-110; Stoneman 2007-2012, 2:441-442. In Alexander’s legends, however, the winged creatures are specifically associated with the distant East; and their protective and guarding role over the land of the blessed recalls the analogous function of the Mesopotamian apkallu. Many of the marvellous sights, monsters and adventures encountered by Alexander and his troops in the Wunderbriefe can indeed be read as mythopoeic transformations of actual experiences of the troops in the course of the march in the East. See Merkelbach 1977, 66-68; Gunderson 1980, 97, 100-105, 110-115; Stoneman 1994, 96-97; Stoneman 2008, 74-77; Konstantakos 2015c.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

136

Chapter Four

with Scipio’s wars against Hannibal’s elephants.25 In narrative terms, nonetheless, they can be read as comic exaggerations of Hellenistic wonder tales, especially from the legendarium of Alexander. According to an anecdote transmitted by Lucian (Hist. conscr. 12 = FGrH 139 T4 and F44), Aristobulus was once reading to Alexander his historical account of the battle against the Indian ruler Porus by the river Hydaspes, in the spring of 326 BCE. The Macedonian king was portrayed with exaggeration as a superman fighting duels and slaying elephants with a single stroke of his javelin. Alexander was displeased with this kind of flattery and threw Aristobulus’ book into the river. Lucian’s anecdotal frame story is clearly apocryphal, given that Aristobulus published his work in old age, after Alexander’s death.26 Nevertheless, the description of Alexander’s fight with the elephants per se may be indicative of the type of exorbitant feats that were attributed to the Macedonian hero in Aristobulus’ narrative.27 Indeed, a commemorative silver decadrachm, probably minted around 326-325 BCE in celebration of Alexander’s victory in the battle of the Hydaspes, portrays a similar scene. The Macedonian king is shown on horseback as he closely pursues Porus, who is riding away on his elephant, together with his squire, and is still turning back to fight the Macedonian foe. Alexander is spurring hard his horse and strikes the Indian elephant with his long spear, slightly above the animal’s tail. It was presumably such an incident that was narrated by Aristobulus in an adulatory and encomiastic manner.28 Plautus comically inflates this type of story to the point of surreal grotesqueness. Instead of simply striking or even killing the elephant with his spear, the superb warrior now rends asunder the pachyderm’s entire body with his bare fist or with a single sword blow. The physical effect on the enormous beast is unrealistically maximized,

 25

See Elderkin 1934, 33; Collart 1962, 82; Grimal 1966, 1738-1739; Hofmann and Wartenberg 1973, 102, 119-120, 125-126; Whitehorne 1975, 113; Sharrock 2008, 8; but note the criticism of Settis 1968, 57-61. 26 See FGrH 139 T3, T6, from Luc. Macr. 22 and Arr. Anab. 1 prooem.; cf. Tarn 1948, 2:42-43; Pearson 1960, 87, 150-151; Anderson 1976, 47-48. 27 See Mederer 1936, 32-33; Settis 1968, 66-70; Pédech 1984, 337; Monaco 1987, 243; Stewart 1993, 204; Auberger 2001, 366-367; Holt 2003, 59, 82-84. 28 See Settis 1968; Goukowsky 1972, 477-480; Goukowsky 1978-1981, 1:61-63, 283; Price 1982; Price 1991, 452-453; Mørkholm 1991, 28, 52-54; Stewart 1993, 201-206; Lane Fox 1996; Bosworth 1996a, 6-8, 169; Smith 2000, 14-18; Holt 2003. For Plautus’ allusion to Alexander, cf. also Hammond, Mack and Moskalew 1970, 24, 80; Sharrock 2008, 8.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

137

while the soldier’s equipment is further belittled, so that the disproportion between them becomes monstrously ridiculous.29 A similar exploit is described in the Epistula ad Aristotelem (39), the Latin translation of Alexander’s fictitious letter about the wonders of India. The Macedonian hero and his soldiers chase an entire herd of elephants and hamstring 980 of them. Therapontigonus’ seal emblem, the warrior who slices an elephant with his sword, looks like a humorous exaggeration of this achievement. Alexander and his men only cut the pachyderms’ knee tendons; Plautus incredibly extends this act to the elephant’s entire body, which is split in two. The historians of Alexander attribute analogous superhuman capacities to the people of India. Archelaus of Cappadocia mentions a tribe of Indians so large-sized as to straddle elephants with the same ease with which ordinary people mount on horses (FGrH 123 F1). Plutarch (Alexander 60.12), probably drawing on Hellenistic histories, reports that the enormously tall Porus appeared as well-proportioned on his elephant as a common man would look on a horse. The basic notion in these tales, as in the bravados of the Plautine milites, is the superman who can match an elephant with the mere stature of his own body.30

2.3. Sailing to the sky In Trinummus the Sycophanta recounts his arduous voyage upstream the river that flows from under the throne of Jupiter, in the middle of the sky (939-944). (CHARMIDES) sed quid ais? quo inde isti porro? (SYCOPHANTA) si animum advortes, eloquar. ad caput amnis, quod de caelo exoritur sub solio Iovis. (CH.) sub solio Iovis? (SY.) ita dico. (CH.) e caelo? (SY.) atque medio quidem. (CH.) eho an etiam in caelum escendisti? (SY.) immo horiola advecti sumus usque aqua advorsa per amnem. (CH.) eho an tu etiam vidisti Iovem? (SY.) alii di isse ad villam aiebant servis depromptum cibum. (CH.) But what do you say? Where did you go next? (SY.) If you pay attention, I’ll tell you. To the source of the river which rises from heaven

 29

Comic distortion thus provides the answer to the objections of Holt (2003, 8284) concerning the differences between the Plautine passages and Aristobulus’ narrative or the image on the coin. 30 Cf. Settis 1968, 60, 68.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

138

Chapter Four under Jupiter’s throne. (CH.) Under Jupiter’s throne? (SY.) That’s what I’m saying. (CH.) From heaven? (SY.) And right from its center at that. (CH.) Hey, did you also climb up to heaven? (SY.) No, we got there in a small fishing boat on the river, straight upstream. (CH.) Hey, did you also see Jupiter? (SY.) The other gods said he’d gone to his country estate to deal out rations to his slaves. (Transl. de Melo).

This fabulous account merges together and ludicrously reworks many recognizable motifs of Hellenistic marvel literature. The Sycophanta’s sailing course has been paralleled with a passage from Euhemerus’ utopian travel novel, the Hiera Anagraphe, which describes a navigable river in the distant island of Panchaea. The river, called “Water of the Sun,” rises from a fount in the vicinity of a tall mountain, which is dedicated to the gods and named “seat of Heaven” (ȅ੝ȡĮȞȠ૨ įȓijȡȠȢ, fr. 38 and 50 Winiarczyk, from Diod. Sic. 5.43.2, 5.44.3-6).31 In the Sycophanta’s fairytale Euhemerus’ metonymy is comically literalized. Instead of a mountain figuratively named “the chair of Heaven” because of its divine associations, the river now springs from under a real chair used by the supreme divinity in heaven. Other aspects of the Sycophanta’s tale recall the historians and geographers of Alexander. A prominent theme in these authors is the exploration of the rivers encountered by the Macedonian army in the course of the eastern campaigns, especially the search for the rivers’ sources. Alexander himself is said to have sailed the full length or a large part of certain rivers of Asia (the Indus, the Hydaspes, the Euphrates) and to have reached their mouth in the sea.32 According to Nearchus’ report (FGrH 133 F20, F32, from Strab. 15.1.25 and Arr. Anab. 6.1), Alexander thought for some time that the rivers of India—the Hydaspes, the Acesines or the Indus—actually flowed into the Nile, after they had traversed a long stretch of desert. He thus planned to navigate the entire course of these rivers, until he would reach the Nile and the land of Egypt, although he finally understood the fallaciousness of his theory.33 To some extent Alexander’s scheme is analogous to the Sycophanta’s enterprise: both entail an impossible voyage through the full course of great rivers. Interestingly, the Nile was famously styled įȚȚʌİIJȒȢ in the Greek poetic tradition, a Homeric epithet (ǹੁȖ઄ʌIJȠȚȠ, įȚȚʌİIJ੼ȠȢ ʌȠIJĮȝȠ૙Ƞ, Od. 4.477,

 31

See Prescott 1908, 57-58. See e.g. Nearchus, FGrH 133 F32, F33; Aristobulus, FGrH 139 F55, F56 (from Arr. Anab. 6.1-5, 6.18.2-21.2, 7.21; Strab. 16.1.9-11). 33 Cf. Tarn 1948, 1:86; Pearson 1960, 15, 122-123; Schachermeyr 1973, 446-451; Pédech 1984, 169, 184; Romm 1992, 152; Bosworth 1996a, 70-71. 32

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

139

581) traditionally understood by ancient readers as “falling from Zeus” or “from heaven”; the formula was taken to indicate metaphorically that rivers are fed by the rain which falls from the sky. Modern scholarship prefers the interpretation “flowing in or from the sky,” for which there are analogues in the heavenly rivers of the ancient Egyptian, Avestan and Vedic mythical tradition.34 In either case, the Sycophanta’s tale offers a humorous materialization of this age-old Homeric expression. The Plautine river is įȚȚʌİIJȒȢ in the most literal and concrete sense: it springs from under the throne of Jupiter/Zeus himself, from the middle of the sky. Thus, the Sycophanta’s enterprise appears as a comic fulfillment and extension of Alexander’s original plan. The great Macedonian desired to navigate an Indian river throughout its course, so as to arrive to the skyfallen Nile; Plautus’ charlatan purports to have pursued this voyage even further, up to the sources of the sky-fallen river, in the heavenly domain of Jupiter. As in Aristophanic theatre, which may have been the ultimate source of inspiration in terms of technique, the Plautine parody is accomplished through the materialization of a metaphorical turn of phrase. What normally was a mere proverbial locution is turned by the comic poet into an extraordinary reality.35 As for the means of the wondrous voyage, the impostor claims to have employed a little fishing boat (horiola, 942), which only carried two persons—the Sycophanta himself and a companion (928ff.). Similarly in Iambulus’ travel novel the hero and his comrade set sail from the coast of Ethiopia in a small craft (ʌȜȠȚȐȡȚȠȞ) which offered room only for the two of them; thus they traversed a vast expanse of sea until they reached an utopian island at the edge of the southern ocean, where a blissful people lived in an ideal society (Diod. Sic. 2.55). If such a paradisiacal place can be reached in a small boat, then why not use the same means for rising to

 34

See schol. Hom. Il. 16.174b, 17.263; schol. Hom. Od. 4.477, 7.284; Porphyry, Quaestiones Homericae ad Iliadem 16.174 (pp. 213-214 Schrader); Etym. Magn. 275.9-20; Griffith 1997; West 2007, 350-351; cf. also Stefanelli 1995 for references to ancient sources and modern scholarship. 35 This Plautine use of an emblematically Aristophanic comic method is especially intriguing because the immediately following detail in the Sycophanta’s story also smacks of Aristophanic travesty. The charlatan, upon arriving under Jupiter’s throne in the sky, discovers that the great god is not there; he has left for his country estate to distribute rations to his farm servants, like an ordinary squire. In Aristophanes’ Peace Trygaeus has a similar experience; he flies to heaven but finds out that Zeus and the other divinities have departed, leaving only Hermes behind to guard their household utensils like a common janitor (Pax 196-220). Was it Plautus or Philemon that reworked these Aristophanic themes for the Sycophanta’s tirade?

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

140

Chapter Four

heaven itself? Overall, the Sycophanta’s tale is a comic pastiche of various interrelated motifs from a wide repertoire of Hellenistic marvel narratives.

2.4. The conquest of the world in twenty days In Curculio 438ff. Therapontigonus is described as a mighty conqueror who single-handedly subdued a vast number of countries within twenty days. The long list of the conquered territories includes well-known regions of the Near East side by side with imaginary lands bearing grotesque polysyllabic names (442-448): (CURCULIO) quia enim Persas, Paphlagonas, Sinopas, Arabas, Caras, Cretanos, Syros, Rhodiam atque Lyciam, Perediam et Perbibesiam, Centauromachiam et Classiam, Unomammiam, Libyamque, oram omnem Conterebromniam, dimidiam partem nationum usque omnium subegit solus intra viginti dies. Because within twenty days he single-handedly subjected the Persians, the Paphlagonians, the inhabitants of Sinope, the Arabs, the Carians, the Cretans, the Syrians, Rhodes and Lycia, Gobbleonia and Booziania, Centaurobattaglia and Classia, Onenippleania, Libya, and the entire coast of Wineknockoutia, in short, half of all nations on earth. (Transl. de Melo).

This extravagant catalogue is often read as a parody of the triumphal commemorative inscriptions of the Diadochi and other Hellenistic monarchs, or of the honorific inscriptions for Roman military commanders, which similarly contain lengthy enumerations of subjugated countries.36 Therapontigonus is sometimes interpreted as a stage travesty of a specific ruler, such as Ptolemy III, Demetrius Poliorcetes or Antigonus Gonatas; but it is wiser to view him as a conglomerate of generic features inspired from various Hellenistic potentates.37 First and foremost among the historical models of the Plautine captain is again

 36

See e.g. OGI 1:83-88 (no. 54), an inscription of Ptolemy III Euergetes with a long list of annexed Asiatic areas; Elderkin 1934, 33-34; Herescu 1959; Hanson 1965, 55-58; Grimal 1966, 1736-1737; Whitehorne 1975, 113; Monaco 1987, 1011, 188-189; Welborn 1999, 143-144. The same figure was used in historiography; cf. Ctesias’ interminable list of Ninus’ conquests (fr. 1b Lenfant, from Diod. Sic. 2.2.3-4). 37 See Elderkin 1934; Grimal 1966; Whitehorne 1975, 112-114; Monaco 1987, 911; Sharrock 2008, 8-9, 13.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

141

Alexander the Great. The immense number and extent of the conquered countries, together with the incredibly brief time in which their conquest was accomplished, recall the magnificent achievement of Alexander, who overran the entire Achaemenid Empire and the Indian lands beyond it within a few years.38 The playwright employs again comic exaggeration by turning the years into days and thus making the miles appear as an absurdly overblown Übermensch.39 The coexistence of real and imaginary places in Therapontigonus’ catalogue of conquests also brings to mind a characteristic element of the legendary and novelistic traditions about Alexander. In the Wunderbriefe and Pseudo-Callisthenes the Macedonian hero begins with the subjugation of existing lands of the East—countries that belong to the historical record of Alexander’s campaigns, such as Egypt, Babylon, Persia and India. But afterwards he moves on to entirely imaginary regions: the land of darkness with its fountain of immortality, gem-strewn pathways and divine guardians; wild deserts populated by savage and monstrous tribes; marvellous inland areas of India filled with weird inhabitants, wondrous animals and supernatural phenomena; the fabulous City of the Sun, which is built of gold and emeralds; the fictionalized Ethiopia of Queen Candace with its legendary riches and romanticized court life; or the mythical land of the Amazons.40 The tone had been set by some of the more fanciful historians of Alexander, such as Cleitarchus and Onesicritus. In their accounts the great Macedonian leader, alongside his historical campaigns, was also shown approaching the country of the Amazons in Central Asia,

 38

Pace Grimal (1966, 1736), the allusion to Alexander is acknowledged by Elderkin 1934, 29, 33-34; Maurach 1966, 677; Settis 1968, 61-62; Whitehorne 1975, 113; Sharrock 2008, 8-9, 13. 39 Another episode narrated by the historians is relevant here, namely, Alexander’s visit to King Sardanapallus’ monumental tomb. An inscription on this monument stated that Sardanapallus had built two cities, Tarsus and Anchiale, in a single day. See Callisthenes, FGrH 124 F34 (from Photius and Suda s.v. ȈĮȡįĮȞĮʌȐȜȠȣȢ); Aristobulus, FGrH 139 F9a-c (from Athen. 12.530a-c, Arr. Anab. 2.5.2-4 and Strab. 14.5.9). The Oriental monarch’s super-rapid accomplishment is on the same scale with Therapontigonus’ conquest of a multitude of countries in a few days; and Sardanapallus crowns the declaration of his achievement with a large statue of himself atop his monument, just like Therapontigonus, who wants to erect a golden statue, seven feet high, as a monument for his feats (Curc. 439-442). Once more, Plautus amalgamates motifs from a range of different narratives in his composite parody. 40 See Alexander Romance 2.23-41, 3.17, 3.27-28; Epistula ad Aristotelem 7-78. Cf. Pfister 1959; Gunderson 1980, 84-87, 91-113; Stoneman 1994; Jouanno 2002, 209-217, 232-241, 263-278, 289-300; Koulakiotis 2011.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

142

Chapter Four

meeting there the legendary warrior women, and even having a sexual encounter with an Amazon queen.41 Plautus’ mock-glorification of Therapontigonus’ victories satirizes precisely this assortment of real and imaginary geography.42 The same combination occurs in the description of Pyrgopolynices’ military exploits (Mil. 13-54), which also pair actual locations of the Orient (Cilicia, Cappadocia) with ludicrous long-winded names of invented places (campis Curculioniis, Scytholatronia). Interestingly, most of the fictitious ingredients of Therapontigonus’ triumphal record correspond to fabulous adventures attested in the marvel writings about Alexander. Centauromachia, literally “the land of the battle with the centaurs,” recalls the clash of Alexander’s army with a monstrous half-human, half-horse population, which is narrated in a Wunderbrief incorporated into Pseudo-Callisthenes (Ȗ 2.42.6-13; cf. above, section 2.1). Unomammia, the country of the “One-Breasted,” clearly alludes to the Amazons, who were said to cauterize or cut off their right breasts, so as to throw javelins or draw bows more easily in battle.43 Alexander’s meeting with the Amazons, already reported by early historiographers of the Macedonian expedition, was further developed and adorned in the letters of wonders (Alexander Romance 3.27.6-8) and in a Hellenistic epistolary novel about Alexander’s Asiatic campaigns, parts of which have been inserted into Pseudo-Callisthenes’ narrative (3.25-26).44 As for the strange name Conterebromnia, it seems to be derived from the Latin verb conterere (“wear out, destroy”) and Bromius, a cult epithet



41 See Onesicritus, FGrH 134 F1; Cleitarchus, FGrH 137 F15, F16; Polycleitus, FGrH 128 F8; Antigenes, FGrH 141 F1; cf. Ptolemy, FGrH 138 F28a-c; in later tradition Plut. Alex. 46; Strab. 11.5.4; Diod. Sic. 17.77.1-3; Curt. 6.5.24-32. On this legend cf. Mederer 1936, 84-93; Tarn 1948, 2:326-329; Pearson 1960, 13, 77, 93, 164-165, 213-214, 220-221; Pédech 1984, 87-89, 369; Daumas 1992; Aerts 1994, 33-34; Prandi 1996, 33, 76-79, 106-107; Baynham 2001; Stoneman 2008, 78, 129134; Munding 2011; Mayor 2014, 320-338, 474-475. 42 Cf. Knapp 1907, 12; Elderkin 1934, 34; Taladoire 1956, 177; Collart 1962, 84; Hofmann and Wartenberg 1973, 117-119, 139; Leach 1979, 196; Questa 2004, 81. 43 Cf. Collart 1962, 85; Hofmann and Wartenberg 1973, 118; and see Blok 1995, 22-25 and Mayor 2014, 84-94, 450 for references to ancient sources. 44 Cf. Settis 1968, 62; Gunderson 1980, 86-88; Mayor 2014, 245, 337. On this Hellenistic Briefroman, which narrated the Asiatic campaign in the form of a series of epistles exchanged between Alexander, Darius, their commanders and family members, and other historical personages involved in the war, see Merkelbach 1977, 11-15, 48-55, 230-252; Stramaglia 1996, 106-113; Fraser 1996, 216-218; Rosenmeyer 2001, 169-192; Jouanno 2002, 19-21, 42-44, 142-144, 193-194; Stoneman 2007-2012, 1:xxvi-xxviii, xxxiii, xliv-xlv, liv, lxxvii-lxxviii; Whitmarsh 2013; Konstantakos 2015b.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

143

of Dionysus. Thus, Conterebromnia may signify “the land worn down by Dionysus”,45 and this offers another point of contact with Alexander’s campaigns. Megasthenes paralleled Alexander with Dionysus, because the two of them were the only foreign invaders who ever managed to conquer India. Dionysus was the first to overrun the Indian land, into which he introduced agriculture, the arts and crafts, the rule of law and all other aspects of civilization. Alexander was in this respect Dionysus’ imitator and successor. The comparison was also made by other Hellenistic historians and panegyrists of Alexander.46 Therapontigonus’ Conterebromnia may therefore be a humorous kenning for Alexander’s Indian expedition—a foray into the country overpowered by Bromius, in pursuit of the god’s tracks. In the Wunderbriefe the Macedonian hero also visits various places dedicated to Dionysus in the distant East. He discovers Dionysus’ cave in the mountains of Ethiopia and a monument set up by the god at the furthest borders of India (Epistula ad Aristotelem 35a, 44). In both cases Alexander proceeds further, because he desires to surpass even Dionysus in the range of his travels.47 In another epistle inserted into PseudoCallisthenes (ȕ 3.28) Alexander explores a luxurious temple over the “harbor of Lyssos,” which is replete with Bacchic statues of satyrs and maenads and capacious drinking vessels. In the end, however, Alexander and his army are forced to leave because they are frightened by a loud roar of drums, cymbals, auloi and other instruments—presumably the furious sound of Dionysus-Bromius, the god of tumult, who did not tolerate trespassers in his holy place.48 In these novelistic travelogues Alexander and Dionysus appear as rivals and antagonists; the Macedonian hero tries to emulate the wanderings of the god but is rebuked for his presumption. Thus, Alexander’s effort to wear down the Bromius is ultimately unsuccessful; but the superhuman Plautine captain experiences no such

 45

Cf. Elderkin 1934, 34; Collart 1962, 85; Hofmann and Wartenberg 1973, 118. See Megasthenes, FGrH 715 F4, F11, F12, F14, F33 (from Diod. Sic. 2.38.3-6; Strab. 15.1.6-7, 15.1.58; Arr. Ind. 5.4-9, 7.4-8, 9.9-11); Cleitarchus, FGrH 137 F17 (from schol. Ap. Rhod. 2.904-10a). See further Dionysius, FGrH 717 F1; Arr. Anab. 5.1-2, 6.3, 6.28; Strab. 3.5.5 etc.; Mederer 1936, 97-107; Tarn 1948, 2:4562; Pearson 1960, 58, 78, 183-184, 214-215; Edmunds 1971, 376-378; Goukowsky 1978-1981, vol. 2; Stewart 1993, 78-80; Prandi 1996, 162-164; Bosworth 1996a, 119-128, 164-165; Bosworth 1996b. 47 Similarly in later histories of Alexander: Curt. 7.9.15; Plin. HN 6.49; Metz Epitome 12; Bosworth 1996b, 147-149. 48 On these episodes see Pfister 1959, 8-14; Jouanno 2002, 263-264; Koulakiotis 2009, 426-428; Koulakiotis 2011, 173-174. 46

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Chapter Four

144

limitations and may add Conterebromnia, the victory over the Bromius himself, to his catalogue of exploits.

2.5. The infant warrior Captain Stratophanes in Truculentus is proud of the superpowers of his newborn son (505-511): (ASTAPHIUM) peperit puerum nimium lepidum. (STRATOPHANES) ehem, ecquid mei similest? (AST.) rogas? quin ubi natust machaeram et clupeum poscebat sibi? (STR.) meus est, scio iam de argumentis. (AST.) nimium tui similest. (STR.) papae! iam magnust? iamne iit ad legionem? ecquae spolia rettulit? (AST.) gerrae! nudiusquintus natus illequidem est. (STR.) quid postea? inter tot dies quidem hercle iam aliquid actum oportuit. quid illi ex utero exitio est prius quam poterat ire in proelium? (AST.) She’s given birth to an absolutely delightful boy. (STR.) Hey, does he resemble me at all? (AST.) Do you ask? As soon as he was born, he demanded sword and shield for himself! (STR.) He’s mine, I already know it from the evidence. (AST.) He resembles you absolutely. (STR.) Goodness! Is he already big? Has he already joined the army? Has he brought back any spoils? (AST.) Nonsense! He was born only four days ago. (STR.) So what? Within so many days he ought to have performed some deed already. Why did he leave the womb before he could go into battle? (Transl. de Melo).

This whimsically hyperbolical passage is a burlesque overstatement of a well-known historical theme: namely, Alexander’s impressively young age at the time of his victories in the East. The Macedonian king was only twenty-two when he began his great campaign against Persia; about four years later he had practically completed his conquest of the Achaemenid Empire, and he even managed to annex northern India before dying at the age of thirty-three. Emphasis on the conqueror’s astonishing youth became an encomiastic topos in rhetorical, historical and biographical literature. Alexander’s young age was praised as one of the most admirable and marvellous aspects of his accomplishment.49 Stratophanes’ superhumanly precocious son represents a comic distortion of the same theme. The image of the impressively young Macedonian king is fabulously exaggerated, as though placed under a grotesque magnifying glass.

 49

See Pfister 1964, 72-73.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

145

In some historical anecdotes Alexander is indeed called a child (ʌĮ૙Ȣ) or adolescent (ȝİȚȡȐțȚȠȞ) by enemies who scorn him for his inexperience, such as the orator Demosthenes, the Persian king Darius, the conspirator Philotas and others. At least Demosthenes’ use of this kind of vituperation is confirmed by other contemporary sources (Aeschines, In Ctes. 160). In the anecdotal tradition, of course, the Macedonian hero rebuts his detractors by demonstrating his truly manly virtues and triumphing over his “grown-up” opponents. The theme was presumably well developed in Hellenistic rhetorical and encomiastic writings.50 The same motif is reworked in the Hellenistic epistolary novel about Alexander’s expedition (see above, section 2.4). In one of its fictional letters (Alexander Romance 1.36-38) Darius exhorts Alexander to return to the lap of his mother, like a weak child that is still in need of education and nursing. The Persian despot even applies the verb IJȚșȘȞȓȗİıșĮȚ (“be tended by a wet nurse”), which would literally designate the Macedonian hero as a suckling baby (1.36.2). Along with this epistle, Darius dispatches to Alexander toys, namely, a whip and a ball. The whip, as the Persian king writes, indicates that the young Macedonian is still at an age to be disciplined. The ball similarly signifies that Alexander is merely a boy, fit only for playing with his age-mates, not for undertaking military campaigns. In his letter of reply, however, Alexander takes the whip to symbolize the weapons by which he will defeat the Persians. As for the ball, this represents the spherical world, over which the Macedonian king will dominate. Thus, Alexander turns the toys into weapons and emblems of power.51 The basic motifs of these rhetorical fictions are ridiculously overblown in the fanciful image of Stratophanes’ little son. Like Alexander, the “child” who yet proved his manly worth by his admirable war feats, the soldier’s baby is supposed to enlist in the army and win war spoils already from infancy. Darius sends Alexander toys to play with, but the Macedonian king takes them for weapons which will procure him military victory and dominion. Comparably, Stratophanes’ infant son cries for a sword and a buckler, instead of the toys one would have normally expected; arms are his playthings and war is his game. Once again, the

 50

See Diod. Sic. 17.2.2, 17.3.6, 17.7.1-2; Plut. Alex. 11.6, 48.5; Dem. 23.2; De Alex. fort. 327d; Anonymous Historian of Alexander, FGrH 153 F8; Koulakiotis 2000; Jouanno 2002, 203; Koulakiotis 2006, 202-204, 223. 51 On this exchange of letters in the fictional romance see Eckard 1997; Rosenmeyer 2001, 177-180; Jouanno 2002, 142, 193, 203-204, 224; Stoneman 2007-2012, 1:553-554; Whitmarsh 2013, 176-177; Konstantakos 2015b. In later versions of Pseudo-Callisthenes, instead of a whip, the ball is accompanied with a stick, with which little Alexander will have to strike it in order to play.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

146

Chapter Four

comic parody consists in literalizing a figurative expression and rhetorical hyperbole. Plautus turns the young, quasi boyish warrior of historiography and romance into a real child and thus reduces the encomia of Alexander to comic absurdity.

2.6. Other examples There are several other elements in the Plautine braggarts’ tirades which find parallels in Hellenistic marvel lore. Here there is only room to briefly sketch two final examples. Therapontigonus plans to erect a colossal effigy of solid gold, seven feet high, as a memorial of his victories (Curc. 439-441; cf. Chrysalus’ daydream of a similar monument in his own honor, Bacch. 640). This triumphal fantasy has naturally been read as a satire of the exhibitionism of various Hellenistic rulers, from Demetrius Poliorcetes to Ptolemy Philadelphus and Antiochus Epiphanes, who had similar golden effigies erected or displayed in their public celebrations; the luxurious commemorative monuments of triumphant Roman generals may also be sarcastically envisaged.52 But many golden statues and stelae are also described in Alexander’s Wunderbriefe, in the various redactions of Pseudo-Callisthenes. Some of them are dedicated by the Macedonian king himself in commemoration of his own victories. Others are discovered in the course of the eastern campaigns and found to have been erected by legendary conquerors of the past—Heracles, the Assyrian queen Semiramis, the Egyptian Pharaoh Sesonchosis—or even by recent, historical kings such as Darius of Persia and Porus of India, in memory of their military victories and conquests. Many of these triumphal monuments are described as being of solid gold and/or enormous in size, like Therapontigonus’ lavish dedication.53

 52

See Elderkin 1934, 29; Hanson 1965, 55-56; Whitehorne 1975, 111-115; Cagniart 1999, 773. 53 See Alexander Romance Į 3.27.3-4 (Heracles), Ȗ 2.31.4-8 (Sesonchosis), 2.34.1 (Heracles and Semiramis); Epistula ad Aristotelem 35a (Heracles and Dionysus), 78 (monuments erected by Alexander); cf. Aerts 1994, 35-36. For antecedents in earlier historiography, cf. e.g. Ctesias fr. 1b and 5 Lenfant (from Diod. Sic. 2.9.5-6, 2.34.3-5) concerning Semiramis and a Saka queen. Both in the novelistic and in the historical literature about Alexander there are many more examples of golden effigies that adorn the royal mansions or temples of the lands subjugated or visited by the Macedonian hero. See many historians reporting about the wealth of the Persian palaces: Amyntas, FGrH 122 F6 and Chares, FGrH 125 F2 (from Athen. 12.514e-f); Polycleitus, FGrH 128 F3a (from Strab. 15.3.21); also Alexander Romance Į 3.28.3-4 (the fabulous City of the Sun); Epistula ad Aristotelem 8, 10 (Porus’ Indian palace); Curt. 3.3.16 (Darius’ war chariot). Cf. Pfister 1959, 8-22;

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

147

Pyrgopolynices claims to be almost as old as the world itself, having been born only one day after Jupiter; his children are said to live to a thousand years (Mil. 1077-1083). This wondrous longevity represents another overblown exaggeration of a topos of Greek travel literature: namely, the superhumanly large lifespan of the peoples in faraway, imaginary or utopian lands at the edges of the world. Although already present in Herodotus and Plato, this motif especially thrived in historical and ethnographic utopias from the fourth century onwards (Theopompus, Ctesias, Onesicritus, Megasthenes, Iambulus), with reference to the tribes of India and the Far East or to the natives of fabulous islands at the outskirts of the ocean.54 Once again, Plautus resorts to inflation and magnification for comic purposes. As a rule, the ethnographical fables simply double the common human lifespan, extending it to between 120 and 200 years. Plautus grotesquely protracts this to an entire millennium or, in the miles’ case, to a godlike near-eternity.

3. Conclusion: Plautus’ sources The Plautine braggarts’ discourses present many close parallels to Hellenistic marvellous storytelling in its various forms. Clearly, the similarities and analogues surveyed in the foregoing sections are not simple popular or folklore motifs, on which Plautus and Hellenistic travel writing may have drawn in common. Most of the motifs and patterns involved are very specific and peculiar; they do not represent the kind of archetypical and widespread narrative conceptions that are shared by the broad mass of folktales of the international tradition. Stratagems for combating against hybrid human-animal creatures, which target the animal

 Whitehorne 1975, 117; Koulakiotis 2006, 221; Stoneman 2007-2012, 2:428; Stoneman 2008, 44-48. 54 Herodotus 3.23.1-3 (the legendary Ethiopians live 120 years); Plato, Phaedo 111b (the inhabitants of the utopian “true earth” live far longer than we do); Theopompus, FGrH 115 F75c (the natives of the continent beyond the ocean live twice as long as ordinary humans); Ctesias fr. 45.32, 45.43, 45ke, 52, 75 Lenfant (Indians, Seres and dog-heads reach up to 200 years); Onesicritus, FGrH 134 F11, F24 (from Strab. 15.1.34 and Plin. HN 7.28; Indians live 130 years); Iambulus in Diod. Sic. 2.57.4-5 (the natives of the blissful island in the southern ocean reach up to 150 years). Only Megasthenes (FGrH 715 F27, from Strab. 15.1.57) deviates from the chronological pattern and attributes a thousand-year lifespan to the Hyperboreans in the north of India. Cf. Rohde 1914, 218, 221, 226, 234, 246-247, 257; Pearson 1960, 95-96; Stoneman 2007-2012, 2:439-440; Stoneman 2008, 9899; Winiarczyk 2011, 238-241.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

148

Chapter Four

part of these creatures’ constitution; winged humanoids which guard an area and attack invaders; slicing an elephant in two with one blow; sailing up to the sources of a river which flows from the sky; a list of conquests which mixes together real and imaginary places; subjugation of half the nations of the world in an extremely short time; a small child which takes up arms, enlists in the army and gains military victories—all these extraordinary ideas are not common fare of the folk narrative tradition but specialized and elaborate fictions. It is also noteworthy that these fictitious constructs are not generally diffused in the lore and imaginative output of the Classical world; they do not belong to the repertoire of typical motifs recurring in ancient mythology, historical legends, fables or anecdotes. Most of them occur only in the particular works adduced above: in the Hellenistic marvel writings, in the texts from the legendarium of Alexander and, reworked in a parodic form, in the tirades of Plautus’ braggarts. Such idiosyncratic and often exclusive parallels indicate some kind of link between the Plautine passages and the Hellenistic wonder narrations, beyond simple descent from a common folk background. The quantity of analogies discovered is also impressive, especially if it is taken into account that most of the Greek writings of this kind (whether historical, ethnographical or novelistic ones) survive in a fragmentary, abridged or lacunose form, mainly through excerpts or retellings in later authors’ compilations. If more such literature had survived, the similarities with the extraordinary tales of Plautus’ boasters might have been more numerous, more detailed or more precise. As shown by the case-studies presented above (sections 2.1-2.6), the Roman playwright imitates a variety of elements from the Greek marvel stories: particular motifs but also larger narrative structures, story patterns or types of tale. In order to transform these imaginative materials into the stuff of comedy, Plautus uses all the stock techniques of parody: exaggeration to the point of grotesqueness; magnification of every element to an outrageous degree, as though the model were reflected in an enlarging carnival mirror; replacement of the dangerous and sinister aspects with harmless or ridiculous ones; literal interpretation of rhetorical figures, materialization of metaphors or proverbial turns of phrase and comic exploitation of their extreme consequences in practical terms. Above all, Plautus freely combines and amalgamates narrative ingredients of diverse provenance, which occur across a wide range of Hellenistic marvel writings: reports of Alexander’s chroniclers or other historiographers of the time; novelistic works about the Macedonian expedition (the Wunderbriefe, the epistolary novel); utopian novels, such

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

149

as the works of Iambulus and Euhemerus, and perhaps also other travel romances of this kind, which would be later reflected in Lucian’s parodies. Usually it is impossible to pinpoint a single specific source for Plautus’ comic conception. Rather, the braggarts of the Plautine stage borrow many distinctive motifs from multiple sources and fuse them together into a new hilarious creation of their own. If Plautus echoes Hellenistic marvel tales, how did he learn them? Oral tradition and dissemination may have been responsible to some extent, especially with regard to well-known rhetorical themes such as Alexander’s youth. However, orality seems insufficient as an overall explanation, given the wealth and variety of the traceable parallels. One conceivable hypothesis is that the wonderful stories of Plautus’ braggarts are essentially copied from the Greek New Comedy models.55 The writers of Hellenistic comic drama would doubtless have been in a position to read some of the rich body of wonder narratives produced in their times. Histories of Alexander’s expedition, novelistic works about his explorations in the Orient, romances of travel and utopia, ethnographic accounts and paradoxographies, all these were very much a literary fashion in the early Hellenistic period. The literate readership of the time cherished these new modes of writing about the extraordinary. Professional men of letters, as the comic poets were, would have been familiar with this range of works and could have expected at least the most cultured part of their audience to enjoy the parodies. Less learned spectators would still be entertained by the mere exorbitance of the braggarts’ fantasies. And if the subtle Menander was reluctant to include such fabulous stuff in his realistic fictions, other dramatists, such as Philemon and Diphilus, who appear to have favored broader humor and to have exploited the resources of popular farce, may have indulged in satire of contemporary marvellous storytelling. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that most of the passages discussed above display the distinctive marks of Plautine humor—the exuberance of comic ideas, vivid imagery, linguistic abundance and imaginative exaggeration that are typically associated with the comedian of Sarsina. Plautus seems to have put much of his art and of his heart into these delightful swashbuckling daydreams; the laughing echoes and saucy parodies of Hellenistic marvel lore are woven together with a verve that

 55

This has been suggested for individual cases by Prescott 1908; Rohde 1914, 255-256; Elderkin 1934; Maurach 1966, 677; Settis 1968, 57, 68; Hammond, Mack and Moskalew 1970, 24; Hofmann and Wartenberg 1973, 101-104, 120; Whitehorne 1975, 112-114; Leach 1979, 196; Monaco 1987, 9-11, 242-243; West 1997, 376; Sharrock 2008, 9, 13.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

150

Chapter Four

smacks of original creation, rather than mere translation.56 Therefore, another possibility must be kept open: Plautus himself had access to Hellenistic Greek writings of travel and wonder, whether historical or novelistic ones. He was thus able to directly collect from these primary sources the most suitable wondrous motifs for his satirical fantasies.57 The available information about the reception of Hellenistic marvel writings in Republican Rome is scant. There are indications, however, that educated Romans around Plautus’ time, as well as afterwards, read and enjoyed the products of this literary vogue. Ennius, the patriarch of Roman poetry, translated into Latin Euhemerus’ utopian travel novel.58 About a century after Plautus, the work of Cleitarchus, one of the more fanciful historians of Alexander, was familiar to docti such as Cornelius Sisenna, M. Caelius Rufus and Cicero (Cic. Brut. 42; Leg. 1.7; Fam. 2.10.3).59 Later, in Imperial times, most of the historical and ethnographic writings of this kind (from Ctesias to Alexander’s historians and Megasthenes) were excerpted by the diligent Pliny. And Gellius discovered at Brundisium a bunch of very old and yellowed Greek books full of fabulous tales—among them the writings of Ctesias and Onesicritus, together with paradoxographical works (NA 9.4). Clearly those antique



56 Cf. Taladoire 1956, 177; Hofmann and Wartenberg 1973, 117-119, 139-141; Muecke 1985, 175-184; Lefèvre 1991, 95-97; Hofmann 2001, 178; Questa 2004, 80-82; and more generally Della Corte 1967, 238; Pansiéri 1997, 167-168, 313314; Cagniart 1999, 762-775. 57 It is an interesting question what the implications of the parody of these materials for the overall ideology of Plautine drama are. Beyond the amusing mockery of a prominent vogue of Hellenistic literature and culture, which would have been familiar to sections of the Roman audience, does the comic distortion of the Greek tales have broader reverberations with regard to Plautus’ social or political criticism? For example, could the travesties of the travel legends about Alexander’s expeditions involve a critical stance towards the ambitions of the Roman governing elite for conquests in the East, towards the wars against the Macedonians and the Seleucids? Or might the parodies reflect Roman popular disdain for the declining, pompous and quarrelsome Hellenistic kingdoms? Such historicist investigations are outside the scope of this essay, and the present writer is hardly qualified to pursue them. Insights as to the social and political dimensions of Plautus’ ridicule of braggarts (especially military ones) have been offered by Perna 1955, 179-203; Hanson 1965, 54-62; Hofmann and Wartenberg 1973, 87-90, 97-122, 147-155; Leach 1979; Anderson 1993, 144-146; Pansiéri 1997, 163-168, 311-316, 346-356, 658-664, 717-726; Cagniart 1999. 58 On Ennius’ translation see Winiarczyk 2013, 109-122 with full testimonia and discussion. 59 Cf. Tarn 1948, 2:43-44; Pearson 1960, 213; Prandi 1996, 15-17, 53-57; Auberger 2001, 292-293.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Munchausen in Rome

151

copies had been in circulation for some time.60 All this disparate data documents the availability of such works in Italy and indicates an interest of the Roman educated elites in the marvels of Hellenistic storytelling. Plautus, apart from being a master of popular comedy, was also a learned poet; behind the mask of the Atellan buffoon he was hiding the mind of a well-read intellectual. He may therefore have been familiar with the fashionable narrative compositions of the Hellenistic literature of his time.



60 See Schepens and Delcroix 1996, 411-452. Cf. in general Stoneman 2008, 71, 262.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



CHAPTER FIVE PLAUTUS AND GREEKNESS GESINE MANUWALD

1. Introduction As Plautus indicates in the prologues to some of his plays, his Roman palliata comedies are based on adapted Greek dramas.1 Where he talks about models (Asin. 9-12; Cas. 30-34; Poen. 53-55; Rud. 32-33; Trin. 1821), he names works by the Greek playwrights of New Comedy Demophilus, Diphilus and Philemon as sources.2 In what is called an antelogium (‘preamble’) to the argumentum (Men. 13-14) in the prologue to Menaechmi (though the text is uncertain) the poet has the prologuespeaker say that (Roman) poets set all comedies in Athens to have them appear more Greek; the plot of this comedy, however, will be ‘Greekized,’ yet not ‘Atticized,’ rather ‘Sicilized,’ expressed by the rare, Greek-style verbs graecisso, atticisso and sicilicisso (Men. 7-12).3 This famous passage demonstrates that the playwright was aware that the Greek setting of palliata comedies is a convention and a fiction, yet kept this basic framework while exploiting the opportunities offered. Despite the retained Greek setting, Plautus adapted the Greek comedies to Roman performance conventions and experiences; ultimately, this resulted in a fantasy-world with a mixture of Greek and Roman elements.4 In line with the prevailing fashions of scholarly approaches over the

 1

Plautus’ plays are referred to by abbreviated titles and line numbers without the playwright’s name. Quotations of the Latin texts follow Lindsay’s OCT edition (1904-1905); English translations have been taken from de Melo’s Loeb version (2011-2013). 2 Demophilus (PCG V, p. 15): only known from Plautus’ reference; Diphilus (PCG V, pp. 47-123): c. 130 fragments known; Philemon (PCG VII, pp. 221-317): c. 190 fragments known. 3 On this passage see Fontaine 2010b, 8-11. 4 For views on this mixture see e.g. Gruen 1990, 148-157; Zagagi 2012, 21, 23.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

154

Chapter Five

decades,5 this situation has prompted conclusions on the use of models, the relationship to contemporary events or the insertion of jokes, but it seems not to have been studied sufficiently with respect to potential clues about the intellectual disposition and cross-cultural flexibility of the playwright and his original audiences. Of particular relevance for exploring this question are direct references to Greek material, especially when such features have not been inserted merely to show that the action takes place in Greece.6 Obviously, the plots of Plautus’ comedies can be followed without knowledge of the Greek model or of Greek language and culture, but a certain amount of comic effects and allusions will then be lost. If Plautus regarded the identification of the underlying Greek play as worth mentioning in some prologues, he must have assumed that at least a section of the audience was interested in the Greek connections. Audiences at performances of dramas in Republican Rome would be mixed (cf. Poen. 1-45): although it is difficult to establish the proportions of each component of the audiences (which presumably varied), it is certainly too simplistic to say that generally Roman audiences were less cultivated than Greek ones and were only keen on slapstick effects, as some older scholarship tended to imply, though more recent studies have attributed more refinement to the Roman public.7 While it may be true that only a limited part of the Roman populace had access to and engaged with Greek literature, the Greek language must have been available to a larger proportion, owing to the diverse population in Rome (including Greek slaves) and interactions with Greek nationals in Greece and southern Italy.8 In fact, the occasional use of Greek words was apparently a feature of colloquialism in Republican Rome and therefore

 5

For recent overviews and discussions of the relationship of Roman to Greek comedy see e.g. Fontaine 2014a; 2014c (who sees Roman plays as adaptations and a species of Hellenistic literature and who juxtaposes the scholarly approaches of regarding Plautus’ plays as ‘Roman’ or ‘Greek’). 6 Cicero already commented on the fact that characters in Roman dramas were supposed to be Greeks, but spoke Latin and sometimes talked about the Greeks as if they were a different group (Cic. Nat. D. 2.91). 7 On audiences of Roman comedies see e.g. Cèbe 1960; Kindermann 1979, 158172; Pansieri 1997, 278-294. Fontaine now assumes an extremely cultivated public (2014c, 420: “…suggest that audiences of Roman comedy were aristocratic, knowledgeable, philhellenic, and, of course, de facto theatre-loving”). 8 On the level of knowledge of Greek in Republican Rome see Weis 1992; for some considerations on the accessibility of Greek among Plautus’ audiences see Barsby 1986, 109-110; Zagagi 2012, 19-21. For Greek as a widely understood language see Cic. Arch. 23 (albeit in a specific argumentative context).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and Greekness

155

likely to be familiar to members of all classes, along with some knowledge of Greek mythology.9 Inserted Greek words occur, for instance, also in Lucilius’ satires, Varro’s Menippean satires and Cicero’s letters; on the other hand, at the end of the Republican period, such a mixture of languages is criticized by Horace with reference to the practice of Lucilius (Hor. Sat. 1.10.20-35), and Cicero argues against it for more formal contexts (Cic. Tusc. 1.5; Off. 1.111). In Plautus, beyond the obvious appearances of Greek aspects as elements of the plot (e.g. setting in Greece, mostly Athens; travel to other places in Greece; Greek names of characters; Greek gods; Greek currency), there are various sophisticated uses of Greek material. By including effects through the interaction with Greek features beyond what is required, Plautus thus capitalizes on his own knowledge of Greek language, literature and culture and the audiences’ assumed familiarity with it to increase the effectiveness of his comedies. The frequent appearances of allusions to Greek items can broadly be divided into the following categories: linguistic puns by the inclusion of Greek words in Greek or playing with the meaning of Greek or Greek-style names; cultural references by allusions (often metaphorical or ironic) to Greek personalities, myth and literature; ‘national issues’ by comments on Greek characteristics and contrast with the ‘barbarians’ (including the Romans),10 each operating in similar, but also different ways to make the plays more impressive and more intellectually stimulating. In what follows telling examples from all these categories will first be discussed separately;11 this evidence will then provide a basis for determining whether any patterns emerge and for considering what Plautus’ practices might mean for the cultural background of both playwright and audiences revealed by these features.

2. Greek words Plautus sometimes has characters use untranslated Greek words (printed in Greek letters in modern texts).12 These tend to be short phrases and

 9

See e.g. Shipp 1953, 110, 112; Blänsdorf 1978, 106-107; de Melo 2011, 337. On the use and meaning of ‘barbarian’ see Fontaine’s essay in this volume. 11 To show the variety of uses of Greek in Plautus, individual examples have to be studied (see also Hofmann 1992, 145). 12 On Greek words in Plautus see e.g. Shipp 1953; 1954; Chalmers 1965, 39-41; Maltby 1995; Zagagi 2012; Hausburg 2014 (all with further bibliography). For overviews of the language of Roman comedy (including the use of Greek) see e.g. de Melo 2011; Karakasis 2014b. Following others, de Melo (2011, 336-338) points 10

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

156

Chapter Five

formulaic expressions, and in many cases their meaning can be inferred from the context.13 This applies, for instance, to the use of ȞĮ઀ for “yes” or the exclamation ȝ੹ IJઁȞ ਝʌંȜȜȦ instead of “by Pollux” (or another Roman god) (Most. 969-974) or when a Greek proverb is defined as such before it is given (Poen. 135-139)14 or when a line of a Greek song is first described as a song about numbers (Stich. 703-708).15 In other contexts the insertion of Greek words may be more sophisticated. The complete loss of a sum of money is expressed by Ƞ੅ȤİIJĮȚ in Trinummus (Trin. 419-421) and by ਩ȟȦ in Truculentus (Truc. 551-558)16 to strengthen this notion. There are no explanations of these words, but as Ƞ੅ȤİIJĮȚ also appears in one of Cicero’s speeches (Cic. Pis. 61), this Greek word might have been or have developed into a more common periphrasis. In Bacchides an emphatic “yes” in Greek expresses

 out that Plautus does not use the Greek of Attic comedy, but a “translator’s Greek”: it reflects the Greek spoken in Italy, displays idiosyncratic features and includes incorrect and invented forms (see also Maltby 1995, 34-35). This is shown, for instance, by the combination of Greek words with Latin endings, the use of Greek words in unusual senses, new formations in Greek style or translations back from Latin into Greek. At the same time a number of Greek phrases in Plautus have parallels in Attic comedy (see Hausburg 2014). Moreover, there is a marked distribution: where both a Greek and a Latin word appear for the same item or concept in Plautus, the Greek word is used with respect to ‘Greek’ figures and actions and the Latin word with reference to ‘Roman’ life (examples in Shipp 1954; de Melo 2011, 338). As has been pointed out (e.g. Maltby 1995), the amount of Greek put into the mouth of individual characters varies according to their roles and social status. 13 Plautus also uses words of Greek origin adopted into the Latin language; in those cases it is uncertain to what extent the Greek roots were still felt by a Republican audience. Unless there is a joke on the meaning of the word, these provide little evidence for the sophisticated use of Greek elements in Plautus, apart from the fact that some of these words only occur in Plautus in extant Latin literature or are more frequent in his works than in those of later authors and show that a certain level of knowledge of Greek words or words of Greek origin was assumed among the audience. For a list of such words in Plautus and an analysis of their distribution among plays and characters see Maltby 1995. 14 On this passage see also Hofmann 1992, 153-154. 15 This ‘quotation’ in Greek is prepared by a number of (Latinized) words of Greek origin in the immediately preceding lines. On this passage see also Hofmann 1992, 152. 16 On this passage see also Shipp 1953, 108.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and Greekness

157

confirmation by one of the old men in response to the other’s doubtful question of whether he is in love (Bacch. 1162-1163).17 In Captivi (Capt. 877-885),18 in response to the old man’s question of whether he has seen his son with some others, the parasite Ergasilus starts with the standard Greek oath ȝ੹ IJઁȞ ਝʌંȜȜȦ for confirmation; as the old man continues to question him inquisitively, the parasite carries on with further oaths in Greek, but replaces the object by the names of five towns in Italy, transitioning with ȞĮ੿ IJ੹Ȟ ȀંȡĮȞ, which can be understood both as another oath referring to a divinity (Proserpina/Kore) and as a reference to the Volscian town of Cora in central Italy. These oaths provoke the old man Hegio to ask why the other swears by the names of these ‘barbaric’ towns (see section 7); Ergasilus cunningly explains that these oaths are as rough as the other’s food, thereby ridiculing Hegio, who does not believe the parasite and is not offering any provisions. To understand the full force of the joke, the audience will have to recognize the Greek names of the Italian towns and to realize the combination of Greek and Latin. That these towns are defined as ‘barbaric’ makes sense in the mouth of the (fictitious) Greek speaker; it might also agree with the perceptions of audiences in the city of Rome. In Pseudolus the eponymous slave declares that, if his master asks him anything about the love affairs of his son, he will answer like a reply from the Delphic oracle; he then responds to a series of direct questions with a Greek “yes” (Pseud. 477-488).19 These answers are not comparable with responses of the Delphic oracle because of the incongruity of the situation, and they are brief, relate to events in the past and provide confirmation on the basis of secure knowledge. The Greek language extends this joke; at the end the father even requests another answer in Greek from the slave to obtain complete confirmation of what happened.



17 Because of the problematic transmission of Greek words in the Plautine manuscripts the text is doubtful: it has recently been suggested to restore the transmitted letters not by the common ȞĮ੿ Ȗ੺ȡ (only attested in late Greek texts), but rather as ȞĮ੿ ī઼Ȟ, which is attested in classical Greek literature (cf. esp. Callim. Epigr. 46.1-2) and agrees with other uses of Greek in Plautus (Hausburg 2014). This reading would make the affirmation even more emphatic; it would require even more knowledge of the Greek language and Greek gods among the audience. The phrase ȞĮ੿ Ȗ੺ȡ, however, could have been in use as a colloquial expression before the first literary attestations, and in Pseudolus, where this phrase also appears (see n. 19), the exchange depends on ȞĮ઀ meaning “yes.” 18 On this passage see also Shipp 1953, 105-106; Hofmann 1992, 156-157. 19 On the text in this passage see Hausburg 2014 (see n. 17).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

158

Chapter Five

Plautus may even develop his own Latinate Greek words, showing his knowledge of the principles of productive linguistic patterns: in Truculentus, although the text in that passage is uncertain, he seems to have coined the unique verb pilippiari, derived from the noun aureum Philippeum, i.e. a verb consisting of a Greek stem with a Latin ending (Truc. 928-929).20 The ‘Philippic,’ a gold coin of king Philip of Macedon, and the verb derived from it illustrate an unspecified large amount of money: thereby the girl Phronesium responds to the threat of the rejected lover Stratophanes to kill her and the rival with his sword. For absolute clarity Plautus has Phronesium add that he could deter her with gold, not with iron. This, in turn, might be an allusion to a line from Ennius’ Latin epic Annales, where, however, the contrast is the other way round (adding a sophisticated literary reference).21 All the inserted Greek phrases contribute to characterizing the figures on stage or specific situations in the plot. Therefore, they are not random remnants of the Greek plays transposed; instead, as the integration of these phrases demonstrates, they contribute to making the action more vivid by imitating the mix of languages in place in southern Italy. The surrounding explanations in the more complex cases ensure that the plot and the jokes are sufficiently clear to everyone, while the references add a layer of intellectual play enjoyed by the playwright and parts of the audience.

3. Meaningful names Naturally, all characters in the Greek-based comedies bear Greek names; many of them carry a specific meaning for recipients familiar with the Greek language.22 Some of these names are chosen or exploited to enhance the characterization of figures or turns of the plot, which demonstrates that the poet is aware of their literal meaning and cleverly adduces this linguistic level to increase the effectiveness of the presentation. In some cases there is an ironic focus mainly on the length and the bombastic tone of the Greek-sounding name (e.g. Curc. 406-410; cf. also Mil. 13-15). Yet, that the meaning of names, where it provides the opportunity for additional effects, was important to Plautus can be seen particularly from Bacchides: there the slave’s name Syros in the (partly extant) Greek model, Menander’s Dis exapaton (P.Oxy. LXIV 4407), is changed to

 20

On the text see e.g. Hofmann 2001, 212-213. Cf. Enn. Ann. 6.184-185 Skutsch/FRL I: non cauponantes bellum sed belligerantes / ferro, non auro vitam cernamus utrique. 22 See also Chalmers 1965, 30-32. 21

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and Greekness

159

Chrysalus in the Latin version, a name not attested otherwise (created by adding a common ending of Greek names to the Greek word for ‘gold,’ again showing confident handling of linguistic patterns); for, as often, one of the slave’s functions is to procure money.23 To make the pun obvious, Plautus has Chrysalus soliloquize about himself early in the play: opus est chryso Chrysalo, “Chrysalus, the golden boy, needs gold” (Bacch. 240). That there is an etymological jingle will be clear from the sound of the words; for it to be appreciated fully one must be aware of the meaning of chrysos (“gold”). The pun is clarified when Chrysalus continues that he intends to turn his master, whose money he is after, into Phrixus’ ram and fleece him out of the gold (Bacch. 241-242). Later Chrysalus defines his name as a mission that he will demonstrate by action (Bacch. 702-705). The structure of the name comes to the fore when, after he has initiated the plan to obtain money, Chrysalus fears that, if his scheme is unsuccessful, his master might turn him from Chrysalus into Crucisalus (Bacch. 360-362). This unusual word formation (with the Latin element cruci, “cross,” replacing the Greek word denoting “gold”) concisely expresses Chrysalus’ fear of punishment with a surprise effect based on the linguistic structure of names. At a later point, when he feels successful, Chrysalus believes that he should be weighed in gold and receive a statue of gold since he has tricked his master out of gold in contrast to other slaves (in comedy) with less meaningful names (like himself in the Greek version), who only carry away two or three minae (Bacch. 640-641, 649-650).24 Immediately afterwards he learns that his plan has failed and again gets worried that he might be crucified (Bacch. 686-688); thus, the self-reflexive play again becomes part of the plot.25 Comments, often funny, on the literal meaning of Greek names occur in numerous plays, though they are not always as central as in Bacchides. For instance, when in Mercator a courtesan reveals that her name is Pasicompsa (meaning roughly “she who freshens herself up for all”), the interlocutor comments that this name has been given to her because of her appearance (Merc. 516-518). The beauty of Pasicompsa, whose Greeksounding name is not attested elsewhere and is explained by this

 23

The comparison of a passage in Plautus’ Bacchides (494-562) with a papyrus fragment of the underlying play by Menander (discovered in 1968) is one of the key pieces of evidence for Plautus’ techniques of transposition of Greek comedies (see e.g. Gaiser 1970; Bain 1979; Fontaine 2014a, 519-526; Barbiero 2015). 24 See Barsby 1986, 153. 25 For play with the names of other characters in Bacchides see Bacch. 129; 283285. The play on Greek Lydus and Latin ludus can only have been created in the Latin version (see Barsby 1986, 107).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

160

Chapter Five

exchange, will influence the plot, and emphasis on the name highlights this feature. In Truculentus the joke does not concern the figure bearing a meaningful name; instead, the literal sense of the name is used metaphorically: the young lover claims that his beloved Phronesium has removed “her name” (i.e. ‘wisdom’) from his breast (Truc. 77-78a).26 A more extended and complex joke is found in Epidicus because the reference to the name of the slave Epidicus (meaning roughly “a judge allocating their share to everyone”) is not made explicit (Epid. 23-28): when Epidicus voices the principle that an effort for another will be followed by an effort for oneself, another slave, Thesprio, replies “you speak like a judge”; Epidicus comments that this is appropriate for him (i.e. since this is what his name implies). Thesprio continues to ask whether Epidicus is already carrying out the praetorship for them (as one of the functions of the Roman praetor was jurisdiction). With a typical mixture of Greek and Roman elements, Epidicus replies that no one in Athens is worthier; thereupon Thesprio takes his revenge by stating that two lictors and two bundles of elm wood rods are missing (referring to Roman assistants of officials and means of punishment). This extended section of slave banter is based on the literal interpretation of a common phrase referred to the Greek meaning of Epidicus’ name. A high level of sophistication, therefore, has to be assumed for the slave characters or rather for the playwright, who put these lines into their mouths, and correspondingly for the audience. In other, less obvious allusions to the meaning of Greek names too there are sometimes no further explanations for an audience unable to decipher the Greek. For instance, the soldier Pyrgopolynices in Miles gloriosus is flattered as urbicape (“capturer of cities”), by a kind of Latin translation of the Greek name (Mil. 1052-1057). In a series along with occisor regum (“slayer of kings”) this address can be understood as another bombastic description of the soldier’s (alleged) achievements. Yet for those who understand Greek there is a closer connection to the claims made by his name through sophisticated word play. As in Epidicus, the scene has sufficient comic potential even without an awareness of the meaning of the Greek. A complex play with the meaning of names occurs in connection with the parasite Gelasimus in Stichus. Plautus has Gelasimus explain that his father gave him this name since he was funny from an early age although

 26

In the transmitted text this comment is followed by a line explaining that phronesis (i.e. sapientia) is meant; since Plautus typically does not have such explanations of Greek names, the line is often deleted (but see Hofmann 2001, 138). On the passage see also Hofmann 1992, 155.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and Greekness

161

he rather believes that poverty taught him to be a jester (Stich. 174-180).27 Later, being addressed with that name, Gelasimus claims that this is no longer his name and it now rather is Miccotrogus (i.e. “gnawing little,” “small biter”), indicating that he, as a parasite, does not have enough to eat (Stich. 239-244). Finally, another character does not wish him to turn from Gelasimus to Catagelasimus, i.e. from someone creating laughter to someone laughing at others (Stich. 629-630). In none of these cases an indication of the meaning of the respective names is given, though the jokes depend on them. Their understanding is not essential for the plot, but they form the basis of these jokes that contribute to characterizing the parasite. As this example indicates, play on the meaning of names is frequent with reference to fictitious names as these are chosen to evoke specific connotations. The examples could be multiplied: in Captivi, for instance, the false Tyndarus (i.e. the real Philocrates) mocks the old Hegio and claims that Philocrates comes from a genus Polyplusium (“rich family”) and his father is called Thensaurochrysonicochrysides (roughly “a man with talons aiming for a hoard of gold”), Hegio immediately infers that the father received the name because of his wealth and is surprised when told that the father is stingy (Capt. 277-289). When Hegio later learns from another character that the father’s real name is Theodoromedes, a Greek name with a more standard format and whose meaning covers a different dimension (theodoros = “gift from god”), he realizes the deceit (Capt. 633-635). Theodoromedes is indeed wealthy, as another figure confirms (Capt. 971-975). Explanations or translations of the names are not given although the conversations start from their literal meaning; yet that the fictitious name is introduced as a joke is obvious just because of its unusual structure and length. Thus, an element of the joke can be appreciated by everyone, while it is clearly assumed that some members of the audience will enjoy it at a deeper level. Similar principles apply to (fictitious or real) place names if they are meant to evoke particular connotations: in Persa the pimp Dordalus reads out a message talking of the town Chrysopolis (“gold town”) in Arabia; it is full of good things, and booty is collected there (Pers. 503-509). The literal meaning of the place name indicates why this may be the case; the role of the place becomes obvious from the added comment. In Menaechmi the slave says that the Greek town Epidamnus takes its name from the fact that nobody puts up there without damnum (“damage,” “harm”); thus, the poet makes him explain the Greek name with a Latin

 27

On this passage (and various ways of reading it) see Fontaine 2010b, 239-244.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

162

Chapter Five

word of similar sound (Men. 263-264). The explanation is prepared by the preceding description of the bad character of the town’s inhabitants (Men. 258-262). Yet, to enjoy the pun fully, audience members would have to notice that this derivation cannot be the true etymology of the town’s name because of the difference in languages. A comparable play with the two languages occurs in Miles gloriosus: the beautiful girl Philocomasium (“loving nightly revelries”) claims that her name is Dicea (“justice”). The duped slave Sceledrus (from Latin scelus = “crime”) answers that she is in fact iniuria (“injustice”) and therefore bears a false name, thus juxtaposing the opposite in Latin to the Greek term. He then confirms this view by contrasting the two relevant Greek words: he says that she is ਙįȚțȠȢ (“unjust”), not įȚțĮ઀Į (“just”), since she does an injustice to his master (Mil. 433-440).28 Evidently Plautus is well aware of the opportunities provided by mixing elements from the two languages in the comedies; he chooses and plays with real or fictitious Greek names so as to direct the plot by their (often ironic) meaning or to use them as a basis for jokes. In complex cases the comprehension of the (Roman) audience is supported by additional information; in many instances, however, it is assumed that the Greek is understood by at least a part of the audience, while the basic story is clear in any case.29

4. Greek personalities In line with the standard framework of palliata comedies, direct allusions to Greek history are rare; yet Plautus’ plays include a number of mentions of names of Greek kings.30 It is difficult or even impossible to determine which of the several kings of the respective name is meant in each case. In fact, the precise identity may not always be relevant; what is important is a general perception of a Greek king. Occasionally, more knowledge is required: for instance, the audience is invited to laugh at a stupid character along with the tricksters, when they

 28

On this passage see also Hofmann 1992, 155-156. Later it is emphasized that Philocomasium has adopted the name Dicea for the purposes of the plot (Mil. 806809). 29 Cf. also Pseud. 653-657; 711-715; 1009-1010. On these passages see also Shipp 1953, 111; Hofmann 1992, 153, 155. 30 E.g. Seleucus (Mil. 75, 951), Alexander (Most. 775), Antiochus (Poen. 694), Attalus (Pers. 339; Poen. 664), Philip (Aul. 86, 704; Pers. 339), Agathocles (Men. 409; Most. 775; Pseud. 532); Phintias (Men. 410), Hiero (Men. 411-412). See also Chalmers 1965, 43-44.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and Greekness

163

claim something that is blatantly wrong and the duped character does not notice, such as the story told to a pimp that someone served in Sparta under king Attalus, though Sparta never had a king Attalus (Poen. 662666). Only the aside of the overseer Collybiscus indicates that this information is made up. That a personality such as Solon and the stern morals of his laws are known is presupposed in Asinaria: the slave ironically compares the rules that Argyrippus, his master’s son, might be setting up with the laws of the famous law-giver Solon, only to point out that the people living according to those rules would lead a debauched life (Asin. 598-602). Such a joke can only work if there is knowledge of Solon as a law-giver, just as the decoding of the name Argyrippus (roughly “silver horse”) requires an understanding of the Greek.31 Even for such details familiarity with the Greek cultural background is exploited for comic effects.

5. Greek myth Similarly, knowledge of Greek myth is presupposed.32 Plautus’ comedies include frequent allusions to characters and scenes from Greek myth, mainly to the stories about Hercules, the Trojan myth and the fate of Ulysses (e.g. Men. 199-202; Merc. 689-690; Rud. 508-509). Sometimes the aspect referred to is made explicit: for example, a character explains who the (multi-eyed) Argus was, and the myth in which he appears (Io) is identified (Aul. 551-559); or, in addition, the feature is one of the most famous elements of the story, if, for instance, Oedipus’ ability as a solver of riddles is alluded to with a reference to the riddle of the Sphinx (Poen. 442-444); or in Pseudolus the old man Simo states that the slave Pseudolus surpassed the Trojan deceit (i.e. the Wooden Horse) and Ulysses in trickiness (Pseud. 1238-1245).33 Often a comic effect is created when mythical figures and their behavior are compared to ridiculous characters in incongruous situations. For instance, when a young Athenian in Truculentus, having been rejected, laments the situation, the maid of the ‘unfaithful’ beloved advises that there is no point in trying to undo what happened and even Thetis stopped lamenting for her son (Truc. 730-731).



31 The meaning of Argyrippus’ name becomes particularly relevant in the scene in which his slave makes him act as a horse for him as a condition to hand over the money that the lover Argyrippus desperately needs (Asin. 697-710). 32 See also Chalmers 1965, 42-43. 33 Cf. also e.g. Men. 899-902 (see Gratwick 1993, 223); Pseud. 1063-1064.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

164

Chapter Five

The same inadequacy applies to an ironic comment in Epidicus, when the young man Stratippocles (whose name suggests a fighter in the army) has lost his weapons in battle, and the slaves agree that even the son of Thetis (who is not named) lost his arms and the daughters of Nereus brought him new ones; they ironically envisage that something similar might happen to Stratippocles as long as there is enough raw material, if he loses his arms frequently (Epid. 29-38). Achilles, of course, did not ‘lose’ his arms and certainly not because of a lack of courage, and he did not need frequent replacements. This contrast and thus the full impact of the comment, which contributes to Stratippocles’ characterization, can only be appreciated by those who are able to identify the allusion to Achilles and are familiar with his story. As in these cases, many other passages presuppose knowledge of an entire mythical story.34 A good example is a scene in Bacchides: the young Pistoclerus refuses to obey his tutor Lydus, whom, as he says earlier, he used to regard as wiser than Thales, and even threatens him by saying that he would become Hercules and the tutor would be Linus (Bacch. 121124). This assumes familiarity with the fact that Linus was regarded as Hercules’ music teacher and Hercules killed him in rage. Lydus replies that he fears that he might become Phoenix, who must inform the father of his son’s death, alluding to Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles. For the detail that Phoenix reported Achilles’ death to his father there is no other evidence; it could have been developed for the momentary effect. The argument based on myth is concluded with the young man’s remark satis historiarumst (“enough of those old stories”): this indicates the intention to stop this kind of conversation, while it also signals the nature of the preceding argument, which gives pointers to its decoding and perhaps also demonstrates that the details are not essential for the main plot. The reference to a mythical figure or a situation from their lives as known from myth can even lead to a scene as in Mercator, where the young Athenian in love, asked by his friend where the money to buy the beloved will come from, replies that he will ask Achilles for the money he received in exchange for Hector (Merc. 487-489). The illusionary nature of this idea is marked by the reaction of the friend, who asks whether the other is in his right mind, and the admission of the other that he is not, while there is no further comment on the mythical situation alluded to.



34 In Pseudolus the cook advertises his skills and his support for the pimp Ballio, who hired him, by claiming that he could rejuvenate him as Medea did with Pelias (Pseud. 868-872). To relish the joke fully, audiences would have to be aware that it was Aeson whom Medea rejuvenated and that in Pelias’ case her machinations resulted in his death.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and Greekness

165

The most famous example of the application of Greek myth in Plautus is the so-called Troy canticum in Bacchides, where the slave Chrysalus presents an extensive comparison between the conquest of Troy and his threefold attack on the old man Nicobulus (Bacch. 925-978).35 This is not merely a general juxtaposition; in fact, several details of the myth are mentioned and transferred to Chrysalus’ plan: for instance, a letter with fictitious contents, so as to provoke the father to make a payment for the son, is compared to the Wooden Horse (Bacch. 935-936); the letters in the epistle are the soldiers (Bacch. 941-942); the old man is Ilium (Bacch. 945). If such an illustration is given so much room (54 lines), the playwright must have been familiar with the background and have assumed that it would be interesting and entertaining for a sufficiently large proportion of the audience. Moreover, the verse (Bacch. 933) o Troia, o patria, o Pergamum, o Priame periisti senex (“O Troy, o fatherland, o Pergamum, o aged Priam, you have perished”) is reminiscent of a line from the so-called canticum of Andromacha in Ennius’ tragedy named after her (Enn. Trag. fr. 23.10 TrRF/FRL II: o pater, o patria, o Priami domus, “O father, o father-land, o house of Priam”); thus, there might be a Roman intertextual reference (parody of contemporary tragedy) in addition to the allusion to Greek myth. Such a connection confirms an interest in Greek mythical stories among the audience and might reveal Roman versions of Greek tragedies as one source for elements from Greek myth in Plautus. At least for the more famous figures of myth some detailed knowledge is assumed. Sometimes, where a stupid character is made fun of, the enjoyment of the audience depends on sharing the superior knowledge with the poet and some of the characters. For instance, in Miles gloriosus the flattering parasite tells the soldier that the girls in the street admired the soldier’s handsomeness and regarded him as Achilles; thereupon, he says, he answered that the soldier was Achilles’ brother (Mil. 60-65). Neither the girls nor the soldier apparently notice that Greek myths do not mention a brother of Achilles, but take this description as evidence of the soldier’s impressive appearance. In Epidicus, when the old man Periphanes claims that he was Hercules while his wife was alive and that the sixth labor was not harsher for Hercules than his dealing with his wife (Epid. 177-179), this statement presupposes familiarity with the stories of Hercules and a specific version of the labors, so that the sixth one can be identified: the most appropriate labor in this comparison would be Hercules’ fight with the Amazons. In

 35

Cf. also Mil. 1024-1026.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

166

Chapter Five

Persa (Pers. 1-6) the lover Toxilus lists five labors of Hercules (without numbering them) and adds the fight against the giant Antaeus, all of which were easier than the fight against Amor (if the lover has no money); in this instance, each opponent of Hercules is described briefly (though the location of the boar is wrong). In both cases the reference to the labors of Hercules illustrates the emotional state of the speaker, and the incompatibility creates a comic effect. Although it cannot be verified for each reference to what extent Plautus found and adopted mythical allusions in the Greek models or rather added them, the poet was clearly familiar with the stories of Greek myth and evidently assumed that including details from Greek myths was not an obstacle to enjoying the plays for Roman audiences. In particular, these elements are used to enhance comic effects; therefore, knowledge of Greek myths must have entered the Roman cultural framework by Plautus’ time since exploiting a concept as the basis for a joke signals a further level of engagement; at the same time the basic plots remain comprehensible even without a full understanding of these Greek-based puns.

6. Greek literature, art and philosophy While in cases of allusions to Greek myths Plautus could build on a general awareness of them, not necessarily gained from Greek writings, the situation is different for allusions to works or authors of Greek literature. Such references are not only found in prologues (where there are not essential to the play), but also in the body of the dramas, and without any explanation; hence there will not be any effect unless audiences are aware of these pieces. The most obvious metadramatic reference is in Mostellaria, where the slave Tranio mentions the poets Diphilus and Philemon, who also appear in prologues as sources for Plautus’ plays: the slave encourages his master to tell these poets how his slave (i.e. him) has made fun of him, so as to provide them with great stories of deceit as subjects for comedies (Most. 1149-1151). This comment may be read as an indirect proud statement of Plautus’ comic virtuosity. Only if audiences know of these playwrights will they be able to realize the metadramatic character of the comment and the inherent joke. In Bacchides there is another comparison, this time with what seem to be characters from a Greek play or a Roman version of it; again it is a slave who announces that he will utter more harsh words (to his master’s son) than Clinia ever heard from Demetrius (Bacch. 910-912). The nature

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and Greekness

167

of this comment suggests a reference to a well-known scene; that, however, the play with such contumelious language can no longer be identified indicates that the assumed familiarity with dramas may go beyond the canon available today. Two of Plautus’ comedies have references to Greek plays identified by their titles and the names of the playwrights. While it is unclear whether they indicate Greek originals or Roman adaptations, at any rate the audience is assumed to recognize these allusions. In Rudens a strong tempest is described as Euripides’ Alcumena (Eur. TrGF 87b-104); the comparison presumably refers to a famous scene in the play in which a strong wind wreaked havoc (Rud. 83-88). In Poenulus the prologuespeaker opens the play by announcing that he will take the beginning from the tragedy Achilles by Aristarchus and continues with phrases that are probably parodic variations of lines of this tragedy, which was presumably the basis for Ennius’ Achilles (Poen. 1-2). The comic reversal can be realized without detailed knowledge of the tragedies; yet, if one is familiar with them, the transformations can be seen in greater detail and enjoyed more fully. That parody of tragedy is included in comedy shows that the playwright expected a sizeable proportion of the audience to have sufficient knowledge, not only of Roman tragedies, but also of Greek ones or the Greek models of Roman versions (cf. Pseud. 702-707). Knowledge of tragedies is necessary to understand a scene in Captivi (Capt. 557-563; 613-615): when Tyndarus would like Hegio to believe that Aristophontes, who has recognized Tyndarus, is mad, he says that the ornamenta (“accoutrements”) are lacking, but that otherwise one could believe to see Ajax himself. Tyndarus’ earlier attempt to compare Aristophontes’ state of mind with that of Alcmaeon, Orestes and Lycurgus could be seen as a general reference to these myths, but the allusion to Ajax seems to be to a specific dramatic version. As references to the Trojan myth are frequent, it is not a surprise that awareness of the Homeric epics as literary works is presupposed as well. Thus, in Miles gloriosus (Mil. 740-744) an over-long stay of a guest, lasting ten days, is described as odiorum Ilias (i.e. “a whole Iliad full of hatred”). Even though a Greek proverb is likely to be in the background (țĮț૵Ȟ ੉ȜȚ੺Ȣ),36 the audience must be aware that the Trojan War lasted for ten years and that, according to Homer, “anger” was a key factor. Even more sophisticated is a comment in Truculentus, when the soldier Stratophanes announces that he will not relate his fights since he is a man

 36

See Eustath. p. 444.22 (ad Hom. Il. 4.48); Zenob. 4.43 (Corpus Paroemiographorum Graecorum I, p. 96); Diog. 5.26 (Corpus Paroemiographorum Graecorum I, p. 256); see von Wyss 2012 [1889], 16.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

168

Chapter Five

of deeds rather than words. Thereby he wants to distinguish himself from other soldiers who have told lies about their fights; he claims that the Homeronida and a thousand others after him could be named who were found to have provided false reports (Truc. 482-486).37 Homeronida presumably is a garbled version of Homerida; yet familiarity with the term and the Homeric epic tradition is required to realize that and equally the assumption that the heroic deeds narrated in the Homeric epics are not real. Plautus’ comedies include two references to the Greek painters Apelles and Zeuxis.38 The respective contexts make it clear that the two men are mentioned as great painters, so that further details are not required for the comic effect: the coloring resulting from a slave’s beating and a record of an emotional scene (Epid. 625-626; Poen. 1271-1273). It seems that knowledge of the painters is not presupposed to the same extent as familiarity with myth and literature, as these men are characterized. Further, there are several references to Greek philosophers and philosophical schools,39 particularly the Cynics, Socrates and Thales, one of the seven sages (e.g. Stich. 703-704; Pseud. 464-465; Capt. 274-276; Rud. 1001-1005).40 The philosophers are treated in a way similar to the painters in that audiences are apparently assumed to be aware of the names, but additional comments are provided. This is particularly obvious in Persa, where the Cynic way of life is both explained and ridiculed in comparison with that of a parasite (Pers. 118-126). While, later in the Republican period, Cicero famously avoided displaying too much knowledge of Greek literature and art in his public speeches (e.g. Cic. Verr. 2.2.87; 2.4.4-5; 2.4.13; 2.4.94), assuming some knowledge of this kind among audiences does not seem to have been a problem for Plautus: he appears to have expected them to have some awareness and even to enjoy such references.

7. Greek customs, Greeks and barbarians Inevitably, Greek customs appear throughout the plays since the plots are set in Greece and the framework is not entirely Romanized: Greek names, Greek localities and some Greek customs have been retained. Often these details and conventions are implicit and unobtrusive: they can be accepted



37 Hofmann (2001, 175) suggests that this passage might be a reference to Ennius as a follower of Homer. 38 See also Chalmers 1965, 45. 39 See also Dutsch 2014. 40 See also Chalmers 1965, 44.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and Greekness

169

as part of the fictional setting, and detailed knowledge is not required; or they would have been familiar to Roman audiences as an element of everyday life, such as Greek wines (e.g. Poen. 699-703; Rud. 586-591). On other occasions, however, a Greek perspective is made explicit if this leads to a comic effect or enables a particular turn of the plot. For instance, Plautus’ comedies display two references to the Olympic games (rather than to Roman circensic games), both made by slaves for comic effect (Cas. 759-762; Stich. 302-307). Casina has a disproportionate comparison of the merriness of the Nemean and Olympic Games with the deceits in the house. In Stichus the slave envisages preparing for a race at the Olympic Games, only to realize that he has already arrived at the house, his goal. The games are clearly Greek, but here this feature is not decisive; the key point is their status, reputation and seriousness. Several times Greeks are described as a separate group with negative characteristics highlighted, particularly unmanly and non-virtuous behavior (even though all speakers on stage are meant to be Greeks). In Curculio, for instance, there is a disparaging and ridiculing reference to Graeci palliati (“Greeks in their cloaks”), followed by a long negative description (Curc. 288-295); the reference is apparently to Greeks who wish to appear learned like philosophers, but are allegedly more interested in food and drink. Without references to a particular group of Greeks, leading a debauched life is frequently described with the verb pergraecari, again implying that this is the characteristic lifestyle of another group.41 Graeca fides may be used as a proverbial expression for ‘cash’ since the Greeks were notorious for not making payment for items bought on credit, which implies a view of the Greeks as dishonest (Asin. 196-203).42 Even where the allusion to something Greek does not have an explicit negative connotation, speakers tend to express some distance. Thus, ironically, the elderly Demipho is compared to a sheep of 60 years, which is generis Graeci (“of the Greek type”); the specific term in Italy for highly regarded wool (cf. Plin. HN 8.190) is meant to indicate a benefit, making up for the disadvantage of age (Merc. 523-526).43 Also, when a young Athenian speaks of ‘Greek jewellery boxes’ among the things that a lover is expected to give to his beloved, it is clear that it is something exotic and valuable (Truc. 51-56). For all these mentions of Greek particularities the

 41

E.g. Bacch. 742-744 (on the verb congraecare see Barsby 1986, 156); 812-813; Most. 20-24; 62-65; 959-961; Poen. 600-603; Truc. 86-87. 42 For the proverb see Otto 1890, 156, s.v. Graecus 3; cf. Auson. Ep. 4.41; 20b.24. 43 See Enk 1932, 2.112.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

170

Chapter Five

speakers adopt a Roman point of view; this breaks the dramatic illusion, while it agrees with the audiences’ perspective.44 Elsewhere, Greek and Roman perspectives are juxtaposed: a Roman craftsman is referred to as a ‘porridge-eating barbarian’ (Most. 826-828); Plautus even describes himself with this Roman nickname (“porridgeeater”) ironically (Poen. 54). When in Stichus a slave explains that it is permissible for slaves in Athens to drink, make love and have dinner arrangements, this is in line with the fictitious setting of the play, but the comment is provoked by the different experiences of Roman audiences, which causes a disruption of the dramatic illusion. This is obvious too in the prologue to Casina, when the prologue speaker points out that marriages of slaves, as will be shown in this play, happen in Greece, Carthage and ‘in our land’ in Apulia (Cas. 67-77; cf. also Stich. 446-448). Such comments navigate the complexities of transposing dramatic plots, allegedly set in real-life situations, from a different social and cultural context; apparently, Plautus was aware of the challenges and opportunities of handling the combination of two cultures and could assume that audiences would be comfortable with this transfer and enjoy the stories despite the differences or by observing the divergences.

8. Conclusion If one looks back at the various categories and examples analysed, a number of characteristics of ‘Greekness’ in Plautus’ comedies emerges. In all plays there are not only Greek names of characters (which may derive from the Greek models), but also explicit references to Greek literature and culture as well as Greek words. Some pieces have more Greek features than others, and the references are not evenly distributed across each play;45 yet their ubiquity suggests that they did not cause problems for audiences. As a consummate playwright Plautus would probably have discontinued Grecisms if their insertion had diminished the effect of the comedies, or at least he would not have increased the amount of effects

 44

In contrast to the broad description of “Greek,” “Attic” seems to be something positive (e.g. Cas. 649-652; Pers. 393-396). 45 For instance, dramas such as Amphitruo, Asinaria and Cistellaria have few references; a fairly large number can be found in plays such as Miles gloriosus, Poenulus, Rudens, Stichus and particularly Bacchides (see also Maltby 1995, with data). Blänsdorf (1978, 107) counts about 90 Greek words in each Plautine comedy.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and Greekness

171

building on Greek words by making changes in relation to the Greek basis (as in the case of the introduction of the name Chrysalus).46 The extent to which the puns based on Greek elements derive from Plautus’ Greek models or have been introduced by him can no longer be determined since too few direct comparisons are possible. It is obvious, however, that Plautus realized and exploited the potential provided by Greek linguistic or cultural peculiarities within a Roman context to create comic effects. The features displayed consist not only in inserting individual Greek words (reminiscent of the everyday language of the period), but also in complex puns presupposing knowledge of Greek literature and myth. Accordingly, in this respect, it is justified to call the playwright ‘Plautus doctus,’ and it must be assumed that at least part of the audience was equally learned. A broad distinction in the sense that bawdy funny effects are intended for the less educated and linguistic puns and jokes based on Grecisms for the more educated parts of the audience cannot be excluded. It is noteworthy, though, that the funny allusions to Greek customs or linguistic puns often are not explained (so that knowledge of the Greek language or even familiarity with Greek literature is required for immediate comprehension); elsewhere, however, hints are given to clarify the meaning for those less familiar with Greek.47 Obviously, the poet tried to make even details not directly relevant to following the plot accessible to audiences, though a certain amount of transfer often still remains to be done by recipients. The jokes based on Greek material operate on different levels, so that members of the audience familiar with selected aspects of Greek language and culture would be able to catch at least some of them. The way in which the Greek language is treated is different from the introduction of the language put into the mouth of the Carthaginian Hanno in his entrance speech in Poenulus (Poen. 930-939; 940-949),48 simply

 46

Fraenkel ([1922] 2007, 65-66) already made the point that Plautus would not have included large amounts of Greek material where it was not required by the plot if this had been incomprehensible to audiences. This is reiterated by Blänsdorf (1978, 106-107) and Hofmann (1992, 151). When, however, Blänsdorf (1978, 108) notes that allusions to Greek myth or literature keep to what was most famous, this statement might need further qualification. 47 Hofmann (1992, 152-153, 158) stresses that Plautus ensures that Greek elements and puns can be understood by the frequent addition of explanations and translations; he concludes that the knowledge of Greek among audiences had its limits. Still, there are numerous instances where at least some knowledge of Greek language and/or culture is assumed and no comment is given. 48 For the transmission and meaning of this passage see Hofmann 1992, 145-151; de Melo 2012, ad loc.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

172

Chapter Five

because the Greek references are briefer, more poignant and more natural within the fictitious Greek setting. In a period in which the Romans had been in contact with Greeks for many centuries, in which they had been presented with Livius Andronicus’ Latin version of Homer’s Odyssey as well as numerous tragedies on Greek myths by Livius Andronicus, Naevius and Ennius, in which they were able to read Ennius’ works on Greek philosophy, in which early Roman historiography written in Greek had emerged and in which both Rome and Etruria knew Greek-inspired works of art in terms of content, technique and style, it is not a surprise that Greek-based wit appears in Plautus’ comedies and that thus both he and his audiences are shown to be educated and culturally aware.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



PART III: PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, RELIGION

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



CHAPTER SIX FRIENDS WITHOUT BENEFITS? PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS OF PLAUTUS’ CONCEPTION OF FRIENDSHIP* RUTH R. CASTON

Friendship is a rich theme in Plautine comedy. Old men help each other protect the family from the antics of their sons, young men support one another in their love affairs, and matronae seek advice from each other about troubles at home.1 Scholars often observe that these comic friendships tend to be formed by people of the same status and age.2 But there are a number of Plautine cases that do not fit this pattern and as such raise interesting questions about the nature of friendship. What sorts of people can be friends? What ties people together if it is not shared backgrounds, common interests, or mutual benefit? In the two examples I focus on here—the relationships of Periplectomenus and Pleusicles in the Miles gloriosus and Philocrates and Tyndarus in the Captivi—we find friends who care for each other’s welfare independently of any sort of

 * Many thanks to both editors for devising such a stimulating and needed topic for a volume as well as for their helpful suggestions on my paper. I’m also grateful to the audience at the original conference in Athens, whose questions improved my own thinking about friendship in Plautus. 1 For examples and discussion, see Anderson 1993, 34ff., Raccanelli 1998, Maurice 2003, Burton 2004, Dutsch 2008, 30-42 (on the gendered greetings of friends), Feltovich 2015, and most recently Richlin 2017, 246-251 on slave friendship. The important studies of ancient friendship by Konstan 1997 and Williams 2012 give limited space to comedy. 2 There is an assumption in many sources on Roman friendship that friendship is between equals, patronage between unequals (see e.g., Maurice 2003, 165). For the philosophers, what connects friends is not equal status or age, but virtue. In her treatment of the Miles gloriosus and the Captivi, Raccanelli 1998 tries to explain away the asymmetry and see instead relationships between equals.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

176

Chapter Six

purely utilitarian interests. Why should the old man Periplectomenus want to help the young lover Pleusicles, who can offer him nothing in return? What motivates the loyalty of Philocrates and Tyndarus to support one another after their relationship has been fundamentally altered, first when they are both enslaved to someone else and then when they exchange the roles of master and slave?3 Plautus characterizes these asymmetric relationships, at least in part, as idealized friendships, ones in which the friend is seen as another self. But he juxtaposes them with other types of relationship that rely more on flattery and self-interest, as if to use these extremes to ask what we expect in the case of friendships of different kinds and whether even perfect friendships involve some advantage to oneself.4 In inviting us to compare these different relationships, Plautus raises the issue of self-interest in an especially pointed way. The role of usus or advantage in friendship is also a central question in philosophical treatments of friendship. The terminology Plautus uses to describe friendship in these plays, together with the characterization of Periplectomenus as an Epicurean, suggest that the similarity is not a coincidence, but rather a sign of Plautus’ direct engagement with philosophical views.5 This should not be entirely surprising: the Hellenistic schools of philosophy were active in Athens in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, and it is clear that they had some cachet in Rome, given the Athenian legation made up of the Academic Carneades, the Stoic Diogenes and Critolaus the Peripatetic who arrived there in 155 BCE.

 3

The play makes only brief mention of a connection between Periplectomenus and Pleusicles’ father (see line 135), suggesting it is not a central motivation for the former’s interest in getting involved. As for the Captivi, it was not possible for a master and slave to be friends, but since Philocrates and Tyndarus have both been captured, the master is now himself a slave. As I discuss below, they seem initially to preserve their original relationship to each other. 4 See Burton 2004, 228-229 on the prominence of gifts and beneficia in comedy, which he says may have a “moral dimension,” and now Coffee 2016, ch. 5. 5 There have been few studies tracing philosophical elements in Plautus: see e.g., Dutsch 2008, 161-166 and Caston 2014b. On the Captivi specifically, McCarthy 2000 reads the Captivi as a philosophical play about identity and slavery, and Moore 1998b, 187 comments on Tyndarus’ philosophizing. Williams 2012, 22 is wary of privileging philosophical treatments of amicitia: “Yet philosophical treatises can be just as partial, tendentious, and conditioned by specific needs as are courtroom speeches. … In short, as we read amicitia across the range of surviving Latin texts, there is a priori no reason to assign more interpretive weight to any single writer of genre, not even philosophy.” For a similar sentiment, see Burton 2004, 241.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Friends without Benefits?

177

Greek New Comedy, which provided important source material for Plautus, itself drew on themes discussed by Aristotle and Theophrastus.6 Yet it was not only a question of contact, but also of interest and challenge. New Comedy is fascinated by some of the very same questions as philosophers concerning identity and human relations. Indeed we find a great deal of variety in how friendship is treated in Plautus’ corpus: while the Miles gloriosus and the Captivi offer quite positive treatments of asymmetric relationships, friendship between equals in the corpus is often marked by disappointment and frustration.7 Plautus also presents a positive portrayal of certain features of friendship that were either downplayed or rejected by philosophers, thus proposing an alternative model. With its multi-faceted representation of human interactions and affection, comedy shows as much potential as philosophy for instructing the audience on the nuances and depth of phenomena that though familiar, are not always well understood.

1. Definitions of friendship The term amicitia embraces a number of different social relationships that are beneficial for both parties and involve reciprocity and bonds of loyalty over time. It can be used to describe utilitarian relationships, ones where there is often hierarchy and an exchange of goods that makes the question of affection or altruism problematic or even irrelevant.8 Patronage, business associations of other kinds, and the connections one has to neighbors or fellow members of the community are all spoken of at some time in terms of friendship or amicitia. But the ancient schools of philosophy also distinguished a high form of friendship in which one cares for a friend for his own sake, and which is characterized as well by affection, loyalty, candor, and a regard for the friend as another self. All the Greek schools agree that there is obvious and sufficient reason to pursue one’s own good. What raises more difficulty is why one would care about anyone else’s good apart from how it would benefit oneself. The core intuition about friendship is that one does care about a friend beyond the indirect benefits it has for oneself. The idea of the second self



6 See Anderson 1993, 35. The careful integration of amicitia and patronage in the Miles gloriosus and the Captivi together with their Roman dimensions point to Plautus’ own hand, not simply an inheritance from Greek sources. 7 E.g. the relationships of Mnesilochus and Pistoclerus in the Bacchides or Myrrhina and Cleostrata in the Casina. 8 See Saller 1989 and Konstan 1997, 122-124. On the relationship of love, affection and friendship, see Konstan 2018.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

178

Chapter Six

in Aristotle, discussed below in connection with the Captivi, is not about this person being just like you. Rather, it is that you care about this person as you do yourself. In calling a friend “another self,” Aristotle is in effect describing an enlargement of who you are. Most of the philosophical schools address the role of usus or selfinterest in their treatment of friendship. In the definition offered in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle carefully demarcates between three types of friendship according to utility, pleasure and virtue (Nic. Eth. 1156a6-17, 1156b8-12): IJȡȓĮ į੽ IJ੹ IJોȢ ijȚȜȓĮȢ İ੅įȘ, ੁıȐȡȚșȝĮ IJȠ૙Ȣ ijȚȜȘIJȠ૙Ȣ· țĮș’ ਪțĮıIJȠȞ ȖȐȡ ਥıIJȚȞ ਕȞIJȚijȓȜȘıȚȢ Ƞ੝ ȜĮȞșȐȞȠȣıĮ, Ƞੂ į੻ ijȚȜȠ૨ȞIJİȢ ਕȜȜȒȜȠȣȢ ȕȠȪȜȠȞIJĮȚ IJਕȖĮș੹ ਕȜȜȒȜȠȚȢ IJĮȪIJૉ ઞ ijȚȜȠ૨ıȚȞ. Ƞੂ ȝ੻Ȟ Ƞ੣Ȟ įȚ੹ IJઁ ȤȡȒıȚȝȠȞ ijȚȜȠ૨ȞIJİȢ ਕȜȜȒȜȠȣȢ Ƞ੝ țĮș’ Įਫ਼IJȠઃȢ ijȚȜȠ૨ıȚȞ, ਕȜȜ’ ઞ ȖȓȞİIJĮȓ IJȚ Į੝IJȠ૙Ȣ ʌĮȡ’ ਕȜȜȒȜȦȞ ਕȖĮșȩȞ. ੒ȝȠȓȦȢ į੻ țĮ੿ Ƞੂ įȚ’ ਲįȠȞȒȞ· Ƞ੝ Ȗ੹ȡ IJ૶ ʌȠȚȠȪȢ IJȚȞĮȢ İੇȞĮȚ ਕȖĮʌ૵ıȚ IJȠઃȢ İ੝IJȡĮʌȑȜȠȣȢ, ਕȜȜ’ ੖IJȚ ਲįİ૙Ȣ Įਫ਼IJȠ૙Ȣ. Ƞ੆ IJİ į੽ įȚ੹ IJઁ ȤȡȒıȚȝȠȞ ijȚȜȠ૨ȞIJİȢ įȚ੹ IJઁ Įਫ਼IJȠ૙Ȣ ਕȖĮșઁȞ ıIJȑȡȖȠȣıȚ, țĮ੿ Ƞੂ įȚ’ ਲįȠȞ੽Ȟ įȚ੹ IJઁ Įਫ਼IJȠ૙Ȣ ਲįȪ, țĮ੿ Ƞ੝Ȥ ઞ ੒ ijȚȜȠȪȝİȞȩȢ ਥıIJȚȞ, ਕȜȜ’ ઞ ȤȡȒıȚȝȠȢ ਲ਼ ਲįȪȢ. ȉİȜİȓĮ į’ ਥıIJ੿Ȟ ਲ IJ૵Ȟ ਕȖĮș૵Ȟ ijȚȜȓĮ țĮ੿ țĮIJ’ ਕȡİIJ੽Ȟ ੒ȝȠȓȦȞ· Ƞ੤IJȠȚ Ȗ੹ȡ IJਕȖĮș੹ ੒ȝȠȓȦȢ ȕȠȪȜȠȞIJĮȚ ਕȜȜȒȜȠȚȢ ઞ ਕȖĮșȠȓ, ਕȖĮșȠ੿ į’ İੁı੿ țĮș’ Įਫ਼IJȠȪȢ. Ƞੂ į੻ ȕȠȣȜȩȝİȞȠȚ IJਕȖĮș੹ IJȠ૙Ȣ ijȓȜȠȚȢ ਥțİȓȞȦȞ ਪȞİțĮ ȝȐȜȚıIJĮ ijȓȜȠȚ· įȚ’ Įਫ਼IJȠઃȢ Ȗ੹ȡ Ƞ੢IJȦȢ ਩ȤȠȣıȚ, țĮ੿ Ƞ੝ țĮIJ੹ ıȣȝȕİȕȘțȩȢ· įȚĮȝȑȞİȚ Ƞ੣Ȟ ਲ IJȠȪIJȦȞ ijȚȜȓĮ ਪȦȢ ਗȞ ਕȖĮșȠ੿ ੯ıȚȞ, ਲ į’ ਕȡİIJ੽ ȝȩȞȚȝȠȞ. There are therefore three kinds of friendship, equal in number to the things that are lovable; for with respect to each there is a mutual and recognized love, and those who love each other wish well to each other in that respect in which they love one another. Now those who love each other for their utility do not love each other for themselves but in virtue of some good which they get from each other. So too with those who love for the sake of pleasure; it is not for their character that men love ready-witted people, but because they find them pleasant. Therefore those who love for the sake of utility love for the sake of what is good for themselves, and those who love for the sake of pleasure do so for the sake of what is pleasant to themselves, and not in so far as the other is the person loved but in so far as he is useful or pleasant. Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves. Now those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of their own nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good—and excellence is an enduring thing. (trans. Barnes 1984, v. 1)

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Friends without Benefits?

179

Like Aristotle, the Stoics stress the importance of virtue in friendship and use the language of the friend as “another self” (Diogenes Laertius 7.23/SVF 1.71). Because friendship is limited to those who are outstanding in virtue, there is no place for usus in friendship.9 This is not the case for other accounts, however, which debate the extent to which self-interest may play a role, even in virtue friendship. In one of Cicero’s definitions, for example, he offers only two types of friendship compared to Aristotle’s three and allows for a mix of selfinterest and altruism (de Inventione 2.167): ne forte qui nos de omni amicitia dicere existimant reprehendere incipiant. quamquam sunt qui propter utilitatem modo petendam putant amicitiam; sunt qui propter se solum; sunt qui propter se et utilitatem. quorum quid verissime constituatur, alius locus erit considerandi. nunc hoc sic ad usum oratorium relinquatur, utramque propter rem amicitiam esse expetendam. [I say this] so that those who think that I am talking about every kind of friendship do not start to criticize me. There are those who think that friendship should be sought only on account of its usefulness; others who think it is to be sought only for its own sake; others who think for its own sake and its usefulness. Which of these is closest to truth, I will consider in another place. For now according to oratorical practice, let us leave the matter like this: that friendship is to be sought for both reasons.10

And there is debate over the role of self-interest in friendship in both the Cyrenaic and Epicurean schools. Two of the Cyrenaics, Hegesias and Theodorus, argue that ultimately everything has to be judged from an egoist standpoint, always with an eye to how a relationship increases one’s own pleasure. By contrast, Anniceris promotes the importance of a friend’s well-being for his own sake.11 For the Epicureans, friendship was both central and essential:12 Epicurus says that friendship “dances around the world” and tells us that we must “wake to blessedness” (SV 52). Yet on the face of it, the Epicureans seem to hold an inconsistent position: they represent friendship as something worth having for its own sake, and at the same time it seems that something can be choiceworthy to the extent that it benefits oneself.13

 9

Long 2013; Schofield 1991, 34-35. Translations of ancient sources throughout are mine, unless otherwise noted. 11 See Lampe 2015, 110-119. 12 O’Connor 1989 and Konstan 1994, 108-112. 13 O’Keefe 2001; Evans 2004. 10

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

180

Chapter Six

This brief survey of friendship among the different philosophical schools provides an important context for understanding Plautus’ own depiction, especially in so far as they focus on the problem of self-interest. Although they do not discuss unequal friendships per se, many philosophical accounts stress that friends will be alike in virtue and alike in caring for each other’s good for their own sake. In the two plays discussed here, however, Plautus represents a form of virtue friendship among unequals, the type of scenario where Romans might more naturally assume there will be utilitarian friendship.14 Plautus thus seems to have chosen a provocative or extreme case, the better to raise questions about our expectations about what attracts friends.

2. An ideal friend: Periplectomenus in the Miles Gloriosus I turn now to the Miles gloriosus, and in particular the first two scenes of Act III, where the old man Periplectomenus offers a series of extended remarks to Pleusicles and Palaestrio about his virtues as a friend. This portion of the play has typically been viewed as isolated from the rest of the play, whether as a humorous digression, Periplectomenus’ ‘aristeia,’ or evidence of contaminatio.15 The representation of Periplectomenus here is comical, to be sure, and he is parodied both as a senex amator and an Epicurean.16 But these scenes are not unconnected to the rest of the play, and there is more going on than Periplectomenus simply trying to be “one of the boys.” The old man’s generosity emerges both in the conflict between Periplectomenus and Pleusicles’ views of the relationship, and in the contrast it offers with the craven behavior of the soldier and parasite in Act I of the play. Thus Periplectomenus’ behavior in the middle of the play engages the topic of flattery versus friendship in a serious way that is both relevant to the play as a whole and many of the philosophical discussions about self-interested and altruistic friendship we have just seen. Periplectomenus’ long and rambling speech answers a number of challenges by Pleusicles: that Periplectomenus is too old to be involved in questions of love or hosting meals, that he will end up spending too much money in order to help Pleusicles, and that he is strange in not wanting to

 14

See Saller 1989, 49. On contaminatio in this Act, see Leo 1912, 178-185, Fraenkel 1922, 253-262 and Schaaf 1997, and contrast Saylor 1977. More recent work on the play has argued for greater integrity and structure in the play; see e.g. Maurice 2007 and Moore 1998a, 262-264. 16 I have not found any studies that acknowledge the Epicurean features of Periplectomenus’ speech. 15

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Friends without Benefits?

181

have a wife or children. I examine Periplectomenus’ responses to these questions below with the aim of highlighting the difference between Periplectomenus and Pleusicles’ positions. Pleusicles first raises the issue of Periplectomenus’ age and his worry that he is dragging a fifty-four-year-old into the business of love: it is unfair, he says, to impose his own boyish behavior on a man of Periplectomenus’ virtue (puerilia facinora, 618; tuis virtutibus, 619). Periplectomenus firmly denies that he is too old to enjoy the pleasures of love (640-642): nam nisi qui ipse amavit aegre amantis ingenium inspicit: et ego amoris aliquantum habeo umorisque etiam in corpore necdum exarui ex amoenis rebus et voluptariis. For unless someone’s been in love himself, he hardly understands the mind of a lover. I, too, have some love and sap in my body, nor have I dried up completely for things that are delightful and pleasurable.

Although Pleusicles returns several more times to the issue of Periplectomenus’ age, he eventually acts as though he has been persuaded that the latter is still capable of love (660-661).17 For some critics, Periplectomenus’ insistence on his relative youth reveals an optimistic desire to feel young and more appealing, somewhat like the boasts of the soldier in Act I about his valor and physical attractiveness.18 But this is to read the character of Periplectomenus from Pleusicles’ standpoint and miss the references to Periplectomenus’ Epicureanism. Comical as it may seem, the reference to amoenis rebus et voluptariis likely points not to Periplectomenus’ vanity, but to his philosophical sympathies.19 Similarly, the reference to looking into the lover’s mind (amantis ingenium inspicit) suggests that friendship for Periplectomenus means understanding the friend and seeing what he needs independently of one’s own position, a feature of ideal friendship in philosophical discussions.20 And this is further corroborated later when he says he is willing to be whatever Pleusicles needs him to be, whether a grim or mild advocate, joyful guest,

 17

For further references to Periplectomenus’ age, see lines 626, 631-632, 633-634. See n. 23 below. For Raccanelli 1998, Periplectomenus is gradually accepted as part of the group through his efforts to make himself seem young (p. 143). 19 On the significance of pleasure in Epicurean ethics, see Cic. de fin. 1.29 and Ep. Men. 128-129 (= LS 21B2). 20 Cf. Mnesilochus’ line in Bacchides 635-636 about preferring to trust a friend who is himself in love. This approach does not work for Charinus in Terence’s Andria. 18

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

182

Chapter Six

parasite, or caterer (663-668). Periplectomenus is willing to change his role to suit any circumstance in which Pleusicles may need him, highlighting his loyalty and devotion to a friend. As Periplectomenus continues talking, he moves from the subject of his age to his behavior at the dinner table, a locus classicus for discussions of friendship.21 Here Periplectomenus once again stresses his concern for others rather than his own reputation or importance, as hosts often do. In fact, he does not describe himself in the position of host at all, but rather points out what he is like as a guest, aligning himself with Pleusicles and working to alleviate any concerns about hierarchy.22 He describes his manners and the care he takes not to offend anyone (643-648). He stresses that he does not interfere with anyone else’s business or take something that belongs to them (651-654). It is of course difficult to believe him when he claims that he does not talk too much (645-646). Yet before we judge him too harshly, we need to contrast him with the miles in Act I who makes much more outrageous claims. For while the soldier Pyrgopolynices is unable to think of anyone other than himself, Periplectomenus is focused entirely on how he treats others.23 At root Periplectomenus is anxious to assure Pleusicles that he understands his position and that they share not only the experience of being a lover, but also that of being a guest who does not want to take advantage of a situation. Palaestrio clearly finds Periplectomenus and his philosophical attitude to friendship amusing if implausible, and he flatters the old man by referring to him as lepidus or charming (649, 659-660):24 o lepidum semisenem, si quas memorat virtutes habet… at quidem illuc aetatis qui sit non invenies alterum lepidiorem ad omnis res nec magis qui amico amicus sit. What a charming semi-old man, if he has the virtues he’s talking about.

 21

Especially in Roman satire (e.g. Hor. Sat. 2.8, Juv. 5), though see Konstan 1997, 137-140. 22 Note, however, his critique of guests at lines 751-756 and again 758-762, which are aimed directly at Pleusicles. 23 On Pyrgopolynices’ vanity, see Act I i and many examples in Act IV, e.g., lines 999-1000, 1047, 1086-1087, 1021. 24 See Maurice 2007, 416 on ‘lepidus,’ which she takes to mean that Periplectomenus adopts the “theatrical role” of senex lepidus, something that allows him to play multiple parts in the scenes that follow.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Friends without Benefits?

183

But you won’t find another man of that age more charming in all matters or more of a friend to a friend.

Palaestrio’s characterization of the old man’s words picks up precisely what is philosophical about him. The language of amico amicus sit and virtutes points to the Epicurean evaluation of friendship as reciprocal and rooted in character. Pleusicles and Palaestrio both enjoy some fun at Periplectomenus’ expense (see also 633-634). But we might also see these sorts of remarks as indicating something negative about Pleusicles. For in trying to flatter Periplectomenus, who is in fact a devoted friend in deed as well as in word, Pleusicles exposes his own self-interested and utilitarian views of amicitia. This comes up, for example, when Pleusicles raises a concern about how much money Periplectomenus is spending on him. Pleusicles acknowledges the latter’s generosity but likely betrays a worry about indebtedness at the same time.25 By contrast, Periplectomenus does not think about helping a friend in these terms. He spends money the way he wants, without any interest in exchange or personal benefit: he proudly announces he has no wife, no children, and does not care about the young men who hang around, hoping to be named in his will.26 He can devote himself to whomever he likes, and in his judgment, a friend is far preferable to a wife (672-674): morus es. nam in mala uxore atque inimico si quid sumas, sumptus est, in bono hospite atque amico quaestus est quod sumitur. You’re being foolish: if you spend something on a bad wife or an enemy, it’s an expense. What’s spent on a good guest and on a friend is gain.

Periplectomenus’ hostile attitude towards marriage is often read as a typical comic view, and it may have resonated with some in the audience that way. But thinking about overall costs and benefits is also compatible with an Epicurean approach where the goal is the maximization of pleasure. For the Epicureans, friendship “dances around the world,” a phrase that captures the joy and pleasure derived from the relationship (see

 25

See 740-744, 749-750, and Burton 2004, 233. On Epicurus and the wise man not marrying, see Diog. Laert. 10.119. On the immorality of legacy hunters, see e.g. Cic. de off. 3.74 and Hor. Sat. 2.5.

26

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

184

Chapter Six

SV 28). Although both Pleusicles and Periplectomenus describe their relationship in economic terms, they mean entirely different things by it.27 A further point about money appears shortly after Periplectomenus has mentioned the young men who compete for his goodwill with gifts (donis, 714). Pleusicles responds by praising his outlook and picks up on the language of dare and returns (723-724): huic homini dignum est divitias esse ut diu vitam dari, qui et rem servat et se bene habet suisque amicis usui est. This man deserves to be given riches and a long life. He takes care of his property, enjoys his life, and is a help to relatives and friends.

Pleusicles thinks of friendship and other social relationships as an exchange of favors. Because Periplectomenus is helpful to his friends, he should receive something in return. The assumption is that he could not have done anything for Pleusicles or anyone else for pleasure or for the sake of friendship itself. As we have seen, usus plays a complex role in the Epicurean debate over self-interest in friendship. One of the Vatican sayings makes the claim that “we have use not so much of usefulness from our friends as for trust in their usefulness” (SV 34), while another says “neither is he who continually seeks usefulness a friend, nor is he who never connects them” (SV 39).28 It is not the case that usus or chreia plays no role in friendship, but it should not be sought after or prized in its own right. Plautus reveals Pleusicles’ more traditional and less nuanced view of usus and highlights the difference between the two men’s view of friendship through a shared vocabulary of utility, cost and gain. We might easily think that in the Miles gloriosus, Plautus encourages us to side with Pleusicles and laugh at the old man who carries on at such length about his youth, dining habits and attitudes towards family.29 But it is just as likely that we are being encouraged to view Pleusicles with a certain skepticism. After all, in certain ways he resembles the parasite Artotrogus in Act I, flattering Periplectomenus, showing a heightened awareness of his dependency, in other words viewing amicitia as a system



27 See also Palaestrio’s outburst in lines 725-735 about man’s nature and the marketplace. 28 Cf. Benatouïl 2006 on uti and Ȥȡ߱ıșĮȚ in Stoic discourse, and Lampe 2015, 108110 and 116-117 on the relationship of usus and friendship among different Cyrenaics. 29 Maurice 2003, 167 suggests that Plautus parodies idealized friendships, though she considers different plays in her study than I do here.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Friends without Benefits?

185

of exchange and self-interest.30 Periplectomenus, by contrast, is no Pyrgopolynices: he may carry on and talk too much about himself, but the intention is not to earn praise, but to show Pleusicles how friendship can involve the pleasure of giving without expectation of return.

3. The Captivi and the friend as another self When we turn to the Captivi, we find a much more serious play, one that at first glance seems to have little in common with the Miles gloriosus.31 Yet the plays address a strikingly similar nexus of issues: a friendship that is based on asymmetry, this time the master-slave relationship of Philocrates and Tyndarus; a contrast between the nobility of this friendship with exchange and duty, here in the form of the slave’s officium and Hegio’s dealings with Ergasilus; and a depiction of the friend that echoes philosophical accounts, in this case an Aristotelian view of a friend as a second self or mirror of the self. What is more, unlike the relationship of Periplectomenus and Pleusicles, this friendship is reciprocal and based on feelings of long duration. It thus comes much closer to the kind of idealized friendship we find described in the philosophical sources. The more earnest nature of the friendship portrayed here may be due in part to its resemblance to stories about friends like Orestes and Pylades, the subject not only of a lost tragedy by Euripides, but the Chryses of Pacuvius, Plautus’ contemporary.32 Like the legendary pair, Philocrates and Tyndarus are willing to risk their lives for each other, placing loyalty above personal risk. For all the similarity in devotion between the two pairs of friends, however, Plautus has changed something essential in

 30

In the case of the parasite, this exchange involves flattery for food: see e.g., lines 33-35 and 49. 31 The issue of genre is raised in the prologue: nam hoc paene iniquom est, comico choragio / conari desubito agere nos tragoediam (61-62). Many modern interpreters have found it a dark play. According to Sharrock 2009, the Captivi is “the ‘serious’ play which self-righteously avoids the usual comic roguery.” See also McCarthy 2000, 209, Leigh 2004, 80-81, Barrios-Lech 2016, 236-237 and Burton 2004, 221-222. Hunter 1985 takes a different position: “The poet extracts considerable dramatic advantage from the audience’s superior knowledge… and it is clear that it is comedy and farce which predominate in this play and not the serious sentiments which many critics have found” (116-117). 32 Orestes and Pylades come up frequently in discussions of ancient friendship, see e.g., Williams 2012, 148. Cowan 2015 suggests that the Chryses also dealt with issues of identity and alterity. Tyndarus refers to Orestes directly in line 562, though the context there is his madness.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

186

Chapter Six

making them not peers, but master and slave. It is true that the audience knows, and Tyndarus will eventually learn, that he is not in fact a slave, but a son of Hegio who was abducted in childhood. But the fact that the characters within the play do not know this raises expectations that the slave may behave disloyally once he takes the master’s part, or that the master who plays the slave and is released as a messenger may not return. The fact that Philocrates and Tyndarus display extraordinary loyalty and devotion to each other despite their unequal status points to the significance that character has over position, especially in a play that makes clear how easy it is for anyone to become enslaved.33 In what follows, I focus on Act II, the moment in the play when Philocrates and Tyndarus prepare to switch roles and first perform their new parts in front of Hegio.34 I trace a transformation in this Act in which Philocrates and Tyndarus first show anxiety over the plan and their trust in each other, and then begin to display selfless devotion to each other in a way that echoes what Aristotle has to say about the friend as a second self.35 As in the Miles gloriosus, however, Plautus represents a conflict over different types of friendship not only within the relationship but also outside of it, in scenes that once again involve a parasite. Plautus represents Philocrates and Tyndarus’ decision to change parts as somewhat difficult at first. At the beginning of Act II, Philocrates worries that Tyndarus will forget his assumed role and betray their plan, and he stresses the need to be cautious (225), sounding very much like the master that he is.36 For his part, Tyndarus replies in a way that emphasizes his servile role: ero ut me voles esse (228). Indeed, when he refers to their plan, he complains in a way that is typical for slaves, though the risk is usually much less than it is here (229-230): nam tu nunc vides pro tuo caro capite carum offerre meum caput vilitati.

 33

Like Tyndarus, Hegio’s other son has been enslaved, as has Tyndarus’ master Philocrates. For sensitive discussions about slavery in this play, see Leach 1969a, Konstan 1983, Moore 1998b (esp. 186-187), McCarthy 2000, and now Richlin 2017, 236. 34 They would have been wearing each other’s costumes and masks the entire time: on this see Moore 1998b, 185-186 and Marshall 2006, 149-151. See also BarriosLech 2016, 237 on their exchange of speech patterns, something Tyndarus himself comments on at line 276. 35 See Konstan 2018, 51 on the role of trust in friendship. 36 See Leigh 2004, 93-94 on Philocrates’ desire to maintain the upper hand and Tyndarus’ willingness to continue playing the slave. Barrios-Lech 2016, 238-242 argues that they have already traded speech patterns in lines 203-230.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Friends without Benefits?

187

For you can see that to protect your dear life, I’m offering up my own for a cheap price.

Tyndarus’ language indicates that while he agrees to shoulder the danger, he sees it as an obligation and a duty. He emphasizes the division between them by keeping his caput and his master’s in separate lines, and his careful use of pronouns will be important in what follows. The distance between master and slave is further emphasized as Philocrates again tries to ensure that Tyndarus will not forget the loyalty he has always shown him in the past (247-248): ne me secus honore honestes quam quom servibas mihi atque ut qui fueris et qui nunc sis meminisse ut memineris. Don’t honor me less than when you were my slave and take care to remember who you were and who you are now.

Philocrates encourages continuity between Tyndarus’ past and present roles, between his slavery and his adopted freedom. The remark is an ironic one, at least for the audience, since a different kind of continuity is in fact the case: Tyndarus was free before (qui fueris) and will be discovered to be so again.37 But Philocrates does not know this yet, and his interest is in reinforcing the message that Tyndarus should keep to their plan and remain obedient to his master despite their planned role change.38 How Tyndarus responds next, however, marks a sudden and significant change. He assures Philocrates that he understands the plan and will indeed follow through: Scio equidem me te esse nunc et te esse me, “I know that I am you now and that you are me” (249). As they exchange roles, we find a blending together of master and slave rather than an emphasis on division, and this is represented linguistically by the collocation of the first and second-person pronouns, which also mirror each other: me te… te me.39 At this very point, Hegio enters and the two

 37

The irony is pervasive: see e.g., tam ego fui ante liber quam gnatus tuos, 311; hic autem te ait mittere hinc velle ad patrem, 365-368; meum ut illic redimat filium, mutatio inter me atque illum ut nostris fiat filiis, 366. 38 Tyndarus also suspects Philocrates may be disloyal to him: see 231-235 and the related remark to Hegio at 319-324. 39 See Barrios-Lech 2016, 243: “Verbal fireworks will ensue, as the audience witnesses this complete transformation on the linguistic level in the scene that follows.” Hegio also uses pronouns to indicate exchange in a significant way: see, for example, the irony of meus filius in line 261: ut vos hic, itidem illic apud vos meus servatur filius. Compare Demetriou (this volume, 205-206) for a similar use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

188

Chapter Six

men begin to perform their new roles, in a way seems to go beyond performance alone. From this point on, we no longer see any trace of the earlier anxiety about loyalty and remembering the plan, though of course there is heavy irony throughout the dialogue concerning the concealed identities of Philocrates and Tyndarus and the unrecognized connection between Tyndarus and Hegio.40 See, for example, the way that Tyndarus reassures Hegio about letting Philocrates/“Tyndarus” leave in order to help arrange the ransom of Hegio’s son (347-350): nec quemquam fideliorem nec quoi plus credit potes mittere ad eum nec qui magis sit servos ex sententia, neque adeo quoi suom concredat filium hodie audacius. ne vereare, meo periclo huius ego experiar fidem, fretus ingenio eius, quod me ess’ scit erga sese benivolum.41 You can’t send him [Philocrates’ father] anyone more faithful or anyone he trusts more, any slave more to his liking, so much so that he wouldn’t entrust his son to anyone more confidently today. Don’t be afraid, I’ll put his faithfulness to the test at my own risk; I trust in his character because he knows that I am devoted to him.

Tyndarus says that there is no one more faithful, no one more trustworthy than Philocrates. Though he is obviously praising Philocrates for Hegio’s sake, Tyndarus also speaks directly to Philocrates at the same time. By using ingenium and benivolum to describe Philocrates’ character and goodwill, he describes him as a true friend, something he did not do before the exchange of roles. Similarly, when Philocrates addresses Tyndarus at 387, he uses emotional vocabulary like corde et animo atque auribus (387) to emphasize the depth of his feelings for his friend and his desire to help him, without any of the pointed reminders about who is master. And whereas earlier there was an insistence on remembering past roles, now both Philocrates and Tyndarus say there is no need for any reminders at

 of pronouns to denote twins and doubles in plays like the Amphitruo and Miles gloriosus. 40 See Richlin 2017, 315. 41 See the use of benevolentia in Cicero’s definition of friendship in the de amicitia: est enim amicitia nihil aliud nisi omnium divinarum humanarumque rerum cum benevolentia et caritate consensio, qua quidem haud scio an excepta sapientia nihil melius homini sit a dis immortalibus datum, “friendship then is nothing else than agreement in all things divine and human, with good will and affection; and with the exception of wisdom, I am inclined to thing that nothing better than this has been given to man by the immortal gods” (Cic. de amicitia 20).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Friends without Benefits?

189

all.42 The language of strong friendship seems to go beyond what is required in order to convince Hegio and suggests that the intensity of the moment and role-playing have catalyzed them into recognizing each other as “second selves.” Even more striking is the moving statement of the loyalty that serves as their farewell. Philocrates asks if there is anything Tyndarus would like to convey to his “father,” and their words to each other convey a kind of perfect friendship based on trust and affection (401-406, 410-411, 414421): TYN. me hic valere et (tute audacter dicito, Tyndare) inter nos fuisse ingenio hau discordabili, nec te commeruisse culpam (nec me advorsatum tibi) beneque ero gessisse morem in tantis aerumnis tamen; nec med umquam deseruisse te nec factis nec fide, rebus in dubiis, egenis. … nam tua opera et comitate et virtute et sapientia fecisti ut redire liceat ad parentes denuo… PHILOC. feci ego ista ut commemoras, et te meminisse id gratum est mihi. merito tibi ea evenerunt a me; nam nunc, Philocrates, si ego item memorem quae me erga multa fecisti bene, nox diem adimat; nam quasi servos [meus] esses, nihilo setius mihi opsequiosus semper fuisti. HEG. di vostram fidem, hominum ingenium liberale! ut lacrumas excutiunt mihi! videas corde amare inter se. quantis laudibus suom erum servos collaudavit! TY. That I’m doing well and—say this boldly, Tyndarus—that we got along without any disagreement; that you haven’t done anything to deserve blame (and that I didn’t oppose you); that you obeyed your master well, even in such great hardship; and that you never deserted me in your actions, your loyalty, in times of danger or of need. And through your efforts, kindness, virtue and wisdom you’ve allowed me to return to my parents again. PH. I’ve done what you say and I’m grateful that you remember it. You deserved what I did: if I were to mention now in the same way how many good things you did for me, Philocrates, it would take all day. For you were always as obedient to me as if you’d been my slave.



42 Memory and recollection are heavily emphasized in this part of the play: see e.g., lines 303, 317, 393, 397, 406.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

190

Chapter Six HE. O gods, by your faith! The noble character of the men! How they bring tears to my eyes! You can see that they love each other from the heart. With such great praise did the slave acclaim his master!

The language Philocrates and Tyndarus use touches on all the key elements of ideal friendship: loyalty, reciprocity and deep affection;43 it is no wonder that Hegio accepts it as entirely sincere. So intertwined are their roles that there is often ambiguity over just who is being referred to. The referents for pronouns are unclear in line 416, for example: nec med umquam deseruisse te. Who is me and who is te? And there is a similar conflation when they use each other’s name, since in effect by doing so they address their friend both as an “other” and as themselves. Even the use of “master” and “slave” by Hegio in line 421 could apply equally to both, depending on whether we take Philocrates and Tyndarus in their original or assumed roles. While they have been wearing each other’s masks and costume from the start of the play (see lines 37-39), a more profound identification has now taken place. Philocrates’ concluding words clinch the way he and Tyndarus have come together as two halves of a whole: Nec me secus umquam ei facturum quicquam quam meme mihi (line 428). We may well wonder whether this has all been a performance for Hegio’s benefit, especially given the emphasis before his entrance on carrying out their deception well. Is the expression of their devotion to one another a reflection of their true feeling or simply a desire to save themselves? Aristotle’s discussion of the friend as a mirror of the self provides some illumination (Magna Moralia 1213a10-26): İੁ įȒ IJȚȢ ਥʌ੿ IJઁȞ ijȓȜȠȞ ਥʌȚȕȜȑȥĮȢ ੅įȠȚ IJȓ ਥıIJȚ țĮ੿ ੒ʌȠ૙ȩȢ IJȚȢ ੒ ijȓȜȠȢ, * * IJȠȚȠ૨IJȠȢ ȠੈȠȢ ਪIJİȡȠȢ İੇȞĮȚ ਥȖȫ, ਙȞ Ȗİ țĮ੿ ıijȩįȡĮ ijȓȜȠȞ ʌȠȚȒıૉȢ, ੮ıʌİȡ IJઁ ȜİȖȩȝİȞȠȞ “ਙȜȜȠȢ Ƞ੤IJȠȢ ਺ȡĮțȜોȢ, ਙȜȜȠȢ ijȓȜȠȢ ਥȖȫ.” ਥʌİ੿ Ƞ੣Ȟ ਥıIJȚ țĮ੿ ȤĮȜİʌȫIJĮIJȠȞ, ੮ıʌİȡ țĮ੿ IJ૵Ȟ ıȠij૵Ȟ IJȚȞİȢ İੁȡȒțĮıȚȞ, IJઁ ȖȞ૵ȞĮȚ Įਫ਼IJȩȞ, țĮ੿ ਸ਼įȚıIJȠȞ (IJઁ Ȗ੹ȡ Įਫ਼IJઁȞ İੁįȑȞĮȚ ਲįȪ), Į੝IJȠ੿ ȝ੻Ȟ Ƞ੣Ȟ Įਫ਼IJȠઃȢ ਥȟ Įਫ਼IJ૵Ȟ Ƞ੝ įȣȞȐȝİșĮ șİȐıĮıșĮȚ (੖IJȚ į’ Į੝IJȠ੿ Įਫ਼IJȠઃȢ Ƞ੝ įȣȞȐȝİșĮ, įોȜȠȞ ਥȟ ੰȞ ਙȜȜȠȚȢ ਥʌȚIJȚȝ૵ȝİȞ, Į੝IJȠ੿ į੻ ȜĮȞșȐȞȠȝİȞ IJĮ੝IJ੹ ʌȠȚȠ૨ȞIJİȢ· IJȠ૨IJȠ į੻ ȖȓȞİIJĮȚ įȚ’ İ੡ȞȠȚĮȞ ਲ਼ įȚ੹ ʌȐșȠȢ· ʌȠȜȜȠ૙Ȣ į੻ ਲȝ૵Ȟ IJĮ૨IJĮ ਥʌȚıțȠIJİ૙ ʌȡઁȢ IJઁ țȡȓȞİȚȞ ੑȡș૵Ȣ)· ੮ıʌİȡ Ƞ੣Ȟ ੖IJĮȞ șȑȜȦȝİȞ Į੝IJȠ੿ Įਫ਼IJ૵Ȟ IJઁ ʌȡȩıȦʌȠȞ ੁįİ૙Ȟ, İੁȢ IJઁ țȐIJȠʌIJȡȠȞ ਥȝȕȜȑȥĮȞIJİȢ İ੅įȠȝİȞ, ੒ȝȠȓȦȢ țĮ੿ ੖IJĮȞ Į੝IJȠ੿ Įਫ਼IJȠઃȢ ȕȠȣȜȘș૵ȝİȞ ȖȞ૵ȞĮȚ, İੁȢ IJઁȞ ijȓȜȠȞ ੁįȩȞIJİȢ ȖȞȦȡȓıĮȚȝİȞ ਙȞ· ਩ıIJȚ ȖȐȡ, ੪Ȣ

 43

Note also the emphasis on how long they have known each other (a puero, 720). While the closeness here leads to collaboration, Demetriou shows how the similarity of twins can instead lead to rivalry and competition (this volume, 207; 212-215).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Friends without Benefits?

191

ijĮȝȑȞ, ੒ ijȓȜȠȢ ਪIJİȡȠȢ ਥȖȫ. İੁ Ƞ੣Ȟ ਲįઃ ȝ੻Ȟ IJઁ Įਫ਼IJઁȞ İੁįȑȞĮȚ, IJȠ૨IJȠ į’ Ƞ੝ț ਩ıIJȚȞ İੁįȑȞĮȚ ਙȞİȣ ਙȜȜȠȣ ijȓȜȠȣ, įȑȠȚIJ’ ਗȞ ੒ Į੝IJȐȡțȘȢ ijȚȜȓĮȢ ʌȡઁȢ IJઁ Į੝IJઁȢ Įਫ਼IJઁȞ ȖȞȦȡȓȗİȚȞ. If, then, when one looked upon a friend one could see the nature and attributes of the friend,... such as to be a second self... as the saying has it, “Here is another Hercules, a dear other self.” Since then it is both a most difficult thing, as some of the sages have said, to attain a knowledge of oneself, and also a most pleasant (for to know oneself is pleasant)—now we know we are not able to see what we are from ourselves (and that we cannot do so is plain from the way in which we blame others without being aware that we do the same things ourselves,... and there are many of us who are blinded by these things so that we judge not aright); as then when we wish to see our own face, we do so by looking into the mirror, in the same way when we wish to know ourselves we can obtain that knowledge by looking at our friend. For the friend is, as we assert, a second self. If, then it is pleasant to know oneself, and it is not possible to know this without having some one else for a friend, the self-sufficing man will require friendship in order to know himself. (trans. Barnes 1984, v.2)

Aristotle describes the friend as another self and uses the image of a mirror of the self as well.44 He goes on to say that seeing the friend as another self is key to understanding ourselves, something we cannot do otherwise. The Captivi describes something very similar, though here the process of friendship leading to self-understanding seems to be reversed, and it is rather the identification of the other as a second self that precipitates the expression of friendship. The comic playwright shows how adopting a new role can create an identification and deep connection with another, one that helps us learn new things about ourselves, including what we might be capable of to protect a friend. We saw that before Philocrates and Tyndarus performed their new roles in front of Hegio, they expressed doubts about each other’s loyalty, raising questions about whether it depended solely upon duty and obligation and what would happen if the obligation was removed. Similar issues about relationships based on utility are raised in the scenes surrounding Act II and highlight the altruism of the friendship between

 44

Cf. Demea’s lessons about using mirrors to learn about life at Ter. Ad. 413-419, mocked almost immediately by Syrus (426-429), and the discussion of mirrors and self-improvement in Demetriou (this volume, 213-214).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

192

Chapter Six

Philocrates and Tyndarus.45 I now turn to these very briefly by way of conclusion. Act I of the Captivi begins with the parasite Ergasilus, who has been desperate for a meal since Hegio’s son Philopolemos was captured. Ergasilus knows it is not a good time to bother Hegio, who is grieving over his loss. But since he cannot help thinking about food, he dwells on various types of exchange which have brought him rewards in the past. Ergasilus recalls, for example, how Philopolemos used to reward Ergasilus for his good company (quoius numquam voltum tranquillavi gratiis, 106). While there is clearly affection and pleasure in the relationship described here, the use of gratiis frames it in terms of a mutual advantage. In the end, Ergasilus is not able to secure a meal from Hegio, who puts him off and says that if he provides anything, it will be a simple, rustic meal (176191).46 But the thought of food comes up again at the beginning of Act III, where Ergasilus describes for the audience his inability to secure a meal. He blames young people today, who fail to understand the job of the parasite or even see any need for him (469-470).47 His dismal outlook anticipates Tyndarus’ fear of exposure in the third scene and captures the darker mood of the play as a whole. Yet even if Ergasilus represents a failed parasite, it can be no accident that the accounts of his job and efforts to procure a meal appear where they do. For his appearances frame Act II and thus create a clear contrast between a system of flattery and gift exchange on the one hand, and the dangers undertaken by Philocrates and Tyndarus to protect each other, on the other. Plautus’ representation of amicitia is highly nuanced in the Captivi: while the play allows for elements of self-interest or utility in the relationship of Philocrates and Tyndarus, at least to begin with, so, too, it sketches some affection and good-will in the relationship of Ergasilus with

 45

McCarthy 2000, 181-198 gives special attention to the pattern of appearances by Ergasilus in the play and in particular to what they indicate about “inter-elite and familial bonds.” 46 Ergasilus also refers to Hegio’s involvement in the exchange of prisoners, something he characterizes as quaestum inhonestum (98-99) and atypical of Hegio’s character (maxume alienum ingenio suo, 99). This is not related to any type of amicitia, to be sure. But since Philocrates and Tyndarus would never have needed to change identity had they not been purchased by Hegio, Plautus offers what seems like a calculated juxtaposition between the forced exchange of bodies which Hegio undertakes and the voluntary exchange of identities by master and slave. 47 See McCarthy 2000, 191: “Like his first monologue, this one makes use of all the conventional attributes of the parasite but in a context of frustration and defeat rather than arrogant success.”

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Friends without Benefits?

193

Hegio and Philopolemos. But this tension in the comedy is not something we can or need to explain away, for it captures one of the essential problems about friendship, one which the ancient philosophers dedicated themselves to as well. For all their differences in tone and theme, both the Miles gloriosus and the Captivi open with a focus on relationships involving flattery and self-interest only to turn to a relationship featuring the strongest form of amicitia based on virtue. While the exchange of beneficia is common in Roman comedy, the juxtaposition in these plays is meant to be provocative and to invite the audience to question their assumptions about the character of friends and friendship. Plautus’ use of asymmetric friendship is informed by philosophical discussions of friendship, but he challenges the idea that we can only be friends with those who are like ourselves. The endings of these plays reveal that the pledges of loyalty offered by Periplectomenus and between Philocrates and Tyndarus were not empty promises or mere comic exaggerations. In the Miles gloriosus, Periplectomenus supports Pleusicles all the way through to his escape: by posing as a married man, something he avoided in his own life, he helps entrap the soldier and allow Pleusicles to escape with Philocomasium. In the Captivi, Philocrates comes back for Tyndarus and Tyndarus protects Philocrates when their ruse is exposed. By casting doubt on things that were being championed by the philosophers and circulating among intellectuals at the time, Plautus both offers a critique and highlights how adept comedy is at examining the complexities of social relations.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



CHAPTER SEVEN TWINS IN PLAUTUS: A DRAMATIC MOTIF IN CULTURAL CONTEXT CHRYSANTHI DEMETRIOU

1. Introduction1 The theme of doubles is a well-known motif of Roman comedy,2 largely exploited in the construction of both plots and roles.3 Plautus’ doublets, e.g. two characters enacting the same stock role or pairs of contrasting characters, are often related to recurrent scenes,4 in which the element of repetition functions as a mechanism for the audience’s entertainment.5 Central in the study of repeated or ‘mirror’ scenes are Plautus’ Menaechmi, Bacchides and Amphitruo, whose plotline is based on the interaction between dyads. The Miles gloriosus is also of relevant interest, since it presents two comic intrigues which in many respects mirror one another.6 Evidently, pairs of characters are particularly important for the

 1

I would like to thank the Hardt Foundation for the Study of Classical Antiquity for a research scholarship (in 2017), which offered me a great opportunity to work on this paper; I would also like to thank George Kazantzidis for his suggestions and Maria Gerolemou for our fruitful discussions. 2 Attested also in fragmentary dramatic poetry, e.g. see plays’ titles in Manuwald 2011, 197. 3 See the overview by Duckworth 1994, 184-190. 4 Kounaki-Philippides 2008, 30-31. 5 Kounaki-Philippides 2008, 32-33, who also refers to Bergson’s theory that repetition often results in producing laughter. On Bergson’s theory of repetition being funny because of its artificiality, see also Sharrock 2009, 166-167. 6 For these plays’ distinctive place in the study of dramatic doubles, see KounakiPhilippides 2008, 36-51. On Plautus’ exploitation of doubles in the Miles gloriosus, in terms of language, plot and stagecraft, often with analogies with the Amphitruo and the Menaechmi, see Kella 2011.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

196

Chapter Seven

development of comic plots, especially when the two characters look similar and thus lead to entertaining misunderstandings.7 Among these pairs, there is a special category: twins. As well known, Plautus’ Menaechmi is the only extant Roman comedy which presents the story of twin siblings. Although the Amphitruo does not present ‘real’ twins, it nevertheless deals with a process of duplication that creates identical copies. As David Christenson notes, this play includes in its core a “self-conscious development of the theme of gemination”.8 Sosia portrays the person who is identical to him as his twin (cf. 615 geminus Sosia hic factust tibi, “[y]ou’ve received a twin Sosia”),9 an idea enhanced by the language he uses, which includes a significant degree of “[l]inguistic gemination” (cf. 785-786).10 Of course, apart from the duplication of Sosia and his master, the Amphitruo also presents the tale of Hercules’ birth, narrated by Bromia (Amph. 1068-1070).11 References to twins are also found, although to a lesser extent, in the Miles gloriosus. As expected, all three comedies12 emphasize the ‘similarity’ between ‘twins’,13 which, undoubtedly, plays a vital role in the development of the comic plot. Yet, apart from showcasing a popular dramatic motif,14 Plautus’ exploitation of twins reflects this phenomenon’s prominent

 7

Bexley 2014, 469, with examples. Unsurprisingly, New Comedy’s interest in mistaken identity and the misunderstandings it causes survived as a favorite theme in several works of Renaissance playwrights, e.g. in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night; see Schwartz 1996, 27. 8 Christenson 2000, 13. 9 Texts of Plautus come from Lindsay 1904-1905 and translations from de Melo 2011-2013. 10 Christenson 2000, 16. 11 Christenson 2000, 308, on 1070, notes: “The birth of twins provides the perfect climax to a doubles comedy!” 12 I do not include the Bacchides in the present discussion, since in that case, although we have a comedy or errors, while the sisters look certainly similar, they are nevertheless not identical twins; see also Marshall 2006, 106 n. 70. 13 Amph. 601, Men. 1087-1090 and Mil. 238-240 on twins resembling each other like drops of milk; Mil. 551-552 on the resemblance of drops of water. The analogies among the plays are noted by Stनrk 123 n. 511. Gratwick 1993, 239, on Men. 1089 observes that this passage makes use of the points mentioned individually in the two passages from the Mil. On Plautus’ emphasis on the twins’ identical appearance, see also Mencacci 1996, 116-119. 14 On identical appearance either causing genuine misunderstandings or being exploited by characters (e.g. Sosicles) in the Menaechmi, see Papaioannou 2012, 167. See also Demetriou 2019, on ‘twins’ comedy’ as a stock plotline employed in the Menaechmi and exploited in the arrangement of the first intrigue of the Miles gloriosus.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Twins in Plautus

197

position in Greco-Roman culture.15 The frequent invocations of Castor and Pollux, one of the most famous pair of twins, in the Plautine corpus have been read as a testimony for the pair’s notable position in Roman tradition.16 However, Plautus’ exploitation of any cultural contexts related to twins is much more complicated; and this will be the topic of this paper, which focuses on the Menaechmi and the Amphitruo. My examination will begin with an overview of Plautus’ references to the origins and some basic characteristics of twins; interestingly, these reflect various popular, religious and medical beliefs. More importantly, this investigation shows that the playwright’s treatment of twins is not only manifold but often takes an ‘epistemological’ approach. Based on this premise, I will then focus on a specific aspect of Plautine twins: their strong bond. While Plautine twins are, at first sight, presented as similar and interchangeable, they eventually prove to have a competitive relationship. As I aim to show, the representation of Plautine twins as ‘rivals’ is not just a matter of plot composition; interestingly, it is achieved through Plautus’ exploitation of various ideas with regard to the conception of time and beliefs about mirrors. As it will be shown below, the rivalry between twins can be traced in the way one of the twins determines the progression of the events, by substituting the other, as well as in the representation of a twin as the mirror reflection of the other. In several points of the discussion, references to various parallel sources of philosophical, religious or medical interest are made. I am of course aware that straightforward connections between Plautus and these texts cannot be always verified; nor we can determine the content of Plautus’ Greek originals. Nevertheless, the following co-examination suggests that, in his treatment of twins, Plautus exploits various ideas discussed in these readings. Thus, the paper aims to demonstrate that Plautine twins constitute a case study which confirms that the interpretation of Plautus’ comedy is significantly benefited from the coexamination of relevant theoretical discussions.17 In this context, reading Plautine twins in light of these parallel sources proves to be a precious tool for appreciating deeper elements of Plautus’ dramatic composition. Thus, this co-examination opens up the possibility that the playwright engages in a deliberate dialogue with these ideas and, consequently, expects from (some members of) his audience to appreciate this correspondence.

 15

On twins in Greek mythology, see Rathmayr 2000, 5-15. Champlin 2011, 74-75. 17 On Plautus’ ‘sophisticated’ approach and its possible correspondence with philosophical ideas, see also Demetriou 2018, which focuses on Plautus’ exploitation of ‘wonders’ (see especially the last section of the paper). 16

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

198

Chapter Seven

2. Popular and intellectual contexts Multiple births were variously received in antiquity, often as good or bad omens18 or even as abnormal phenomena that surpass natural laws,19 as suggested by Aristotle (Gen. An. 4.4.772a36-b1 įȚઁ țĮ੿ įȠțİ૙ IJİȡĮIJȫįȘ IJ੹ IJȠȚĮ૨IJ’ İੇȞĮȚ ȝ઼ȜȜȠȞ, ੖IJȚ ȖȓȞİIJĮȚ ʌĮȡ੹ IJઁ ੪Ȣ ਥʌ੿ IJઁ ʌȠȜઃ țĮ੿ IJઁ İੁȦșȩȢ, “[a]nd hence, also, such creatures seem rather to be monstrosities, because their formation is contrary to the general rule and to what is usual”).20 As expected, such ‘abnormal’ phenomena demand an explanation.21 For instance, the Hippocratic treatise On Regimen (1.30) ascribes the birth of twins to the womb’s growth into two symmetrical parts and, also, to the parents’ strength.22 However, non-identical twins seem to require further investigation. According to Aristotle (HA 7.4.585a), this phenomenon can be also connected to adulterous acts:23 ਥ੹Ȟ į’ ਥȖȖઃȢ ਲ ıȪȜȜȘȥȚȢ ਥȖȑȞİIJȠ, IJઁ ਥʌȚțȣȘș੻Ȟ ਥȟȒȞİȖțĮȞ, țĮ੿ IJȓțIJȠȣıȚȞ ੮ıʌİȡ įȓįȣȝĮ ȖȩȞ૳, țĮșȐʌİȡ țĮ੿ IJઁȞ ੉ijȚțȜȑĮ țĮ੿ IJઁȞ ਺ȡĮțȜȑĮ ȝȣșȠȜȠȖȠ૨ıȚȞ. īȑȖȠȞİ Ȗ੹ȡ țĮ੿ IJȠ૨IJȠ ijĮȞİȡȩȞ· ȝȠȚȤİȣȠȝȑȞȘ ȖȐȡ IJȚȢ IJઁ ȝ੻Ȟ IJ૵Ȟ IJȑțȞȦȞ IJ૶ ਕȞįȡ੿ ਥȠȚțઁȢ ਩IJİțİ, IJઁ į੻ IJ૶ ȝȠȚȤ૶.24 But if the second conception take place at a short interval, then the mother bears that which was later conceived, and brings forth the two children like actual twins, as happened, according to the legend, in the case of Iphicles and Hercules. The following also is a striking example: a certain woman, having committed adultery, brought forth the one child resembling her husband and the other resembling the adulterous lover.25

 18

A comprehensive survey of various concepts and beliefs in Greek and Roman texts regarding multiple births is given by Dasen 1997; also, in Dasen 2013, 20-23. On multiple births as bad omens in Roman thought, see also Rathmayr 2000, 4041. On the other hand, Palaestrio in the Miles gloriosus implies that having twins is a marker for a happy life (716-717); on this passage, see Mencacci 1996, 6-7. 19 See also Viney 2014, 49. 20 Text and translation from Peck 1942, 438-439. This passage refers to all animals, while the next sentence explains that the rule also applies to humans. 21 For an overview of various philosophical and medical approaches to the conception of twins, see Rathmayr 2000, 53-67. 22 On these two passages, and on the Hippocratics being more positive towards the phaenomenon, see Dasen 2013, 20. 23 See also Dasen 2013, 20. On twins’ association with adultery and Aristotle’s remarks, see also Mencacci 1996, 10-18. 24 Text from Louis 1964-1969. 25 Translation from Thompson 1910, 253.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Twins in Plautus

199

As seen from this passage, the phenomenon of superfecundation, i.e. nonidentical twins from two different conceptions, is linked to the narrative of Hercules’ birth.26 This tradition is also exploited in Plautus’ Amphitruo, where Mercury describes Hercules’ conception:27 hodie illa pariet filios geminos duos: alter decumo post mense nascetur puer quam seminatus, alter mense septum eorum Amphitruonis alter est, alter Ioui verum minori puero maior est pater, minor maiori. iamne hoc scitis quid siet? sed Alcumenai huius honoris gratia pater curavit uno ut fetu fieret, uno ut labore absolvat aerumnas duas et ne in suspicione ponatur stupri et clandestina ut celetur consuetio. Amph. 480-490

480

485

490

[T]oday she’ll give birth to two twin sons. One boy will be born in the tenth month after he was conceived, the other in the seventh; one of them is Amphitruo’s, the other Jupiter’s. But the younger boy has the greater father and vice versa. Do you know what I mean now? But out of consideration for Alcumena here, my father’s taken care that it would happen in one go, so that she could complete two arduous tasks in one labor, so that she wouldn’t be suspected of adultery, and so that the secret affair would be concealed.

Evidently, in Plautus’ account, Alcumena’s double pregnancy does not result from two sexual contacts of a ‘short interval,’ as the relevant Aristotelian passage suggests. However, I believe that Mercury’s comic account is not simply based on the audience’s lack of scientific knowledge on the matter.28 Of course, in Plautus’ play, a second pregnancy, at such a later stage, is rendered possible only because of Jupiter’s involvement. At the same time, however, the playwright points to the two main types of pregnancy length, as defined by medical authors: shorter pregnancies lasting for seven months and longer of ten, the latter being the most



26 On ancient sources on Hercules’ birth, see Rathmayr 2000, 9-10. Castor and Pollux are another famous example. On mythological cases of superfetation, among them also Asclepius, see Hankoff 1977, 313. 27 Also, in lines 111 and 877-890. 28 Christenson 2000, 159, on 111, notes that superfetatio was considered possible within a short time lapse, a fact not applied in this case, adding that “P. would not expect his audience to reflect deeply on these matters.”

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

200

Chapter Seven

commonly recorded case.29 Consequently, despite the fact that Plautus’ account naturally places the narration of Hercules’ birth within a comicomythological framework, it, simultaneously, points to a rare but not impossible phenomenon, according to the ancient sources, and possibly expects that some members of the audience would be able to discern this scientific aspect of the narration. Like Aristotle, the Hippocratic treatise On Superfetation also accepts the possibility of a superfetal conception (see par. 1). Although the treatise does not specify the time interval in which a second pregnancy would be possible, it suggests that a second birth is possible indeed, yet usually resulting in a premature baby. Of course, as this treatise clarifies, ‘real’ twins are conceived and born “on the same day” (IJૌ Į੝IJૌ, par. 14).30 Apart from dealing with questions on the twins’ origins, Plautus’ account on Hercules’ birth is also linked to the portrayal of the twins’ mother, Alcumena. Mercury’s reference to the theme of adultery clearly addresses a topic that is considerably discussed throughout the play.31 Remarkably, a seven-month pregnancy, like the one leading to Hercules’ birth, is according to some medical sources associated with illegitimate offspring, since it does not follow the norm.32 However, in Alcumena’s case, her twin sons are finally regarded as an award for her modesty: BR. at ego faciam tu idem ut aliter praedices, Amphitruo, piam et pudicam esse tuam uxorem ut scias. de ea re signa atque argumenta paucis verbis eloquar. omnium primum: Alcumena geminos peperit filios. Amph. 1085-1088 BRO But I’ll make you speak differently, Amphitruo, and I’ll make you realize that your wife is pious and chaste. I’ll tell you the signs and evidence for this in a few words. First of all: Alcumena has given birth to twin sons.

 29

E.g. Ar. Gen. An. 4.4.772b 8-10. For various accounts on pregnancy length, see Cilliers 2004, 360-361 and Dasen 2013, 23-24. It is well-known that in comedies girls give birth on the tenth month (e.g. Pl. Cist. 163). 30 Text and translation from Potter 2010, 328-329. 31 E.g. in 810-811, when Amphitruo realises that his wife has slept with another man. Jupiter’s assurance at the end (1141-1143) confirms Alcumena’s innocence; on this concern, as expressed by both Mercury and Jupiter, see also Mencacci 1996, 42 and n. 89. 32 See Cilliers 2004, 360 and 360-361 n. 90 for the account in Vindicianus’ Gynaecia, a medical treatise of the 4th century CE that however reflects much earlier medical practice, from the Hippocratics onwards (see p. 344), forming thus a “synopsis of Greek medical texts” (p. 364).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Twins in Plautus

201

According to Bromia’s account, it can be inferred that the birth of Alcumena’s twins relates to her chastity, a characteristic that is extensively debated in long discussions throughout the play, which explore the extent to which she is a pious wife or a lustful lover.33 Interestingly, in the doxai of Aetius (1st or 2nd century BCE),34 we find a relevant suggestion by Erasistratus (3rd century BCE), whose doctrines have been also linked to some medical themes of the Menaechmi.35 According to his discussion on twins, in order to conceive multiple pregnancies through superfetation, the womb has to be purified (Aetius, Placita V.10, DG 422 ੖IJĮȞ Ȗ੹ȡ ਲ ȝȒIJȡĮ ઝ țİțĮșĮȡȝȑȞȘ, IJȩIJİ ਥʌȚıȪȜȜȘȥȚȞ įȑȤİıșĮȚ, “for when the womb has been purified, it allows superfetation”).36 Although the idea of purification is here discussed in a medical context, it also evokes possible allusions to the moral ‘purification’ of a twins’ mother, as Alcumena’s case emphatically suggests. Another play that examines the idea of the birth of twins as a result of ‘piety’ is the Curculio. The pimp’s portrayal in this play has been likened to Alcumena’s performance: in both instances, a ‘pregnant’ male actor would have caused the audience’s laughter.37 In the case of the Curculio, Cappadox apparently suffers from spleen problems, hence he should have been presented with a flatulent belly:38 CA. Migrare certumst iam nunc e fano foras, quando Aesculapi ita sentio sententiam ut qui me nihili faciat nec salvom velit. valetudo decrescit, adcrescit labor; nam iam quasi zona liene cinctus ambulo, 220



33 See the reading by Segal 1987, 171-191, who approaches the play as a celebration of corporeal pleasure, a point that affects both Jupiter’s and Alcumena’s representation. 34 Discussed by Runia 1999. 35 Erasistratian parallels have been suggested for the study of the Menaechmi, as to the doctor’s conviction that drinking habits are important in prescribing medicine; see Fantham 2011, 29 and 2007, 42. 36 Greek text from Diels 1879, 422 (Aetius, Placita V.10), translation by Runia 1999, 219. On Aetius’ doxai suggesting that, in Hellenistic technical literature, doctors often seem to overlap with philosophers as to their interests in humans and terrestrial animals, see p. 244. 37 Jeppesen 2013, 35-36. 38 See also Palinurus’ observation in 231, cum conlativo ventre, “with a wellstuffed belly.” For an interesting, different reading, see Fontaine 2018, 30-31, who interprets line 221 as a joke regarding testicles. Fontaine connects this passage with relevant Hippocratic evidence on spleen diseases that suggests the seriousness of the pimp’s symptoms.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

202

Chapter Seven geminos in ventre habere videor filios. nil metuo nisi ne medius dirrumpar miser. Cur. 216-222 CAP. I am resolved to leave the sanctuary now since I feel that it’s the decision of Aesculapius that he couldn’t care less for me and that he doesn’t want me to be well. My health is decreasing, my suffering is increasing: I’m now walking around constricted tightly by my spleen as if by a belt, I seem to have twin sons in my belly. I don’t fear anything except that I might burst in the middle, poor wretch that I am.

Plautus’ passage comically exploits the popular idea that twins’ pregnancies are signified by huge bellies.39 The reading of the above episode becomes particularly significant in light of the aforementioned passages: could Cappadox be ironically likened to a ‘blessed’ woman? Interestingly, elsewhere in the play, the pimp presents some effeminate characteristics.40 What is more, the pimp’s portrayal exhibits unexpectedly positive aspects, particularly with regard to the treatment of both religious practices and Planesium,41 while the whole scene bears an obvious parodic tone as to the representation of Asclepius’ cult.42 Interestingly, an Epidaurian inscription suggests that the god was thought as the father of a patient’s twins:43 ȃȚțĮıȚȕȠȪȜĮ ȂİııĮȞȓĮ ʌİȡ੿ ʌĮȓįȦ[Ȟ ਥȖțĮșİȪįȠȣıĮ] / ਥȞȪʌȞȚȠȞ İੇįİÚ ਥįȩțİȚ Ƞੂ ੒ șİઁȢ įȡȐțȠȞIJĮ ȝİș[- - - - - - - - - - -] / ijȑȡȦȞ ʌĮȡ’ Į੝IJȐȞ, IJȠȪIJȦȚ į੻ ıȣȖȖİȞȑıșĮȚ Į੝IJȐÚ [țĮ੿ ਥț IJȠȪIJȠȣ] / ʌĮ૙įȑȢ Ƞੂ ਥȖȑȞȠȞIJȠ İੁȢ ਥȞȚĮȣIJઁȞ ਩ȡıİȞİȢ įȪ[İ.] Nikasiboula of Messene, concerning children. Sleeping here she saw a dream. It seemed to her the god came bringing a snake creeping beside him and she had sex with it. And from this children were born to her within a year, twin boys.

 39

Rathmayr 2000, 79. In lines 577-578, where he refers to his toilet belongings; see Jeppesen 2013, 36, who further suggests that Cappadox’s costume might have been similar to that of Alcumena. 41 On Cappadox’s ‘pious’ character, see Gellar-Goad 2016. 42 Jeppesen 2013, 72-78. 43 Text and translation from LiDonnici 1995, B (22) 42, pp. 114-115; as explained in p. 115 n. 60, the birth of twins is understood from the fact that they were born during a year. 40

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Twins in Plautus

203

In light of these readings, Cappadox could be seen as a patient whose incubation resulted not in his cure, but in a twin pregnancy. In general, a re-examination of the portrayal of both Alcumena and Cappadox, in light of the aforementioned concepts about twins’ pregnancies, forms a significant contribution to the study of these episodes’ comic effects. Both cases, Alcumena’s pregnancy and Cappadox’s imagined one, plead for a manifold approach, especially with regard to their religious aspects. As Mercury reveals, in reality, Alcumena does not have twins as a reward for her piety but because of Jupiter’s desire for her body. On the other hand, Cappadox is surely not a ‘blessed’ patient: he is certainly not ‘pregnant’ by Aesculapius, even though, ironically, he might look like he is. Thus, in both cases, Plautus’ accounts offer an interesting comic twist of various concepts related to twins. More importantly, the above examination suggests that Plautus’ approach to twins’ birth is based on the exploitation of several possibilities, of various intellectual interests, from religious to scientific contexts. This characteristic of Plautine multi-faceted composition is of course also found in other cases. For instance, as it has been rightly noted, while Sosicles in the Menaechmi echoes popular religious beliefs in presenting hallucinations as an outcome of divine actions, the doctor of the same play seems acquainted with the Hippocratic medical theory.44 In addition, the detection of aspects of the medical language style of written commentarii in the Mercator45 also suggests Plautus’—and part of his audience’s—acquaintance with scientific discourse. David Langslow has convincingly shown that Plautus’ language makes abundant use of technical medical terms—often in a metaphorical sense—confirming in this way that Greek and Latin medical terms were familiar to some Romans of that time.46 Of course, such terms are mainly used for comic effects, as for instance in the dialogue between Cappadox and Palinurus, in lines 236-240, which follows the above quoted passage from the Curculio.47 As Langslow rightly points out, such cases “depend for their comic effect on familiarity with established types”.48 In the same way,

 44

Fontaine 2013, 356-358. Fantham 2007, 41-42 and 2011, 29, traces in the doctor’s language aspects of popular medicine, as also found in Catullus and Cicero. 45 See Langslow 2000, 31-32, on Mercator 139-140. 46 Langslow 1999, 202-205. Similarly, Fontaine 2018, 39, on the audience’s knowledge of Hippocratic medicine. 47 See further Fontaine 2018, on various ‘medical’ jokes in the Curculio, some of which echo relevant points of Hippocratic treatises. 48 Langslow 1999, 204.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

204

Chapter Seven

Plautus’ treatment of twins, as shown above, suggests a certain degree of familiarity with various medical concepts, which allows for their comic exploitation. Although following—and appreciating—Plautus’ comic plot is of course possible even without specialized, scientific knowledge, yet, the audience’s ability to trace Plautus’ allusions to several popular and scientific concepts would undoubtedly enhance the comic effects of the relevant episodes. At the same time, Plautus’ discussion of the conception of twins favors a certain degree of ‘de-construction’ of this rare phenomenon, which here, to some degree, is approached in an epistemological way. Plautus’ tendency of ‘rationalization’ is evident not only in the discussion of the twins’ origins but also in his treatment of the idea that twins constitute a unique incident.49 Twins, related to a rare and sometimes life-threatening phenomenon,50 were often assigned extraordinary powers.51 Additionally, they were even associated with supernatural events,52 often presented as a subject of șĮȣȝȐȗİȚȞ.53 This element of astonishment is evident in the prologue to the Menaechmi (17-24): mercator quidam fuit Syracusis senex, ei sunt nati filii gemini duo, ita forma simili pueri ut mater sua non internosse posset quae mammam dabat, neque adeo mater ipsa quae illos pepererat (ut quidem ille dixit mihi qui pueros viderat: ego illos non vidi, ne quis vostrum censeat). Men. 17-24 There was a certain old merchant in Syracuse. Two twin sons were born to him, boys of such similar looks that their wet nurse who gave them the breast could not tell them apart, nor for that matter the mother herself

 49

In Demetriou 2018, I argue that Plautus applies this tendency of ‘rationalization’ also in cases of contact with ‘extraordinary’ incidents; the discussion there focuses on the Amphitruo and Jupiter’s deception is read against the comic intrigues of the Miles gloriosus and the Mostellaria, which make use of supernatural evidence (i.e. dreams and a ghost). 50 E.g. the statement by Pliny in HN 7.37; on this and other similar testimonies, see Dasen 2013, 21. 51 See Hankoff 1977 on twins having supernatural powers, such as Castor and Pollux who were considered as helping women at childbirth, and on healing twins associated with religious practices in general (e.g. Asclepius). 52 Dasen 1997, 52. 53 Stärk 1989, 147-148.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Twins in Plautus

205

who’d given birth to them—at least someone who’d seen the boys told me so. I haven’t seen them, in case any of you supposes that I did.

The emphasis on the importance of ‘witnessing’ the twins’ similarity adheres to the formula used to denote something astonishing, which needs to be confirmed through autopsy.54 The speaker essentially presents this striking similarity as a noteworthy occurrence that however he himself cannot verify; this inability can function as a means of ‘doubting’ that tale’s validity. On the other hand, the use of the term internosse, which points the distinction between identical persons, has been linked to another central theme of the play: the medical process of distinguishing sane to insane characters. As Michael Fontaine has shown, the two processes are similar, mainly due to the degree of their difficulty, since the distinction in both cases is not that clear.55 Interestingly, the term is also used by Mercury in the Amphitruo to refer to the required mental effort for distinguishing the ‘twins’ (Amph. 142-147). In both cases, the use of a cognitive term—which, as Fontaine acutely observes, must constitute the translation of the Greek diagignoskein—for outlining the approach of identical twins, possibly evokes the need of a (more) thorough investigation of this intriguing phenomenon, which is linked to the procedures of a scientific examination.

3. Unity and rivalry Plautus’ multidimensional approach to twins is also found in the examination of the twins’ exceptional relationship, which was variously perceived and described in antiquity. Twins were often thought as equal parts forming a single entity, as persons who shared strong bonds, or, in other cases, as rivals,56 or even as reflections of the concept of ‘dualism’.57

 54

On paradoxography’s emphasis on ‘witnessing’ an extraordinary event, see Schepens and Delcroix 1996, 382-383. On this passage pointing to the fictional character of the play, as a tale to be told, see Sharrock 2009, 42-43. On ‘autopsy’ being emphasized by Plautus in the approach of other ‘astonishing’ events, see also Demetriou 2018 (esp. 164-168). 55 Fontaine 2013, 359-360. On madness as a motif in comedies of identity (Amphitruo, Captivi, Menaechmi), see Fantham 2007, 23-24 and passim on its exploitation in the Menaechmi. See Stärk 1989, 129, n. 534 on cross-references in Men., Amph. and Mil. on people being insane or drunk. 56 On twins as rivals, see Hankoff 1977, 309-310. Remus and Romulus are the classic example. 57 Cf. the representations of Apollo, associated with the sun, and Artemis, associated with the moon; see Malamitsi-Puchner 2016, who gives a succinct

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

206

Chapter Seven

In Plautus, the strong bond that twins share is emphasized through language, especially with the use of pronouns, suggesting that these duplicates are not just closely connected but, more importantly, interchangeable. For instance, in Amphitruo 398-399, Mercury and Sosia use the same combination of pronouns—tu me—to address each other.58 Similarly, in the Miles gloriosus, Sceledrus’ use of pronouns indicates the confusion caused by the presence of the ‘twins’ (516 nisi istaec non est haec neque istast, “unless, if your guest isn’t our girl and our girl isn’t your guest”; 532 etsi east, non est ea, “even if it’s her, it’s not her”). Inevitably, this special connection relates to the twins’ most intriguing characteristic: their similar or identical appearance. The possibility that the twins in the Menaechmi were played by a single actor (apart from the scene of the anagnorisis in which a second one was needed),59 ironically, evokes the shared substance of twins.60 In addition, the Menaechmi’s plot is clearly based on Sosicles’ inner need for finding his twin (245-246). A twin’s nostalgia for his sibling is actually a topos. In the Miles gloriosus, the alleged bond between twins is mentioned in the narration of Philocomasium’s fake prophetic dream that is supposedly coming true (393-394).61 The phenomenon of telepathy between duplicates is also exploited in the Amphitruo, since Sosia’s confession, that he deserves to be punished (180-185), is eventually fulfilled by Mercury.62 As shown by Ruth Caston, similar ideas and linguistic tropes (e.g. in the use of

 summary of various ancient Greek concepts about twins, also in relation to daily life and politics. 58 The same is implied in 601, by Sosia (ille ego similest mei, “that me resembles this me”). As Caston 2014b, 48, and n. 18, comments on these two instances, Sosia’s use of the pronouns points to his fear that he is another person, not just someone mistaken for somebody else. 59 Marshall 2006, 149; Bexley 2014, 469. 60 Leach 1969b, 33 reads the Menaechmi brothers as the “separated halves of one complete self.” 61 Her pretend twin, Dicea, similarly claims that the purpose of her visit is to look for her sister (441-442). The motif is also found in Persa 695-696; see Mencacci 2007, 52 n. 6. On the theme of ‘travel’ to meet the twin in the Menaechmi and the Miles gloriosus, see Crapisi 2003, 114. 62 However, Sosia’s ‘telepathy’ is a comic invention: his experience is not a product of his telepathic connection with his ‘twin’ but a result of Mercury’s eavesdropping. On telepathy as a comic connection between Sosia and Mercury, see Bettini 2011, 173-174. The passage is discussed also by Barnes 1957, 22. On the idea that twins share a strong telepathic relationship, see also Mencacci 1996, 56-60.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Twins in Plautus

207

pronouns) are used to indicate a strong friendship: Philocrates and Tyndarus in the Captivi are presented as each other’s ‘second self’.63 However, in the case of Plautus’ twins, ‘doubling’ is associated not only with a strong relationship but also with rivalry: Plautine twins, although strongly connected, at the same time develop a contrasting and even competitive relationship. In the Menaechmi, Sosicles’ name change into that of his lost twin brother is a clear indication of this rivalry: one becomes a substitute for the other. The contrasting relationship between the Menaechmus brothers is evident also in their actions:64 the Syracusan twin eagerly participates in the festive spirit of the play, while the Epidamnian twin, married to an uxor dotata, at first opposes it, as directed by his role, but eventually progresses into it.65 In the Amphitruo, the contrasting relationship between twins becomes the driving force behind the gods’ scheme: there is a constant rivalry between the original and its copy, culminated into an argumentative confrontation between the two.66 What is more, the identical twin or duplicate adopts a competitive attitude towards his sibling, because he controls the progression of the action: Menaechmus II—that is, Sosicles—enjoys what Menaechmus I misses (a banquet, spending time with Erotium etc). In this way, he experiences what the ‘original’ Menaechmus would normally have. Similarly, Jupiter’s offer of Alcumena’s gift is an action that Amphitruo was originally going to carry forward, but he, eventually, came second.

 63

Caston, pp. 190-191 above; as she notes, Aristotle’s Magna Moralia, elaborating on the idea that our friends are in fact our ‘mirror reflections,’ is particularly interesting in this respect (on mirrors see also below, section 4 of this paper). 64 On Plautus’ twins being distinguishable to the audience through performance and language, see Papaioannou 2012, 176-177, n. 18 and Manuwald 2011, 76-77. 65 On this “metamorphosis,” see Crapisi 2003, 107. On the contrast between the two, see McCarthy 2004, 30-33, 52 and 56; also, Maurice 2005, who analyses the connection of the twins’ characterization with the play’s structure. On the other hand, Mencacci 2007, rather not convincingly, is based on the notion that the twins share a common identity; in Mencacci 1996, 84-86, she explains that the case of the name substitution of the Menaechmus brothers recalls the idea that twins share the same identity, and in case of a twin’s loss the one left behind functions as a representative of both. However, she does not discuss an important, subsequent development: in this play, the two brothers show different characters. 66 Cf. the argument on who the real Sosia is in 365-462. Crapisi 2003, 116 gives an interesting summary of the opposition between twins in the Menaechmi and the Amphitruo: whereas the first results in finding out the truth, the second presents the victory of the fake.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

208

Chapter Seven

Under these strange circumstances, Sosia even discusses the possibility of bilocation:67 AM. tun me, verbero, audes erum ludificari? tune id dicere audes, quod nemo umquam homo antehac vidit nec potest fieri, tempore uno homo idem duobus locis ut simul sit? SOS. profecto ut loquor res ita est. Amph. 565-569 AMPH You whipping post, do you dare to poke fun at me, your master? Do you dare to tell me a thing which no one’s ever seen before and which is impossible, namely that one and the same man can be in two places simultaneously at the same time? SOS Yes, it’s just as I’m telling you.

Sosia’s acceptance of bilocation has been linked to beliefs in Pythagoreanism,68 which seems to have been known to Romans at the time of Plautus.69 However, beyond the possibility of Plautus’ allusion to specific philosophical concepts, bilocation is here eventually rejected, since the spectators are well-aware of the existence of two characters. Yet, Sosia’s understanding, although proved to be wrong, points to a very important fact: in comedies with twins, the recurring misunderstandings are based on events that take place simultaneously: for instance, Menaechmus I was away while Menaechmus II was with Erotium, and, of course, Amphitruo was away while Jupiter was taking his place. It is certainly not a coincidence that in the prologue to the Amphitruo, Mercury stresses that the duplicates are now situated in different places by repeating nunc ten times in a fifty-line passage.70 In fact, twins are defined by the concept of simultaneity: their lives start ‘on the same day’, as emphasized in Messenio’s definition:

 67

Also, in 577-579 and 594. Caston 2014b, 52-53. On Pythagorean echoes in Plautus, see also Dutsch 2009. On Sosia’s discussion of bilocation, see also Demetriou 2018, 174. 69 On Pythagorean thought being known to Romans in the beginning of the second century BC (or earlier), see Volk 2015. Although she does not refer to Plautus, Volk gives an illuminating overview of the sources that suggest that Romans were familiar with Pythagoreanism from an early date, either due to their vicinity to Magna Graecia or via pseudo-Pythagorean texts being popular and in circulation during the Hellenistic times. 70 Lines 100, 112, 116, 120, 129, 131, 135, 140, 142, 149. 68

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Twins in Plautus

209

MES. spes mihi est vos inventurum fratres germanos duos geminos, una matre natos et patre uno uno die. MEN.1 mira memoras. utinam ecficere quod pollicitu’s possies. Men. 1102-1104 MES I have the hope of finding that you’re two twin brothers, born from one mother and one father on one day. MEN You are telling a strange tale. I hope you can succeed with what you’ve promised.

As Aristotle suggests (Categories 14b25-6), the definition of ‘simultaneous things’ is based on their concurrent ‘birth’ ([ਚ]ȝĮ į੻ ȜȑȖİIJĮȚ ਖʌȜ૵Ȣ ȝ੻Ȟ țĮ੿ țȣȡȚȫIJĮIJĮ, ੰȞ ਲ ȖȑȞİıȓȢ ਥıIJȚȞ ਥȞ IJ૶ Į੝IJ૶ ȤȡȩȞ૶, “‘[s]imultaneous’ we use in its primary and most correct meaning of things that have come into being together”).71 Interestingly, unlike our contemporary understanding of the concept of simultaneity, it seems that this was not always clearly expressed in antiquity; astronomers who lived chronologically closer to Plautus’ time began to discuss this concept more systematically.72 Thus, in dealing with the special phaenomenon of twins, Plautus, evidently, has to deal with this complex idea, which, perhaps, requires specialized knowledge in order to be fully conceived. Plautus’ emphasis on the twins’ simultaneous actions points to the importance of this concept in the apprehension of the plays’ action. At the same time, through this concept, Plautus comments on the nature of twins, suggesting their understanding as not a single entity, as first suggested by their misleading appearance, but rather as individuals who act in an independent but also competitive manner. Thus, the ability to trace Plautus’ exploitation of the concept of simultaneity offers to (some members of) the audience the opportunity to appreciate deeper elements of the plays’ dramatic action and a more comprehensive portrayal of their protagonists.

4. ‘Mirroring’ ideas The representation of Plautine twins as rivals is particularly evident with Plautus’ use of the imagery of ‘mirror reflection’ for describing their



71 Text and translation from Cooke 1938, 100-101. Passage discussed in Jammer 2006, 35. 72 On simultaneity in antiquity, including various ancient Greek sources, see Jammer 2006, 16-46. On astronomers (mainly of the 3rd century BCE), e.g. Aristarchus of Samos and Eratosthenes of Cyrene, see p. 19.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

210

Chapter Seven

relationship.73 Sosia explicitly identifies his double with the impression he gets when looking through his mirror: SO. certe edepol, quom illum contemplo et formam cognosco meam, quem ad modum ego sum (saepe in speculum inspexi), nimi’ similest mei; itidem habet petasum ac vestitum: tam consimilest atque ego. Amph. 441-443 SOS (aside) Yes, definitely, when I look at him and consider my own looks, what I’m like (I’ve often looked into the mirror), he’s extremely similar to me; he has a hat and clothes just like me. He’s as similar to me as I am.

Sosia’s reactions have been read in light of Platonic philosophy as an allusion to the connection between Ideas and Images.74 He views himself as the real thing, while he considers his ‘twin’ as merely his image. A Platonic allusion has been specifically traced in Sosia’s desperate question in 456 (ubi ego formam perdidi? “[w]here did I lose my looks?”), with forma here interpreted as the eidos, i.e. the essence of the real thing, contraposed to the imago, the eidolon.75 In this context, Sosia, when looking at his double, wonders whether he has not only lost his external appearance but also the essence of his existence. A striking parallel is found in the Menaechmi,76 where Messenio refers to Menaechmus as the mirror image of his master.77 MES. pro di immortales! quid ego video? MEN.2 quid vides? MES. speculum tuom. MEN.2 quid negoti est? MES. tuast imago. tam consimilest quam potest. MEN.2 pol profecto haud est dissimilis, meam quom formam noscito. Men. 1062-1064

 73

Mencacci 1996, 94-96 refers to a version of Narcissus’ story (as recorded in Pausanias 9.31.8) as an example of a twin being identified with a mirror reflection: when Narcissus lost his twin sister, he looked at his reflection as if looking at her. 74 For an overview of Platonic theory, see Stang 2016, 20-63. 75 Cassin 2015, xi. 76 Noted, of course, also by Gratwick 1993, 237, on Men. 1062 and 1063. 77 As Leach 1969b, 32 notes on 1064, the twins here point to the contrast between appearance and real identity.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Twins in Plautus

211

MES Immortal gods! What do I see? SOS What do you see? MES Your mirror image. SOS What’s the matter? MES It’s your spitting image. He’s as similar as he can be. SOS He’s indeed not dissimilar when I look at myself.

If the contrast between forma and imago is to be read in a Platonic context, then this reading may be also used to interpret this passage from the Menaechmi: Messenio identifies Sosicles’ twin with an Image, the copy of the Idea. Beyond the possibility of any implied philosophical associations, what both above passages clearly demonstrate, through the mirror metaphor,78 is that Plautine twins are understood in terms of the relationship between a ‘copy’ and an ‘original.’ The intimate relationship between a person and his mirror reflection is in fact variously noted in several ancient sources: some of these accentuate the mirrors’ truthfulness (e.g. Apuleius, Apol. 14.8),79 although, at the same time, an emphasis is often placed on the fact that the mirror image is not a real entity (e.g. Plato, Respublica 10.596d-e).80 Seneca’s statement that ‘what a mirror shows does not really exist’ (Q. Nat. 1.15.7) is notable;81 treatises on catoptrics, from the 3rd century BCE and onwards, show a certain interest in the “distinctions between reality and illusion”.82 In Plautine studies, mirrors have been mainly discussed with regard to the Mostellaria. The well-known toilet scene in this play evokes a discussion on the contrast between the internal and external features of a person.83 SC. mulier quae se suamque aetatem spernit, speculo ei usus est: quid opust speculo tibi quae tute speculo speculum es maxumum? Most. 250-251



78 Characters with identical appearance are even portrayed in ‘mirroring scenes’ in both plays. See Christenson 2000, 15, on how Mercury and Sosia are mirrors of each other; also, p. 17 on mirroring being a central aspect in the play’s composition. On mirroring in Menaechmi, see Maurice 2005. 79 Apuleius regards mirrors as an artist reproducing successfully a person, in a manner even better than that of plastic arts; passage discussed in Bartsch 2006, 35. On the mirrors’ faithfulness, see Bartsch 2006, 35-37. 80 Socrates uses the mirror as a metaphor to claim that a craftsman represents a reflection, not the Forms; see Bartsch 2006, 37; also, p. 38 for a discussion of further platonic references. 81 Discussed by Bartsch 2006, 39-40. 82 Bartsch 2006, 38. On treatises on catoptrics, see pp. 38-39, among which Euclid in the 3rd century. 83 Wyke 1994, 135-136.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

212

Chapter Seven SCA. A woman who is dissatisfied with herself and her age needs a mirror. Why do you need a mirror? You yourself are the best possible mirror for the mirror.

According to Scapha, Philematium is “capable of counselling or being a model for a personified mirror”.84 As in Sosia’s and Sosicles’ case, also here, a tension between the real person and his mirror image is discerned.85 Given that, as seen in the previous examples, speculum in Plautus denotes both a mirror and a mirror image, Scapha’s advice is in fact concerned with the question of who of the two—Philematium or her mirror—should be considered the prototype. Indeed, a mirror image can be seen as antagonistic towards the viewer, for being a (faithful) copy and thus a threat to someone’s individuality.86 Mirrors were even considered as capable of ‘capturing’ elements of the reflected person, an idea that seems to be also exploited in the Amphitruo:87 mirrors are dangerous because of the possibility of the threat imposed by the reflection of the whole entity of the ‘original’ object. Sosia’s fear of death (cf. his allusion to the custom of imagines in lines 458-459)88 is epitomized in his references to his mirror image; in various ancient sources, mirrors are indeed associated with death.89 While the slave refers to the possibility that he experiences his funeral by looking at his imago, at the same time, his reaction might be also connected to the belief that people can see their reflection just before their death.90

 84

Callahan 1964, 7. Dutsch 2015, 28 notes that Scapha suggests that there is no need for a mirror because Philematium “both reÀects herself and is reÀected, serving herself as mirror (tute… speculum) and being a mirror to herself (tibi… speculo).” 85 On the dangers of the inanimate mirror image (also as a traditional theme in Roman thought) as well as the parallel with Sosia, see Dutsch 2015, 28-29. Slater 2016, 48-49 traces a parodic tone in Scapha’s remark, since the girl’s beauty is certainly superior to that of the mirror image. 86 Stang 2016, 12 refers to the motif of “the threat that the image might replace the archetype” in modern literature. 87 Bettini 2011, 180, with references in n. 30-32. 88 Discussed in Bettini 2011, 197. 89 See Seaford 1998: for instance, in the Medea Glauke looks at her image right before dying. Also, a notable example is that of Narcissus: he dies from his obsession to look at his image. 90 On Sosia’s question in 456 (ubi ego perii?, “where did I get lost?”) being associated with customs related to death and the popular stock motif of looking at someone’s own ghost upon dying, see also Bettini 2011, 185-186.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Twins in Plautus

213

More importantly, this tension between a person and his mirror image, as applied in the case of a twin encountering his double, reinforces the idea of contradiction and rivalry between twins. We should not forget that the existence of a mirror image, in fact, depends upon the viewer, since, if there is no viewer, automatically, there is no reflection.91 This antagonistic relationship is largely exploited in Plautus: the ‘mirror reflection’ of Sosicles, i.e. Menaechmus, was considered lost away from his prototype, while Sosia’s perception of Mercury as his mirror image ironically alludes to a possible extinction of the duplicated Sosia, who is however a powerful god. On the other hand, the above passage from the Mostellaria has been also examined in correspondence with sources that treat mirrors as means of counseling (e.g. Martial 9.16.1 and Ovid, Ars 3.135-136), or as models (e.g. speculum in Cicero, Rep. 2.42.69),92 an idea also noted in Plautus’ Epidicus, where the mirror is considered as an instrument for selfexamination. Periphanes wishes that mirrors could allow people to look into their hearts, not only their faces:93 PE. Non oris caussa modo homines aequom fuit sibi habere speculum ubi os contemplarent suom, sed qui perspicere possent [cor sapientiae, igitur perspicere ut possint] cordis copiam; ubi id inspexissent, cogitarent postea vitam ut vixissent olim in adulescentia. Epid. 382-387 PER It would be good if people had mirrors not just for the sake of their faces, so as to look at their faces in them, but also mirrors with which they could see into [the heart of their wisdom, so that they could see into] the

 91

Bartsch 2006, 40. On the reading of this passage of the Mostellaria along with the other literary sources, see Callahan 1964, 5-6. Dutsch 2015, 28 notes: “There is no need for the beautiful girl to use her mirror image as a model, Scapha suggests, because Philematium is her own model: she herself (tute) takes precedence over the image in the mirror.” 93 Slater 2001, 194 notes that such a use of a mirror, which “later became a philosophical commonplace” (e.g. in Apuleius, Apol.) might have sounded a “novelty” for Plautus’ audience. He also points to the similar usage in Terence’s Adelphoe 415 (n. 6). Slater discusses the above passage in the context of eye imagery in the play, related to the recognition motif as well as the opposition between reality and appearance (passim); he also notes the parallels with references regarding Sceledrus’ deception in the Miles gloriosus (p. 192). 92

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

214

Chapter Seven resources of their hearts; after examining them, they could then think about how they lived their lives long ago in their youth.

Indeed, while mirrors were, in some cases, considered as ‘treacherous’ objects, associated with moral decay and luxuria (e.g. Seneca, Q. Nat. 1.17.6, 8, 10), they were also often referred to as means of “moral selfimprovement” (e.g. by Socrates, according to Apuleius, Apol. 15.8-15)94 and self-knowledge (e.g. Seneca, Q. Nat. 1.17.4).95 It seems that, already from the Pre-socratics, the use of a mirror could serve as a means of character cultivation and self-correction;96 this idea also appears in Plautus’ use of speculum in the Epidicus. In this context, the confrontation with the identical twin, as if looking at a mirror, can constitute a process of self-knowledge: Sosia’s frequent use of a mirror97 becomes a kind of selfinvestigation, which becomes more striking when he eventually faces his divine duplication. In the case of the Menaechmi, the encounter with the mirror image clearly leads to anagnorisis, which also forms a case of selfknowledge:98 Menaechmus is eventually re-united with his family while Sosicles regains his real name.99

5. Conclusions The cases examined in this paper re-confirm Plautus’ engagement with various ongoing debates, either discussions that prove Roman interests in

 94

Bartsch 2006, 19. As she notes, the same anecdote about Socrates is also found in Diogenes Laertius (Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 2.33). 95 On Seneca’s views see Bartsch 2006, 32-34. On Seneca’s concern about the use of mirrors by men, see Wyke 1994, 138. Also, Bartsch 2006, 18-21, including the charges against Apuleius. In concluding her examination of various ancient sources, Bartsch 2006, 55, points out that mirrors are both “a tool for selfimprovement” and “a sign of vanity, profligacy, and even emasculation.” On mirrors used in rituals, as a means revealing one’s self or the extension of the viewer’s thought, see Seaford 1998, 132. 96 See Bartsch 2006, 20-25. Also, in 48-50, on Plato, Alc. 133. 97 See Bartsch 2006, 17, on mirrors in antiquity being important in giving the special opportunity for the viewer to look at himself. On the other hand, it seems that mirrors were extensively produced in Italy, cf. the famous Etruscan mirrors, mainly of the Hellenistic period; for a good overview of the findings, see the review article by De Grummond 2002. 98 On a similar reading of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, see Schwartz 1996, 27. 99 As Leach 1969b, 32 notes on Men. 1064, when each twin meets his double, he “seeks to defend his identity, to prove that his own self-knowledge makes him unique.”

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Twins in Plautus

215

ancient medical practices100 or theoretical engagements with some more ‘technical’ matters, such as the manifold dimensions of the interpretation of speculum. It seems that the use of this term in the Menaechmi, a play that alludes to the well-known mathematician who was related to Archimedes, famous for his amazing mirrors,101 is not a coincidence. Plautus builds upon various concepts on twins’ special origin and relationship and eventually offers a manifold approach to this special occurrence. More specifically, a second reading proves that, whereas twins share the same origin and appearance—which is, undoubtedly, the central force behind the comic plot—each one eventually appears to be unique. Plautine twins act as rivals to each other, and each one claims the position of the ‘original.’ This rivalry is especially demonstrated through the exploitation of ideas about time, such as the concept of simultaneity, as well as the use of the imagery of a ‘mirror reflection.’ Thus, the wellknown contraposition of identical twins, who are responsible for the confusion governing the plots of the corresponding plays, should not be understood only in light of the dramatic expectations that derive from these plotlines. Identical twins are proved antagonistic by nature: the reading of their representation along with the aforementioned concepts transforms their dramatic portrayal into a cultural one. Thus, the co-reading of Plautus’ twins along with various other sources suggests that Plautus’ exploitation of this dramatic motif corresponds—at least to some extent—with relevant theoretical discussions of several intellectual—or even ‘scientific’—backgrounds. More importantly, it proves that the co-examination of these theoretical debates is indeed invaluable in the interpretation of Plautus’ treatment of this phenomenon. As the above analysis suggests, the ability to trace the connections between Plautus’ comic episodes and several concepts about twins would illuminate less obvious, but at the same time particularly interesting, aspects of the plays and their protagonists. Thus, although we cannot confirm a direct correspondence between Plautus and specific schools of thought, the case of twins reinforces the idea that discussions on such

 100

See Fontaine, 2013, 363: who adds that “…Menaechmi’s dramatization of the Rosenhan experiment constitutes the first and perhaps only indication that there was a debate in antiquity over either the validity of diagnoses of mental illness or the validity of the medical model of mental illness itself.” 101 See Papaioannou 2012, 179-181 on Menaechmus being known to the audience, who would have been able to make the association with Archimedes and his legendary achievement in the recent siege of Syracuse.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

216

Chapter Seven

subjects were familiar to (some members of) Plautus’ audience.102 As other studies in this volume also demonstrate, Plautus shows an adequate knowledge of and correspondence with less expected texts of Hellenistic literature.103 In this context, his audience’s acknowledgement of the proposed interaction, if not fully anticipated, would be certainly beneficial for a fuller appreciation of Plautus’ dramatic aims. Thus, although the extent of Plautus’ debts to his Greek originals cannot be determined, we can safely claim that the playwright apprehended and exploited themes that would attract the attention of his audience, some members of which would be erudite and even familiar with various specialized texts.104 Last but not least: Plautine drama seems to be concerned with various questions about twins, which until recently were still addressed in several theoretical contexts: even in later medical thought, twins were often considered as reflection of the same material,105 a conception that was only quite recently overthrown by research findings on genetics.106 Although such an anachronism cannot be directly applied in the hermeneutics of the Plautine oeuvre, it confirms that people of Plautus’ time were concerned with a phenomenon that is featured in long discussions, even at a later date.

 102

On philosophy in early Roman literature and the way the relationship between comic and philosophical parallels can be illuminating for the interpretation of the texts, see Caston 2014b, Dutsch 2014 and Manuwald 2016, 331-336. Although Plautus’ correspondences with Hellenistic philosophical concepts might have derived from his Greek originals, the playwright certainly addresses issues that would have attracted his Roman spectators’ interests. For instance, Fontaine 2013, 362-363 argues for Plautus’ influence by Academic Scepticism in the Menaechmi, as a result of the reworking of a Greek play by Posidippus, a contemporary of Arcesilaus, who founded Academic scepticism. 103 See Konstantakos on Plautus’ acquaintance with Hellenistic storytelling, Manuwald on the allusions to more elevated aspects of the Greek cultural and literary tradition, Caston on Plautus’ interchange with philosophy and Fontaine on Plautus’ allusions to key literary developments of Alexandria of the 3rd century. 104 On Plautus’ audience, see the discussion in the introduction as well as various studies in this volume (most notably Manuwald on the audience’s diversity, Konstantakos and Fontaine on the Romans’ acquaintance with Hellenistic literature). 105 Schwartz 1996, 34 on examples from the 20th century. 106 When identical twins were proved as not sharing exactly the same DNA; see Schwartz 1996, 38.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



CHAPTER EIGHT MEANINGFUL MISPRONUNCIATIONS: RELIGIOUS PARODY IN PLAUTUS’ CISTELLARIA 512-527 SETH A. JEPPESEN

In the course of expounding the physiognomy of human and animal tongues, Pliny relates how the pontifex Metellus, while preparing to dedicate the temple of Ops Opifera, was concerned that he would be unable to pronounce the alliterative pair of the goddess’ name and epithet correctly. The text of the passage reads: Metellum pontificem adeo inexplanatae [linguae] fuisse accipimus, ut multis mensibus tortus credatur, dum meditatur in dedicando aedi Opi Opiferae dicere. We hear that the pontiff Metellus had [a tongue] so inarticulate that he is believed to have allowed himself to be tortured for many months, while he was preparing what to say in dedicating the temple of Ops Opifera.1 Pliny, Historia Naturalis 11.174

Besides elucidating the differences in the vocal articulation of humans and animals, as was Pliny’s purpose here, this incident also illustrates the extreme accuracy expected in the performance of Roman prayers. Elsewhere in the Natural History, Pliny explains that it was the custom of the Romans, from the founding of the city, to require such accuracy in rituals that one word could not be spoken out of place without requiring a repetition of the ritual.2

 1

Text and translation from Clark 2007, 300. Unless otherwise noted, translations are my own. 2 Pliny HN 28.11; Beard, North and Price 1998a, 32.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

218

Chapter Eight

Plautus’ Cistellaria features another problematic prayer to the goddess Ops, this time in an oath uttered by a lovesick young man to the procuress and mother of his beloved meretrix in an attempt to gain access to his girl. In this passage, the young man Alcesimarchus, in addition to committing many other performative infelicities in the prayer, calls the goddess by the wrong epithet—Ops Opulenta (wealthy wealth) rather than Ops Opifera (wealth-bringing wealth). This scene, with a young man swearing an oath to a female pimp who keeps correcting him, is certainly a general parody of the standard procedure for performing a public prayer in Roman culture, which required that a religious official be present to correct any errors committed by the magistrate performing the ceremony. This parodic connection to the procedures of Roman prayer only becomes apparent when the scene is analyzed as performance, not just as text. Furthermore, when compared to the anecdote from Pliny, a more tantalizing possibility for a joke presents itself: could the prayer from Cistellaria, with the mispronounced epithet of the goddess Ops, be a specific parody of the incident that Pliny relates from the dedication of the temple of Ops Opifera? To answer this question, one must delve into the realms of textual criticism, prosopography and ancient urban topography in an attempt to determine to which Metellus and to which temple of Ops Pliny refers. Regardless of the answer to this question, the scene from Plautus is certainly still a general parody of the performance of Roman prayers, as will be illustrated below. Furthermore, the erroneous epithet, besides illustrating Plautus’ penchant for alliterative wordplay and providing a joke based on a sense of aprosdoketon (the audience expects to hear opifera but instead hears opulenta), also draws attention to one of the primary themes of the play. Instead of sharing their knowledge and resources with each other, the characters keep things to themselves, thus causing confusion and conflict that is as detrimental as a goddess of wealth who keeps everything for herself. The cycle is finally broken by a free gift of goods and information that brings the play to its conclusion. The methodology of this study is as follows: after briefly summarizing the play, I will analyze Cist. 512-527 and demonstrate how this passage is a general parody of public rituals that involved a magistrate who swore an oath of some importance to the state under the guidance of a priest, who checked to make sure that the oath was sworn correctly. The argument will then move from general to specific parody, with an examination of the anecdote from Pliny’s Natural History 11.174, in which I will address the question of whether the temple dedication mentioned by Pliny could have predated Plautus’ play and thus could have served as a source for a specific parody of Metellus’ prayer in Cistellaria. I will then conclude the

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Meaningful Mispronunciations

219

chapter with a discussion of how the audience’s recognition of the general and specific parodies in lines 512-527 would have inflected their understanding of the play as a whole. In particular, the mispronounced epithet at line 515, though only a small alteration from what the audience expected, would have had a large impact on the Roman viewer’s understanding of the themes of the play. The exploration of religious parody in Cist. 512-527 demonstrates Plautus’ clever and subtle engagement with the religious context of his plays, an element that would have been appreciated by the priests and magistrates who officiated in such rituals as well as the everyday Roman, who served as audience at both the religious and dramatic performances.

1. Cistellaria 512-527: A general parody of Roman ritual performance Cistellaria features one of Plautus’ more complex storylines, rendered even more so by the fragmentary nature of the text. The plot centers on the eventual recognition and marriage of the pseudo-hetaera Selenium, who is the daughter of freeborn parents but has been raised by the prostituteturned-procuress Melaenis. Years earlier, Demipho, while on business in Sicyon, raped and impregnated a young girl named Phanostrata during the festival of Dionysus and then returned home to Lemnos where he married and had a daughter with his wife there. Back in Sicyon, when Phanostrata’s daughter was born, she had a slave in her father’s house, Lampadio, leave the infant to die, but the child was instead rescued by the prostitute Syra, who gave the girl to her friend Melaenis to raise—this girl is Selenium. Eventually Demipho’s wife on Lemnos died and he returned with his daughter from that marriage to Sicyon where he found and married Phanostrata, after which the two began looking for their own lost daughter, sending the slave Lampadio out to try to find the woman whom he saw rescue the infant seventeen years earlier. In the meantime, a young man named Alcesimarchus falls in love with Selenium, and all is going well until his father betroths him to a proper, marriageable girl—the daughter of Demipho born to him on Lemnos. Upon learning of the betrothal, Melaenis refuses to let Selenium see Alcesimarchus, and the young man then becomes intent on repudiating the engagement and getting his girl back. Eventually Melaenis finds out Phanostrata’s story and decides to give Selenium back to her birth parents along with a box of trinkets that will prove her identity, thus allowing her marriage to Alcesimarchus.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

220

Chapter Eight

In the scene in question, the adulescens Alcesimarchus is trying to convince the lena Melaenis to let him see Selenium again, in spite of his betrothal to another. When Melaenis refuses, Alcesimarchus swears an oath that details the treatment he expects from the gods if he fails to punish Melaenis for her perceived impudence, though, given the young man’s agitated state, Melaenis herself has to correct some of the procedural errors in Alcesimarchus’ pseudo-ritual utterance. The text of the scene, and the parody at the heart of this study, is as follows:3 Alc. at ita me di deaeque, superi atque inferi et medioxumi, itaque me Iuno regina et Iovis supremi filia itaque me Saturnus eius patruos—Mel. ecastor pater. 514 Alc. itaque me Ops Opulenta ilius avia—Mel. immo mater quidem. Iuno filia et Saturnus patruos et pater Iuppiter? Alc. tu me delenis, propter te haec pecco. Mel. perge dicere. Alc. anne etiam quid consultura sis sciam? Mel. perge eloqui. non remittam, definitumst. Alc. enim vero ita me Iuppiter itaque me Iuno itaque Ianus ita—quid dicam nescio. 520 iam scio. immo, mulier, audi, meam ut scias sententiam. di me omnes, magni minuti et etiam patellarii, faxint, ne ego vivos savium Selenio, nisi ego teque tuamque meque hodie optruncavero, poste autem cum primo luci cras nisi ambo occidero, 525 et equidem hercule nisi pedatu tertio omnis efflixero, nisi tu illam remittis ad me. dixi quae volui. vale. Cistellaria 512-527 Alc. So help me, may all the gods and goddesses, the ones above and the ones below and the ones in between, and may Juno the queen and supreme daughter of Jupiter, and Saturn her uncle—Mel. By Castor, he’s her father. Alc. —and may Ops the Opulent, her grandmother—Mel. Surely you mean her mother, Juno the daughter, Saturn the uncle and Jupiter the father? Alc. It’s you! You’re bewitching me! It’s your fault I’m getting it wrong. Mel. By all means, proceed. Alc. First tell me what your decision will be. Mel. Talk all you want.

 3

The translation is my own and the text is Moore’s (2004), except for the capital O on Opulenta, which I have added to emphasize the erroneousness of the epithet. The primary differences between this text and Lindsay’s OCT are: 1) the attribution of line 516 to Melaenis instead of Alcesimarchus (Ussing), 2) pater Iuppiter (Bentley, Bettini) in 516 as opposed to summus Iuppiter, which would produce an unlikely scansion. Moore 2004, 55.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Meaningful Mispronunciations

221

I won’t send her back. That much is for sure. Alc. Well then, I swear by Jupiter and by Juno and by Janus—wait, I don’t know what I’m saying— now I remember! Woman, it’s time for you to hear my decision. May all the gods, the big ones, the miniature ones, and the dish-sized ones, may they all keep me from giving Selenium a kiss today while she and I both draw breath, if I don’t slaughter you, and your daughter, and myself today, and then tomorrow at first light I’ll cut down the both of us, and finally, on the third assault, by Hercules I’ll kill us all, if you don’t send that woman back to me. I have said what I wanted to. Good bye.

Many scholars have already pointed out how this passage is a parody of the language typically used in Roman prayers. Hickson identifies it as a parody of the thoroughness of Roman invocations to the gods, with the humorously all-encompassing phrases “di deaeque, superi atque inferi et medioxumi” (gods and goddesses, those above, those below, and those in between) and “di… omnes, magni minuti et etiam patellarii” (all the gods, the big ones, the diminutive ones, and the dish-sized ones), while Hoffman notes the reliance on tricola and alliteration typical in Roman prayers.4 The most comprehensive treatment of this passage as religious parody is Moore’s from 2004, in which he explains the numerous ways in which Plautus uses Alcesimarchus’ lines to parody the formulaic nature of Roman prayer language. As Moore points out, when Alcesimarchus attempts to provide erudite-sounding epithets for the gods, he gets his genealogies wrong, when he tries his hand at anaphora, he picks ita, the least important word in the prayer, to repeat eight times, and when he sets out to call on the gods to witness the veracity of his statement, a technique that Hickson labels as an asseveration, he ends up switching to the format of an oath, replete with a self-curse at the end.5 When he tries to use tricola, he ends up destabilizing polar phrases by adding the bathetic medioxumi and patellarii to otherwise respectable phrases. He gets the Capitoline triad wrong, he fails to place Janus first in his invocation, and although he is using the prayer in an attempt to persuade the mother of his beloved, he inadvertently writes the mothers out of his divine genealogies.6 Over and over again, Alcesimarchus almost gets the language of his prayer correct, but in the end, he fails. Moore does well to

 4

Hickson 1993, 34-35; Hoffmann 1980, 216-217. See also Chapot and Laurot 2001, 241-242; Kleinknecht 1967, 172-174. 5 Hickson 1993, 129-131; Moore 2004, passim. 6 This last point is the main thrust of Moore’s argument and is the way in which he connects this scene to the themes of the play. See esp. pp 63-66.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

222

Chapter Eight

point out that in writing these lines for Alcesimarchus, Plautus is not critical of the language and practice of Roman prayers per se, but rather of those who try to sound religious but get it wrong. For as thorough as Moore’s reading of the passage is, however, it focuses primarily on the verbal aspects of the scene and does not sufficiently consider the scene as performance.7 To appreciate the distinction between the textual and the performative in this example of parody, one must first establish definitions for the terms performance and parody. In examining Plautine drama, much emphasis is placed on the text, and necessarily so, since it is the only firm element of Plautine performance that has survived from antiquity—but a text is only one aspect of a performance. In elucidating this point, Niall Slater uses the term “theatrical triad” to refer to the necessary confluence of text, actors and audience in order to create a performance. He goes on to say, “a play is not a text but rather a total artistic event which exists only in a theater during a performance. The actors and audience are as much participants in the creation of this artistic event as is the author’s text”.8 The addition of the phrase “in a theater during a performance” in the quote from Slater also emphasizes the fact that a performance is spatially and temporally limited in a way that a text is not. A performance, therefore, is the convergence of text, actors and audience in a temporally sequenced event that takes place in a delimited space. For a definition of parody, I shall rely on the work of Linda Hutcheon, who defines parody as “repetition with critical distance,” which is a useful definition for its openness and its ability to apply to performance in addition to text.9 What many previous analyses of Cist. 512-527 have

 7

Though we discuss the same scene, my analysis differs from Moore’s in 1) my emphasis on the erroneous epithet opulenta, which Alcesimarchus says instead of opifera, 2) my focus on the performance rather than the language of Roman prayers (language is just one aspect of performance), 3) my examination of the possible specific parody based on Pliny’s account of Metellus’ prayer of dedication for the temple of Ops Opifera, and 4) my overall interpretive takeaway, in which I examine how the difference between being opulenta and opifera fuels the conflict in the play. In spite of these differences, I remain indebted to Moore’s many excellent observations on the scene. 8 Slater 1985, 4. 9 Hutcheon 2000, 18. Much of the recent theoretical work on parody treats it as a textual issue and does not sufficiently consider performance-specific aspects of parody that derive from the mise-en-scène of performance. Genette, for example, uses the metaphor of a textual palimpsest to refer to parody, calling the model the hypotext and the parody itself the hypertext. Dentith and Rose both have definitions that are open to performed parody vs. exclusively textual parody, but

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Meaningful Mispronunciations

223

focused on is the repetition and distance between the language of the scene and the language of Roman prayers, the oath in particular. However, when one considers the scene as performance, there are many ways in which one can create repetition and distance through the manipulation of factors beyond what is spoken. Costumes, gestures, stage tableaux and delivery all become important axes on which one can determine the parodic distance of a comic scene when performed, not to mention the shared knowledge base between actors and audience, which in this case, includes a shared knowledge of the performance of Roman religion. Since the scene in question is a parody of Roman prayer in performance, we must first examine the standard procedures for performing Roman prayers before analyzing the passage from Cistellaria further. One of the most informative passages on the procedures for Roman prayer is Pliny HN 28.11, which reads: videmusque certis precationibus obsecrasse summos magistratus et, ne quod verborum praetereatur aut praeposterum dicatur, de scripto praeire aliquem rursusque alium custodem dari qui adtendat, alium vero praeponi qui favere linguis iubeat, tibicinem canere, ne quid aliud exaudiatur. We see that the highest magistrates pray using exact prayers, and, so that one word is not omitted or spoken out of order, one person dictates from a written source, while another is given as a guard to listen carefully and another is provided to bid people to keep quiet. The piper (tibicen) plays, so that nothing else is heard. Pliny, Historia Naturalis 28.11

Later on in the same book, Pliny claims that certain state prayers had been performed the same way for the last 830 years, an extravagant claim but one that seems to be borne out by the example of the hymn of the Salii, which, by Quintilian’s day, included language that not even the Salian priests themselves understood.10 A comparison of this passage with a sampling of passages from Livy that include some version of the Latin

 most of their examples turn out to be textual. The simplicity of Hutcheon’s definition allows it easily to apply to both a text and a performance. In my own analysis of Cistellaria 512-527 (as well as other Plautine parodies) I readily acknowledge that I necessarily use the text of the plays as a starting point for discussing performance-specific aspects of parody. For definitions, see Dentith 2000, 9; Genette 1997, 1-22 (esp. 7-9); Rose 1993, 32, 52. 10 This tendency toward conservatism in language and overall procedure permits the use of Pliny as evidence for discussing parody in Plautus, despite the lengthy interval between the two authors. Pliny HN 28.12; Quint. Inst. Orat. 1.6.40-41; Beard, North and Price 1998b, 128; North 1976, 1-12.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

224

Chapter Eight

phrase for dictation (praeire verbis) reveals that typically the one who dictates in such rituals is a religious official of some sort, such as a pontifex or duumvir, while the one who repeats the dictated prayer is a magistrate, such as a consul or aedile.11 In Pliny’s description, in addition to the one dictating the prayer, three other individuals help ensure that the magistrate’s prayer is performed correctly: one listens for correctness, another keeps those present silent, while the third plays the tibia. Other literary and epigraphical sources document well the presence of a religious official who dictates in such scenarios, but are less clear on the others whom Pliny mentions.12 If Pliny is correct in his description of this common religious scenario, it could be that the presence of these other more passive participants in the ritual was so commonplace that authors did not feel the need to mention them.13 Another possible scenario is that all three functions could be performed by the one who dictates the prayer, especially in ceremonies of less prominence, as in the case of private individuals engaging the services of a pontifex for a family ritual.14 In performance, then, such a prayer would have presented a tableau of between two and five participants, with a magistrate performing the ritual, a religious official ensuring the correctness of the ritual, and, ideally, a musician playing the tibia.

 11

For a more thorough treatment of this topic, as well as a chart with the relevant passages from Livy, see Jeppesen 2016, 69-92. Duumviri can be appointed for various reasons, but the ones who dealt with religious issues were the duumviri sacris faciundis (later replaced by the Xviri and XVviri) and the duumviri aedi dedicandae, faciundae, locandae. See Gizewski 1996. 12 The person giving the dictation can be a duumvir (Livy 4.21.5), pontifex maximus (Livy 9.46.6; 10.28.14, et al.), one of the lesser pontifices (Livy 8.9.4, Varro 6.61), an augur (Varro 6.95), a sacerdos (Livy 39.18.3; CIL XIII1752-1754). Other less orthodox examples include soldiers dictating the sacramentum (oath of fealty) to one another (Tac. Hist. 1.36), the governor of a province dictating oaths to his subjects (Pliny, Ep. 10.52, 10.96.5) and one example in which the one dictating is simply referred to as a scriba (Val. Max. 4.1.10) The person reciting the dictated formula is often the consul (Livy 31.9.9; 36.2.2-5; 8.8.4; 10.28.14; 42.28.7-9; Varro 6.95), but could also be an aedile (Livy 9.46.6), a group of citizens or soldiers (Livy 4.21.5; Livy 41.21.11; Tac. Hist. 1.36; Pliny, Ep. 10.52, 10.96.5), or individuals performing private religious rituals (Livy 39.18.3; CIL XIII 1752-1754). 13 Rüpke explains that literary sources on Roman religion often emphasize the exceptional but do not elaborate on the details of routine rituals. Rüpke 2012, 13. 14 E.g. CIL XIII 1752-1754. As Varro describes it (6.61), the ritual of dedicating a temple involves a magistrate speaking the prayer with a priest dictating (sic enim aedis sacra a magistratu pontifice praeunte dicendo dedicatur.)

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Meaningful Mispronunciations

225

The physical performance of a Roman prayer, as described by Pliny, is the general model on which Plautus based his parody in this scene from Cistellaria. The parody goes beyond the similarities to Roman prayer language to include imitation of the roles of the various participants in the ritual, visual tableau, even musical accompaniment. Alcesimarchus represents the magistrate who pronounces the words of the prayer while Melaenis represents the official who corrects any mistakes, to ensure that the prayer is performed correctly. Since these lines are trochaic septenarii, one of the accompanied, recitative meters in Roman comedy, there would even have been a tibia player present and performing during this scene. If the performers assumed a tableau comparable to that used in the ritual, the similarities between the performance of the ritual and the parody would be all the more apparent to the audience. As the scene progresses, the words and actions of the characters mirror, in a humorous way, the general model of a Roman prayer in performance. In lines 513-514, as Alcesimarchus waxes ineloquent in his invocation, he attempts to list the genealogy of Juno Regina, but he erroneously says that she is the daughter of Jupiter and the niece of Saturn. Melaenis quickly corrects him that she is Saturn’s daughter. Despite the interruption, Alcesimarchus charges forward with his invocation (line 515), calling next on Ops Opulenta, whom he labels as the grandmother of Juno. Melaenis again corrects him, reminding him that Ops is Juno’s mother not her grandmother. Of the various errors that Melaenis could focus on, it is interesting that she corrects the genealogy and not the faulty epithet. Moore is certainly correct in pointing out how Melaenis’ emphasis on the genealogy highlights the way in which Alcesimarchus tries to write the mothers out of the story, perhaps even subconsciously as a sort of Freudian slip, since it is Melaenis the (supposed) mother of Selenium who is causing his present grief.15 The correction of the genealogy rather than the epithet could also add one more layer of humor by confounding the audience’s expectations––if an incorrect epithet such as this were uttered in a Roman prayer, the pontifex (vel sim.) would certainly have corrected the error. In line 516, Melaenis then recaps Alcesimarchus’ mistakes by reciting back to him the erroneous genealogy. As Moore notes, this line makes much more sense when attributed to Melaenis and taken as a question.16 “Juno the daughter, Saturn the uncle, and Jupiter the father?” she asks contemptuously.

 15 16

Moore 2004, 65-66. Ibid., 55-56.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

226

Chapter Eight

Alcesimarchus then gives up on his prayer for a moment to explain his error. In line 517 he says, Tu me delenis, propter te haec pecco (“You are bewitching me. I make these errors because of you”). Though the verb pecco can refer to any type of mistake or blunder, in the sense in which it is used here it refers specifically to mispronounced or misspoken words, thus emphasizing the performance-based aspect of this parody and the connection with the standard procedure for performing Roman prayers as described by Pliny, in which such verbal errors can annul the performance of a prayer and require correction.17 There is a further metatheatrical joke in this line based on a pun with the word delenis, a pun that allows Plautus to showcase his ingenious ability to manipulate the Latin language. The core meaning of the verb delenio is to soften or soothe, cf. lenio and lenis. When this action takes on a negative tone, it can mean to bewitch, as evinced in Alcesimarchus’ line here. From this same root come the words leno and lena, the male and female forms for pimp or brothel keeper. These terms are semantically related to the previous words that center around the idea of softening, as can be seen in the word lenocinium, which can refer to both the act of brothel keeping or, more generally, to any kind of soothing allurement or enticement.18 Thus, in this comic context, delenio could be taken as a pun meaning to treat someone as a pimp would.19 When Alcesimarchus says tu me delenis, he is simultaneously saying, “you are bewitching me” and “you are treating me like a lena would,” which is true of Melaenis’ behavior here, because the lena in comedy is typically a blocking character who endeavors to keep the young lovers apart, as does Cleareta in Asinaria. Besides providing some metatheatrical humor, with Alcesimarchus complaining that Melaenis is playing her role too well, the subtle reference in the wordplay to Melaenis’ character type also emphasizes the distance between the parody and the model. In case the point were lost on anyone, Alcesimarchus reminds the audience that it is not a pontifex who is correcting his errors, but a female pimp who, in this scene, is playing her stock role perfectly as she ardently denies him access to Selenium. The wordplay here serves to further underline Plautus’ erudite command of language.



17 OLD s.v. pecco, 1b. Plautus also uses peccare in this verbal sense in Cas. 370, 674 and 703, when Lysidamus, by confusing his words, accidently lets on that he is the one who is planning to wed Casina. An example outside of Plautus is to be found in Ov. Amores 2.16.11. 18 OLD s.v. delenio, lenio, lenis, lena, leno and lenocinium. 19 For comparable uses of delenio paired with lenocinium and lena, see Cic. Mur. 74 (Cato Orat. 12a.1) and Cic. Tusc. Disp. 4.67.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Meaningful Mispronunciations

227

After a brief pause, Alcesimarchus tries starting his prayer anew with a second, slightly different invocation in line 519, as he calls on Jupiter, Juno and Janus.20 Restarting his prayer in this way after an error provides yet another similarity to the performance of Roman prayers. In reference to the passage from Pliny cited above, Beard, North and Price say that “supposedly, the slightest error in performance, even a single wrong word, led to the repetition of the whole ritual”.21 Alcesimarchus’ second attempt at a proper Roman prayer fares no better. This time he tries to pronounce an oath (sacramentum or iusiurandum), the standard formula for which involves calling the gods as witness to a statement and praying for a curse on oneself if the statement proves false.22 The oath of the fetiales as recorded in Livy shows that the core idea behind the self-curse at the end of an oath was that the speaker pledged to die as did the sacrificial victim, if the speaker proved to be unfaithful to the oath.23 In practice, not all selfcurses involved the threat of death to the officiant—the threat of exile was also another common self-curse—but assuming that this is the type of oath that Alcesimarchus is trying to swear, he confuses the self-curse with the thing which he is pledging.24 Presumably, he is trying to say that he hopes the gods will kill all three of them if he does not kiss Selenium soon, but instead of saying this, he prays that the gods will prevent him from kissing Selenium if he does not kill himself three times before the following dawn. In other words, he mistakenly switches the pledge with the self-curse in his oath. He then confuses things even further by adding another nisi clause to his oath (nisi tu illam remittis ad me, 527), saying that he will do all this killing if Melaenis does not send Selenium back to him.25 While this phrase clarifies his intentions to some degree, as far as the format of the ritual goes, it only serves to confound further the formula of his oath. Before Melaenis has a chance to correct his procedural errors again, Alcesimarchus leaves the stage abruptly with a curt vale. Since Roman comedies were performed at religious festivals, it is almost certain that, at some point in the festival prior to the play, the audience would have witnessed the performance of a prayer of the type

 20

Moore notes that Alcesimarchus errs once again here, because prayers that include Janus as one of the deities invoked typically list Janus first in the list, as does Cato de Ag. 134. See Moore 2004, 56. 21 Beard, North and Price 1998a, 32. 22 Hickson 1993, 107. 23 Ibid., 127-128. Livy 1.24.8. 24 Ibid., 108. 25 Moore (2004, 61) points out that Alcesimarchus gets mixed up between two different formats for Roman oaths.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

228

Chapter Eight

Pliny describes, thus providing a temporally and spatially proximate model for the religious parody in this scene. Perhaps the best description that we have of a Roman religious festival comes from the inscriptions that detail the events of the ludi saeculares of 17 BCE, in which the text of a number of prayers is recorded.26 Though these games were unique in many respects, it seems that the overall outline they provide of prayers and sacrifices preceding the ludi scaenici and ludi circenses likely represents a common format for the various Roman festivals.27 Even if the audience had not just seen the performance of such a prayer in the prior events of the festival, it would have been a common enough occurrence in the religious life of the city for the audience to recognize quickly the general model of the parody in Cistellaria.

2. Pliny, Metellus Pontifex and the temple of Ops Opifera: A specific parody? In addition to the humor produced by the repetition and distance from the general model, there is also the possibility that Pliny’s anecdote about Metellus and his reservations concerning the dedication of the temple of Ops Opifera provide a more specific model for Alcesimarchus’ reference to the goddess Ops. In Roman myth, this goddess is the consort of Saturn and mother of Jupiter and his siblings and she was worshipped in Roman cult under two different titles: Ops Consiva and Ops Opifera.28 When Alcesimarchus prays to Ops, he calls her Ops Opulenta instead of Ops Opifera—he almost gets her epithet right but ultimately falls short, a pattern that we have seen repeated elsewhere in his prayer. One could just chalk this up to playful Plautine alliteration—he frequently uses repetition of initial ‘op/b’ syllables in phrases that have to do with wealth or lavish spending.29 However, in this instance, since the context of the error is a character’s attempt at uttering a proper Roman prayer, the audience would

 26

ILS 5050, 5050a (CIL VI 32323). For translated excerpts with commentary see, Beard, North and Price 1998b, 139-144. 27 The combination of night and daytime events in these games is likely not typical and the content of the prayers and the deities prayed to may not be the same, due rather to Augustan religious innovation. 28 Varro Ling. Lat. 6.21 provides a description of the shrine of Ops Consiva. The Fasti Fratrum Arvalium (CIL I2 215) give Opifera as an additional cult epithet for the goddess. 29 e.g. Bacch. 96: tu facito opsonatum nobis sit opulentum opsonium. See also Mil. 107 and Poen. 132. For further discussion of Plautus’ use of repetitive words and phrases, see Sharrock 2009, 167-190.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Meaningful Mispronunciations

229

be expecting to hear the goddess referred to by her proper epithet, Ops Opifera. Thus, the erroneous epithet can be read as an aprosdoketon-style joke, dependent on the confounded expectations of the audience for its humor. There is even further meaning packed into this unexpected blunder when one considers the semantic dissimilarity between the two epithets. There is something fundamentally different about a goddess who is opulenta (full of wealth) versus one who is opifera (prone to bringing wealth).30 The epithet Opulenta suggests that she keeps her wealth for herself, whereas the proper cult epithet suggests that she brings wealth and aid to those in need. By mispronouncing the goddess’ name, Alcesimarchus again ends up inadvertently praying for the opposite of what he really wants. It would be a useless prayer to the goddess indeed, if she kept her wealth and assistance for herself instead of sharing it. Similarly to the pun contained in the word delenis as discussed above, this humorous and meaningful error in Alcesimarchus’ prayer gives the playwright a chance to display his clever manipulation of language—the difference of two syllables in the epithet creates a vast difference in meaning.31 Because of the dissimilarity between the actual cult epithet (opifera) and the epithet that Alcesimarchus uses (opulenta), this line provides the audience with an unexpected joke that is dependent on the larger structure of the parodic prayer for its humor. It is this slight error in Alcesimarchus’ formula that provides the possible allusion to the anecdote that Pliny relates about Metellus’ difficulty in performing the dedicatory prayer for the temple of Ops Opifera (quoted above). I say possible allusion because there is disagreement among scholars regarding which temple and which Metellus feature in this passage. Rather than pick a side and hide the evidence in footnotes, I will lay out the textual, topographic and prosopographic arguments and then suggest a plausible scenario for how the passages from Pliny and Plautus might relate to each other. Pliny’s is the only extant account of this temple dedication and he only mentions the story in passing as an anecdote that his readers were likely familiar with, not even deeming it necessary to recount the end of the

 30

Varro Ling. Lat. 5.92 explains the relationship between Ops and the adjective opulentus. 31 Plautus engages in similar wordplay with the phonetically and semantically related adjective opiparus (ops+paro, producing wealth), see Capt. 769, Mil. 107, and Pers. 549. The primary difference between these passages and the passage from Cist. is the invocation of the goddess Ops in Cist. 515. The goddess’ name and the context of the attempted oath add a layer of religious parody to what would otherwise be just crafty wordplay.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Chapter Eight

230

story. Did Metellus get the name right at the dedication or did he make a mistake? If he pronounced the name incorrectly, how many times did he have to repeat the prayer before getting it right? Some information can be gleaned from other sources, but this produces more questions than answers. Table 1: Select Testimonia for Temples or Shrines of Ops at Rome I. Calendars (Fasti) Calendar Name Epithet of Goddess Fasti Fratrum Ops Arvalium (9 BCE- Opifera 14 CE: CIL I2215, Insc. Ital. 13.2 pp. 30-31) Fasti Vallenses Ops (after 7 CE: CIL Consiva I2240, Insc. Ital. 13.2 pp. 148-149) Fasti Amiternini Ops (after 16 CE: CIL I2245, Insc. Ital. 13.2 pp. 198-199) Fasti Antiates Ops Maiores (84-55 BCE: Insc. Ital. 13.2 p.25) II. Textual References Author Epithet of Goddess Livy 39.22.4 Ops Varro 6.21

Ops Consiva

Temple/Shrine Location ---------

Date / Cult Anniversary August 23

Capitoline

August 25

ad Forum

December (Opalia)

---------

December 19 (Opalia)

Temple/Shrine Location Capitoline

Date

Forum (Regia)

19

186 BCE (struck by lightning) ---------

The first question that this passage presents to the reader is a textual one. The oldest family of manuscripts for Pliny preserves the name of the goddess as Opifaerae Opiferae instead of Opi Opiferae. This reading can be understood as a dittography of the goddess’ epithet. Jordan emended the text to Opi Opiferae based on a reference to this manifestation of Ops

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Meaningful Mispronunciations

231

in the Acta Fratrum Arvalium, and this emendation has since found general acceptance, though not all editors print it thus.32 The next two questions regarding the passage are actually intertwined: which temple of Ops is this a reference to and which of the Metelli is the one performing the dedication? We will begin with the topographical questions of where the temple was located and when it was dedicated (see Table 1 for a breakdown of the testimonia). The best evidence here comes from the various calendars (fasti) that have been discovered over the years. Besides the passage in Pliny, the only other reference to Ops Opifera by that specific name is the calendar referred to above, the Fasti Fratrum Arvalium (9 BCE-14 CE: CIL I2215, Insc. Ital. 13.2 pp. 30-31), which places her celebration on August 23, but does not specify the location.33 Three other calendars include references to the goddess Ops, but ultimately they provide conflicting information. The Fasti Vallenses (after 7 CE: CIL I2240, Insc. Ital. 13.2 pp. 148-149) give the date of August 25 (two days later than the Fasti Fratrum Arvalium) and specify that this is a festival for a different manifestation of the goddess, Ops Consiva, and that the celebration takes place on the Capitol.34 The Fasti Amiternini (after 16 CE: CIL I2245, Insc. Ital. 13.2 pp. 198-199) say that Ops is celebrated on December 19 ad forum, in conjunction with the Opalia, a festival of the goddess that dates back to the early days of the city.35 The Fasti Antiates Maiores (84-55 BCE: Insc. Ital. 13.2 p. 25) agree with the December date, but do not specify the Forum.36 Neither of the latter two fasti specify an epithet for the goddess. Due to the disagreement in these calendars, there is confusion whether Ops Opifera had a temple in the Forum or on the Capitol and whether the celebration of her cult took place in August or December. According to Livy (39.22.4), there was a temple of Ops on the Capitoline that was struck by lightning in 186 BCE, but he does not specifically say that this was the temple of Ops Opifera. Varro (6.21) also identifies a shrine of Ops that was within the Regia in the Forum, but this was dedicated to Ops



32 The Loeb, for example, prints “opi verba” which ignores the lectio difficilior and does not adequately explain the repetition of the epithet opifera that is attested elsewhere. See Köves-Zulauf 1972, 74. CIL I2 215; Insc. Ital. 13.2 pp. 30-31. 33 There could be another reference to Ops Opifera depending on how one resolves a textual crux at Cic. Att. 6.1.17. Jordan renders the phrase “†ab Opis per te† posita” as “ad OpisOpiferae” while Shackleton-Bailey prints “ab Opis parte postica.” See Aronen 1997. 34 Clark 2007, 300; Hannah 2005, 124. 35 Richardson 1991, 277; Morgan 1973, 41. 36 Hannah 2005, 102.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

232

Chapter Eight

Consiva, not Opifera.37 After combining the data from Livy and Varro with the information gleaned from the various calendars, one must conclude that the temple of Ops Opifera referred to in our passage from Pliny must either be the one on the Capitol mentioned by Livy, or an otherwise unattested temple in the forum mentioned in the Fasti Amiternini, but there are problems with both of these propositions.38 The Fasti Vallenses explicitly say that Ops Consiva is the goddess celebrated on the Capitoline, while there are no remains or other indications of a temple of Ops in the Forum besides the shrine of Ops Consiva that was contained within the Regia, as described by Varro.39 Coarelli argues that the easiest solution is to assume that the Fasti Vallenses are incorrect in identifying the temple of Ops on the Capitoline as the temple of Ops Consiva, since this shrine is placed in the Forum by Varro and other errors have been found in the Fasti Vallenses.40 Aronen even suggests that the entry in the Fasti Vallenses indicates that the rites of Ops Consiva were eventually moved to the temple of Ops Opifera on the Capitoline, a more suitable location than the cramped quarters in the Regia that Varro describes.41 According to these arguments, the most likely location for the temple of Ops Opifera is the Capitoline, though some uncertainty must remain. As for the prosopographical question of who performed the ceremony, all that Pliny tells us is that the Metellus in question was also a pontifex, which narrows the list of prominent, republican-era Metelli down somewhat, but not as much as one would hope. A survey of scholarship on the question limits the field to two primary contenders: L. Caecilius Metellus, cos. 251, 247, and L. Caecilius Metellus Delmaticus, cos. 119 (hereafter Metellus and Delmaticus respectively).42 If one chooses the elder Metellus, one has to explain why a man described elsewhere as being an excellent orator would be worried about mispronouncing the name Ops

 37

Richardson believes that the celebration of Ops in the Forum indicated by the Fasti Amiternini would have taken place at the temple of Saturn, not at an otherwise unknown temple of Ops Opifera. He finds some support (though nothing explicit) in Macr. Saturn. 1.10.18-20. See Richardson 1991, 277. 38 Morgan argues for the otherwise unattested temple in the Forum. See Morgan 1973, 41. 39 Varro (6.21) says that this shrine is so small that when the rites for the goddess are performed there is only room for the priest and the Vestal Virgins. 40 Coarelli 1969, 149. 41 Aronen 1997. 42 Morgan lists nine Metelli who were triumphatores and thus had the funds to build a temple de manubiis, four of whom were also pontifices, but he focuses his discussion primarily on these two. See Morgan 1973, 35-36.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Meaningful Mispronunciations

233

Opifera.43 If, on the other hand, one chooses Delmaticus, the temple in question could not be the one struck by lightning in 186, unless the ceremony to which Pliny refers was a rededication, which presumably he would have specified.44 Given the variety of possible dates, locations and participants, scholars have been left to exercise their best judgment on the matter, which, of course, differs depending on whom you ask. PlatnerAshby and Richardson, in their topographical dictionaries, and Elvers in Der Neue Pauly prefer Delmaticus to be the officiant at a rededication of the Capitoline temple c. 119 BCE.45 Morgan, Ziolkowski and Coarelli support the idea of the elder Metellus being the founder of the temple, though there is again disagreement on whether this temple was on the Capitoline or in the Forum.46 Morgan in particular argues quite persuasively that it would make sense for the elder Metellus to vow a temple to Ops Opifera as a goddess of the harvest prior to the battle of Panormus, in which the harvest of Rome’s allies was in danger of being destroyed by the Carthaginians. The temple, he argues, was likely built in the Forum, using spoils from Metellus’ victory, and dedicated during his second consulship in 247.47 Regarding the objections to Metellus being the stuttering officiant on the grounds of his identification elsewhere in Pliny and Valerius Maximus as an excellent orator, Morgan helpfully notes that the words accipimus and credatur in Pliny’s account of the event suggest that Pliny himself hardly believes the story that is told of the venerable Metellus, and he also points out that Valerius Maximus’ assertion that Metellus never made an error in a religious ceremony may be a response to this very story.48 Furthermore, Morgan notes that elsewhere in Pliny, when he uses the formula “Metellus pontifex,” he is referring to the elder Metellus. Most recently, Clark, in her book on temples to divine qualities at Rome, has done an excellent job summing up the various scholarly



43 This was Jordan’s primary argument against L. Caecilius Metellus. Elsewhere in Pliny (Ǿȃ 7.140), he is said to be the best of orators and Valerius Maximus (8.13.2) says that Metellus never made an error in the rituals in which he officiated as pontifex. Morgan argues that this statement in Valerius Maximus may be in response to the commonly repeated story of Metellus’ mistake in dedicating the temple of Ops Opifera. The tale of a famous orator who had to overcome difficulties in speaking is similar to the accounts Demosthenes’ early years. See Morgan 1973, 37. 44 Ziolkowski 1992, 124. 45 Platner and Ashby 1929, 372; Richardson 1991, 277; Elvers 1996. 46 Clark 2007, 303-304; Coarelli 1969, 148-150; Ziolkowski 1992, 122-125; Morgan 1973, passim. 47 Morgan 1973, 38-39. 48 Morgan 1973, 36-37.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

234

Chapter Eight

arguments concerning the temple of Ops Opifera and, regarding the location, date and dedicator of the temple, she comes to the decision that, “No conclusive answer can be reached,” though she does suggest that a possible cause for the confusion could be that Metellus dedicated the original temple in the 240s, while his descendant Delmaticus performed a rededication more than a century later.49 To relate this back to Alcesimarchus’ mispronounced prayer in Cistellaria, a plausible scenario for the dedication of the temple of Ops Opifera could be as follows: L. Caecilius Metellus vows a temple to Ops Opifera, the bringer of wealth, at the battle of Panormus in 250 BCE. In the months leading up to the dedication in 247, he is nervous about correctly pronouncing the alliterative name of the goddess and maybe even says it wrong at the dedication, requiring correction and repetition of the ritual. The joke of the stuttering pontifex circulates for some fifty years until Plautus’ day, and he uses it to add extra humor to the parodic prayer scene in Cistellaria. In the play, Alcesimarchus, the agitated young man trying desperately to regain access to his meretrix, makes a similar mistake to that of the esteemed statesman Metellus when he invokes the goddess as Ops Opulenta instead of Ops Opifera, a meaningful variation on the goddess’ name and a joke based both on aprosdoketon and on a parodic reference to the tale of the stuttering pontifex. The anecdote continues in circulation until Pliny’s day, by which time the story has become so proverbial that he can effectively use it as an example in a treatise on human and animal tongues without further explanation. Even if this is not exactly how things happened, the joke in Plautus can still work. One of the most useful arguments that Morgan makes in his article is that the story of Metellus’ mispronunciation need not be true in order for it to be a useful example for Pliny, and in that same vein, nor does it need to be true in order for it to provide comic fodder for Plautus.50 Accounts of the incident could derive from little more than a humorous tongue twister falsely attributed to a famous statesman, but as long as the story was widely enough known, it could still have added extra humor to the scene from Cistellaria as well as provide a useful example for Pliny years later. Even if Delmaticus, not Metellus, is the Metellus pontifex from Pliny’s anecdote, the line in Plautus still works as an aprosdoketon joke because

 49

Clark 2007, 300-305, esp. 305. Morgan points out that Metellus eventually attained somewhat of a mythical status and that other stories about him were embellished or altogether fabricated, such as the age to which he lived (100) and his blinding while saving the Palladium from a fire in the temple of Vesta. See Morgan 1973, 37. 50

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Meaningful Mispronunciations

235

Alcesimarchus still gets the goddess’ epithet wrong, but, if this is the case, it fails then to be a parody of a specific incident.

3. Conclusion: Opulenta vs Opifera and the themes of Plautus’ Cistellaria Even if this passage represents only a general, not a specific parody, the mispronunciation of the name of Ops Opifera is nevertheless still packed with extra meaning in the way that this moment wryly comments on one of the primary problems of the play. As noted above, Ops Opulenta would be a goddess who keeps goods to herself, while Ops Opifera would bring aid to those in need. The conflict in the plot is driven forward by characters who do not share resources with each other, be that money, social connections, or information. In other words, the characters prefer to be opulenti rather than opiferi when it comes to their relationships with each other. Demipho, by returning to Lemnos, leaves Phanostrata without the means to raise her child legitimately, while Selenium is not told the truth of her birth and rescue until late in the play. Melaenis keeps Selenium away from Alcesimarchus, Gymnasium keeps information from Alcesimarchus’ father, allowing him to think she is Selenium, and Gymnasium’s mother keeps information from Lampadio, allowing him to think that she is Melaenis. Even the god Auxilium is late in delivering the divine prologue. The cycle is finally broken when Melaenis decides to return Selenium to Phanostrata along with the box of trinkets that will provide for her recognition, representing a free gift of physical goods, information and social connections, which are the items on barter throughout the play. Even at this moment, however, Alcesimarchus’ attempted suicide makes it so that the box arrives at Phanostrata’s doorstep without the necessary explanation as to its contents or owner.51 Thus, in addition to the religious parody, Alcesimarchus’ mispronunciation of the goddess’ epithet, calling her opulenta instead of opifera, directs the audience’s attention toward the overall conflict and themes of the play.52 Such subtle variations in words and phrases that nevertheless carry

 51

On the nearly abortive recognition scene, see Manuwald 2004, 137-148. This interpretive takeaway is based on the difference in meaning between the mispronounced epithet opulenta and the actual epithet opifera and has bearing on the overall conflict of the play. Cf. Moore 2004, who sees Alcesimarchus’ attempt to write mothers out of the prayer and thus out of his story with Selenium as the interpretive takeaway of the passage.

52

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

236

Chapter Eight

significant interpretive weight are to be seen throughout the Plautine corpus, as amply demonstrated by Fontaine (2010).53 Regarding the enactment of religious material in Greek and Roman Drama, Fritz Graf remarks, “Even regular ritual is not simply reproduced, but used as a tool to shape the audience’s expectations and perceptions. Changes sometimes seem minute, but the audience, steeped in rituals, was capable of spotting even these.”54 The alternation between the titles Ops Opifera and Ops Opulenta in Cistellaria is indeed a minute difference, but one that the Roman audience was trained to notice by the procedural regulations of Roman prayer that required prayers to be spoken with meticulous accuracy. Melaenis’ correction of Alcesimarchus’ many errors presents the audience with a parody of official Roman prayers, prayers that would have been performed during the same festival at which the play was enacted. Furthermore, the young man’s error in invoking Ops by the epithet Opulenta instead of Opifera was likely a parody of Metellus’ mispronunciation of the goddess’ name at the dedication of the temple of Ops Opifera c. 247 BCE. This analysis of Cistellaria 512-527 demonstrates how the rich verbal tapestry of Plautine comedy, so full of alliteration and assonance, can do more than just please the ear of the audience. In this scene, Plautus masterfully combines a general and a specific parody within a three-syllable variation that subtly comments on the themes of greed, confusion, and distrust that run throughout the play, a slight mispronunciation that is certainly packed with meaning.

 53

Fontaine 2010. For example, see Fontaine’s discussion of the wordplay with damnum and Epidamnus in Menaechmi (p. 28) or his restoration of Phrynesion as the name of the courtesan in Truculentus, which turns Truc. 77-78a into an excellent and thematically meaningful pun, rather than a dull repetition (pp. 2130). 54 Graf 2007, 61.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



PART IV: LITERARY HISTORY

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



CHAPTER NINE BEFORE PUSSY RIOT: FREE SPEECH AND CENSORSHIP IN THE AGE OF PLAUTUS (WITH AN APPENDIX ON THE INVENTION OF THE PALINDROME AND ANACYCLIC VERSE)

MICHAEL FONTAINE

My goal in this paper is to revisit the most famous passage in Roman comedy and give it a radically new interpretation. I aim to show that the “barbarian poet” mentioned in Plautus’ Miles gloriosus (The Braggart Soldier) 211-212 is an allusion to a Greek poet named Sotades “the Obscene” (țȓȞĮȚįȠȢ, kinaidos, cinaedus) of Maroneia, a poet imprisoned in Ptolemaic Alexandria for lèse-majesté, and not—as scholars have assumed since Rome’s Augustan age—to the Roman poet Gnaeus Naevius. The backstory: animos instigabat sedatos Sotades sospes, poetis os, pes, dum liber fuit. suscensus autem stimulo, Ptolemaeus simul et libertatem tollit et licentiam. in carcerem compegit rex Aegyptius poetam, ostendens omnibus stimulo suo sese tyrannum, in servitutem se datos. Sotades got away with pricking at muddle-headed hearts as long as poets enjoyed freedom of expression and movement. Goaded into anger by one of his barbs, however, Ptolemy simultaneously took away freedom along with his licentiousness. The Egyptian king clapped the poet into prison, showing one and all through this abuse of power that he was a tyrant and that they themselves were slaves.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

240

Chapter Nine

In classic “Alexandrian” style, Plautus uses obscene double entendre, which is the hallmark of Sotades’ own poetics, to make the allusion to Sotades’ fate unmistakable. If I am right, literary history must be rewritten in two ways: a) to acknowledge that literary and cultural contacts between Rome and Alexandria, Egypt, began two centuries earlier than historians now believe; b) to reassess the history of free speech and censorship in ancient Rome, especially during that crucial period of cultural awakening that Magda El-Nowieemy (2013) calls the “Roman Enlightenment.” And since the passage touches on the perennial concerns of free speech and political protest, I would like to draw some parallels between the ancient situation and some recent episodes in western politics as I see them. An appendix offers new thoughts on Ennius’ Sota, Callimachus epigram 28 Pfeiffer, and the invention of palindromes and anacyclic verse.1

1. The Roman Enlightenment and the Age of Plautus The “Roman Enlightenment” begins with the birth of Latin literature in the city of Rome in the year 240 BCE, five centuries after the foundation of the city in 753 BCE. For the first hundred years of this era, however, the only texts to survive complete are the 27 stage comedies of Plautus (254184 BCE) and Terence (194/84-160 BCE). That makes it impossible to contextualize the audiences that came to watch them. Paradoxically, therefore, Rome’s “Enlightenment” is now dominated by darkness! The task falls to scholars in modern times to shed light, however ingeniously they can, on that period.2 And in that period, the most important city in the Mediterranean world was not in Greece or in Italy but in Egypt. In 332 BCE Alexander the Great had conquered Egypt and founded Alexandria, his new city, on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. A decade later he was dead and in the ensuing power struggle one of his generals, Ptolemy I Soter, became Alexandria’s first king. Athens was already in decline, so the muses fled south and took up residence in Ptolemy’s new megacity, which was attracting people of all backgrounds from all over the Mediterranean.

 1

Acknowledgments: For improving this paper, I owe debts to Mark Saltveit, Jan Kwapisz and Hayden Pelliccia; the crowd sourcing at academia.edu; audiences at the Library of Alexandria (Egypt), Cornell University and Oberlin College; and my respective hosts at each, Magda El-Nowieemy and Rania Hosny, Caitlín Barrett and Christopher Trinacty. Dedication: For Ariella Katz, catae MoscVae MVscae ViragInique. 2 Feeney 2016, unscathed by Wiseman 2016.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Before Pussy Riot

241

Ptolemy built the muses a new home. He called it the “Museum,” and he added a library that subsequently became the most famous and fabled in the world—the great Library of Alexandria. Before long, poets and scholars from throughout the Greek world came to join the Library, where some of them began pioneering dense and playful new forms of poetic expression: bookish, artificial and highly allusive poetry that delights in irony, in rare words and cultural curiosities, and in constrained writing of all kinds (acrostics, riddles, echoes, anagrams, puns, double entendre and so on). And because you cannot hear much of this wordplay, it is clear that Alexandrian poetry was bookish poetry: literature for the page, not the stage. The influence that this allusive style came to assert on classical Latin poetry is well known,3 but most scholars today believe it reached Rome only in the 1st century BCE.4 I myself have recently argued that that influence is already demonstrable in the comedy written by Plautus’ younger peer, Terence, in the 160s BCE.5 I now believe we can find Alexandrian influence even earlier—specifically, in the time of Plautus’ career, or the Age of Plautus. I would like to suggest the audience of that comedy, and presumably of other early Roman comedies, knew about some of the goings-on at the Library of Alexandria in its Golden Age— that is, under the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (283-246 BCE), a reign that ended just six years before the birth of Latin literature in Rome in 240 BCE. Plautus (c. 254-184) flourished a generation or two before Terence, especially during the years between 200-184. We only know the dates of a few of his comedies exactly,6 but many scholars today believe The Braggart Soldier is one of them: 205 BCE. If my argument here is correct, however, I will cut the cord between that year and this play, because the reason for that date comes from that very passage I would like to focus on. Let me begin with a strange remark Plautus made an old man say onstage 22 centuries ago.

 3

Hinds 1998. Fantuzzi and Hunter 2004, 462; El-Nowieemy 2013. 5 Fontaine 2014b and 2014d. 6 Stichus in 200 BCE and Pseudylus in 191 BCE are both dated by ancient production notices attached in the manuscripts to the front of each play. 4

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

242

Chapter Nine

2. A Twerking Twink in The Braggart Soldier The title of Plautus’ comedy is Alazon (ਝȜĮȗȫȞ), “The Blowhard”.7 Usually known today by the Latin title Miles gloriosus, “The Braggart Soldier,” it seems to be set in the cosmopolitan Greek city of Ephesus in or around the year 287 BCE.8 Of all Plautus’ plays, it is the most emphatically oriented toward the eastern Greek world, whereas all the others are based in Athens or western Greece. Plautus seems to have spliced in the strange opening scene that precedes the prologue from a different play.9 It shows us a toady cozening up to the braggart soldier of the title, and it makes a splendid allegory for why the right to free speech and critique is crucial in any society that entrusts self-important men with military might. After that scene, the soldier winds up trapped in an illicit love affair by a crafty slave, named Palaestrio, who is eager to rescue his master’s girlfriend from the soldier’s clutches. For my purposes, however, the plot is unimportant. My interest is entirely in a strange, minor character named Periplectomenus. Periplectomenus is a wealthy older gentleman of Ephesus. He is a family friend of Palaestrio’s master. He has never married and seems to have no interest in getting married. He loves the uncommitted, freeswinging bachelor lifestyle, and midway through the play we find him boasting of that lifestyle. He also boasts of his many talents, including a very unusual one (668): tum ad saltandum non cinaedus malacus aequest atque ego. And when it comes to twerking, a pervert isn’t as twinkle-toed as I am!10

“Twerking” is the name for a contemporary dance that involves wiggling the buttocks in a vulgar or seductive fashion, and in Greek, the word kinaidos meant an oriental dancer who specialized in twerking, or something like it. Kinaidoi were originally street performers in Hellenistic Alexandria, men who dressed as (exaggerated) women, sang distinctive songs and specialized in wiggling their buttocks up and down rapidly, so

 7

Line 86, Palaestrio speaking. Though it may be true, we cannot assume Alazon was also the title of the play’s Greek model. 8 Eyl 2006; following the same internal cues, other scholars have suggested notional dates ranging from 299 down to 280. 9 Possibly Menander’s The Flatterer (Kolax): Fontaine 2010a. 10 Translations throughout are mine, unless otherwise noted.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Before Pussy Riot

243

as to simulate being penetrated during sex.11 By the time of imperial Rome, the Latinized word cinaedus had become a slur for a twink, an effeminate gay or bisexual man who enjoys the passive role.12 In between and in everyday Greek and Latin, kinaidos seems to mean an oversexed pervert, a seducer or man-whore. Here, just a few decades after Alexandrian writers created “kinaidic verse,” of which I shall say more in §5, the word seems to play on both those meanings, “lewd dancer” and “effeminate pervert”.13 And in performance, any good Periplectomenus would surely have demonstrated a few moves to delight the crowd. What I want to emphasize is that there is no obvious reason for Periplectomenus to say this here, and there is nothing else like it in Plautus. As H. D. Jocelyn remarks (1995, 107), “The way it [the scene] connects, or fails to connect, with other scenes and the picture Periplectomenus is made to draw in it of himself and his way of life have long puzzled scholars. It does not resemble any scene of a late fourth- or early third-century Attic comedy which we know or which we could plausibly hypothesize.” In that light, I would like to emphasize that Periplectomenus knows a kinaidos when he sees one, and he knows how to imitate one. Before explaining why this matters, let me remind readers of three taboos of the Roman stage: first, Roman comedy never refers or alludes to contemporaries in Rome; second, unambiguously obscene words are never uttered onstage; third, ambiguously obscene words—rare to begin with— are always mild.14 In Greek comedy, Aristophanes calls out Cleon and uses profanity constantly. Roman comedians never do that; they do not mention or even hint at real people in Rome,15 and they do not even hint at truly shocking dirty words like futuere or landica. I call all three practices “taboo” because there is no evidence they were prohibited by law; in the Roman

 11

Tsitsiridis 2015, 220-227, 235; Deagon 2008; Moore 2012, 111-114. Davidson 2009; Williams 2010, 196-197. Kinaidos does not mean “gay”; Sotades had a son (Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 14.620). 13 Strabo credits Sotades with the invention of kinaidic verse (Geographica 14.1.41 ਷ȡȟİ į੻ ȈȦIJȐįȘȢ ȝ੻Ȟ ʌȡ૵IJȠȢ IJȠ૨ țȚȞĮȚįȠȜȠȖİ૙Ȟ, “Sotades was the first to write kinaidos poetry”), while Athenaeus gave that honor to Alexander Aetolus, Sotades’ contemporary (Deipnosophistae 14.620e). 14 Fontaine 2010b, chapter 5, “Double Entendre.” 15 The only exception is the swipe at Pellio, Plautus’ manager, in Bacchides 215, and for that reason its authenticity has been doubted (Lennartz 2014). If pellio in Menaechmi 404 is a pun on his name, as many suppose, then it supports my contention that an allusion in Miles gloriosus to Sotades “the obscene” is sealed by means of obscene puns (see §7 below). 12

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

244

Chapter Nine

Republic, where playwrights had to earn their next commission from annually elected state officials, it seems that prudence and custom, rather than legal restrictions, encouraged comedians to cultivate diplomacy and refrain from attacking individuals or scandalizing the public with foul language. Or to put it differently, self-censorship, rather than censorship, was the norm. A violation of one of these three taboos would be unusual. What makes the passage in The Braggart Soldier the most famous in all of Roman comedy is that it violates two of them simultaneously. As we will see, it first seems to allude to a contemporary figure in Rome, and it secondly seems to allude to shockingly obscene words and behavior.

3. The Barbarian Poet in The Braggart Soldier Early in the play, the slave Palaestrio is racking his brain to come up with a plan. As he contorts his body from one posture to another, Periplectomenus stands to one side, offering a running and rambling commentary to himself.16 When the slave at last props his chin on his hand, adopting the pose of Rodin’s The Thinker, the older gentleman declares (209), “But look, he’s building something: he’s supporting his chin with a column!” Periplectomenus then checks himself, turns to break the dramatic illusion and declares (210-212): apage, non placet profecto mi illaec aedificatio: nam os columnatum poetae esse indaudivi barbaro, quoi bini custodes semper totis horis occupant.17 Away with that, I don’t like that sort of building work at all: You see, I’ve heard a barbarian poet’s face was propped on a column, and a pair of guards are always keeping watch on him, in all his hours.

Everyone agrees the phrase “his face was propped on a column” is an allusion to corporal punishment; it evidently means someone confined in a stock wherein the central bar could be likened to a column.18 Everyone

 16

Monda 2014 contextualizes the posture in both the living and comic traditions, and provides a complete bibliography on the passage as a whole. 17 Occupant is my emendation of the manuscripts’ occubant, discussed in §7 below. As Freud knew, misprints can reveal both a preoccupation and a pun. Plautus’ manuscripts have occubant, which is (in my view) the pun; whereas Gruen 1996, 97 accidentally prints and translates occupant, which is probably the word Plautus ostensibly intended. 18 Allen 1896.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Before Pussy Riot

245

also agrees that the Ephesian Greek Periplectomenus is making an ironic joke at the expense of his Roman audience, since for him, anyone who spoke Latin was a “barbarian.” And though Periplectomenus never says who “the barbarian poet” is, scholars since antiquity have assumed he is alluding to the poet Gnaeus Naevius—any handbook of Latin literature, new or old, says so. The oldest source is Festus (p. 32 Lindsay), which goes back to the work of the grammarian Verrius Flaccus, a contemporary of Vergil and Horace and official tutor to the grandsons of Augustus. Despite that venerable pedigree, however, that is where I disagree and part ways with dogma. Who was Naevius? Gnaeus Naevius is the second great literary figure of the Roman Enlightenment. He is an older contemporary and allegedly a colleague of Plautus. He wrote comedies, tragedies and, like Vergil, epic poetry on Roman nationalist themes, all in Latin. He was as famous as Shakespeare and Marlowe were in the Elizabethan era. Ancient sources claim Naevius enjoyed a celebrated career in Rome until he offended a powerful aristocratic family, one of whom was consul, by having a character direct a satirical comment against them in one of his comedies. That family had him arrested and kept in prison until he eventually recanted, was released and left Rome in exile.19 Such is the claim, but in recent years scholars have grown confident that the verses cannot refer to Naevius; the chief objection is that the Roman Republic—like the United States, and unlike the Roman Empire— had no legal power to arrest or imprison a poet for offensive, nonviolent speech.20 What is more, if the line is an allusion to a contemporary in Rome at all, then it is the only allusion in all of Plautus’ twenty-one comedies that modern scholars can detect (thus violating the first of my “taboos” of the Roman stage); that provides a second ground for doubting the dogma. But if the barbarian poet is not Naevius, who is it? I suggest it refers to the Greek poet Sotades of Maroneia, better known as “the kinaidos,” who became, in his time, the first and most famous poet in the world to be imprisoned for an untimely jest.

 19

Gellius 3.3.15; Jerome, ad Euseb. Chronicon a. Abr. 1816/Olymp. CXLIV (201 BCE); Papaioannou 2009, appendix. 20 Manuwald 2015; Papaioannou 2009, appendix; Mattingly 1960 and Gruen 1996, 92-106 are the classic studies.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

246

Chapter Nine

4. On the wisdom of shutting up In 2011, the feminist punk band Pussy Riot began staging guerilla performances to protest and satirize the policies of Vladimir Putin. In 2012, they stormed into Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior and staged an impromptu show. Three members were arrested, tried, convicted and spent time in prison. Their ordeal sparked a worldwide outcry from musicians, artists and celebrities, all of whom risked unpopularity with their audiences to speak out in defense of the free speech rights of their Russian colleagues. The general category into which the Pussy Riot incident falls is “antiregime humor” and, in repressive systems, the regular punishment is imprisonment. A famous example in the 17th century is Voltaire. He published a few satirical poems accusing the acting French monarch of sleeping with his own daughter, and promptly got clapped into the Bastille for a year. Sadly, there are countless other examples close to our own time.21 The offense goes by many names but it amounts to lèse-majesté, offending the dignity of the sovereign. Lèse-majesté, Latin laesa maiestas, is a descendent of the ancient Roman maiestas (treason) law. In practice, violations of this concept—political or secular blasphemy—are prosecuted under different laws. With Pussy Riot, the charge was “hooliganism aimed at inciting religious hatred.” With Sotades, the charge was kakegoria, verbal insult, or, as one might almost (and provocatively) translate it today, “hate speech”.22 My interest here is not in the law, however, but in the support we so often see expressed by artists who speak out on behalf of their beleaguered colleagues. We saw it with Pussy Riot (musicians), we saw it after the Charlie Hebdo massacre (political cartoonists, comedians and satirists), and we are seeing it again among standup comedians in the US, who now tell us they are afraid to play college campuses.23 In all cases, that support crosses ethnicity and national boundaries. That is the point I want to emphasize as we turn to examine the fate of Sotades.

 21

Oring 2016, 109-128. Meleze-Modrzejewski 1998. Unlike kakegoria, hate speech currently describes verbal insults based on one’s legally protected group identity. This concept did not exist in ancient Greece. Like kakegoria, however, the term does capture the characterization of insulting speech, as opposed to action, as a criminal offense. 23 Anonymous 2015; Flanagan 2015. 22

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Before Pussy Riot

247

5. Sotades and his poetics Who was Sotades? Like Apollonius of Rhodes, Lycophron and Callimachus, Sotades lived and worked in Alexandria during the Library’s Golden Age under Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246 BCE); but unlike them, Sotades was a wandering poet rather than a member of the Library’s inner circle. A sort of Momus incarnate, he reportedly roved from court to court, speaking truth to power—or at least behind power’s back—and satirizing it.24 For James Davidson, “It has proven almost irresistible to view Sotades as the first fully developed ‘radical queer writer,’ a sexual outlaw, like [Jean] Genet…”.25 For Jan Kwapisz, by contrast, the ancient accounts are romantic and Sotades was a sedentary author of books in the Aesopic tradition, books in which the poet styled himself a “teacher of kings”.26 I agree with Kwapisz’ interpretation of Sotades as a “teacher of kings” but I do not dismiss those accounts so readily; in my own view, Sotades resembled the alchemists of early modern Germany, roaming from one court to another.27 Sotades was murdered around 267 BCE;28 we do not know when he was born. A bust of him is extant:

Fig. 1: Line drawings of a small bronze bust inscribed “Sotades,” from Anatolia, Eskiúehir Archaeological Museum, inventory number A-283-67. Provenance unknown, but probably of Hadrianic date (120-130 CE) or a little later. Credit: Lucy Plowe, after Peege and Frei 2001. © Michael Fontaine, 2017.

 24

Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 14.621a. Davidson 2009, 59. 26 Kwapisz 2016. 27 Alchemists: Ruickbie 2009. On the trustworthiness of ancient accounts, see my point about Bocchoris in §6 below. 28 Cameron 1995, 262; Launey 1945 suggests 266 or 265. 25

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

248

Chapter Nine

He came from the city of Maroneia, in Thrace (northeast of Greece, between the modern-day nations of Bulgaria and Turkey). That homeland would make the epithet “barbarian” apt, since Thrace was perpetually known as “barbarian” country to Greeks; in Samia 519-520 Menander’s Niceratus calls Moschion “ȕȐȡȕĮȡİ, Ĭȡ઼Țȟ,” “You barbarian, you Thracian!”29 Incidentally, I realize that “barbarian” in Plautus is routinely taken to mean “Latin” or “Roman.” It need not mean that, of course; in Rudens 583 and Bacchides 121 it clearly does not. Yet even where we do think “barbarian” must mean “Latin,” I have long wondered whether that is only half the joke, and not the better half, either. Martial uses “barbarism” in the familiar linguistic sense of coining a morphologically incorrect word (3.17): Cinnam, Cinname, te iubes vocari: non est hic, rogo, Cinna, barbarismus? Tu si Furius ante dictus esses, Fur ista ratione dicereris. Cinna, you’re telling people to call you Cinnamon. C’mon, Cinna, isn’t that a barbarism? If your name were Furius, by the same rationale, you’d be called fur (thief).

This suggests vortit barbare actually means “committed a barbarism” when Plautus “translates” șȘıĮȣȡȩȢ (thesauros, “treasure”) in Trinummus 19 not with the obvious loanword thensaurus, but with the hybrid coinage Trinummus (i.e. IJȡȚ-nummus, “über-Coin”), and he apologizes for it.30 It also suggests a copyist who failed to see the joke “fixed” (as he thought) the Greek title to Onager or Onagrus (੕ȞĮȖȡȠȢ), “The Wild Ass,” when the prologue tells us in Asinaria 11 that the title of the Greek model was Onagos (ੑȞસȖȩȢ), “The Ass Driver.” If Plautus were translating like a philologist, the Latin for that would be the unpronounceable word *Asinariaria (from asinar-ius + -aria); hence his “barbarism,” Asinaria.31



29 On the stereotype in general (tattooed, polygamous, hotheaded), see Long 1986. Maroneia was originally called Ismarus, the Ciconian city of Odyssey 9. 30 Fontaine 2014a, 531-532; Fontaine 2010b, 141 n. 84. 31 Manuscripts B and D have Onagros; E has Onagos, which nearly all editors print. On copyists’ tendency to “fix” the puns in Plautus’ texts out of existence, see Fontaine 2010b, passim. In Fontaine 2005, I myself failed to understand Plautus’ point.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Before Pussy Riot

249

At any rate, Sotades is celebrated for two amazing innovations. One is the alleged invention of the palindrome, of which I will say more in the appendix to this paper. The other is the invention of verses called kinaidoi or kinaidologic, which, in a typically Hellenistic move, Sotades based on real-live kinaidoi. As Stavros Tsitsiridis explains, He [Sotades] obviously introduced kinaidoi as entertainers, as he knew them mainly from Egypt, where he lived. As far as we can deduce from the extant fragments, a kinaidos was for Sotades a kind of fool or clown, whose contribution lay in the kind of poetry he was characteristically interested in: he was over-the-top, indecent, disrespectful and free of taboos (especially regarding sex), yet at the same time merry and capable of being outspoken. […] Sotades turned to a popular entertainment just as Rhinthon before him had turned to the phlyakes and Herodas to more widespread forms of mime.32

Sotades cast these verses in a new meter of his own devising, an ionic tetrameter whose rhythm suggested the same twerking that kinaidoi were infamous for; James Davidson calls it “his own flexible effeminate skippier beat,” and Armand D’Angour’s mnemonic illustrates it:33 So tedious ¦ when quantities ¦ like this never ¦ seem clear, So everyone ¦ but Sotades ¦ finds them all a ¦ bit queer íí‫׫‬í íí‫׫‬í íí‫ ׫׫‬íí íí‫׫‬í íí‫׫‬í í‫׫‬í‫ ׫‬íí

An ancient example is Sotades’ reworking of Iliad 22.133, “brandishing the Pelian ash spear over his right shoulder” (a dactylic hexameter), ıİȓȦȞ ȆȘȜȚȐįĮ ȝİȜȓȘȞ țĮIJ੹ įİȟȚઁȞ ੯ȝȠȞ

as ıİȓȦȞ ȝİȜȓȘȞ ȆȘȜȚȐįĮ įİȟȚઁȞ țĮIJ’ ੯ȝȠȞ.

As Llewelyn Morgan remarks, “This may not look like much to you and me, but to [ancient critics] that reordering of long and short syllables is weird and unsettling”.34 As with Sapphics, this weird and unsettling meter came to be called the Sotadic or Sotadean in honor of its inventor, and books were written about

 32

Tsitsiridis 2015, 229. Davidson 2009, 60; D’Angour, no date. 34 Sotades fr. 4a Powell; Morgan 2016, citing Demetrius De Elocutione 189. 33

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

250

Chapter Nine

it; Sotades’ son, Apollonius and Carystius of Pergamum (late 2nd century BCE) each wrote a monograph on his verses.35 For the rest of antiquity, Greek and Latin poets occasionally adopted the meter for their own sexually obscene content; even today, folk etymology regards Sotades’ name as the source of the German word Zote, “dirty joke.” It is, therefore, both surprising and unsurprising, as well as generally unknown, that Plautus himself uses the Sotadic meter on a few rare occasions—and he associates it with kinaidoi when he does.36 These verses are surely one reason why Sotades himself earned the nickname “the kinaidos.” His reputation in that regard is reflected in a corrupt passage of Juvenal’s second satire. In it, Juvenal attacks a closeted homosexual who has been hypocritically attacking openly gay men (2.810): quis enim non vicus abundat tristibus obscenis? castigas turpia, cum sis inter Sotadicos notissima fossa cinaedos? What part of Rome isn’t bursting with nasty perverts? Do you really have the nerve to criticize “obscenity,” when your anus is an A-list celebrity among the Sotadic kinaidoi?

Modern texts of this passage read Socraticos (Socratic) not Sotadicos, but it will soon be clear why I regard this forgotten Renaissance-era emendation as unquestionably correct.37 What is more, a number of clues suggest Sotades liked to conceal his sexual obscenities in riddles, double entendre or daring metaphors. Maurizio Bettini interprets the phrase sotadicos intellego in a letter of the younger Pliny as meaning “I can decrypt sotadic verses”.38 Regrettably, apart from a lone fart joke,39 almost all of Sotades’ obscene wit is lost, but the following few Latin examples suggest its flavor and (I assume) reflect its influence. The first is an epigram of Martial in which the connection with Sotades is explicit (6.26):

 35

Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 14.620 Stichus 769-773 (cinaedicus, cinaedos); Amphitryo 168-172; Persa 826; Bettini 1995. 37 Leopardus 1604, 273; the same corruption (banalization) appears in Pliny Epistula 5.3.2, below. 38 Bettini 1995, 66; Pliny Epistula 5.3.2 39 Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 14.621b. 36

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Before Pussy Riot

251

Periclitatur capite Sotades noster. Reum putatis esse Sotaden? non est. Arrigere desit posse Sotades: lingit. Our friend Sotades is risking his neck! …Oh! You think he’s on trial? Nope. He can’t get it up anymore, so he tongues it.

Perclitatur capite is a legal expression meaning “he’s charged with a capital crime,” and the verb, pericl-it-ari, which comes from peric(u)l-um, “danger,” puns on the name Sotades: ȈȦIJ-ȐįȘȢ means “safe” in Greek. And yet (to offer a new interpretation of my own) the real point of this ingenious epigram is surely an obscene pun; the last word, lingit, is the sting in the tail. It maliciously redefines the first word, periclit-atur, as *ʌİȡ઀țȜİȚIJ-Ƞȡ઀ȗİȚ, “he orbits (or encircles) the clitoris” (a facetious compound of ʌİȡ઀ and țȜİȚIJȠȡ઀Ȣ, on the analogy of țȜİȚIJȠȡ઀ȗİȚȞ and țȜİȚIJȠȡȚ੺ȗİȚȞ, “touch the clitoris”). Thus periclitatur capite, “he orbits the clitoris with his head,” makes for a fine, fun and suitably bilingual way to describe cunnilingus. Similarly, in a famous letter Cicero implies that Latin’s own word for clitoris, landica, was exceptionally obscene. To make his point, he cites an unwitting double entendre that is in exactly the same “Sotadic” spirit: Memini in senatu disertum consularem ita eloqui: “hanc culpam maiorem an illam dicam?” potuit obscenius? I remember hearing a dignitary in the senate say, “Shall I call this mistake or that one greater?” Could he have been more obscene that that?

Cicero’s point, which he refrains from saying, is that the collocation -lam dicam sounds too much like landicam for polite discourse.40 This is the kind of pun that would have been forbidden on the Roman stage; it violates my third taboo, whereby obscene words are stated only in mild formulations. The Suda lists several lost works by Sotades, including one titled Amazon and another titled Priapus (ȆȡȓȘʌȠȢ).41 The latter suggests the Sotadic spirit inspired this next example, which I take from that the collection of early imperial epigrams called the Priapus poems (carmina Priapea, poem 7):

 40

Ad familiares 9.22, cited again in §7 below. I suspect the first title was not Amazon (ਝȝĮȗȫȞ) but Alazon (ਝȜĮȗȫȞ), like Plautus’ play, but I see no way to prove it. 41

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

252

Chapter Nine Cum loquor, una mihi peccatur littera; nam T P dico semper blaesaque lingua mihi est. Every time I speak, I screw one letter up. I’m tongue-tied, you see, so I always pronounce a t like a p.

The point here is not that the statement is true or false, but that the collocation T P dico, “I pronounce a t like a p” sounds like te p(a)edico, “I’m buggering you.” Sotades became known in Rome at a surprisingly early date. The poet and playwright Quintus Ennius (239-169 BCE), a younger and more famous contemporary of Plautus, published a poem in sotadic meter titled Sotades (archaic Latin Sota, i.e. ȈȦIJ઼Ȣ, a short form of ȈȦIJȐįȘȢ). Only a few fragments survive,42 but they suggest Ennius adapted, translated, or imitated Sotades’ poetry, and so presumably brought stories of Sotades to a wider reading public. As we return to The Braggart Soldier, I would suggest that Plautus, and his audience in Rome, knew more about Sotades than just the meter named for him.

6. Sotades and Ptolemy In or shortly before 274 BCǼ, King Ptolemy II Philadelphus married his sister, Arsinoe II.43 Amid various conspiracies and counter-conspiracies, Arsinoe had recently fled and divorced her husband, King Lysimachus of Thrace, and needed protection and male guardianship. Then about 40 years old, Ptolemy took her as wife. Presumably, the incestuous marriage was designed not for consummation but to forge a nominal link between Ptolemy and the Egyptian pharaohs of old, who had regularly married their sisters. However the natives took it, the wedding scandalized Greeks everywhere, and Sotades, no toady, saw his chance to criticize it. He composed a poem satirizing Ptolemy and the marriage, and it spelled his doom. The king had him arrested and thrown into prison, where he languished for many years and subsequently murdered. Like the marriage, news of Sotades’ imprisonment reverberated throughout the Greek world and, for Greeks, forever after turned Sotades into the archetypal warning of the risk of speaking truth to power. Sotades’ poem is lost but it started out as a conventional wedding poem (epithalamium) comparing Ptolemy and Arsinoe to Zeus and Hera,

 42

I discuss fragment 5 in the appendix. 274: Hidber and Furley 2006. Others (e.g. Cameron 1995, 261) suggest dates between 279-274/3. 43

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Before Pussy Riot

253

the brother-sister marriage par excellence of Greek mythology. It began innocently enough:44 ਾȡȘȞ ʌȠIJȑ ijĮıȚȞ ¨ȓĮ IJઁȞ IJİȡʌȚțȑȡĮȣȞȠȞ... They say that once upon a time Zeus who delights in thunder… [wedded?] Hera...

But the final line carried a sting in its tail: İੁȢ Ƞ੝Ȥ ੒ıȓȘȞ IJȡȣȝĮȜȚ੽Ȟ IJઁ țȑȞIJȡȠȞ ੩șİ૙Ȣ.45 You’re pushing your kentron into an ungodly hole.

A kentron (Latin stimulus) is a long wooden stick tipped with an iron point. You use it to drive horses and oxen, and from time immemorial in Greece, it had been a traditional symbol of tyranny (because you use it to goad your subjects to action, like animals, rather than appeal to their dignity).

Fig. 2: A charioteer grips the kentron in his right hand. Terracotta Panathenaic prize amphora ca. 520 BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accession Number 56.171.4 Credit Line: Fletcher Fund, 1956. Online at: http://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/gr/original/DP227372.jpg.

 44

Fr. 16 Powell, first recognized as the start of the poem by Pretagostini 1984 and now universally accepted (Kwapisz 2016). 45 Manuscripts variously read ੭șİȚ, ੩șİ૙, or ੩șİ૙Ȣ (Kwapisz 2009); the discrepancy is immaterial to my argument.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

254

Chapter Nine

The kentron is the proverbial stick, not the carrot, and “to kick against the kentron” was proverbial in Greek for futile resistance. The same word, kentron, was used for a wasp’s or scorpion’s stinger, and for the leg of a compass you hold still when drawing a circle; it is that meaning that gave us the English word center. For all these reasons, the word “prick” makes a very appropriate translation of kentron, and it is easy to see that in Sotades’ line it is an obvious phallic metaphor. Yet because the kentron was a traditional symbol of tyranny, the line also seems to imply—albeit less obviously—that Ptolemy is abusing his power to legalize an unpopular taboo (incest), and in so doing will open up a veritable Pandora’s box of immorality. As Jan Kwapisz emphasizes, Sotades played the role of a moralistic chastiser of kings, and may have composed a book of such lessons aimed at Lysimachus and the historical Egyptian king Tachos as well as Ptolemy II.46 We lack the context to prove it, but if so, then in that case Sotades meant the line not as a witless single entendre but as a witty double entendre, a double entendre whose overt (polite) meaning was “You’re cramming your kentron into a forbidden loophole”.47 Because of the punishment it earned its author, of course, the line’s obscene point, which was moral, was probably the latent one, and its overt point, which is harder to see today, is social and political. And so with a single, memorable, quotable line, Sotades discredits (the legal fiction of) Ptolemy’s marriage both morally and politically. Like Voltaire so many centuries later, the scurrilous allegation of incest landed Sotades in prison; and like Pussy Riot a few years ago, that imprisonment became a cause célèbre in the Greek world for centuries after. The incident is mentioned by three sources, which are best approached in reverse chronological order: 1. The first is an essay falsely attributed to Plutarch (c. 46-120 CE) titled On the Education of Children. It holds up Sotades as an example of the importance of controlling your tongue (10e-11a): When Ptolemy Philadelphus married his sister, Arsinoe, and Sotades said, İੁȢ Ƞ੝Ȥ ੒ıȓȘȞ IJȡȣȝĮȜȚ੽Ȟ IJઁ țȑȞIJȡȠȞ ੩șİ૙Ȣ—he rotted in prison for many years (ਥȞ įİıȝȦIJȘȡȓ૳ ʌȠȜȜȠઃȢ țĮIJİıȐʌȘ ȤȡȩȞȠȣȢ) and paid the price for his untimely talking. To make other people laugh, he was sorry for a long time himself.

 46

Kwapisz 2016. The basic meaning of loophole is an arrow slit in a defensive wall; that is the source of the metaphorical meaning, a gap or weak spot in the law, that is more familiar today. 47

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Before Pussy Riot

255

2. The second source is Hegesander of Delphi (fl. first half of the second century BCE), a younger contemporary of Plautus.48 He makes a similar point about the wisdom and limits of freedom of speech (quoted by Athenaeus [late 2nd-early 3rd century CE] Deipnosophistae 14.13, p. 620F, tr. Olson 2011): Sotades had made numerous nasty remarks regarding King Ptolemy, including the following, after Ptolemy had married his sister Arsinoe: İੁȢ Ƞ੝Ȥ ੒ıȓȘȞ IJȡȣȝĮȜȚ੽Ȟ IJઁ țȑȞIJȡȠȞ ੩șİ૙Ȣ. He accordingly got the punishment he deserved; after he sailed out of Alexandria… and seemed to have escaped the danger, Ptolemy’s general Patroclus captured him on the island of Caunus, placed his feet in leaden tiles (ȝȠȜȣȕો țİȡĮȝȓȢ), took him out to sea, and drowned him.

The punishment is different because “Plutarch” and Hegesander are evidently referring to different periods of time. “Plutarch” says Sotades rotted in prison for many years,49 whereas Hegesander says he was drowned at sea in leaden tiles. And we ought not be quick to dismiss the execution as exaggerated fiction, as some scholars do.50 I have discovered that centuries earlier, the Egyptian King Bocchoris (ruled c. 725-720 BCE) had had a number of lepers wrapped in “leaden sheets” (ȝȠȜȪȕįȚȞȠȚ ȤȐȡIJİȢ) and drowned in the sea.51 The parallel with Sotades suggests Patroclus was following ancient Egyptian pharaonic precedent, real or imagined, and that Sotades—the offensive poet par excellence—had come to be regarded as a metaphorical “leper” on society. 3. The third source is contemporary with Sotades. It appears in the Acontius and Cydippe episode of the Aetia of Callimachus (310/305-240), the most famous poem of the most famous poet of the Library of Alexandria under Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Even in a later age, the time of Catullus and Vergil, his influence on all of Roman poetry was great. Callimachus begins by quoting the incipit of Sotades’ poem, only to interrupt and censor himself (fr. 75.4-5 Harder): ਾȡȘȞ ȖȐȡ țȠIJȑ ijĮıȚ - țȪȠȞ, țȪȠȞ, ੅ıȤİȠ, ȜĮȚįȡ੻ șȣȝȑ, ıȪ Ȗ’ ਕİȓıૉ țĮ੿ IJȐ ʌİȡ Ƞ੝Ȥ ੒ıȓȘ.

 48

Pretagostini 1984, 141. Cameron 1995, 262 dates Sotades’ wedding poem to 279/4 and his death to 267 (Launey 1945 suggests 266-265), twelve or seven years later. 50 So Kwapisz 2016. 51 So writes Lysimachus of Alexandria, a 1st century grammarian, as quoted by Josephus, Against Apion 1.34. 49

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

256

Chapter Nine Once upon a time, you see, they say that Hera—you dog! you dog! Shut up, you impudent brain of mine! You’ll tell a forbidden tale!

The first line quotes the incipit (first words) of Sotades’ poem, ਾȡȘȞ ʌȠIJȑ ijĮıȚȞ…, and the last two words, Ƞ੝Ȥ ੒ıȓȘ, point to its excipit, …Ƞ੝Ȥ ੒ıȓȘȞ IJȡȣȝĮȜȚȒȞ. Whatever his purpose, therefore—sincere or sarcastic, serious or funny—Callimachus’ lines read to me like the same “outcry of the artists” that attended the censorship and imprisonment of Pussy Riot. For all these reasons, I would like to suggest the barbarian poet in Plautus’ The Braggart Soldier is based on Sotades, whose imprisonment for jesting speech was famous at the time.52 Let us therefore go back and take a closer look at the Latin.

7. Obscaena in scaena: Fingering Sotades on the Roman Stage I have already suggested that Sotades makes a very plausible candidate to be the “barbarian poet” mentioned in Plautus’ play; he was the most famous “imprisoned poet” in Greek history. Now I want to strengthen my argument by suggesting that Periplectomenus identifies and seals the allusion, in “Alexandrian” style, by presenting it in characteristically “Sotadic” language. He says: nam os columnatum poetae esse indaudivi barbaro, quoi bini custodes semper totis horis occupant. You see, I’ve heard a barbarian poet’s face was propped on a column, and a pair of guards are always keeping watch on him, in all his hours.

Scholars have occasionally criticized these words as cryptic or obscure, and long before my own time they have wondered whether a double entendre of some kind lurks within them; my argument is that there is double entendre, and not just the obvious metaphor for fellatio in the first line that others have noted.53 (More on that later.)

 52

We have no way of knowing, however, whether the allusion was made in the original Greek comedy that Plautus adapted—now lost—or was an innovation by the Roman playwright. 53 Lambinus 1576, 669; Gruter (Taubmann) 1621, 801; Killeen 1973, 53-54; Allen 1896, 37: “Some interpreters, with incredible perverseness, read an obscene meaning into the phrase.”

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Before Pussy Riot

257

The important point is that whether the suggestion is “a column in the mouth” or something more complicated, the sexual metaphor makes no sense in allusion to Naevius; whereas if Periplectomenus is referring to Sotades, a self-affirming kinaidos, then an obstacle morphs into a dispositive fact. In my view (and in that of early modern commentators54), the pun is more complicated than the simple phallic image of the column. With an exaggerated “Greek” accent, (stereo)typical of a foreign character in a comedy, the second line can be simultaneously understood as follows: qui ȕȚȞİ૙, țȣıșȫįȘȢ semper. totis horis occubant.

Putting it all together, this means: You see, I’ve heard a barbarian poet had a mouth with a “column” in it— The poet who fucks, always reeking of pussy. People lie on top of him in all his hours.

How is this possible? The combination of the Sotadic interpretation and this accented delivery resolves exploits many ambiguities or equivocations. There are three in the first line: first is os, which ostensibly means “face” but actually means “mouth.” Second is quoi, which ostensibly refers to poeta but actually refers to os. Third is columnatum esse, which ostensibly means “was furnished with a column” but actually means “had a mouth with a ‘column’ in it”—an obvious phallic metaphor. On the ostensible view, the line refers to a face held fast by an instrument of confinement. On the Sotadic view, the line is tantamount to a metaphor for fellatio. That is obscenity #1. I also detect an additional sent of obscene double entendres in the second line, viz.: 1. The dative quoi (cui) puns on qui (nominative). These words sound different but close, and can obviously be made to sound even closer.55 2. Bini puns on Greek ȕȚȞİ૙, “he fucks.” Scholars have suspected the relevance of this pun here before.56 In the same letter I quoted earlier (§5), Cicero himself tells us this was bilingual double entendre was famous in Rome (Ad familiares 9.22):



54 Lambinus and Gruter (Taubmann) regarded the couplet as a phallic riddle, with the column being a penis, the guards the testicles, and the phrase as a whole referring to fellatio, with the pun on bini ~ ȕȚȞİ૙ proving it. 55 Sturtevant 1912. 56 Lambinus 1576, 669; Gruter (Taubmann) 1621, 801.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

258

Chapter Nine cum loquimur terni, nihil flagitii dicimus; at, cum bini, obscenum est. “Graecis quidem,” inquies. When we say terni (three each), we’re not saying anything bad; but when we say bini (two each), it’s obscene. “Pffft! For the Greeks it is!,” you’ll say.

ȕȚȞİ૙ is also the right word for a Sotadic context. In the Iolaus fragment, which is written in Sotadeans, somebody tells the kinaidos “you’re planning to fuck her by surprise” (įȩȜ૳ ıઃ ȕİȚȞİ૙Ȟ ȝȑȜȜİȚȢ).57 3. Custodes puns on *țȣıșȫįȘȢ, “reeking of pussy.” This (a new suggestion of my own) is Plautus’ facetious coinage, a compound of țȪıșȠȢ, “pussy,” on the analogy of İ੝-ȫįȘȢ, “good smelling, fragrant,” įȣı-ȫįȘȢ “bad smelling, stinky,” ੁȤșȣ-ȫįȘȢ “reeking of fish,” and so on. The basic idea appears in Menaechmi 170 (olet… scortum), and to make the pun obvious, Periplectomenus need only adopt a stereotypically “Greek” accent when he says it. 4. Occupant “keep watch on” puns on occubant, “lie on top of.” The verb is especially apt, since kinaidoi were regularly the “bottoms,” the receptive partners, in homosexual sex. It seems Plautus has found a way to allude to Sotades’ penalty (imprisonment) and to his offense (obscenity) with the exact same words—and he does so with the quintessentially “Alexandrian” touch of using Sotades’ own poetics to identify the target of his allusion without actually naming him. Even Ovid, who would himself come to learn a thing or two about the perils of speech, would have admired this bit of ingenuity.58

8. Conclusions An obvious conclusion to emerge from the foregoing discussion is that there is no longer any reason to date The Braggart Soldier to 205 BCE, nor to regard it as among Plautus’ earliest plays. Moreover, severing that link also damages the popular dogma that Plautus increased the proportion of song to spoken verse in his plays as he matured in his career. In sum, we now know less about the development of Plautus’ career than we did at the start of this paper.

 57

Iolaus fragment: P.Oxy. 3010 (early 2nd century CE), v. 30. Analogously, Katz 2008 argues that Vergil alludes to Aratus via gamma-type acrostics. Ovid himself alludes to Mt. Ararat in the biblical story of the flood via the word ararat, “he had plowed,” in Metamorphoses 1.294. 58

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Before Pussy Riot

259

But that is a minor conclusion. Let us step back and look at the bigger picture in The Braggart Soldier, and at what the allusion to Sotades might tell us about cultural contacts between Rome and Ptolemaic Alexandria. I take it for granted that fellow artists like Plautus and Ennius knew all too well of the fate that had befallen Sotades. They loved wordplay and, like him, Roman comedians had to rely on patronage for their art. Just as Sotades needed King Ptolemy, so did comedians in Rome need the aediles, the politicians who sponsored and paid for the festivals at which Roman comedy was performed. However they assessed it, that power relationship must have shaped the poets’ art. It is one thing for artists or comedians to be concerned with the fate of other comedians. But how could the Roman audience have known about Sotades and his fate? The question arises because Periplectomenus’ allusion seems unmistakable. He addresses it, outside the dramatic illusion, directly to the Roman audience. It reads as if everyone in the audience knew who “the barbarian poet” was. That seems entirely possible, and via two routes. The first, controversially, could have been Greek comedy itself. Allusions to the wedding of Ptolemy and Arsinoe had found their way into contemporary Greek comedy; Alexis fr. 246 (Hypobolimaios) mentions it.59 We do not know how familiar Roman audiences were with Greek comedy (this is, of course, a much debated question), but Plautus clearly advertises some familiarity with Alexandrian political struggles in the name Ptolemocratia, the priestess in Rudens who lives in Cyrenaica (Ptolemaic territory). The other route runs not through literature but through life. Diplomatic communications between Rome and Alexandria had begun 80 years or more before the debut of The Braggart Soldier. In the year 273, Rome sent three leading men to the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus (ruled 283-246) in Alexandria and signed a treaty with him.60 Roman embassies returned to the Ptolemaic court in 241 and 211-210, and in 200, as Ptolemaic and Roman relations intensified, Alexandria sent an Egyptian embassy to Rome.61 In each case, it is obvious that the Roman diplomats would have toured the Library. Word of Sotades’ fate could easily have come to Rome at these times, when Alexandria was the world center of Greek culture. The first Roman embassy, in 273, took place just one year after Ptolemy’s wedding and about 14 years after the fictional setting of The Braggart Soldier. Surely

 59

Since Alexis died c. 275 BCE at the age of 106, he either wrote the passage on his deathbed or somebody added it later. 60 Westall 2011. 61 241: Eutropius 3.1. 211-10: Polybius 9.11a. 200: Justin 30.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

260

Chapter Nine

rumors of Sotades’ arrest would have been in the air then. The second embassy, in 241, reached Alexandria just a single year before the birth of Roman drama—that is to say, at the very dawn of the Roman Enlightenment. That is probably not a coincidence. Let me therefore close the circle and sum up my contentions. In this paper I have argued that the cultural and literary influence of Alexandria reached Rome two centuries earlier than scholars typically look for it. Since the stakes are high, let me be clear about them. If I am right about the identity of “the barbarian poet,” it means a significant portion of Plautus’ audience in Rome—perhaps everyone—was familiar with Sotades’ arrest and imprisonment in Alexandria for anti-regime humor. That would suggest Alexandria’s Great Library, especially in those pioneering and golden years of the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, exercised a decisive influence on Roman literature, and so, in turn, on the dawn of the Roman Enlightenment. And that in turn may tell us something about the history of free speech in Rome. Formerly, it has been understood that Plautus’ allusion documented an arrest for speaking too freely in ancient Rome. Legend had it that a comedian, Naevius, had breached a slander law, went to prison, and that Plautus, his fellow comedian, risked arrest himself to offer covert criticism of that arrest. Now, it is exactly the opposite. I argue, to the contrary, that Plautus advertised the fate of Sotades in Alexandria. That is a less risky and more conservative move (and for that reason, probably more productive), and it may have prompted Romans to reaffirm their commitment to free speech, especially for comedians. If so, that commitment surely marks a step in the history of free speech worldwide.

9. Appendix: New Thoughts on the Invention of the Palindrome and Anacyclic Verse (Ennius Sotades fragment 5 FRL II, Callimachus, Epigram 28 Pfeiffer, and Martial Epigram 2.86) Along with “kinaidic verse,” the second great innovation with which Sotades is credited in modern literature is the invention of palindromes— that is, lines that read the same both forward and backward. An example Ptolemy himself might have devised is Sedat os mutum Sotades! (Sotades is cooling his quiet mouth!).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Before Pussy Riot

261

The evidence for the ascription rests entirely on a poorly understood epigram of Martial.62 In it he lists technopaignia, Hellenistic-style trick poems, only to reject that style as nothing but acrobatics calculated to wow the ignorant masses. It begins (2.86.1-2 + 6 + 11-12): Quod nec carmine glorior supino nec retro lego Sotaden cinaedum… non sum, Classice, tam malus poeta… Scribat carmina circulis Palaemon, me raris iuvat auribus placere. Just because I don’t show off by writing reversible poems, and I don’t read the kinaidos Sotades backwards… that doesn’t make me a bad poet, Classicus… Let Palaemon go write poems in circles; I prefer to cater to rarified tastes.

The belief that Martial means palindromes as we know them is doubtful, however.63 No palindromes are attributed to Sotades in ancient literature, much less (as some have thought) verses that “backmask” an obscene meaning that emerges when read backward. Scholars have accordingly wondered whether Sotades really invented some other kind of reversible verse. Luz 2010 suggests the Sotadic could be called a “reversed” hexameter, since its fundamental element, the ionic a maiore (- ‫) ׫ ׫‬, resembles the close of a hexameter (- ‫ ׫ ׫‬- - ). With greater probability, Saltveit 1996 suggests Sotades invented “anacyclic” verse (from ਕȞĮțȣțȜȚțȩȞ, “reversible”). Unlike the palindrome, which involves reversing every letter, anacyclics are verses that can be read backward word by word; the classic example is Aeneid 1.8, Mnjsa, mihƯ causƗs memorƗ, quǀ nnjmine laesǀ. I have new thoughts on all this. An anonymous treatise On Meters quotes fragment 5 of Ennius’ Sotades to illustrate the Sotadic meter (“ionicus a maiore”): ille ictus retro re(c)cidit in natem supinus Knocked backwards, he fell back down on his butt.64

 62

Luz 2010, 201 n. 96. Saltveit 1996; Luz 2010, 201. 64 Keil 1857, 613. 63

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

262

Chapter Nine

In a personal communication, Mark Saltveit ingeniously connects retro and supinus here with supino and retro in Martial 2.86.1-2: Quod nec carmine glorior supino nec retro lego Sotaden cinaedum…

That is the flash of insight we needed. It lets us realize that Ennius’ line is surely a parody of the Iliad—and a parody in two dimensions, to boot. First, it spoofs and sexualizes the Homeric formula for a soldier killed by a spear thrust, ੔ į’ ੢ʌIJȚȠȢ ਥȞ țȠȞȓૉıȚ țȐʌʌİıİȞ, “and he fell upon his back in the dust” (4.522, 13.548, 16.289: ille = ੔ į’, țȐʌʌİıİȞ = recidit, ੢ʌIJȚȠȢ = supinus). It suggests that Sotades, who rewrote the Iliad in Sotadic verses, delighted in exposing the homoerotic potential of epic combat scenes.65 Such is the ostensible meaning, but I suspect there is more to it. Because ancient grammarians routinely draw their examples from the beginnings of works, the fragment probably comes from the start of Ennius’ poem. It suggests Ennius began by programmatically introducing and distinguishing Sotadic verses from epic hexameters in the same way that Ovid begins the Amores by programmatically distinguishing elegiac couplets from epic hexameters (Amores 1.1-4 + 27-38): Arma gravi numero violentaque bella parabam edere, materia conveniente modis. par erat inferior versus—risisse Cupido dicitur atque unum surripuisse pedem. … Sex mihi surgat opus numeris, in quinque residat: ferrea cum vestris bella valete modis! I was getting ready to write about weapons and violent wars in serious meter, with the subject suiting the rhythm. The lower line was equal, but (they say) Cupid snickered, and made off with one of the feet. … (And so,) let my work rise in hexameters and relax in pentameters. Sayonara to you, hard-hearted war and that meter of yours!

On this interpretation, Ennius’ word ictus is simultaneously the participle ictus, “knocked,” and the noun ictus, the “beat” of the verse. And the line is evidently a self-aware comment on the sound and sense of Sotadic verse: “It gets knocked backward [sc. from its hexameter-sounding

 65

Fragments 4a-c Powell (§5 above).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Before Pussy Riot

263

start] and falls back down on its butt.” This suits the estimation of ancient sources, for whom Sotadic verse had an “emasculated,” “undignified” and “effeminate” feel to it.66 This brings us back to verses that can be read backward word by word. Today we call such verses “anacyclic” but that compound is a modern invention; the adjective used in antiquity for “reversible” was the simplex țȣțȜȚțȩȞ (kyklikon).67 That observation invites us to reinterpret “the cyclic poem” rejected in the opening lines of Callimachus’ most famous epigram (28 Pfeiffer): ૅǼȤșĮȓȡȦ IJઁ ʌȠȓȘȝĮ IJઁ țȣțȜȚțȩȞ, Ƞ੝į੻ țİȜİȪș૳ ȤĮȓȡȦ, IJȓȢ ʌȠȜȜȠઃȢ ੰįİ țĮ੿ ੰįİ ijȑȡİȚ. I hate the cyclic poem, and I also don’t enjoy a path that carries (the) many to and fro.

Scholars routinely suppose “the cyclic poem” means the Greek epic cycle, and monumental edifices of scholarship have been erected on that supposition. I would like to suggest that it is fundamentally wrong and misguided. In my estimation, Callimachus’s theme—whether sincere or ironic—is identical to Martial’s. Both are disavowing technopaignia, like echoes or “circular” poems, that were flourishing in their times, as undignified stunts. If so, it seems Callimachus’ epigram 28 Pfeiffer is another new allusion, albeit indirect, to the poetry of Sotades.68



66 Morgan 2016; in a remarkable case of “multiple discovery,” Kwapisz 2019 also connects Martial’s poem with Ennius fr. 4 and reads it metapoetically, much as suggested here. 67 Modern invention: Page 1981, 543; anacyclic verse (Latin carmina reciproca or retrograda): Luz 2010, 203; țȣțȜȚțȩȞ: LSJ s.v. 68 Pelliccia forthcoming, n. 4 remarks that the syllables of ਙȜȜȠȢ ਩ȤİȚ at the end of the epigram echo ȞĮȓȤȚ țĮȜȩȢ in anacyclic fashion (ABCD is echoed as CDAB).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



CHAPTER TEN PLAUTUS AND THE ORIGINS OF ROMAN SATIRE ARIANA TRAILL

In the assumption that Plautus’ intellectual context included contemporary literary figures at Rome, this paper explores the idea that early palliata constitute a formative influence on Ennius’ Satires, a connection that is made regularly, if often tacitly, in the scholarship, particularly among editors who use comedy to correct and interpret the exiguous remains of the Satires. Monographs on satire as a genre tend to focus on elements that become dominant in later satire. Ennius is often a short prefatory chapter (or less).1 Much of the work on the Satires themselves investigates Greek intertexts, either direct or mediated.2 Here, however, the focus is on their Latin literary context, namely the comoedia palliata as represented by Plautus, an idea noted in passing by Waszink and others.3 Although there are limits to what can be said about such a small corpus, there is considerable linguistic

 1

E.g., van Rooy 1965, Knoche 1975, Coffey 1976. Ennius citations are from Russo 2007, except where noted. Plautine citations are from de Melo 2011-2013; Terence citations, from Kauer 1958; Caecilius and Naevius, from Warmington 1936a and 1936b; Afranius and Turpilius, from Ribbeck 1898. Translations are mine, except where noted. My thanks to fellow conference participants, the editors and my research assistant Jessica Wells, for their helpful comments on earlier stages of this document. Especial thanks to the anonymous reader whose suggestions prompted me to rethink the theoretical implications of this paper. 2 Especially Callimachus’ Iamboi (Deubner 1953, Mariotti 1952, 274-276, although with qualifications, van Rooy 1965, 35-37, Jocelyn 1972, 1025, Knoche 1975, 24-25). Other potential sources include Old Comedy, mime, iambic poetry, epigram, diatribe, myth and fable (see Gratwick 1982b, 160 for a summary). There is a clear debt to Greek influence, Weinreich 1949, xxvii-xxx, Puelma Piwonka 1949, 182-186, Ramage 1974, 19-20, especially Hellenistic (Muecke 2005, 36). 3 Waszink 1972, 130. Linguistic parallels between the Satires and comedy have been noted (Puelma Piwonka 1949, 186 n. 3, Scholz 1986, 52, Muecke 2005, 37).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

266

Chapter Ten

overlap with comedy (a phenomenon that is not restricted to the Satires, of course) and more connections emerge if conceptions of comic influence are extended beyond verbal parallels to include the humor, characters, situations, imagery and themes of the genre. The conception of genre applied here is from Conte: “a model of reality which mediates the empirical world.” This imaginary world, developed through the palliatae as a body of texts, was familiar enough to Ennius and his readers to generate shared expectations, and thus meanings specific to the genre.4 This paper starts with comic diction as a communicative strategy to cue comic genre expectations, before turning to rhetorical strategies, formal elements, and the types, motifs and plots that constitute the world of early Roman comedy. The tiny corpus of Ennian satire consists of twenty lines explicitly ascribed to the Satires in ancient sources and a number of additional lines attributed by modern editors. Russo’s 2007 edition prints eighteen fragments (thirty-one lines in total) and follows all modern editors in treating the Satires as a distinct work, rather than as a comprehensive title for all of Ennius’ minor works (Sota, Scipio, Euhemerus, etc.).5 The longest fragment is six lines, cited by Donatus as the source for Gnatho’s description of a parasite’s life in Ter. Ph. 339-342. Definitive attribution is not possible for all fragments. Moreover, in addition to the problem of grouping them into books and distinguishing the Satires fragments from the other minor works, there are textual, metrical and linguistic uncertainties. Russo’s edition and numbering is used in this paper, with the caveat that the text is not, and perhaps cannot be, definitively established. It is my hope that the arguments below are comprehensive enough to survive a compelling case that one or more of the fragments discussed simply do not belong to the Satires. Because Ennius’ Satires were nothing if not heterogeneous, the likelihood that the palliata furnished an anterior body of texts is much higher for some of fragments than others. These will be the focus of the discussion below.

 4

Conte 1994, 112. Russo 2007’s 18 fragments are generally accepted, except fr. X, a reference to a dialogue between Mors and Vita without text (omitted by Moreno 1984 and Warmington 1936a). Most editors also accept Vahlen 1903 Sat. Inc. Lib. fr. 7 [= fr. 14 FRL II], propter stagna ubi lanigerum genus piscibus pascit and a few additionally recognize Pers. 6.9 Lunai portum, est operae, cognoscite ciues (fr. 25 Courtney 1993 and Blänsdorf 2011b = fr. 19 FRL II) as a quotation from the Satires, following Housman 1934, 51, as well as the fragment nec dico nec facio (also preserved in a second form: neque ut aiunt ȝࠎ facere audent) (fr. 27 Courtney 1993 and Blänsdorf 2011b = fr. 13 FRL II). 5

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and the Origins of Roman Satire

267

The date of composition of the Satires is uncertain but relative chronology supports the possibility of comic models. Ennius arrived in Rome in 204, received citizenship in 184, and died in 169, the terminus ante quem for the appearance of the Satires as a collection, if it is true that he arranged and titled them himself.6 Many of the poems would have been composed while Plautus was active (the Luna fragment, however, n. 4 above, must post-date that city’s founding in 177 BCE), and well after Naevius (d. 201) and Livius Andronicus (d. c. 205). Ennius was on friendly terms with Caecilius, according to Jerome, and familiar enough with the comoedia palliata to write several himself. A line survives from his Caupuncula and three from his Pancratiastes, admittedly along with the view from antiquity that comedy was not his forte.7 In terms of relative development, Roman comedy was an established genre in 204-169 BCE; satire was not. The fourth century grammarian, Diomedes, perhaps following Varro, defines Ennian satire as carmen quod ex variis poematibus constabat (1.485.33-34 ed. Keil, Grammatici Latini), that is, a medley of verse compositions.8 Diomedes notes that Pacuvius also wrote this type of satire. Since Pacuvius lived until 130, it is assumed that his uncle’s Satires influenced his, rather than the reverse (nothing, unfortunately survives of Pacuvius’ satires), in which case ‘medley’ satire might not have emerged as a genre all that long before Lucilius reinvented it in the late 130’s.9 The surviving fragments of Ennius’ Satires embrace a variety of meters, linguistic registers and content, consistent with Diomedes’ definition. Nothing, however, suggests they constitute a genre in the sense of a being characterized by regular elements of form, style, or subject matter,



6 This paper uses the title Satires for convenience. It is not certain that Ennius used this title, or that he himself issued the (probably four-) book collection of the Satires, although most modern scholars accept it. See Mariotti 1952, 272-273, Gratwick 1982b, 158; contra Jocelyn 1972, 1022 (Ennius is unlikely to have been the Satires’ editor). Influence by an antecedent form of “dramatic satire” is conceivable but hard to prove (see Bolisani 1932-3, 981, Mariotti, loc cit., van Rooy 1965, 33-34 and Gratwick 1982b, 161-162); Flintoff 1988 marshals what arguments can be made for Naevius’ Satura as satire in a Lucilian sense. 7 Volcacius Sedigitus, ap. Gell. 15.24, ranked him tenth among comedians. Extant fragments of the comedies are comparable in style to Plautus and Naevius (Jocelyn 1972, 1002). On the friendships between Ennius and Caecilius, see Jerome, ad Euseb. Chron. a. Abr. 1839/Olymp. CL (text of Fotheringham). 8 Diomedes’ information is widely cited and generally accepted. See Russo 2007, 69-71 for an overview and Jocelyn 1972, 1024-1025 for analysis of his language (esp. carmen, poema). 9 Gratwick 1982b, 163 and Warmington 1938, xi date Lucilius’ earliest satires to the late 130’s.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

268

Chapter Ten

and certainly not a self-conscious genre, as satire later became.10 Locutions one might consider typical of comedy appear in Ennius’ tragedies and, as Manuwald and others have noted, Plautus himself quotes the former.11 My working assumption in this paper is that early third century authors in Rome had access to one another’s work. Terence had read at least one of the Satires by the 160’s; it is not impossible that Plautus even encountered a few during Ennius’ lifetime. There is no reason to restrict contemporary readership to Ennius’ upper class friends.12 The literary innovators of Ennius’ day were not aristocrats and, as the papers in this volume richly demonstrate, the non-elite could also be learned. Verbal commonalities with Roman comedy are well known, in part because of their importance in establishing the text of the Satires fragments. Although some emendations are taken directly from comedy (and are not, therefore, evidence of influence), the sheer number of shared lexical items and iuncturae suggests a systematic relationship, beyond common archaic forms and usages. Examples may be found in most of the fragments. A list of the more striking cases, with comic comparanda from Ennius’ contemporaries: malo… suo magno, fr. I

malo hercle iam magno tuo, As. 471. The phrase magnum malum occurs more than twenty times in Plautus.

hercle, fr. I

There are 624 instances in Plautus, 96 in Terence, 3 in Caecilius, 2 Naevius. Cf. 2 in Turpilius.13

 10

Puelma Piwonka 1949, 192 notes that satire first became self-conscious with Lucilius. 11 Manuwald, pp. 165, 167 above. On these quotations, see also Skutsch 1968, 174-180 and Scafoglio 2005, 636; contra Jocelyn 1972, 995 n. 86 (they are tragic, but not necessarily Ennian, allusions). Thierfelder 1939 noted other verbal and stylistic connections. Jocelyn 1967 notes Plautine comparanda throughout the tragedies, e.g. gradum proferre pedum fr. 98, p. 332 Jocelyn [= 86 FRL II], or the personification of fear (fr. 14.17, p. 195 Jocelyn [= 12.2 FRL II). As Russo 2007, 87 n. 5 points out, there is not yet clear stylistic differentiation: malo… magno (Sat. fr. I), a typical locution of the palliata also appears in Enn. Telephus fr. 287 Jocelyn [= 129 FRL II]. Wordplay, as in fr. XII, occurs in both comedy and in Ennius’ tragedies (Scholz 1986, 50-51). 12 So Knoche 1975, 22 and Petersmann 1999, 296. 13 Hercle, a typical comic lexeme, also appears in mime (Laberius) and togata (Titinius). Its only other frequent users are Cicero and Aulus Gellius, suggesting that it is colloquial.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and the Origins of Roman Satire

269

restitant occurrunt obstant, fr. IV

constant, conferunt sermones inter sese drapetae, / opstant, opsistunt, incedunt cum suis sententiis, Cur. 290-291. See discussion below for further examples.

criminat / apud te, fr. VII

erum ut servos criminaret apud erum, Ps. 493

sinapi, cepe, fr. VIII (poor quality food)

ut illum di perdant, qui primum holitor protulit / caepam!, Naev. Appella fr. 18-19; cui caepe edundod oculus alter profluit, Naev. Appella 20; sinapis, Ps. 817, sinapi, Truc. 315, sinapi

laetus lautus cum advenis, fr. IX (of a parasite)

vestitus, lautus exornatusque ambulat, Cas. 768; est lepida et lauta, Poen. 1198; ambo magna laude lauti, Pl. Parasitus Piger (probably of parasites because it is followed by postremo ambo sumus non nauci)14

abligurrias, fr. IX

ligurriant, Capt. 84; cf. hircus vetulus capreis naturam ligurrit, Atellana incerti nom. fr. IV Ribbeck. (Examples in Terence are probably influenced by Ennius, given the former’s use of fr. IX.)

quid censes, fr. IX

quid censes? (Mer. 564, Ps. 476, Trin. 563, cf. Turp. 27 Demetrius fr. IX), quid me censes, Afran. 97 (fab. tog.) Emancipatus. fr. XX.15

frustra, fr. XII (word play, nine cognates in four lines)

similar word play, Am. 33-6, Capt. 255-6, Ps. 704-5, Bac. 548



14 Lautus in a figurative sense (“freshly bathed,” and so “dressed up,” “looking smart”) is common in Plautus and authors who imitated him and/or admitted less elevated diction (Apuleius, Cicero, Petronius). The OLD (s.v. lautus) takes fr. IX and Cas. 768 as examples of the literal usage “washed, clean,” but the context seems to imply more than what is meant when the word is used of pots (Cato, Agr. 112.3) or vegetables (ibid. 157.5). The Plautine examples above show pairings similar to Ennius’ (synonyms, alliterative words) and that lautus is not always a straightforward compliment. 15 Plautus has three further instances of quid censes with intervening words and Terence, four. As there are sixteen instances of the bare form quid censes in Cicero but none in poets of elevated genres (except for one in Lucretius), it is presumably also colloquial.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

270

Chapter Ten

eum dicit frustra esse, fr. XII

Oblique forms of is, ea, id appear throughout comedy.16

podager, fr. XIV

podagrosis pedibus esset, Mer. 595. See discussion below.

Coclites, fr. XVI

de Coclitum prosapia te esse arbitror, Cur. 393. See discussion below.17

simia quam similis, turpissuma bestia, nobis, fr. XVII

Cf. simia, bestia, both of high frequency in Plautus18

In terms of diction, the argument for Plautine influence is one of cumulative effect. Little here is exclusively comic, in the sense of being paralleled dozens of times and not appearing elsewhere, but the extent of the overlap is large for a sample of thirty-one lines, while some lexemes, such as Coclites and podager, are quite rare. In a couple of instances, Ennius appears to be using colloquialisms in a form shaped by comedy. In fr. I, malo hercle suo magno conuiuat sine modo (“just let him party, by Hercules, with huge trouble for himself”), for example, sine modo can also be the prepositional phrase “without limit, excessively.” Plautus uses the latter once (sine modo et modestia sum, Bac. 613, “I’m without

 16

The question is not whether oblique forms are distinctively comic (they are not), but whether Ennius perceived them as characterizing lower genres. Mikalson 1976, following Skutsch, argues that Ennius distinguished the nominatives as acceptable in elevated genres but relegated the oblique forms to prose and drama. 17 The connection may be more significant than the single example suggests. Both Ennius and Plautus treat Cocles as a proper noun (Russo 2007, 178-179). The Curculio passage, de Coclitum prosapia te esse arbitror, nam i sunt unocoli, is a riddle that only works if Coclitum is not (yet) an adjective meaning “one-eyed.” Both passages use the word figuratively: in Plautus, prosapia gives the legendary Cyclopes a continuing lineage that has produced the current descendent, Curculio; Ennius, as Russo notes (loc. cit.), uses Coclites as an antonomasia for the Arimaspi, whom legend placed in the Riphean Mountains. 18 Simia, occurring twenty-five times in Plautus, is otherwise frequent only in Pliny; bestia, occurring thirteen times, is otherwise frequent only in Cicero, Pliny and Apuleius. On simia as a comic symbol of human duplicity, cf. nihil nequam bestiam, Mil. 285, bestiam nequissumam, Rud. 610, Ps. 744-750, pudendum est vero clurinum pecus, Truc. 269, cf. Afr. 330 (fab. tog.) Temerarius, quis hic est simia, / Qui me hodie ludificatus est? On monkey symbolism in Plautus, see further Connors 2004, esp. 189-198 and Cleary 1972, passim; both note the paretymological pun sƯmia / sƱmilis in the Miles (Cleary, 304) and later authors too (Connors, 189-190).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and the Origins of Roman Satire

271

moderation or modesty”); all other instances are the verbal phrase.19 Plautus’ preferred usage is more likely in fr. I, given the markedly comic language hercle and magnum malum. This usage is probably colloquial. The prepositional form is preferred by later authors such as Apuleius, Aulus Gellius, Curtius, Quintilian, and Tacitus. Livy uses the verbal form in direct speech (8.38.13.2) and the preposition in narrative (23.2.1.3). Similarly, in fr. VII nam is non bene volt tibi qui falso criminat / apud te (“for he doesn’t wish you well, who falsely accuses you to your face”), a choice needs to be made about apud te. As Russo notes, crimino(r) normally takes ad plus the accusative but apud te need not be deleted here.20 The construction apud me / te is ubiquitous in Plautus, with about eighty-four occurrences, and its distribution in later literature suggests that it too is colloquial: fourteen instances in Terence and one hundred and eighty-one in Cicero, largely in the letters and speeches. Significantly, apud with the accusative, “in your presence” (OLD s.v. 8a, L&S = coram), is found in Plautine passages which also involve lying (non habeo ullam occasionem ut apud te falsa fabuler, Epid. 645 “I have no reason to tell lies to you,” quor ego apud te mentiar? Poen. 152 “why would I lie to you?”), including one close parallel with crimino: erum ut servos criminaret apud erum (Ps. 493, “that a slave accuse one master before another”). This suggests that Ennius is using a spoken idiom that had already been crafted into iambotrochaic form, and it may be that apud te in fr. VII, like advorsum in similar contexts (te advorsum mentiar, Aul. 690 “lie to you,” advorsum se mentiri, Mil. 1080, “lie to him”) underscores the brazenness of the lie. There is more to comedy as a genre than diction, of course. The Satires also show stylistic affinities, the most obvious being meter and dialogue form. Although the scansion is not certain for every fragment, the securely attested fragments and testimonia confirm that Ennius used at least three types of meter: iambic senarii, trochaic septenarii and hexameters.21 The first two were closely associated with comedy and had been significantly developed by the early comic poets. Editors have assumed that Ennius

 19

Am. 806, Cas. 437, Cur. 655, Mos. 11-12, Poen. 1146, Ps. 222, also Ter. Eu. 65 and Ph. 420. 20 Russo 2007, 120-121, q. v. on the metrical issues and the question of whether Nonius is citing sequential text. 21 Russo 2007, 73. There are a few Sotadeans in Plautus (e.g., Am. 168-172), which may show influence by Ennius’ Sota, the first Latin poem to use this meter (so Sedgwick 1993, 69 ad 168-172) or simply the influence of the Hellenistic stage, where ionic meters were used (Questa 1967, 261). See further Fontaine, p. 250 in this volume.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

272

Chapter Ten

reflects comic metrical practices but, given the size of the corpus, uncertainties remain.22 Dialogue form, however, is pervasive. Many of the fragments presume an addressee: some, with an explicit second person verb or pronoun (sine modo, fr. I, des celere, fr. II, Enni… salve, fr. V, non bene volt tibi, fr. VII, advenis etc., fr. IX, ne quid exspectes, fr. XIB, “so you don’t expect anything”); some, with a first person plural (nobis, fr. XVII); and some implicitly, such as the gossipy fr. I (even if sine is a preposition) or fr. VIII. The sentiment of others seems to call for an interlocutor: meum non est ac si me canis memorderit, fr. XIII, “it’s not my style, any more than if a dog bit me”; and numquam poetor nisi podager, fr. XIV “I only versify when I’m goutified,” although the latter could be addressed to the reader.23 Fragment X was a dialogue between Death and Life. Comedy did not have a monopoly on dialogue but it was the most common Latin literary venue for one speaker to swear by Hercules to another or complain about the flavor of mustard leaves. The Satires also deploy verbal humor characteristic of comedy, including puns, accumulations of synonyms, and coinages. The most typically Plautine pun, numquam poetor nisi podager, fr. XIV, includes two probable coinages. As Plautus had set the high-water mark for bilingual and “morphologically faultless” puns, it is hard to argue that Ennius broke new ground here.24 If genuine, Vahlen’s fr. VII Sat. Inc. Lib., propter stagna ubi lanigerum genus piscibus pascit (“near the pools where the wool-bearing race feeds on fish”), includes a pun (piscibus pascit) and what Courtney describes as “a sub-species of ‘kenning’” (lanigerum genus).25 This is not side-splitting humor, perhaps, but it is a kind of word-play Plautus cultivated.26 There is also ample Plautine precedent for the asyndetic accumulations of synonyms in fr. IV (restitant occurrunt obstant obstri[n]gillant obagitant) and fr. IX (infestis malis, expedito bracchio, / alacer, celsus, lupino expectans impetu) (translations with discussion below), which has been recognized as a common comic device, paralleled e.g., at Cur. 291, opstant, opsistunt, incedunt, Capt. 502-503 me miserum restitando / retinendo lassum reddiderunt, Naev. Gymn. 55, saxa silvas lapides montes dissicis dispulveras and Naev. Tar.

 22

E.g. Courtney 1993, Russo 2007, and Welsh 2013. Ramage 1974, 14 takes fr. XIB as dialogue; Scholz 1986, 50, as an address to the reader. 24 Quotation from Fontaine 2010b, 250. Plentiful examples of bilingual puns may be found in Fontaine’s Pundex (283-290). 25 Petersmann 1999, 294 (the piscibus pun), Courtney 1993, 19. 26 E.g. Cur. 499 genus… lenonium, Epid. 18 pantherinum genus, Mos. 19 genus ferratile, Ps. 77 genus… siccoculum. 23

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and the Origins of Roman Satire

273

76, Alii adnutat, alii adnictat, alium amat alium tenet.27 Ennius’ nonceformations may not quite equal those of Plautus, but there are modest examples in the passages cited above: obstri[n]gillant, “stand in the way [sc. of someone] (?)” and perhaps obagitant and poetor, if Ennius was really the first to use these words, as well as a few more in the comic fragments (propitiabilis, from Caupuncula, is a dis legomenon and proterviter, from Pancratiastes is a hapax).28 Individually, a pun or coinage or even a list could belong to more than one genre and fr. VII could be such a case. In the other two fragments, however, the combination of humor and self-deprecating poetics (fr. XIV) or coinages and the comic motif of obstruction (fr. IV) show a striking coincidence of comic form and content. Another prominent shared feature of the Satires and comedy is oral language, such as the oath hercle (fr. I), and proverbial wisdom, such as “giving more by giving quickly” (behind dum, quidquid , des celere, fr. II (?)), the rapacity of hungry wolves (lupino… impetu, fr. IX), and not looking for trouble where there is none to find (quaerunt in scirpo… nodum, fr. XVIII).29 The construction inde loci (fr. III) has been identified as colloquial, based on comparisons with Plautus and Terence.30 As noted above, fr. X lautus, if it means more than simply “bathed,” and quid censes also seem to be colloquial from their distribution in Latin authors. Incorporating oral elements into written texts was not solely a comic phenomenon, but trying to sound oral in scripted dialogue may well



27 Muecke 2005, 37. Cf. Afr. 61 Divortium fr. VIII, sollers, sicca sana sobria, 307 Simulans fr. V, offendit fregit rupit icit. 28 Obstri[n]gillant and obagitant, if correct, are rare and unattested before Ennius, as is poeto(r) (v. TLL s.v. obagito, obstrigillo, poeto(r)). Alliterative sequences are a plausible place to expect coinages, but other early authors could have introduced these words. Resemblance of the -er ending to the 1st conjugation passive subjunctive is probably coincidental but if it is more than just assonance, podager must be Ennius’ own creation. Skutsch 1968, 29 n. 9 credits Ennius with coining poetor, otherwise attested only in late authors (Marcus Aurelius, Lucifer of Cagliari, Ausonius (Russo 2007, 165)). 29 Russo 2007, 91-92 takes fr. II as proverbial, with comic influence perhaps in its form (cf. Men. 946 propere quicquid facturu’s face, Epid. 284 calide quicquid acturu’s age). Plautus refers to the proverbial lupus esuriens at Capt. 912, St. 577, 605, and Trin. 169-170 and the knot-in-a-bulrush proverb at Men. 247 (as does Terence, An. 941). Proverbs are tricky evidence, as they can be the reason a fragment is assigned to the Satires. Scirpus, however, remains a low register word throughout Latin literature (rushes were used for mats and coverings), without the loftier musical or intellectual associations of reeds (harundo, calamus). 30 Russo 2007, 97-98.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

274

Chapter Ten

have been. Roman comedy was the established Latin literary form in which oral elements—from dialect forms, to mishearings or mispronunciations, apocope of final s, nasalization of final m, iambic shortening, and even the cliticization of prepositions and conjunctions— co-existed with more formal elements, such as elevated diction, complex rhetorical figures, enjambment, or syntax, and the formulaic language of law or religion. The variation in tone of the Satires is certainly precedented in Plautine comedy. Indeed, some of the language may be too colloquial for Plautus. Convivo (fr. I) never appears in Plautus, although convivium (nineteen occurrences) and conviva (twenty) are frequent.31 Something changed by Terence (convivarier, Hau. 206) and Titinius (89R)—possibly, simply the influence of Ennius’ Satires. This may explain why pro divum fidem (fr. IX) appears in Terence but not Plautus, who, like Cicero, prefers more elaborate forms like pro divum atque hominum fidem. Est operae (fr. 25 Courtney) is also too bald for Plautus, who prefers the full est operae pretium.32 The superlative turpissuma (fr. XVII) does not appear in comedy or mime at all: the vast majority of instances are actually in Cicero. Loan-words are another kind of (mostly) oral borrowing that may have been mediated by comedy, where frequent usage associated registers, contexts and even specific speakers with certain loan-words. This is likeliest with Greek words. The probably Etruscan word subulo (fr. XV subulo quondam marinas propter astabat plagas, “a piper once stood by the sea-side regions”), identified as such by Varro, appears nowhere else in Latin, although comedy does use other terms associated with performance that derive from Etruscan (histrio, persona).33 The elevated word aether in fr. III (contemplor / inde loci liquidas pilatasque aeteris oras, “I gaze from that place on the flowing, pillared edges of the heavens”), is not a comic word, although it was still perceived as a Grecism until the time of Cicero.34 Neither is ȝ૨, a hapax from a fragment of uncertain attribution (fr. 27 Courtney neque ut aiunt ȝࠎ facere audent, “nor, as they say, do they dare mutter ‘mu’”), although it appears to be a

 31

On the verb form see Russo 2007, 87-88. The TLL also recognizes convivo(r) here. 32 Cas. 879, Mos. 842, Rud. 947. The expression occurs once or twice in a number of later authors (Cicero, Horace, Livy, Martial, Seneca, Phaedrus) but the short form is quite rare (once each in Persius and Ovid, twice in Apuleius). 33 Russo 2007, 172 (with Petersmann 1999, 291-292) defends Varro’s etymology. The word also appears in Latin as a cognomen (Courtney 1993, 18). 34 Russo 2007, 99.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and the Origins of Roman Satire

275

proverb (from ut aiunt, cf. Lucilius 454 neque mu facere unquam) and, like some Greek in Plautus,35 is an oral form not attested in writing. The loan-words that are shared with extant comedy are sinape, poeta and propino; for poetor and podager, only alternate forms appear (e.g., poema, podagrosus). In general, Plautus uses much more Greek than Terence, and Naevius seems to have kept pace with him.36 How “Greek” a loan word was perceived to be is hard to judge. As Maltby notes, more recent words probably sounded more foreign to Plautus’ audience.37 Sinape (discussed below) may not have been perceived as code switching at all, as the word appears to have been nativized early. Latin never developed another word for mustard.38 Poeta was a more recent borrowing, the earliest example being Mil. 211 (os columnatum poetae esse indaudivi barbaro, “I heard that a barbarian poet had a columned face,” i.e., was in prison) and it carried honorific connotations, in pointed contrast to scriba.39 There was a presumption of labor behind the word “maker,” even in Latin, and Plautus uses poeta as a technical term for “the composer of a dramatic performance”.40 Ennius had drawn a contrast between himself, as a poeta, and his predecessors, whom he calls fauni vatesque (Ann. 7.207), identified by Cicero with Naevius.41 Accordingly, fr. V, Enni poeta, salve, qui mortalibus / versus propinas flammeos medullitus (“Hello, poet Ennius, who starts the round of drinking flaming verses, straight from your heart [lit. ‘marrow’]”) compliments both Ennius’ poetry and the dignity of his profession. Poeta may underscore Ennius’ Greek models, as has been suggested (Ennius certainly referred to Homer as a poeta, Ann. 1.3), but the word can be less elevated. In Plautus, it can also mean ‘deviser’ or ‘trickster’.42 Outside of prologues, poeta is often tongue-in-cheek, as, for example, when used of a parasite drafting a joke contract (As. 748, nam tu poeta es prorsus ad eam rem unicus,

 35

Gratwick 1982b, 171. Anchora, chorus, triclinium, pallium, parasitus and sandaracinus appear in the fragments of Naevius. 37 Maltby 1995, 31. 38 Brassica referred to plants such as broccoli and cauliflower, now recognized as the same family as mustards (brassicaceae) but a different genus. 39 Waszink 1956, 141 (poeta was a recent borrowing). Horsfall 1976, 80 notes, “the poets’ own attitude is clear: scriba was never, so far as we can see, used by a poet of a poet: Ennius, Plautus, Pacuvius, Terence, Luscius Lanuvinus and even Naevius either use poeta or are referred to by contemporaries at poetae”. Cf. Scholz 1986, 45, Russo 2007, 108. 40 Papaioannou 2014b, 6. 41 Suerbaum 1968, 33 n. 105. 42 Papaioannou 2014b, 6. 36

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

276

Chapter Ten

“because you’re the sole poet just right for this”), or the tragic poeta who gave the immortal advice, “two women are worse than one” (Cur. 591592), or even the imprisoned poeta barbarus (Mil. 211) who might be Sotades, one of Ennius’ less reputable Greek models.43 This is an instance where Plautus may be a better guide to Ennius’ meaning than later satire. The juxtaposition Enni poeta itself has humble associations: on stage, non-citizens are often referred by name and occupation (e.g., Dordalus… leno, Per. 845, Lyconem trapezitam, Cur. 341, lenone… Lyco, Poen. 157).44 This would be a familiar but not uncomplimentary form of address by the sort of speaker who talks about drinking—not necessarily a comic parasite (although there is one in fr. IX), but at least someone from the social level that uses Greek and does not consider Ennius a superior. That the poeta produces poetry resembling hot mulled wine is a gentle bit of humor, consistent with Plautine usage of poeta. As many have noted, “fiery” or caustic lines are characteristic of the later genre, e.g., Lucilius ardens (Juv. 1.165) or nunc flammant satirae (Sidon. Epist. 8.11.3.28) but nothing in the extent fragments of Ennius or Diomedes’ definition point to the biting, acerbic wit that became characteristic of the genre. Flammeus cannot be a generically selfconscious word at this stage in the evolution of satire, but it can evoke the culinary realm and specifically the practice of heating wine before mixing and drinking. Verses straight from the oven, as it were (medullitus), are too hot to drink: flammeus is a colorful exaggeration of calidus and perhaps even a hint of poetic inspiration. Plautus uses calidum in the sense of “fresh” for new ideas (e.g., calidum consilium, Mil. 226, “hot off the stove”), with culinary echoes (calidum… esse audivi optumum mendacium, Mos. 665).45 Ennius’ versus flammeos are the freshest, and newest, to be had. The use of Greek was not a mark of elevated style.46 Educated, upper class speakers of the second century avoided it, and even in comedy it was most often spoken by low status male characters, especially cooks and parasites.47 This is true of sinape, used by cooks in (and out of) Plautus, and the verb propino (fr. V versus propinas flammeos), used by three

 43

Proposed by Fontaine, pp. 247-260 in this volume. The cognate poetor in fr. XIV is generally taken as humorous (e.g., Suerbaum 1968, 261 n. 743, Ramage 1974, 16-17, Rudd 1986, 87). 44 Jocelyn 1977, 140-141 n. 10. The identity of the speaker is uncertain. See Jocelyn 1977, 134-141 and Russo 2007, 104-106 for possibilities. 45 Quotation from Hammond 1963, 98 explaning calidum in the sense “quick.” 46 See Manuwald, pp. 154-155 above. 47 Petersmann 1999, 292, Maltby 1995, 34-35.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and the Origins of Roman Satire

277

parasites, three slaves, and one citizen male in Plautus.48 Fragment V mixes elevated and humble styles and has been connected to sympotic skolia, of which įȑȤȠȣ IJȒȞįİ ʌȡȠʌȚȞȠȝȑȞȘȞ IJ੽Ȟ ਕʌ’ ਥȝȠ૨ ʌȠȓȘıȚȞ (Dionysius Chalcus, cited Athen. 15.699E) provides a striking parallel. Greek literary influences are clear, but it is also important to recognize contemporary comedy, where sympotic contexts are common and propino is an acceptable loan-word (propino magnum poclum, Cur. 359 “I offer a large cup,” tibi propinet, tu bibas, As. 772, “let her offer [the cup] to you, you drink”). The sense in fr. V is “drink and then pass the cup” (Montanari ʌȡȠʌ઀ȞȦ s.v. 1) and by extension “give, make a gift, offer”) (LSJ s.v. II.2 “make a present of the cup to the person pledged”) with perhaps a hint, evident in the two Plautine examples, that the recipient will do most of the drinking. Russo’s translation, “offer to drink,” makes good sense here.49 If these lines are a case of register-switching, it is not a dramatic one: mortalis occurs more than one might expect in Plautus, there are a couple of instances of medullitus and versus (in unelevated, non para-tragic contexts), and no case need be made for salve. At times, clearly, Ennius is using a linguistic code created by Plautus and early comoedia palliata poets. Recognizing these comic elements helps elucidate the tone and connotations of lexical items used for humor better than intertexts from later satire, which reflect a different stage in the evolution of that genre. An example is fr. VIII neque ill triste quaeritat sinapi / neque cepe maestum (“he seeks out neither glum mustard nor teary onion”). This can be read through the lens of later satire (cf. flebile cepe, Lucil. 5.194, edenda acri… cepa, Lucil. 5.195), with emphasis on the disgusting nature of the foods, the rustic frugality of the meal, or the reduced circumstances of a former glutton.50 “Mustard” and “onion,” however, were established in the language of comedy with quite different symbolic meanings. If these are recognized, this fragment cannot describe a literal quest for subsistence because, as Plautus makes clear, mustard (leaves) are not a staple food. They are barely even a condiment. One Plautine example, si… hic homo sinapi victitet, non censeam / tam esse tristem posse (Truc. 315-316, “if this man lived on mustard, I don’t think he could be as glum”) is a contra factual condition: no one can actually “subsist” (OLD and L&S s.v. victito) on mustard. At Ps. 817,

 48

Parasites (As. 772, Cur. 359, St. 468), slaves (St. 708, 712 (different speakers), Ps. 1262), a citizen (Epignomus, St. 425, to bribe a slave). 49 Russo 2007, 111 “offrire da bere.” 50 Waszink 1972, 128, Weinreich 1949, 4-5 and Russo 2007, 125, respectively. On the comic register of this fragment and other parallels, see Petersmann 1999, 294295.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

278

Chapter Ten

sinapis scelera (“vicious mustard”) is identified - by a cook - as a condiment that turns “guests into cattle” (boves qui convivas faciunt 812); eating it is like having a screech owl devour one’s intestines (820-821). Similarly a diet of eruom (vetch, i.e., cattle feed Mos. 62) is offered to a rival as an insult (Cas. 126-127). Apicius recognizes mustard (seed), at best, as a condiment that needs to be balanced with other flavors (honey, wine); at worst, it makes a good preservative (1.25.1.1). Celsus knows it as a diuretic (De Med. 2.31.1.6) and an excoriating agent (3.21.10.5). Quite apart from their limited nutritive value (an average-sized onion provides about sixty calories and a cup of mustard greens, fifteen), these are simply not foods that require diligent effort to obtain, as the frequentative quaerito implies. Reading this fragment through comedy means excluding a straightforward literal reading, as if this were a simple description of poverty. As the comic parallels cited here illustrate, consuming mustard and onion is transformative; rhetorically, it confers qualities consistently associated with these foods onto the eater (here, being tristis, maestus) through hypallage; symbolically, it strips the eater of his humanity. Eating fodder makes one an animal (boves qui convivas faciunt). As a comic utterance, fr. VIII is not just about rejecting a fad for strong, smelly seasonings or demanding foods one can actually live on, but about asserting the right to eat like, and therefore be, a human being. Comedy offers a plausible generic context that slightly changes the meaning of fr. XIV as well: numquam poetor nisi podager. Podager is a Greek loan-word likely to be noticeable as such by a Roman audience. Although the particular form is rare (probably chosen for assonance, and maybe a dubious morphological pun),51 podagrosus and podagricus appear in a variety of writers (Cicero, Tibullus, Pliny, Seneca), who concur with medical writers in recognizing gout as a painful, debilitating disease that commonly afflicts older men. The two instances in Plautus, however, are less literal and more abusive than these (namely, gout makes people annoyingly slow, Mer. 595-596, Poen. 532) and there are later instances in a similar vein: Lucil. 9.331, deformis, senex arthriticus a poagrosus “an ugly arthritic and gouty old man”; Tib. 1.9.73 corpora foeda podagra, “a body foul with gout”; and Sen. Apoc. 13.3.2 (despite his gout, Claudius was quick enough to reach Hades). Fr. XIV, generally taken as a joke, makes better sense if “gout” means the period of inactivity necessitated by an attack (forty days, according to Hippocrates) rather than the excruciating onset (four to twelve hours, according to the Mayo

 51

Podager probably entered the language early, like most two-ending adjectives (Russo 2007, 165-166). Its reemergence in the late/medieval period may indicate continuing use in colloquial Latin.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and the Origins of Roman Satire

279

Clinic), when little activity is possible. The joke is the embarrassing nature of the condition and the contrast between the relative dignity of being a “poet” and the indignity of being laid up with an old man’s disease.52 These are small examples of the way the Satires draw on the imagined world of comedy, beyond diction and rhetoric, calling up expectations that would be familiar to experienced consumers of the genre. Comedy offered a coherent system of character types, actions, situations and themes to Ennius and his readers. Situational borrowings are tacitly assumed by those who use comedy to reconstruct scenarios for the fragments and several scholars have noted common topics.53 These comic scenarios may be regarded as contributions to the genre, but they draw meaning from the fuller system of comedy, as individual satires had limited opportunity to create contextual backgrounds. Examples include fr. IV, restitant occurrunt obstant obstri[n]gillant obagitant, which is almost certainly a servus currens scene.54 The hyperbole—five verbs in a row—exceeds comparanda from extant comedy, suggesting a competitive response to an anterior corpus. The meaning is mostly, if not entirely, clear: “they stop [me], run to greet [me], stand in [my] way, (followed by a joke synonym for ‘stand in the way’) obstructificationalize, shove [me] back. Restitant is transitive (cf. Capt. 500), the general sense of obstringillant is clear, even if the etymology is not, and the meaning of obagitant (a reasonable emendation of the MS ovagitant) is slightly more physical than the lexical definitions, along the lines of common uses of agito.55 There is a rhetorical crescendo, not just of sound and word length, but also of increasing physicality, from the polite restito and occurrunt (“stop,” acceptable behavior in greeting a returning citizen, as in the Captivi example), through the more aggressive obstant and obstringillant, which means

 52

The interpretation of podager as equivalent to vinosus on the grounds that wine was recognized as an underlying cause of gout (but not, however, as a trigger for an onset) and then equating “drunk” with “inspired” seems a slender thread to which to attach the long history of association between wine and poetic creativity in antiquity (so Grilli 1978, contra Russo 2001, 103-105, Russo 2007, 163-165, whom I follow). Jocelyn 1977 develops this idea at length, rejecting the culinary reading of fr. V for which I argue. 53 E.g., Muecke 2005, 37 notes “comic-satiric” types such as the glutton (fr. I) or slanderer (fr. VII). Ramage 1974, 17 comments: “gout, drinking and dog-bites also suggest the level at which the poet’s interests lie; these subjects are hardly the stuff of elegy, tragedy, lyric, and epic.” 54 Coffey 1976, 29. Older proposals (gladiators, a battle scene, an assembly, see Russo 2007, 100) have not won general acceptance. 55 OLD s.v. obagito “disturb, harass.” L&S s.v. obigito, “disturb.” The TLL’s adversando agitare is closer to the sense proposed above.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

280

Chapter Ten

“obstruct” in its few later uses, to obagitant, where comic joke form demands a climax, something like “push back.” When read backward from later satire, fragment IV depicts Ennius, or at least his poetic persona, complaining about the crowded streets of Rome, as in Hor. S. 2.6.27-31 or Juv. 3.243-8. The motif has comic precedents but, in its satiric form, is a critique of contemporary habits by an indignant moralist.56 Comedy, however, had transformed this element of urban daily life into a fictional form that calls in question not just an autobiographical interpretation here, but even the hypothesis of a first person Ennian persona. “They stop [me], run to greet [me], stand in [my] way, obstructificationalize, shove [me] back” is a comic situation of status inequality with a rhetorical shape that emphasizes a kind of physically intrusive behavior—not simply jostling in a crowd—that was only permitted toward the lowest class. Part of the ideological work of the genre was to exclude the possibility that high status characters would be subjected to this degree of physical mistreatment. That the implied speaker here is of low social status is underscored by his fictional (comic) authority as a manipulator of words, a speaker of gag lines, and a runner of errands that advance the plot. Ennius the poet was a well-born south Italian, and perhaps also a Roman citizen at this point. He does create a persona for himself in the Satires (fr. V), and it is self-deprecating (fr. XIV), but it is not that of a servus currens. Interpreting this fragment as an autobiographical statement underplays the social disability connoted by its comic language.57 The duping scene exemplified in the four sotadeans of fr. XII is an archetypal comic situation. Gellius, who preserves the fragment (18.2.7), cites it as a suitable contribution to a sympotic contest of wit. The combination of diction, sound play, word play, the use of language to obfuscate and confuse, the role reversal, and the implied situation all point to comedy as the primary informing background. The literal meaning of these lines is not straightforward: Nam qui lepide postulat alterum frustrari, quem frustratur, frustra eum dicit frustra esse; nam si se frustrari quem frustras sentit, qui frustratur is frustra est, si non ille frustra est.

 56

Russo 2007, 100-101. Ennius became a citizen in 184 BCE (Cic. Brut. 79). The date of this fragment is unknown. 57

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and the Origins of Roman Satire

281

Warmington’s translation, although it has been challenged, offers the most consistent rendering of the frustra cognates. Frustror is “trick” and frustra esse, “be tricked.” For he who wants to be smart and trick his fellow, is tricked when he says the other whom he tricks is tricked. For he who is tricked into feeling that he is tricking someone, the tricker is tricked if the other is not tricked.58

This fragment has formal affinities with earlier Greek comedy (notably, Philemon 23 K.-A.) and Ennius’ own Iphigeneia (241-248 Warmington [= 84 FRL I]); its comic tone has been well established.59 The closest parallel is Bac. 548, atque i se quom frustrant, frustrari alios stolidi existimant (“and when they trick themselves, the idiots think they are tricking others”), although there is similar word play through repetition at Am. 3336 and Ps. 704-705. The “duper deceived” is a comic topos with conventional word and sound play. The sense of fr. XII is closely paralleled at Capt. 255-256 (qui cavet ne decipiatur, vix cavet, quom etiam cavet; / etiam quom cavisse ratus est saepe is cautor captus est, “He who is alert for deception, is barely alert, even when he is alert; even when he thinks he has been alert, this alert man is often caught”). Russo offers another illuminating parallel at Mil. 600-606, where Periplectomenus emphasizes the importance of privacy in planning a duping scheme: the “enemy” must not learn the plan. The first lines of this passage may suffice to show a similar pattern of related words: nam bene consultum inconsultum est, si id inimicis usui est / nec potest quin, si id inimicis usui est, opsit tibi, “for a good plan is badly planned, if it’s useful to enemies; there’s no avoiding its being a problem for you, if it’s useful to the enemies.” As Russo notes, in addition to the motif of reversing duper and duped, there is also a concern, implicit in fr. XII, about concealing the scheme from the victim in order to ensure its success.60 The sheer number of comic parallels mark this fragment generically and invite a reading that populates it with comic figures - a clever plotter, like a slave or parasite, a master of verbal sleight of hand, and an opponent (quem frustratur), like a pimp or old man, not without tricks of his own. This fragment belongs in a world of confidence games, plotlines of deceit, reversal and more deceit,



58 Russo 2007, 145-151 discusses more recent translations. Warmington’s text differs most in the third line (nam qui sese frustrari quem frustra), reflected in his translation. 59 Waszink 1972, 132, Russo 2007, 148-149. 60 Russo 2007, 149.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

282

Chapter Ten

in a spirit of play (lepide), where everyone is playing a role, self-aware and transparent to the audience. The Satires afford other glimpses into a world that may be mediated by comedy, such as fr. XIII, meum non est ac si me canis memorderit. Comedy may be recognized here as the most relevant interpretive model of reality, in Conte’s terms.61 The humdrum indignity of a being bitten by an animal is found in comedy and medical writers much more than in more elevated contexts, where the victim is usually mythical.62 But this particular dog bite is not a medical issue or a divinely sent punishment; it is a figure of speech, a boast about something hypothetical. Like the monkey bite that Plautus’ Hanno experienced as a child (Poen. 10731074), it signals the marginal status of the speaker, in compliance with the ideological commitment of the genre, mentioned above, to preserving the physical integrity of its high status characters. In a similar vein, Jocelyn proposed that fr. VII, cited above (nam is non bene volt), “would be set most naturally in a debate before an enquiring paterfamilias, with the speaker an erring son or slave,” though other scenarios are certainly possible. Several scholars have speculated that ancient anecdotes about Ennius ultimately derive from the Satires, the only work in which he clearly appears in his own person.63 Cicero tells a story (De orat. 2.276) about Ennius pretending he was not home when Scipio Nasica visited, and receiving the same treatment—from Nasica himself—when he returned the call. “You have no shame (homo es impudens). I believed your maid when she said you weren’t at home. Won’t you believe me in person?” The humor of the joke lies in part in expectations shaped by comedy, where it is perfectly acceptable for a respectable caller to get an outrageous answer and where characters regularly deny the truth of what is conspicuously visible. This anecdote has all the elements of a comic door knocking scene: the frustrated caller, the obstructive servant, the insult (impudens is frequent in Plautus), and the humor of the outrageous lie. Am. 1021ff is a typical Plautine example (cf. Aul. 350, Bac. 583, Men. 675). The Satire most clearly written to elicit a response shaped and informed by comedy is fr. IX, a six-line description of a parasite,



61 “Each genre is a model of reality which mediates the empirical world” (Conte 1994, 112). 62 E.g., people who bite like dogs: Cur. 597-598, Bac. 1146-1148, Cic. S. Rosc. 57.3, a speech with elements from comedy, and the monkey bite at Poen. 10731074. Mythical victims: Actaeon (Ov. Met. 4.723), a child of Apollo (Stat. Theb. 1.587), Mezentius (compared to a boar, Verg. A. 10.707). 63 Jocelyn 1972, 1022, Gratwick 1982b, 158-159, Muecke 2005, 40.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and the Origins of Roman Satire

283

combining comic language, imagery, stock types and situation—all so well precedented in Plautus that their concurrence excludes independent creation or derivation solely from Greek models. These lines evoke a Plautine world: Quippe sine cura laetus lautus cum advenis infestis malis, expedito bracchio, alacer, celsus, lupino expectans impetu, mox cum alterius abligurrias bona, quid censes domino[s] esse animi? Pro divum fidem! ille tristis dum cibum servat, tu ridens vora[n]s. Since, when you arrive blissful and bathed, with hostile jowls, forearm bared, eager, upstretched, waiting with the lunge of a wolf, when you’re soon going to slurp up someone else’s goods, what you do think is master’s frame of mind? By the gods! While he miserably protects his food, you laugh and devour it.

Individual lexemes with comic associations (abligurrias, quid censes) have been discussed above, along with oaths (pro divum fidem), sound play—especially in asyndetic lists—the dialogue form, and the proverb of the hungry wolf. The language here is consistent with the expectation in comedy that parasites will behave in ways inconsistent with the dignity of a freeborn human being. One way to express this is to de-humanize the parasite through animal imagery. For example, in the Captivi Ergasilus compares fellow parasites to mures (77) (mice), cocleae (80) (snails), and [canes] molossici (86) (molossian dogs). Ligurriant “lick” continues the animal imagery: parasiti… latent / … / dum ruri rurant homines quos ligurriant, (Capt. 83-85, “parasites… hide… while the people they lick are stuck in the sticks”).64 The parasite is frequently represented as a hunter (venatici, Capt. 85 “hunting [dogs]”),65 and specifically as a hungry wolf (St. 577) ready to attack (quasi lupus esuriens metui ne in me faceret impetum, Capt. 912 “like a hungry wolf, I’m afraid he’ll attack me”). The pantry-attack that follows this quotation is described, as in fr. IX, with a mixture of animal imagery (frendebat dentibus, Capt. 913 “gnashing his teeth”) and military imagery (impetum 912 “attack,” arripuit gladium 915

 64

Or perhaps the double r imitates the sound of the wolf (Petersmann 1999, 296). On animal imagery (common in Plautus) see Fantham 1972, 77; on parasites see Maltby 1999, §21-2. 65 Welsh 2013, 111 cites potential parallels for celsus and alacer “to describe the posture of animals on the hunt” and reorders the line in order to underscore this.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

284

Chapter Ten

“seized a sword,” praetruncavit 915 “chopped off”). In good Plautine form, fr. IX emphasizes the physical conflict rather than the irony, as Terence will do when he adapts these very lines. The animal imagery is part of a comic system of signification. It is a rhetorical strategy to take an individual out of the human social order and reduce him to a single behavior—here the consumption of food produced by (real) humans. Comic animal imagery figures in complaints, not honorifics (as, for example, an epic simile). Typically, as here, it occurs in dialogue. Fr. IX has a constellation of characters—the hostile speaker, the aggressive parasite and the “grim” master—all in a relationship of conflict. They slot easily into the comic world: the speaker, outraged on the “master’s” behalf, could easily be a good slave, loyal to the old man (like Grumio, Mos.); the senex avarus, tortured by the thought of expenditure, is an equally common type (like Euclio, Aul.), as of course is the rapacious parasite. This is how genres work in Conte’s terms (“a single element must enter into a constellation with others”) and it is what distinguishes this fragment from a direct complaint about a contemporary nuisance in second century Rome.66 There is, moreover, an instability inherent in this situation that is characteristic of drama. There are cues to forward motion in a plot. “You’re soon going to slurp up someone else’s goods,” is a plot “trigger,” in David Ball’s terminology—the first part in a cause and event pair.67 It will be followed by a “heap”: the retaliation of the miserable dominus whose actions will function as the next trigger in the action. This ground had all been well traveled by the time fr. IX was written. Plautus developed the parasite type, with its associated behaviors, language and imagery, particularly the emphasis on gluttony, while Naevius and others had evidently presented enough examples to form a stereotype against which the parasite in his Gymnasticus played.68 Parasites abound in Greek comedy too, but Ennius’ is heavily Romanized. He is attached to a single host (alterius), rather than dependent on multiple patrons, and he is adapted to a context in which his behavior is pathologized and figured as predation.69 There is no hint of flattery, entertainment or jokes—none of the good company a parasite was supposed to provide. This parasite is an unwelcome burden, like



66 Conte, 108: “A genre is not characterized as a “stuffing” of isolated fragments of content but as a totality of reciprocal, structured relations. A single element must enter into a constellation with others if it is to be transvalued and redefined.” 67 Ball 1983. 68 Naev. Gymn. 57, Pol haut parasitorum aliorum simile est. 69 Damon 1995, 182 (single host), Damon 1997, 253 (“deleterious effect on a patron”).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus and the Origins of Roman Satire

285

Peniculus, Gelasimus, or Ergasilus, rather than a witty companion, and his sole interest is food.70 His host is not a wealthy soldier in the Greek tradition or even a spendthrift adulescens, like Menaechmus I, but a dominus (presumably the speaker’s) who keeps an eye on the larder. The preceding analysis has attempted to show that comedy furnished an established, coherent literary world from which the Satires draw meaning. Recognizing a comic code here can produce richer contextualized readings than looking for early traces of a later satirical one. Comedy is a better and historically more relevant hermeneutic for these fragments than post-Ennian satire. A genre, of course, is much more than diction. This paper has assembled evidence of early comic genre features in many of the Satires, notably, lexemes, constructions, meter and dialogue form, puns, accumulations of synonyms, coinages, oral elements, loan words, imagery, characters and situations. It is no surprise than an author who composed palliatae should be familiar with comedy, and several of the fragments replicate too many different features of comedy to have emerged, plausibly, without the author’s awareness of the earlier form, notably fragments I, IV, VII, VIII and IX. These fragments, especially, reveal an authorial strategy to draw on this specific literary competence of his readers: knowledge of the imaginary world from which these scenarios are drawn and expectations that elements appearing in the Satires will conform to its rules. That Ennius could write in a comic mode has implications for later satire. The genre did not continue his apparent avoidance of internal Roman politics and ad hominem attacks, which was consistent with Plautine (if not Naevian) practice, but it did keep comic elements such the running slave motif or the figure of the parasite and other stock types.71 It is anachronistic to label the critiques of human foibles and contemporary society in the Satires as satirical, in a sense specific to Roman literature, but there is some justification for calling it comic.

 70

Lowe 1989, 164, 168, following Fraenkel, argues that Plautus gave prominence to food and exaggerated the gluttony of the type. 71 Braund 1996 explores the theatricality of post-Ennian verse satire, including the use of personae.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abel, Karlhans. 1955. Die Plautusprologe. PhD Dissertation, University of Frankfurt. Aerts, Willem J. 1994. “Alexander the Great and Ancient Travel Stories.” In Travel Fact and Travel Fiction. Studies on Fiction, Literary Tradition, Scholarly Discovery and Observation in Travel Writing, edited by Zweder von Martels, 30-38. Leiden: Brill. Allen, Frederic D. 1896. “On Os Columnatum (Plaut. M. G. 211) and Ancient Instruments of Confinement.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 7: 37-64. Anderson, Graham. 1976. Lucian: Theme and Variation in the Second Sophistic. Leiden: Brill. —. 2000. Fairytale in the Ancient World. London; New York: Routledge. —. 2006. Greek and Roman Folklore. A Handbook. Westport, CT; London: Greenwood Press. Anderson, William Scovil. 1970. “A New Menandrian Prototype for the Servus Currens of Roman Comedy.” Phoenix 24: 229-236. —. 1993. Barbarian Play: Plautus’ Roman Comedy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Anonymous. 2015. “Cartoonists show solidarity after Paris Charlie Hebdo attack, in pictures.” January 7, 2015: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11331506/Carto onists-show-solidarity-after-Charlie-Hebdo-attack.html Apostolakis, Kostas. 2014. “ȈIJȠ ȜȣțȩijȦȢ IJȘȢ ʌȠȜȚIJȚțȒȢ ıȐIJȚȡĮȢ: ȅ ȉȚȝȠțȜȒȢ țĮȚ ȠȚ ȡȒIJȠȡİȢ.” In ȀȦȝȚțȩȢ ȈIJȑijĮȞȠȢ. ȃȑİȢ IJȐıİȚȢ ıIJȘȞ ȑȡİȣȞĮ IJȘȢ ĮȡȤĮȓĮȢ İȜȜȘȞȚțȒȢ țȦȝȦįȓĮȢ, edited by Melina Tamiolaki, 103-124. Rethymno: Publications of the School of Philosophy of the University of Crete. Arnott, William Geoffrey. 1959. “The Author of the Greek Original of the Poenulus.” Rheinisches Museum 102.3: 252-262. —. 1970. “Young Lovers and Confidence Tricksters.” University of Leeds Review 13: 1-18. —. 1988. “The Greek original of Plautus’ Aulularia.” Wiener Studien 101: 181-191. —. 1989. “A Study in Relationships: Alexis’ Lebes, Menander’s Dyskolos, Plautus’ Aulularia.” Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica 33: 27-38.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

288

Bibliography

—. 1996a. Alexis: The Fragments. A Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 1996b. Menander. Volume II. Heros. Theophoroumene. Karchedonios. Kitharistes. Kolax. Koneiazomenai. Leukadia. Misoumenos. Perikeiromene. Perinthia. Edited and translated. Loeb Classical Library 459. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. —. 2002. “Diphilus’ ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ and Plautus’ Casina.” In Lecturae Sarsinates VI. Casina (Sarsina, 28 settembre, 2002), edited by Renato Raffaelli and Alba Tontini, 23-44. Urbino: QuattroVenti. —. 2004. “Alexis, Greek Comedy and Plautus’ Poenulus.” In Studien zu Plautus’ Poenulus, edited by Thomas Baier, 61-91. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Aronen, Jaakko. 1997. “Ops Opifera, Aedes.” In Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, edited by Eva Margareta Steinby. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Auberger, Janick. ed. 2001. Historiens d’Alexandre. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Augoustakis, Antony, and Traill, Ariana. eds. 2013. A Companion to Terence. Chichester, West Sussex U.K.; Malden MA: WileyBlackwell. Austin, Colin, and Olson, S. Douglas. eds. 2004. Aristophanes: Thesmophoriazusae. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bacon, Helen H. 1961. Barbarians in Greek Tragedy. New Haven: Yale University Press. Bain, David. 1979. “Plautus vortit barbare: Plautus, Bacchides 526-61 and Menander, Dis exapaton 102-12.” In Creative Imitation and Latin Literature, edited by David West and Tony Woodman, 17-34. Cambridge; London; New York; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Ball, David. 1983. Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Barbiero, Emilia A. 2014. Reading Between the Lines: Letters in Plautus. PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto. —. 2015. “Dissing the ǻ੿Ȣ ਥȟĮʌĮIJ૵Ȟ. Comic One-Upmanship in Plautus’ Bacchides.” Mnemosyne 68: 1-20. —. Forthcoming. “Alii rhetorica tongent: Plautus and Public Speech.” In A Companion to Plautus, edited by Dorota Dutsch and George F. Franko. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Barchiesi, Marino. 1969. “Plauto e il ‘metateatro’ antico.” Il Verri 31: 113-130.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

289

Barnes, Hazel E. 1957. “The Case of Sosia versus Sosia.” Classical Journal 53.1: 19-24. Barnes, Jonathan. 1984. The Complete Works of Aristotle. The Revised Oxford Translation. 2 volumes. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Barrios-Lech, Peter. 2015. “Bilingual Pun and Epic Allusion in Aulularia (Plautus Aulularia 394-397, 736).” Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica 109.1: 119-136. —. 2016. Linguistic Interaction in Roman Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Barsby, John. 1986. Plautus. Bacchides. Edited with translation and commentary. Warminster: Aris and Phillips. —. 1995. “Plautus’ Pseudolus as Improvisatory Drama.” In Plautus und die Tradition des Stegreifspiels: Festgabe für Eckard Lefèvre zum 60 Geburtstag, edited by Lore Benz, Ekkehard Stärk and Georg VogtSpira, 55-70. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. —. 1999. Terence: Eunuchus. Edited with introduction and commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bartsch, Shadi. 2006. The Mirror of the Self: Sexuality, Self-knowledge, and the Gaze in the Early Roman Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Batstone, William. 2005. “Plautine Farce and Plautine Freedom: An Essay on the Value of Metatheater.” In Defining Genre and Gender in Latin Literature, edited by William Batstone and Garth Tissol, 13-46. New York: Peter Lang. Baynham, Elizabeth. 2001. “Alexander and the Amazons.” Classical Quarterly 51.1: 115-126. Beard, Mary, North, John, and Price, Simon. eds. 1998a. Religions of Rome: Volume 1: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 1998b. Religions of Rome: Volume 2: A Sourcebook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bénatouïl, Thomas. 2006. Faire usage: la pratique du stoïcisme. Histoire des doctrines de l’antiquité classique 35. Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin. Bergson, Leif. ed. 1965. Der griechische Alexanderroman. Rezension ȕ. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Bettini, Maurizio. 1982a. “A proposito dei versi sotadei, greci e romani, alcuni capitoli di ‘analisi metrica lineare.’” Materiali e Discussioni 9: 59-105. —. 1982b. “Verso un’antropologia dell’intreccio: Le strutture semplici della trama nelle commedie di Plauto.” Materiali e Discussioni 7: 39101.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

290

Bibliography

—. 1995. “Amphitruo 168-172: numeri innumeri und metrische Folklore.” In Plautus und die Tradition des Stegreifspiels: Festgabe für Eckard Lefèvre zum 60 Geburtstag, edited by Lore Benz, Ekkehard Stärk and Gregor Vogt-Spira, 89-96. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. —. 2001. The Ears of Hermes: Communication, Images, and Identity in the Classical World. Translated by William Michael Short. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press. Bexley, Erica. 2014. “Plautus and Terence in Performance.” In The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, edited by Michael Fontaine and Adele Scafuro, 462-476. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Bianchi, Elisa. 1981. “Teratologia e geografia. L’homo monstruosus in autori dell’antichità classica.” Acme 34: 227-247. Blänsdorf, Jürgen. 1978. “Voraussetzungen und Entstehung der römischen Komödie.” In Das römische Drama, edited by Eckard Lefèvre, 91-134. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. —. 2011a. “Q. Ennius: Sota.” In Fragmenta Poetarum Latinorum et Lyricorum, edited by Jürgen Blänsdorf, 73-74. Berlin: De Gruyter. —. ed. 2011b. Fragmenta Poetarum Latinorum Epicorum et Lyricorum: De Gruyter. Blok, Josine H. 1995. The Early Amazons. Modern and Ancient Perspectives on a Persistent Myth. Leiden; New York; Köln: Brill. Blume, Horst-Dieter. 2011. “Komische Soldaten. Entwicklung und Wandel einer typischen Bühnenfigur in der Antike.” In Rezeption des antiken Dramas auf der Bühne und in der Literatur, edited by Bernhard Zimmermann, 175-195. Stuttgart; Weimar: Metzler. Bolisani, Ettore. 1932-1933. “Satura ante Lucilium ab Ennio praesertim exculta qualis fuerit”, Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 92. Part II.2: 965-982. Bosworth, Albert Brian. 1996a. Alexander and the East. The Tragedy of Triumph. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. 1996b. “Alexander, Euripides, and Dionysos. The Motivation for Apotheosis.” In Transitions to Empire. Essays in Greco-Roman History, 360-146 B.C., in Honor of E. Badian, edited by Robert W. Wallace and Edward M. Harris, 140-166. Norman, OK; London: University of Oklahoma Press. Braund, Susanna Morton. 1996. The Roman Satirists and Their Masks. Edited by M. Gunningham, Classical World Series. London: Bristol Classical Press.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

291

Brown, Eric. 2009. “Politics and Society.” In The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, edited by James Warren, 179-196. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Peter G. McC. 1980. “The Beginning of the Misoumenos.” Classical Review 30: 3-6. —. 2003-2004. “Soldiers in New Comedy: Insiders and Outsiders.” Leeds International Classical Studies 3.8: 1-16. Buckley, Emma. 2018. “‘Poetry is a Speaking Picture’: Framing a Poetics of Virtue in Late Elizabethan England.” In Reading Poetry, Writing Genres: English Poetry and Literary Criticism in Dialogue with Classical Scholarship, edited by Silvio Bär and Emily Hauser, 30-50. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Bungard, Christopher W. 2014. “To Script Or Not To Script: Rethinking Pseudolus as Playwright.” Helios 41.1: 87-106. Burton, Paul J. 2004. “Amicitia in Plautus: A Study of Roman Friendship Processes.” American Journal of Philology 125.2: 209-243. Cagniart, Pierre. 1999. “Le soldat et l’armée dans le théâtre de Plaute. L’antimilitarisme de Plaute.” Latomus 58.4: 753-779. Callahan, John F. 1964. “Plautus’ “Mirror for a Mirror.”” Classical Philology 59.1: 1-10. Callu, Jean-Pierre. ed. 2010. Julius Valère: Roman d’Alexandre. Turnhout: Brepols. Cameron, Alan. 1995. Callimachus and his Critics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cassin, Barbara. 2015. “Foreword.” In Rodrigo Tadeu Gonçalves, Performative Plautus. Sophistics, Metatheater, Translation, ix-xii. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Caston, Ruth R. 2014a. “Reinvention in Terence’s Eunuchus.” Transcactions of the American Philological Association 144: 41-70. —. 2014b, “The Divided Self: Plautus and Terence on Identity and Impersonation.” In Plautine Trends: Studies in Plautine Comedy and its Reception, edited by Ioannis N. Perysinakis and Evangelos Karakasis, 43-61. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. Cèbe, J.-P. 1960. “Le niveau culturel du public plautinien.” Revue des Études Latines 38: 101-106. Centanni, Monica. ed. 1988. Il Romanzo di Alessandro. Venice: Arsenale Editrice. Chalmers, Walter R. 1965. “Plautus and his Audience.” In Roman Drama, edited by Thomas A. Dorey and Donald R. Dudley, 21-50. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

292

Bibliography

Champlin, Edward. 2011. “Tiberius and the Heavenly Twins.” Journal of Roman Studies 101: 73-99. Chapot, Frédéric, and Laurot, Bernard. 2001. Corpus de Prières Grecques et Romaines. Turnhout: Brepols. Chiarini, Gioachino. 1978. “Casina, o della metamorfosi.” Latomus 37: 105-120. —. 1979. La recita. Plauto, la farsa, la festa. Bologna: Pàtron editore. —. 1981. “Per la storia dell’esegesi plautina I. I versi didascalici della ‘Casina’ (prol.29-34).” Studi Classici e Orientali 31: 119-153. Christenson, David. 2000. Plautus: Amphitruo. Edited with an introduction and commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cilliers, Louise. 2004. “Vindicianus’ Gynaecia and Theories on Generation and Embryology from the Babylonians up to GraecoRoman Times.” In Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Medicine, edited by Manfred (H. F. J.) Horstmanshoff and Marten Stol, 343-467. Leiden; Boston: Brill. Cinaglia, Valeria. 2014. Aristotle and Menander on the Ethics of Understanding. Leiden: Brill. Cipolla, Paolo. ed. 2003. Poeti minori del dramma satiresco. Testo critico, traduzione e commento. Amsterdam: Hakkert. Clark, Anna J. 2007. Divine Qualities: Cult and Community in Republican Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cleary, Vincent J. 1972. “Se sectari simiam: Monkey Business in the Miles Gloriosus.” Classical Journal 67.4: 299-305. Clubb, Louise George. 1986. “Theatergrams.” In Comparative Critical Approaches to Renaissance Comedy, edited by Donald A. Beecher and Massimo Ciavolella, 15-31. Ottawa: Dovehouse Edition. —. 1989. Italian Drama in Shakespeare’s Time. New Haven; London: Yale University Press. Coarelli, Filippo. 1969. “Le Tyrannoctone du Capitole et la mort de Tiberius Gracchus.” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 81, no. 1: 137-160. Cody, Jane M. 1976. “The ‘Senex Amator’ in Plautus’ Casina.” Hermes 104: 453-476. Coffee, Neil. 2016. Gift and Gain: How Money Transformed Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coffey, Michael. 1976. Roman Satire. London; New York: Methuen & Co. Ltd. and Barnes & Noble.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

293

Collart, Jean. 1962. T. Maccius Plautus: Curculio. Plaute: Charançon. Édition, introduction et commentaire. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Colvin, Stephen. 1999. Dialect in Aristophanes and the Politics of Language in Ancient Greek Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Connors, Catharine. 2004. “Monkey Business: Imitation, Authenticity, and Identity from Pithekoussai to Plautus.” ClAnt 23.2: 179-207. Conte, Gian Biaggio. 1994. Genres and Readers: Lucretius, Love Elegy, Pliny’s Encyclopedia. Translated by Glenn W. Most, with a forward by Charles Segal. Baltimore; London: Johns Hopkins. Courtney, Edward. 1993. The Fragmentary Latin Poets, edited with commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cowan, Robert. 2015. “240 BCE and All That: the Romanness of Republican Tragedy.” In Brill’s Companion to Roman Tragedy, edited George W. M. Harrison, 63-89. Leiden: Brill. Crapisi, Isabella C. 2003. “Omnes congeminavimus (Amph. 786). Rappresentazioni e immagini del doppio nelle commedie plautine.” Pan 21: 105-129. Cooke, Harold P. ed. and trans. 1938. Aristotle: The Categories. Cambridge MA; London: Harvard University Press. Damen, Mark. 1985. The Comedy of Diphilus Sinopeus in Plautus, Terence and Athenaeus. PhD Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin. Damon, Cynthia. 1995. “Greek Parasites and Roman Patronage.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 97: 181-195. —. 1997. The Mask of the Parasite: A Pathology of Roman Patronage. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. D’Angour, Armand. 2011, The Greeks and the New. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. —. No date. “Mnemonics for metre, 14: Sotadean.” www.armand-dangour.com/mnemonics-for-greek-metre/ Dasen, Véronique. 1997. “Multiple Births in Graeco-Roman Antiquity.” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 16.1: 49-63. —. 2013. “Becoming Human: from the Embryo to the Newborn Child.” In The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World, edited by Judith Evans Grubbs and Tim Parkin, with Roslynne Bell, 17-39. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Daumas, Michèle. 1992. “Alexandre et la reine des Amazones.” Revue des Études Anciennes 94.3-4: 347-354.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

294

Bibliography

Davidson, James N. 2009. The Greeks and Greek Love: A Bold New Exploration of the Ancient World. New York: Random House (originally published in 2007.) Deagon, Andrea. 2008. “The ‘Effeminate Dancer’ in Greco-Roman Egypt: The Intimate Performance of Ambiguity.” Dance Studies and Global Feminisms 8: 69-77. De Grummond, Nancy T. 2002. “Etruscan Mirrors Now.” American Journal of Archaeology 106.2: 307-311. Della Corte, Francesco. 1967. Da Sarsina a Roma. Ricerche plautine. Florence: La Nuova Italia. De March, Andrea. 2015, “Nouom aliquid inuentum (Plautus, Pseud. 569): An Unsurprising Innovation?” In Proceedings of the International Conference ‘Anchoring Innovation in Antiquity’ (Ravenstein, Netherlands, December 17-20, 2015), 1-10. www.ru.nl/oikos/anchoring-innovation/proceedings-internationalconference-anchoring/. De Melo, Wolfgang. 2011. “The Language of Roman Comedy.” In A Companion to the Latin Language, edited by James Clackson, 321343. Chichester; Malden, MA: Blackwell. —. 2011-2013. Titus Maccius Plautus. Edited and Translated, Vol. 1-5. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press. Demetriou, Chrysanthi. 2018. “Wonder(s) in Plautus.” In Recognizing Miracles in Antiquity and Beyond, edited by Maria Gerolemou, 153178. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. —. 2019. “Plautus’ Miles Gloriosus: Palaestrio’s First ‘Comedy’ Revisited.” Bollettino di Studi Latini 49.1: 16-27. Dentith, Simon. 2000. Parody. London: Routledge. Deubner, Ludwig. 1953. “Die Saturae des Ennius und die Jamben des Kallimachos.” Rheinisches Museum 96.4: 289-292. With an addendum (p. 292) by E. B. Diels, Hermann. ed. 1879. Doxographi Graeci. Berlin: G. Reimer. Dinter, Martin. ed. 2019. The Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dover, Kenneth J. 1963. “Notes on Aristophanes’ Acharnians.” Maia 15: 6-25 = Kenneth J. Dover, Greek and the Greeks: Collected Papers, i. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. —. 1972. Aristophanic Comedy. Berkeley: The University of California Press.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

295

—. 1998. “Ancient Interpolation in Aristophanes.” In The Greeks and their Legacy ii, edited by Kenneth J. Dover, 198-222. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Dressler, Alex. 2016. “Plautus and the Poetics of Property: Reification, recognition, and utopia.” Materiali e Discussioni 77: 9-56. Duckworth, George E. 1938. “The Unnamed Characters in the Plays of Plautus.” Classical Philology 33: 267-282. —. 1994. The Nature of Roman Comedy: A Study in Popular Entertainment. Second Edition. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press (first edition: Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952). Dunbar, Nan. ed. 1995. Aristophanes: Birds. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Dupont, Florence. 1976. “Le signification théâtrale du double dans l’Amphitryon de Plaute.” Revue des Études Latines 54: 129-141. Dutsch, Dorota. 2008. Feminine Discourse in Roman Comedy: On Echoes and Voices. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. 2009. “Pythagorizousa in Plautus’ Poenulus?” Eos 95.1: 47-54. —. 2014. “The Beginnings: Philosophy in Roman Literature before 155 BC.” In The Philosophizing Muse. The Influence of Greek Philosophy on Roman Poetry, edited by Myrto Garani and David Konstan, 1-25. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. —. 2015. “Feats of Flesh: The Female Body on the Plautine Stage.” In Women in Roman Republican Drama, edited by Dorota Dutsch, Sharon L. James, and David Konstan, 17-36. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Dutsch, Dorota, and Franko, George F. eds. Forthcoming. A Companion to Plautus. Malden, MA; Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Eckard, Gilles. 1997. “Habenam et pilam loculosque cum aureis. Les présents envoyés par Darius dans le Roman d’Alexandre et les vestiges d’une formule trifonctionnelle en ancien français.” In Nomen latinum. Mélanges de langue, de littérature et de civilisation latines offerts au professeur André Schneider à l’occasion de son départ à la retraite, edited by Denis Knoepfler, 247-257. Neuchâtel: Faculté de Lettres; Geneva: Librairie Droz. Edmunds, Lowell. 1971. “The Religiosity of Alexander.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 12.3: 363-391. El-Nowieemy, Magda. 2013. “Hellenism, Alexandrianism and Roman Enlightenment”, Acta of the Conference ‘Alexander, the Greek Cosmos - System and Contemporary Global Society’. Vol. 1, 403-415. www.academy.edu.gr/files/01_23_pr_al.pdf. Elderkin, George W. 1934. “The Curculio of Plautus.” American Journal of Archaeology 38.1: 29-36.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

296

Bibliography

Elvers, Karl-Ludwig. 1996. “Caecilius.” Der Neue Pauly. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler. Engelmann, Helmut. ed. 1963. Der griechische Alexanderroman. Rezension ī. Buch II. Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain. Enk, Petrus Johannes. ed. 1932. Plauti Mercator cum prolegomenis, notis criticis, commentario exegetico edidit, 2 vols. Leiden: Sijthoff. Erdmann, Walter. 1934. Die Ehe im alten Griechenland. München: C.H. Beck. Evans, Matthew. 2004. “Can Epicureans be Friends?” Ancient Philosophy 24: 407-424. Eyl, Jennifer. 2006. “Plautus, The Braggart Soldier.” In Classical Literature and Its Times: Profiles of Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events That Influenced Them, edited by Joyce Moss, 45-52. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale. Faller, Stefan. 2004. “Punisches im Poenulus.” In Studien zu Plautus’ Poenulus, edited by Thomas Baier, 163-202. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Fantham, Elaine. 1965. “The Curculio of Plautus: An Illustration of Plautine Methods in Adaptation.” Classical Quarterly 15: 84-100. —. 1972. Comparative Studies in Republican Latin Imagery. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. —. 2007. “Mania e medicina nei Menaechmi e in altri testi.” In Lecturae Plautinae Sarsinates X: Menaechmi, edited by Renato Raffaelli and Alba Tontini, 23-46. Urbino: QuattroVenti. —. 2011. Roman Readings: Roman Response to Greek Literature from Plautus to Statius and Quintilian. New York: De Gruyter. Fantuzzi, Marco, and Hunter, Richard. 2004. Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Farmer, Matthew C. 2017. Tragedy on the Comic Stage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fauth, Wolfgang. 1979. “Utopische Inseln in den ‘Wahren Geschichten’ des Lukian.” Gymnasium 86: 39-58. Feeney, Denis. 2010. “Crediting Pseudolus: Trust, Belief, and the Credit Crunch in Plautus’ Pseudolus.” Classical Philology 105: 281-300. —. 2016. Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Feldbusch, Michael. ed. 1976. Der Brief Alexanders an Aristoteles über die Wunder Indiens. Synoptische Edition. Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain. Feltovich, Anne. 2015. “In Defense of Myrrhina: Friendship between Women in Plautus’s Casina.” Helios 42.1: 245-266.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

297

Ferguson, John. 1975. Utopias of the Classical World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Flanagan, Caitlin. 2015. “That’s Not Funny! Today’s college students can’t seem to take a joke.” The Atlantic. September, 2015: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/thats-notfunny/399335/ Flintoff, Everard. 1988. “Naevius and Roman Satire.” Latomus: revue d'études latines 47.3: 593-603. Fontaine, Michael. 2005. “Review of Rupertus Marius Danese, Titus Maccius Plautus. Asinaria. Editio Plautina Sarsinatis, 2. Sarsinae; Urbino: QuattroVenti, 2004”: bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2005/2005-07-39.html —. 2010a. “Colax Menandrist….” Classical Review 60: 379-380 (review of M. J. Pernerstorfer, Menanders Kolax. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009). —. 2010b. Funny Words in Plautine Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. 2013. “On Being Sane in an Insane Place—The Rosenhan Experiment in the Laboratory of Plautus’ Epidamnus.” Current Psychology: Research and Reviews 32:4 (December): 348-365 (published online on October 01, 2013). www.szasz.com/beingsaneepidamnus.pdf —. 2014a. “Between Two Paradigms: Plautus.” In The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, edited by Michael Fontaine and Adele Scafuro, 516-537. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. —. 2014b. “Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Comedy: Menander’s Kolax in Three Roman Receptions (Naevius, Plautus and Terence’s Eunuchus).” In Ancient Comedy and Reception: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey Henderson, edited by S. Douglas Olson, 180-202. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. —. 2014c. “The Reception of Greek Comedy in Rome.” In The Cambridge Companion to Greek Comedy, edited by Martin Revermann, 404-423. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 2014d. “The Terentian Reformation: From Menander to Alexandria.” In The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, edited by Michael Fontaine and Adele Scafuro, 538-554. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. —. 2018. “A Cute Illness in Epidaurus: Eight Sick Jokes in Plautus’ Gorgylio (Curculio).” In Quasi Labor Intus: Ambiguity in Latin Literature. Papers in Honor of Reginald Thomas Foster, OCD, edited by Michael Fontaine, Charles J. McNamara and William M. Short, 2753. New York: The Paideia Institute for Humanistic Study.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

298

Bibliography

Fontaine, Michael, and Scafuro, Adele. eds. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Forehand, Walter E. 1973. “Plautus’ Casina: An Explication.” Arethusa 6: 233-256. Fraenkel, Eduard. 2007. Plautine Elements in Plautus (Plautinisches im Plautus). Translated by Tomas Drevikovsky and Frances Muecke. Oxford: Oxford University Press; German original: Plautinisches im Plautus. Philologische Untersuchungen 28. Berlin: Weidmann, 1922; Italian translation by Franco Munari; with Addenda by the author: Elementi Plautini in Plauto (Plautinisches im Plautus). Il pensiero storico 41. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1960. Frangoulidis, Stavros. 1994. “The Soldier as a Storyteller in Terence’s Eunuchus.” Mnemosyne 47.5: 586-595. Frangoulidis, Stavros, Harrison, Stephen J., and Manuwald, Gesine. eds. 2016. Roman Drama and its Contexts. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter. Franko, George F. 1995. “Incest and Ridicule in the Poenulus of Plautus.” Classical Quarterly 45.1: 250-252. —. 1996. “The Characterization of Hanno in Plautus’ Poenulus.” American Journal of Philology 117: 425-452. —. 2004. “Ensemble Scenes in Plautus.” American Journal of Philology 125: 27-59. Fraser, Peter Marshall. 1996. Cities of Alexander the Great. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fusillo, Massimo. 1994. “Letteratura di consumo e romanzesca.” In Lo spazio letterario della Grecia antica, vol. 1, La produzione e la circolazione del testo, part 3, I Greci e Roma, edited by Giuseppe Cambiano, Luciano Canfora and Diego Lanza, 233-273. Rome: Salerno Editrice. Futre Pinheiro, Marilia P. 2006. “Utopia and Utopias: A Study on a Literary Genre in Antiquity.” In Authors, Authority, and Interpreters in the Ancient Novel. Essays in Honor of Gareth L. Schmeling, edited by Shannon N. Byrne, Edmund P. Cueva and Jean Alvares, 147-171. Groningen: Barkhuis; Groningen University Library. Gabba, Emilio. 1981. “True History and False History in Classical Antiquity.” Journal of Roman Studies 71: 50-62. Gadd, Cyril John. 1936. The Stones of Assyria. The Surviving Remains of Assyrian Sculpture, their Recovery and their Original Positions. London: Chatto & Windus. Gaiser, Konrad. 1970. “Die plautinischen ‘Bacchides’ und Menanders ‘Dis exapaton.’” Philologus 114: 51-87.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

299

Gallo, Italo. 1996. “Biografie di consumo in Grecia: Il Romanzo di Alessandro e la Vita del filosofo Secondo.” In La letteratura di consumo nel mondo greco-latino, edited by Oronzo Pecere and Antonio Stramaglia, 235-249. Cassino: Università degli Studi di Cassino. Garrison, Mark B. 2009. “Visual Representation of the Divine and the Numinous in Early Achaemenid Iran: Old Problems, New Directions.” Electronic pre-publication, last revised March 3, 2009. www.religionswissenschaft.uzh.ch/idd/prepublication.php —. 2013. “Royal Achaemenid Iconography.” In The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran, edited by Daniel T. Potts, 566-595. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Garrison, Mark B., and Root, Margaret Cool. 2001. Seals on the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, vol. 1, Images of Heroic Encounter. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Gellar-Goad, Ted H. M. 2016. “Plautus’ Curculio and the Case of the Pious Pimp.” In Roman Drama and its Contexts, edited by Stavros Frangoulidis, Stephen J. Harrison and Gesine Manuwald, 231-252. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter. Genette, Gérard. 1997. Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree. Translated by Channa Newman and Claude Doubinksy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Georgiadou, Aristoula, and Larmour, David H. J. 1994. “Lucian and Historiography: ‘De Historia Conscribenda’ and ‘Verae Historiae.’” In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, vol. 2.34.2, edited by Wolfgang Haase, 1448-1509. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter. —. 1998. Lucian’s Science Fiction Novel True Histories. Interpretation and Commentary. Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill. Gibbons, Brian. ed. 1980. The Arden Edition of the Works of William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet. London; New York: Bloomsbury Arden. Gil, Luis. 1975. “Comedia ática y sociedad ateniense, III. Los profesionales del amor en la comedia media y nueva.” Estudios Clásicos 19: 59-88. —. 1981-1983. “El ‘alazón’ y sus variantes.” Estudios Clásicos 25: 39-57. Gilula, Dwora. 1977. “The Mask of the Pseudokore.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 18: 247-250. Giusti, Elena. 2018. Carthage in Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’: Staging the Enemy under Augustus. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Gizewski, Christian. 1996. “Duoviri, Duumviri.” Der Neue Pauly. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

300

Bibliography

Goldberg, Sander M. 1990. “Act to Action in Plautus’ Bacchides.” Classical Philology 85: 191-201. —. 2005. Constructing Literature in the Roman Republic: Poetry and its Reception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 2011. “Roman Comedy Gets Back to Basics.” Journal of Roman Studies 101: 206-221. Gonçalves, Rodrigo Tadeu. 2015. Performative Plautus: Sophistics, Metatheater and Translation. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Goukowsky, Paul. 1972. “Le roi Pôros, son éléphant et quelques autres. (En marge de Diodore, XVII, 88, 6).” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 96.1: 473-502. —. 1978-1981. Essai sur les origines du mythe d’Alexandre (336-270 av. J.-C.), 2 vols. Nancy: Publications de l’Université de Nancy. Gowers, Emily. 1993. The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Graf, Fritz. 2007. “Religion and Drama.” In The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Theater, edited by Marianne McDonald and Michael Walton, 55-71. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gratwick, Adrian S. 1969. The Poenulus of Plautus and its Attic Original. PhD Dissertation, Oxford University. —. 1982a. “Drama.” In The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Vol. 2, Part I. The Early Republic, edited by Edward J. Kenney and Wendel Clausen, 77-137. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 1982b, “The Satires of Ennius and Lucilius.” In The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: The Early Republic, edited by E. J. Kenney and Wendel Clausen, 156-171. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 1993. Plautus: Menaechmi. Edited with a commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Griffith, R. Drew. 1997. “Homeric įȚȚʌİIJȑȠȢ ʌȠIJĮȝȠ૙Ƞ and the Celestial Nile.” American Journal of Philology 118.3: 353-362. Grilli, Alberto. 1978. “Ennius Podager.” Rivista di filologia e d’istruzione classica 106: 34-38. Grimal, Pierre. 1966. “Échos plautiniens d’histoire hellénistique.” In Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire offerts à André Piganiol, edited by Raymond Chevallier, 1731-1741. Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N. Gruen, Erich S. 1990. Studies in Greek Culture and Roman Policy. Leiden; New York; København; Köln: Brill (paperback edition, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

301

Gruter, Jan. 1621. M. Acci Plauti Comoediae. Accedunt commentarii Friderici Taubmanni auctiores. Wittenberg. Gunderson, Erik. 2015. Laughing Awry: Plautus and Tragicomedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gunderson, Lloyd L. 1980. Alexander’s Letter to Aristotle about India. Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain. Hall, Edith. 1989a. Inventing the Barbarian. Oxford: Clarendon Press. —. 1989b. “The Archer Scene in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae.” Philologus 133.1: 38-54. Hallett, Judith P. 1993. “Plautine Ingredients in the Performance of Pseudolus.” Classical World 87: 21-26. Halporn, James. 1993. “Roman Comedy and Greek Models.” In Theater and Society in the Classical World, edited by Ruth Scodel, 191-213. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Hammond, Mason, Mack, Arthur M. and Moskalew, Walter. 1970 [1963]. T. Macci Plauti: Miles Gloriosus, edited with an introduction and notes. Second edition, revised by Mason Hammond. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press (first edition 1963). Handley, Eric. W. 1968. Menander and Plautus: A Study in Comparison. An Inaugural Lecture Delivered at University College London. London: H. K. Lewis. Hankoff, Leon D. 1977. “Why the Healing Gods are Twins.” The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 50: 307-319. Hannah, Robert. 2005. Greek and Roman Calendars: Constructions of Time in the Classical World. London: Duckworth. Hansen, William. 1996. Phlegon of Tralles’ Book of Marvels. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. —. 2002. Ariadne’s Thread. A Guide to International Tales Found in Classical Literature. Ithaca, NY; London: Cornell University Press. —. 2017. The Book of Greek & Roman Folktales, Legends, & Myths. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hanson, John Arthur. 1965. “The Glorious Military.” In Roman Drama, edited by Thomas A. Dorey and Donald R. Dudley, 51-85. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Harrison, George W.M. ed. 2015. Brill’s Companion to Roman Tragedy. Leiden: Brill. Harsh, Philip Whaley. 1955. “Intriguing Slaves in Greek Comedy.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 86: 135-142. Hausburg, Bianca C. 2014. “Nachklassisches Griechisch bei Plautus? Zu Pseudolus 483-4 und Bacchides 1162.” Rheinisches Museum 157: 1626.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

302

Bibliography

Hébert, Louis. 2006. The Actantial Model: web.archive.org/web/20100127103219/http://www.signosemio.com/gr eimas/a_actantiel.asp (accessed September 21, 2018). Herescu, Nicolae I. 1959. “Les traces des épigrammes militaires dans le «Miles Gloriosus» de Plaute.” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 37.1: 45-51. Hersch, Karen K. 2010. The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Hickson, Frances. 1993. Roman Prayer Language: Livy and the Aneid[Sic] of Vergil. Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner. Hidber, Thomas, and Furley, William D. 2006. “Sotades.” In Brill’s New Pauly, edited by H. Cancik and H. Schneider. Consulted online on 05 April 2017: dx.doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e1118010. Hinds, Stephen. 1998. Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Hoffmann, Zsuzsanna. 1980. “Gebetsparodien in Plautus’ Komödien.” Helikon 20/21: 207-218. Hofmann, Walter. 1992, “Zur Funktion der Fremdsprachen bei Plautus.” In Zum Umgang mit fremden Sprachen in der griechisch-römischen Antike. Kolloquium der Fachrichtungen klassische Philologie der Universitäten Leipzig und Saarbrücken am 21. und 22. November 1989 in Saarbrücken, edited by Carl Werner Müller, Kurt Sier and Jürgen Werner, 143-158. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. —. ed. 2001. Plautus: Truculentus. Herausgegeben, übersetzt und kommentiert. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Hofmann, Walter, and Wartenberg, Günther. 1973. Der Bramarbas in der antiken Komödie. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Holt, Frank L. 2003. Alexander the Great and the Mystery of the Elephant Medallions. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press. Holzberg, Niklas. 2003. “Novel-Like Works of Extended Prose Fiction II.” In The Novel in the Ancient World, edited by Gareth Schmeling, 619-653. Boston; Leiden: Brill. Horsfall, Nicholas. 1976. “The Collegium Poetarum.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 23.1: 79-95. Housman, Alfred Edward. 1934. “Ennius in Pers. VI 9.” Classical Review 48.2: 50-51. Höschele, Regina. 2017. “‘Harvesting from a New Page’: Philip of Thessalonike’s Editorial Undertaking.” Aitia 7.1 (accessed July 4, 2017). doi:10.4000/aitia.1727.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

303

Hultzsch, Eugen. 1904. “Zum Papyrus 413 aus Oxyrhynchus.” Hermes 39, 307-11. Hunter, Richard L. 1985. The New Comedy of Greece and Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 2006. The Shadow of Callimachus. Studies in the Reception of Hellenistic Poetry at Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hutcheon, Linda. 2000. A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of TwentiethCentury Art Forms. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Huys, Marc, and Wouters, Alfons. 1993. “P. Hal. Inv. 31: Alexander and the Speaking Bird (cf. Ps.-Call., III, 28).” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 99: 33-36. Infurna, Marco. 1995. “Alessandro viaggiatore medievale.” In Pothos. Il viaggio, la nostalgia, edited by Fabio Rosa and Francesco Zambon, 165-187. Trento: Università degli Studi di Trento, Dipartimento di Scienze Filologiche e Storiche. Ireland, Stanley. 2010. “New Comedy.” In Brill’s Companion to the Study of Greek Comedy, edited by Gregory W. Dobrov, 333-396. Leiden: Brill. Isaac, Benjamin. 2006. The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jackson, Rosemary. 1981. Fantasy. The Literature of Subversion. London; New York: Routledge. Jameson, Fredric. 2002. A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present. London: Verso Books. Jammer, Max. 2006. Concepts of Simultaneity: from Antiquity to Einstein and Beyond. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Jeppesen, Seth A. 2013. Performing Religious Parody in Plautine Comedy. PhD Dissertation, University of California Santa Barbara. —. 2016. “Dictating Parody in Plautus’ Rudens.” Didaskalia 12: 69-92. Jocelyn, Henry David. 1972. “The Poems of Quintus Ennius.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 1.2, edited by Hildegard Temporini, 987-1026. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter. —. 1977. “Ennius, Sat. 6-7 Vahlen.” Rivista di filologia e d’istruzione classica 105.1: 131-151. —. 1995. “The Life-style of the Ageing Bachelor and Theatrical Improvisation (Plaut. Mil. 596-812).” In Plautus und die Tradition des Stegreifspiels: Festgabe für Eckard Lefèvre zum 60 Geburtstag, edited by Lore Benz, Ekkehard Stärk and Gregor Vogt-Spira, 107-122. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Jouanno, Corinne. 2002. Naissance et métamorphoses du Roman d’Alexandre. Domaine grec. Paris: CNRS Éditions.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

304

Bibliography

Kanavou, Nikoletta. 2011. Aristophanes’ Comedy of Names: A Study of Speaking Names in Aristophanes. Berlin: De Gruyter. Karakasis, Evangelos. 2014a. “Introduction.” In Plautine Trends: Studies in Plautine Comedy and its Reception, edited by Ioannis N. Perysinakis and Evangelos Karakasis, xiii-xxi. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. —. 2014b. “The Language of the Palliata.” in The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, edited by Michael Fontaine and Adele Scafuro, 555-579. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Katz, Joshua T. 2008. “Vergil Translates Aratus: Phaenomena 1-2 and Georgics 1.1-2.” Materiali e Discussioni 60: 105-123. Kauer, Robert, and Lindsay, Wallace M. 1958. P. Terenti Afri Comoediae, Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis. Supplementa apparavit Otto Skutsch. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Keil, Heinrich. 1857. Grammatici Latini, vol. 6. Leipzig: Teubner. Kella, Vasiliki. 2011. “Introducing Geminate Writing: Plautus’ Miles Gloriosus.” Dionysus ex machina 2, 189-210. Killeen, James F. 1973. “Plautus Miles Gloriosus 211.” Classical Philology 68: 53-54. Kindermann, Heinz. 1979. Das Theaterpublikum der Antike. Salzburg: Müller. Kleinknecht, Hermann. 1967. Die Gebetsparodie in Der Antike. Hildesheim: G. Olms. Knapp, Charles. 1907. “Travel in Ancient Times as Seen in Plautus and Terence.” Classical Philology 2: 1-24, 281-304. Knoche, Ulrich. 1975. Roman Satire. Translation by Edwin S. Ramage. Bloomington; London: Indiana University Press. Konstan, David. 1983. Roman Comedy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. —. 1994. “Friendship from Epicurus to Philodemus.” In L’Epicureismo greco e romano, edited by Gabriele Giannantoni and Marcello Gigante, 387-396. Naples: Bibliopolis. —. 1997. Friendship in the Classical World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 2014. “Turns and Returns in Plautus’ Casina.” In Plautine Trends: Studies in Plautine Comedy and its Reception, edited by Ioannis N. Perysinakis and Evangelos Karakasis, 3-11. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. —. 2018. In the Orbit of Love: Affection in Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Konstantakos, Ioannis M. 2000. A Commentary on the Fragments of Eight Plays of Antiphanes. PhD Dissertation, University of Cambridge.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

305

—. 2003-2004. “This Craft of Comic Verse: Greek Comic Poets on Comedy.” Archaiognosia 12: 11-54. —. 2005. “The Drinking Theatre: Staged Symposia in Greek Comedy.” Mnemosyne 58: 183-217. —. 2008. “Rara coronato plausere theatra Menandro? Menander’s Success in his Lifetime.” Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica n.s. 88: 79-106. —. 2011a. “Ephippos’ Geryones: A Comedy between Myth and Folktale.” Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 51: 223-246. —. 2011b. ĬȡȪȜȠȚ țĮ‫ ޥ‬ʌĮȡĮȝȪșȚĮ ȖȚ‫ ޟ‬IJ‫ ޣ‬ȤȫȡĮ IJȠࠎ Ȥȡȣıoࠎ. ݃ȡȤĮȚȠȜȠȖȓĮ ‫݌‬ȞާȢ ʌĮȡĮȝȣșȚĮțȠࠎ ȝȠIJȓȕȠȣ. Athens: Stigmi. —. 2013. ݃țȓȤĮȡȠȢ, vol. 3, ‫ ݠ‬ǻȚȒȖȘıȘ IJȠࠎ ݃ȤȚț‫ޟ‬ȡ țĮ‫ ݘ ޥ‬ȂȣșȚıIJȠȡȓĮ IJȠࠎ ǹ‫ݧ‬ıȫʌȠȣ. Athens: Stigmi. —. 2015a. “On the Early History of the Braggart Soldier. Part One: Archilochus and Epicharmus.” Logeion 5: 41-84. —. 2015b. “Alexander and Darius in a Contest of Wit («Alexander Romance» 1.36-38): Sources, Formation, and Storytelling Traditions.” Acme 68: 129-156. —. 2015c. “Death in Babylon: Alexander and the Fatal Portent (Alexander Romance III 30).” Eikasmos 26: 253-274. —. 2016a. “On the Early History of the Braggart Soldier. Part Two: Aristophanes’ Lamachus and the Politicization of the Comic Type.” Logeion 6: 112-163. —. 2016b. “Plautus’ Aulularia and Popular Narrative Tradition.” In Roman Drama and its Contexts, edited by Stavros Frangoulidis, Stephen J. Harrison and Gesine Manuwald, 143-166. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter. —. 2017. “The Wisdom of the Hidden Old Man: An Ancient Folktale of the East in the Alexander Romance.” Athenaeum 105.2, 444-481. —. Forthcoming, “Car je est un autre: ǼIJİȡȩIJȘIJĮ țĮȚ IJĮȟȚįȚȦIJȚțȒ ĮijȒȖȘıȘ ıIJȘȞ ĮȡȤĮȓĮ țȦȝȦįȓĮ.” In ĬȑĮIJȡȠ țĮȚ ǼIJİȡȩIJȘIJĮ: ĬİȦȡȓĮ, įȡĮȝĮIJȠȣȡȖȓĮ țĮȚ șİĮIJȡȚțȒ ʌȡĮțIJȚțȒ. ȆȡĮțIJȚțȐ IJȠȣ ȈIJǯ ȆĮȞİȜȜȒȞȚȠȣ ĬİĮIJȡȠȜȠȖȚțȠȪ ȈȣȞİįȡȓȠȣ, edited by Maria Velioti, Varvara Georgopoulou, Ioanna Karamanou, Marina Kotzamani and Ioannis Leondaris. Nafplio: University of the Peloponnese, Department of Theatre Studies. Koulakiotis, Elias. 2000. “Devenir adulte, un défi perdu pour Alexandre. Sur quelques témoignages des orateurs attiques.” Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome. Moyen-Âge 112.1: 13-26.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

306

Bibliography

—. 2006. Genese und Metamorphosen des Alexandermythos im Spiegel der griechischen nichthistoriographischen Überlieferung bis zum 3. Jh. n. Chr. Konstanz: UVK Universitätsverlag Konstanz. —. 2009. “Tiere, Menschen und Götter in der Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem: Jagd und Opferritual am Rande der Welt.” In Mensch und Tier in der Antike. Grenzziehung und Grenzüberschreitung, edited by Annetta Alexandridis, Marcus Wild and Lorenz Winkler-Horaþek, 417-438. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. —. 2011. “The Rhetoric of Otherness: Geography, Historiography and Zoology in Alexander’s Letter about India and the Alexander Romance.” In Echoing Narratives: Studies of Intertextuality in Greek and Roman Prose Fiction, edited by Konstantin Doulamis, 161-184. Groningen: Barkhuis; Groningen University Library. Kounaki-Philippides, Katerina. 2008. Repetitive Scenes in the Comedies of Plautus [in Greek; original title: ǼʌĮȞĮȜĮȝȕĮȞȩȝİȞİȢ ıțȘȞȑȢ ıIJȚȢ țȦȝȦįȓİȢ IJȠȣ ȆȜĮȪIJȠȣ]. PhD Dissertation, University of Crete. Köves-Zulauf, Thomas. 1972. Reden und Schweigen. Munich: Wilhelm Fink. Kroll, Wilhelm. ed. 1926. Historia Alexandri Magni (PseudoCallisthenes). Recensio vetusta. Berlin: Weidmann. Kuch, Heinrich. 1989. “Funktionswandlungen des antiken Romans.” In Der antike Roman. Untersuchungen zur literarischen Kommunikation und Gattungsgeschichte, edited by Heinrich Kuch, 52-81. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Kuiper, Wolter Everard Johan. 1940. The Greek Aulularia. A Study of the Original Plautus’ Masterpiece. Leiden: Brill. Kwapisz, Jan. 2009. “A Lesson for the King: Sotades’ Invective against Ptolemy (fr. 1 and 16 Powell) and Callimarchus’ Epigram 1 Pfeiffer.” Symbolae Philologorum Posnaniensium Graecae et Latinae 19: 85-94. —. 2016. “Sotades on Kings.” Eikasmos 27: 121-136. —. 2019. The Paradigm of Simias. Essays on Poetic Eccentricity. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. Kytzler, Bernhard. 1988. “Zum utopischen Roman der klassischen Antike.” Groningen Colloquia on the Novel 1: 7-16. Lacey, Walter Kirkpatrick. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. London; Ithaca, NY: Thames and Hudson; Cornell University Press. Ladewig, Theodor. 1845. “Einleitungen und Anmerkungen zu Plautinischen Lustspielen: Zur Casina.” Rheinisches Museum 3: 179205. Lambinus, Dionysius. ed. 1576. M. Accius Plautus. Paris: Joannes Macaeus.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

307

Lampe, Kurt. 2015. The Birth of Hedonism: The Cyrenaic Philosophers and Pleasure as a Way of Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lane Fox, Robin J. 1996. “Text and Image: Alexander the Great, Coins and Elephants.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 41: 87108. Langslow, David R. 1999. “The Language of Poetry and the Language of Science: the Latin Poets and ‘Medical Latin.’” In Aspects of the Language of Latin Poetry, edited by John N. Adams and Ronald G. Mayer, 183-225. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. 2000. Medical Latin in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Launey, Marcel. 1945. “Études d’histoire hellénistique, II: L’exécution de Sotades et l’expédition de Patroklos dans la mer Égée (266 av. J.-C.).” Revue des Études Anciennes 47: 33-45. Leach, Eleanor Winsor. 1969a. “Ergasilaus and the Ironies of the Captivi.” Classica et Mediaevalia 30: 263-296. —. 1969b. “Meam quom formam noscito. Language and Characterization in the Menaechmi.” Arethusa 2: 30-45. —. 1979. “The Soldier and Society: Plautus’ Miles Gloriosus as Popular Drama.” Rivista di Studi Classici 27: 185-209. Lefèvre, Eckard. 1979. “Plautus-Studien III: Vor der Tyche-Herrschaft in Diphilos’ Kleroumenoi zum Triummatronat der Casina.” Hermes 107: 311-339. —. 1991. “Curculio oder Der Triumph der Edazität.” In Plautus barbarus. Sechs Kapitel zur Originalität des Plautus, edited by Eckard Lefèvre, Ekkehard Stärk and Gregor Vogt-Spira, 71-105. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. —. 2001. Plautus Aulularia. ScriptOralia 122. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Legrand, Philippe Ernest. 1917. The New Greek Comedy. Translated by James Loeb. London: William Heinemann; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Le Guen, Brigitte. 2014. “The Diffusion of Comedy from the Age of Alexander to the Beginning of the Roman Empire.” In The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, edited by Michael Fontaine and Adele Scafuro, 359-377. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leigh, Matthew. 2004. Comedy and the Rise of Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lennartz, Klaus. 2014. “True Plautus, False Plautus: Pellio restitutus— uxor excisa. Annotations to Plautus’ Bacchides.” In Fakes and Forgers

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

308

Bibliography

of Classical Literature. Ergo Decipiatur!, edited by Javier Martínez, 125-141. Leiden and Boston. Leo, Friedrich. 1912 [1895]. Plautinische Forschungen: Zur Kritik und Geschichte der Komödie. Second Improved Edition. Berlin: Weidmann. [Original edition 1895] Leopardus, Paulus. 1604. “Emendationum et Miscellaneorum Libri.” In Lampas, sive Fax artium liberalium, vol. 3, edited by Janus Gruterus, 1-408. Frankfurt: Collegium Palthenianum. Letessier, Pierre. 2011. “Du «nouveau» chez Plaute? Des jeux de réécriture dans la palliata.” Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 37: 49-62. Li Causi, Pietro. 2003. Sulle tracce del manticora. La zoologia dei confini del mondo in Grecia e a Roma. Palermo: Palumbo. LiDonnici, Lynn R. 1995. The Epidaurian Miracle Inscriptions. Text, Translation, and Commentary. Texts and Translations 36. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Lindsay, Wallace M. ed. 1904-1905. T. Macci Plauti Comoediae, recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit, 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Long, Anthony A. 2013. “Friendship and Friends in the Stoic Theory of the Good Life.” In Thinking about Friendship: Historical and Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives, edited by Damian Caluori, 218-239. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Long, Anthony A., and Sedley, David. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Vols. 1 and 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Long, Timothy. 1986. Barbarians in Greek Comedy. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. López-Gregoris, Rosario. 2012. “Poenulus. Il ritratto dello straniero.” In Lecturae Plautinae Sarsinates XV: Poenulus, edited by Renato Raffaelli and Alba Tontini, 47-72. Urbino: QuattroVenti. Louis, Pierre. ed. 1964-1969. Aristote. Histoire des animaux, vols. 1-3. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Lowe, J. C. B. 1989. “Plautus’ Parasites and the Atellana.” In Studien zur vorliterarischen Periode im frühen Rom, edited by Gregor Vogt-Spira, 161-170. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. —. 2003. “The Lot-Drawing Scene of Plautus’ ‘Casina.’” Classical Quarterly 53: 175-183. —. 2004. “Plautus’ Expansion of Milphio’s Rôle.” In Studien zu Plautus’ Poenulus, edited by Thomas Baier, 253-265. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Lowe, Nick. 2000a. The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

309

—. 2000b. “Comic Plots and the Invention of Fiction.” In The Rivals of Aristophanes: Studies in Athenian Old Comedy, edited by F. David Harvey and John M. Wilkins, 259-272. London: Duckworth; Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales. Luz, Christine. 2010. Technopaignia: Formspiele in der griechischen Dichtung. Leiden; Boston: Brill. MacCary, W. Thomas. 1969. “Menander’s Slaves: Their Names, Roles and Masks.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 100: 277-294. —. 1972. “Menander’s Soldiers: Their Names, Roles, and Masks.” American Journal of Philology 93.2: 279-298. —. 1973. “The Comic Tradition and Comic Structure in Diphilos’ Kleroumenoi.” Hermes 101: 194-208. MacCary, W. Thomas, and Willcock, Malcolm M. eds. 1976. Casina. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Malamitsi-Puchner, Ariadne. 2016. “Twins in Ancient Greece: A Synopsis.” The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine 29.11: 1751-1753. Mallowan, Max E. L. 1966. Nimrud and its Remains, 2 vols. London: Collins. Maltby, Robert. 1995. “The Distribution of Greek Loan-words in Plautus.” Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar 8: 31-69. —. 1999. “The Language of Plautus’ Parasites.” In Theatre: Ancient & Modern, edited by Lorna Hardwick et al., 32-44. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Manuwald, Gesine. 2004. “Das Verlorene Kästchen-Die Gefährdete Anagnorisis in Plautus’ Cistellaria.” In Studien Zu Plautus’ Cistellaria, edited by Rolf Hartkamp and Florian Hurka, 137-148. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. —. 2011. Roman Republican Theatre. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. —. ed. 2012. Tragicorum Romanorum Fragmenta. Vol. II, Ennius. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. —. 2014. “Tragedy, Paratragedy, and Roman Comedy.” In The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, edited by Michael Fontaine and Adele Scafuro, 580-598. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. —. 2015. “Censorship for the Roman Stage?” In The Art of Veiled Speech: Self-censorship from Aristophanes to Hobbes, edited by Han Baltussen and Peter J. Davis, 94-114. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

310

Bibliography

—. 2016. “History and Philosophy in Roman Republican Drama and Beyond.” In Roman Drama and its Contexts, edited by Stavros Frangoulidis, Stephen J. Harrison and Gesine Manuwald, 331-344. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter. —. 2019. “Plautus and Terence in Their Roman Contexts.” In The Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy, edited by Martin Dinter, 17-31. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mariotti, Scevola. 1952. “Titoli di opere enniane.” Maia 5.1-2: 271-276. Marshall, Christopher W. 2006. The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mastromarco, Giuseppe. 2009. “La maschera del miles gloriosus: dai Greci a Plauto.” In Lecturae Plautinae Sarsinates, vol. 12, Miles Gloriosus, edited by Renato Raffaelli and Alba Tontini, 17-40. Urbino: QuattroVenti. Mattingly, Harold. 1960. “Naevius and the Metelli.” Historia 9.4: 414439. Maurach, Gregor. 1966. Review of Roman Drama, edited by Thomas A. Dorey and Donald R. Dudley. Gnomon 38.7: 676-679. —. ed. 1988. Der Poenulus des Plautus. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. Maurice, Lisa. 2003. “Amici et sodales: An Examination of a Double Motif in Plautus.” Mnemosyne 56.2: 164-193. —. 2004. “The Punic, the Crafty Slave and the Actor: Deception and Metatheatricality in the Poenulus.” In Studien zu Plautus’ Poenulus, edited by Thomas Baier, 267-290. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. —. 2005. “A Calculated Comedy of Errors: the Structure of Plautus’ Menaechmi.” Syllecta Classica 16: 1-29. —. 2007. “Structure and Stagecraft in Plautus’ Miles Gloriosus.” Mnemosyne 60.3: 407-426. Mayor, Adrienne. 2014. The Amazons. Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. McCarthy, Kalthleen. 2000. Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. McElduff, Siobhán. 2013. Roman Theories of Translation: Surpassing the Source. London: Routledge. McGill, Scott. 2012. Plagiarism in Latin Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mederer, Erwin. 1936. Die Alexanderlegenden bei den ältesten Alexanderhistorikern. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

311

Mélèze-Modrzejewski, Joseph. 1998. “‘Paroles néfastes’ et ‘vers obscènes.’ À propos de l’injure verbale en droit grec et hellénistique.” Dike 1: 151-169. Mencacci, Francesca. 1996. I fratelli amici: La rappresentazione dei gemelli nella cultura romana. Venice: Marsilio. —. 2007. “L’equivoco felice. Lettura gemellare dei Menaechmi.” In Lecturae Plautinae Sarsinates X: Menaechmi, edited by Renato Raffaelli and Alba Tontini, 47-68. Urbino: QuattroVenti. Merkelbach, Reinhold. 1977. Die Quellen des griechischen Alexanderromans. Second edition, with the assistance of Jürgen Trumpf. Munich: C.H. Beck. Mikalson, Jon D. 1976. “Ennius’ Usage of is ea id.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 80: 171-177. Miola, Robert S. 1994. Shakespeare and Classical Comedy: the Influence of Plautus and Terence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Monaco, Giusto. ed. 1987. Plauto: Curculio. Second edition. Palermo: Palumbo. Monda, Salvatore. 2014. “Palestrione e la tipologia del servus meditans in commedia.” Pan n.s. 3: 65-85. Moore, Timothy Joseph. 1998a. “Music and Structure in Roman Comedy.” American Journal of Philology 119.2: 245-73. —. 1998b. The Theater of Plautus: Playing to the Audience. Austin: University of Texas Press. —. 2004. “Confusing the Gods: Plautus, Cistellaria 512-527.” In Augusto Augurio: Rerum Humanarum et Divinarum Commentationes in Honorem Jerzy Linderski, edited by Christoph F. Konrad, 53-67. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. —. 2012. Music in Roman Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moreno, Manuel Segura. ed. 1984. Quinto Ennio: Fragmentos, Colección Hispánica de Autores Griegos y Latinos. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Morgan, Llewelyn. 2016. “Kinaidology”: llewelynmorgan.com/tag/sotades/ (accessed April 8, 2017). Morgan, Michael Gwyn. 1973. “‘Metellus Pontifex’ and Ops Opifera: A Note on Pliny Naturalis Historia 11.174.” Phoenix 27.1: 35-41. Mørkholm, Otto. 1991. Early Hellenistic Coinage from the Accession of Alexander to the Peace of Apamea (336-188 B.C.). Posthumous publication; edited by Philip Grierson and Ulla Westermark. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

312

Bibliography

Muecke, Frances. 1985. “Names and Players: The Sycophant Scene of the ‘Trinummus’ (Trin. 4.2).” Transactions of the American Philological Association 115: 167-186. —. 1986. “Plautus and the Theatre of Disguise.” Classical Association 5: 216-229. —. 2005. “Rome’s first “satirists”: themes and genre in Ennius and Lucilius.” In The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire, edited by Kirk Freudenburg, 33-47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Müller, Reimar. 1988. “Exotik und radikales Programm: die hellenistischen Romanutopien.” In Rigobert Günther and Reimar Müller, Das goldene Zeitalter. Utopien der hellenistisch-römischen Antike, 75-88. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Munding, Márta. 2011. “Alexander and the Amazon Queen.” GraecoLatina Brunensia 16: 125-142. Nervegna, Sebastiana. 2013. Menander in Antiquity: The Contexts of Reception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nesselrath, Heinz-Günther. 1990. Die attische Mittlere Komödie. Ihre Stellung in der antiken Literaturkritik und Literaturgeschichte. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter. —. 2000. “Eupolis and the Periodization of Old Comedy.” In The Rivals of Aristophanes: Studies in Athenian Old Comedy, edited by F. David Harvey and John M. Wilkins, 233-246. London: Duckworth; Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales. North, John A. 1976. “Conservatism and Change in Roman Religion.” Papers of the British School at Rome 44: 1-12. O’Bryhim, Shawn. 1989. “The Originality of Plautus’ Casina.” American Journal of Philology 110: 81-103. O’Connor, David K. 1989. “The Invulnerable Pleasures of Epicurean Friendship.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 30: 165-186. O’Keefe, Tim. 2001. “Is Epicurean Friendship Altruistic?” Apeiron 34: 269-305. Olson, S. Douglas. ed. and trans. 2011. Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters. Volume VII: Books 13594b-14. Loeb Classical Library 345. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univesity Press. Oring, Elliott. 2016. Joking Asides: The Theory, Analysis, and Aesthetics of Humor. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado. Otto, August. 1890. Die Sprichwörter und sprichwörtlichen Redensarten der Römer. Gesammelt und erklärt. Leipzig: Teubner (repr. Hildesheim 1965).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

313

Padilla Peralta, Dan-El. 2014. Divine Institutions: Religious Practice, Economic Development and Social Transformation in Mid-Republican Rome. PhD Dissertation, Stanford University. Page, Denys L. 1941. Select Papyri: Poetry III. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. —. 1981. Further Greek Epigrams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pansiéri, Claude. 1997. Plaute et Rome ou les ambiguïtés d’un marginal. Brussels: Latomus Revue d’Études Latines. Papachrysostomou, Athina. 2008. Six Comic Poets. A Commentary on Selected Fragments of Middle Comedy. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Papaioannou, Sophia. 2008-2009. “What’s in a name? The real identity of Palinurus in Plautus’ Curculio.” Classical Journal 104.2: 111-122. —. ed. 2009. Plautus: Miles gloriosus. With an introduction, translation and commentary [in Greek]. Athens: Smili (reprinted with additions 2010). —. 2012. “Cylindrus and the Rational Circularity of Error in the Menaechmi.” Logeion 2: 167-185. —. 2014a. “Duplication and the Politics of Comic De-structure; or, Why There Not Need be Two Slaves, While There Are Two Cooks in the Aulularia.” In Plautine Trends: Studies in Plautine Comedy and its Reception, edited by Ioannis N. Perysinakis and Evangelos Karakasis, 63-92. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. —. 2014b. “Introduction.” In Terence and Interpretation, edited by Sophia Papaioannou, 1-21. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. —. 2014c. “Oral Textuality as a Language of Exclusive Communication in Terence’s Prologues.” In Between Orality and Literacy: Communication and Adaptation in Antiquity, edited by Ruth Scodel, 218-243. Leiden: Brill. —. ed. 2014d. Terence and Interpretation. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. —. 2014e. “The Innovator’s Poetic Self-Presentation: Terence’s Prologues as Interpretative Texts of Programmatic Poetics.” In Terence and Interpretation, edited by Sophia Papaioannou, 25-58. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. —. 2015. “New Comedy and Roman Comedy—With and Without Menander.” In Stereotyped Thinking in Classics. Literary Ages and Genres Reconsidered, edited by Christine Walde, Thersites 2: 52-80: www.thersites.uni-mainz.de/index.php/thr/article/download/19/19

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

314

Bibliography

—. 2016. “Plautus Undoing Himself—What is Funny and What is Plautine in Stichus and Trinummus?” In Roman Drama and Its Contexts, edited by Stavros Frangoulidis, Stephen J. Harrison and Gesine Manuwald, 167-201. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter. Parthe, Franz. ed. 1969. Der griechische Alexanderroman. Rezension ī. Buch III. Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain. Pearson, Lionel. 1960. The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great. New York: The American Philological Association. Peck, Arthur L. trans. 1942. Aristotle: Generation of Animals. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann. Pédech, Paul. 1984. Historiens compagnons d’Alexandre. Callisthène Onésicrite - Néarque - Ptolémée - Aristobule. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Peege, Christina, and Frei, Peter. 2001. “Eine Sotades-Büste aus Anatolien.” In Zona archeologica: Festschrift für Hans Peter Isler zum 60. Geburtstag, edited by Sabrina Buzzi et al., 331-337 & plate 50. Bonn: Habelt. Pelliccia, Heyden. Forthcoming. “Callimachus Epigram 28 Pf. (AP 12.43) and țĮȜȩȢ-inscriptions.” Perna, Raffaele. 1955. L’originalità di Plauto. Bari: “Leonardo da Vinci” Editrice. Pernerstorfer, Matthias Johannes. 2009. Menanders Kolax: Ein Beitrag zu Rekonstruktion und Interpretation der Komödie mit Edition und Übersetzung der Fragmente und Testimonien sowie einem dramaturgischen Kommentar. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter. Perysinakis, Ioannis N., and Karakasis, Evangelos. eds. 2013. Plautine Trends: Studies in Plautine Comedy and its Reception. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. Petersmann, Hubert. 1972. “Menanders Halieus.” In Antidosis: Festschrift für Walther Kraus zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by Rudolf Hanslik, Albin Lesky and Hans Schwabl, 238-251. Wien: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf. —. 1995. “Zur Mündlichen Charakterisierung des Fremden in der Komödie des Plautus.” ǿn Plautus und die Tradition des Stegreifspiels: Festgabe für Eckard Lefèvre zum 60 Geburtstag, edited by Lore Benz, Ekkehard Stärk and Gregor Vogt-Spira, 123-136. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. —. 1999. “The Language of Early Roman Satire: Its Function and Characteristics.” In Aspects of the Language of Latin Poetry, edited by John N. Adams and Ronald G. Mayer, 289-310. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

315

Petrides, Antonis K. 2014a. Menander, New Comedy and the Visual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 2014b. “Plautus between Greek Comedy and Atellan Farce: Assessments and Reassessments.” In The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, edited by Michael Fontaine and Adele Scafuro, 424-443. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Petrides, Antonis K., and Papaioannou, Sophia. eds. 2010. New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Pfister, Friedrich. 1948. “Wasser- und Feuertaufe.” Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft 3.2: 271-274. —. 1959. “Studien zur Sagengeographie.” Symbolae Osloenses 35: 5-39. —. 1964. “Alexander der Grosse. Die Geschichte seines Ruhms im Lichte seiner Beinamen.” Historia 13.1: 37-79. Platner, Samuel Ball, and Ashby, Thomas. 1929. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Porter, Barbara N. 2003. Trees, Kings, and Politics. Studies in Assyrian Iconography. Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Potter, Paul. ed. and trans. 2010. Hippocrates, vol. IX. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press. Powell, John Undershell. 1925. Collectanea Alexandrina: reliquiae minores poetarum Graecorum aetatis Ptolemaicae 323-146 A.C. epicorum, elegiacorum, lyricorum, ethicorum. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Prandi, Luisa. 1996. Fortuna e realtà dell’opera di Clitarco. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Prescott, Henry W. 1908. “Notes and Queries on Utopias in Plautus.” American Journal of Philology 29.1: 55-68. Pretagostini, Roberto. 1984. “Sotade poeta del biasimo e del dissenso.” In Ricerche sulla poesia alessandrina: Teocrito, Callimaco, Sotade, edited by Roberto Pretagostini, 139-147. Roma: Ed. dell’ Ateneo. Price, Martin Jessop. 1982. “The ‘Porus’ Coinage of Alexander the Great: A Symbol of Concord and Community.” In Studia Paulo Naster oblata, vol. 1, Numismatica Antiqua, edited by Simone Scheers, 75-88. Leuven: Peeters. —. 1991. The Coinage in the Name of Alexander the Great and Philip Arrhidaeus. A British Museum Catalogue, vol. 1, Introduction and Catalogue. Zurich: The Swiss Numismatic Society; London: British Museum Press.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

316

Bibliography

Puelma Piwonka, Mario. 1949. Lucilius und Kallimachos: Zur Geschichte einer Gattung der hellenistisch-römischen Poesie. Frankfurt am Main: V. Klostermann. Questa, Cesare. 1967. Introduzione alla Metrica di Plauto. Edited by Alfonso Traina. Vol. 4, Testi e Manuali per l'Insegnamento Universitario del Latino. Bologna: Pàtron. —. ed. 2001. Casina. Urbino: QuattroVenti. —. 2004. Sei Letture Plautine. Urbino: QuattroVenti. Raccanelli, Renata. 1998. L’Amicitia nelle Commedie di Plauto: Un’inagine antropologica. Bari: EdiPuglia. Raffaelli, Renato, and Tontini, Alba. eds. 1998-2017. Lecturae Plautinae Sarsinates, 19 vols. Urbino: QuattroVenti. Ramage, Edwin S. 1974. “Ennius and the Origins of Roman Satire.” In Roman Satirists and their Satire: The Fine Art of Criticism in Ancient Rome, edited by Edwin S. Ramage, David L. Sigsbee and Sigmund C. Fredericks, 8-26. Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes Press. Rathmayr, Reinhard. 2000. Zwillinge in der griechisch-r٠mische Antike. Wien; Kऺln: Bऺhlau Verlag. Rau, Peter. 1975. “Das Tragödienspiel in den ‘Thesmophoriazusen.’” In Aristophanes und Die Alte Komödie, edited by Hans-Joachim Newiger, 339-356. Munich: C.H. Beck. Reckford, Kenneth J. 1987. Aristophanes’ Old-and-New Comedy. Six Essays in Perspective. Chapel Hill; London: The University of North Carolina Press. Ribbeck, Otto. 1875. Die Römische Tragödie im Zeitalter der Republik. Leipzig: Teubner. —. 1898. Scaenicae Romanorum Poesis Fragmenta: Comicorum Romanorum Praeter Plautum et Syri Quae Feruntur Sententias. Third edition. 2 vols. Vol. II. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. Richardson, Lawrence. 1991. A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Richlin, Amy. 2014. “Talking to Slaves in the Plautine Audience.” Classical Antiquity 33.1: 174-226. —. 2017. Slave Theater in the Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rittig, Dessa. 1977. Assyrisch-babylonische Kleinplastik magischer Bedeutung vom 13.-6. Jh. v. Chr. Munich: Verlag Uni-Druck. Rohde, Erwin. 1914. Der griechische Roman und seine Vorläufer. Third edition. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

317

Romm, James S. 1992. The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought. Geography, Exploration, and Fiction. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rose, Herbert J. 1926. “Ornithiaca Plautina.” Classical Philology 21.3: 257. Rose, Margaret A. 1993. Parody: Ancient, Modern and Post-Modern. Cambridge University Press. Rosenmeyer, Patricia A. 2001. Ancient Epistolary Fictions. The Letter in Greek Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rudd, Niall. 1986. Themes in Roman Satire. Norman, OK; London: University of Oklahoma Press. Ruffell, Ian A. 2011. Politics and Anti-Realism in Athenian Old Comedy. The Art of the Impossible. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ruickbie, Leo. 2009. Faustus: The Life and Times of a Renaissance Magician. The History Press. No place of publication listed. Runia, David T. 1999. “The Placita Ascribed to Doctors in Aëtius’ Doxography on Physics.” In Ancient Histories of Medicine, edited by Philip J. van der Eijk, 189-250. Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill. Rüpke, Jörg. 2012. Religion in Republican Rome. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Russell, John Malcolm. 1998. “The Program of the Palace of Assurnasirpal II at Nimrud: Issues in the Research and Presentation of Assyrian Art.” American Journal of Archaeology 102.4: 655-715. Russo, Alessandro. 2001. “Iambic Presences in Ennius’ Saturae.” In Iambic Ideas: Essays on a Poetic Tradition from Archaic Greece to the Late Roman Empire, edited by Alberto Cavarzere, Antonio Aloni and Alessandro Barchiesi, 99-115. Lanham, MD; Boulder; et al.: Rowman & Littlefield. —. 2007. Quinto Ennio: Le Opere Minori. Introduzione, edizione critica dei frammenti e commento. Vol. I. Pisa: Edizioni ETS. Rusten, Jeffrey. 2013. “The Mirror of Aristophanes. The Winged Ethnographers of Birds (1470-93, 1553-64, 1694-1705).” In Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres, edited by Emmanuela Bakola, Lucia Prauscello and Mario Telò, 298-315. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Saller, Richard. 1989. “Patronage and Friendship in Early Imperial Rome: Drawing the Distinction.” In Patronage in Ancient Society, edited by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, 49-61. London: Routledge. Saltveit, Mark. 1996. “Sotades the Obscene of Maroneia (3rd century BC).” The Palindromist Magazine 1: 5-30.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

318

Bibliography

Samuel, Alan E. 1986. “The Earliest Elements in the Alexander Romance.” Historia 35.4: 427-437. Sandbach, Francis Henry. 1975. “Menander and the Three-Actor Rule.” In Le monde grec: hommages à Claire Préaux, edited by Jean Bingen, Guy Cambier and Georges Nachtergael, 197-204. Brussels: Editions de l’universite de Bruxelles. Sarre, Friedrich, and Herzfeld, Ernst. 1910. Iranische Felsreliefs. Aufnahmen und Untersuchungen von Denkmälern aus alt- und mittelpersischer Zeit. Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth. Sassi, Maria Michela. 1993. “Mirabilia.” In Lo spazio letterario della Grecia antica, vol. 1, La produzione e la circolazione del testo, part 2, L’Ellenismo, edited by Giuseppe Cambiano, Luciano Canfora and Diego Lanza, 449-468. Rome: Salerno Editrice. Saylor, Charles F. 1977. “Periplectomenus and the Organization of the Miles Gloriosus.” Eranos 75: 1-13. Scafoglio, Giampiero. 2005. “Plautus and Ennius: A Note on Plautus, Bacchides 962-5.” Classical Quarterly 55.2: 632-638. Schaaf, Lothar. 1997. Der Miles Gloriosus des Plautus und sein griechisches Original. Ein Beitrag zur Kontaminationsfrage. Munich: Wilhelm Fink. Schachermeyr, Fritz. 1973. Alexander der Grosse. Das Problem seiner Persönlichkeit und seines Wirkens. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Schauer, Markus. ed. 2012. Tragicorum Romanorum Fragmenta. Vol. I, Livius Andronicus. Naevius. Tragici Minores. Fragmenta Adespota. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Schepens, Guido, and Delcroix, Kris. 1996. “Ancient Paradoxography: Origin, Evolution, Production and Reception.” In La letteratura di consumo nel mondo greco-latino, edited by Oronzo Pecere and Antonio Stramaglia, 373-460. Cassino: Università degli Studi di Cassino. Schmidt, Erich F. 1953-1957. Persepolis, 2 vols. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Schofield, Malcolm. 1991. The Stoic Idea of the City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scholz, Udo W. 1986. “Die >Satura< des Q. Ennius.” In Die Römische Satire, edited by Joachim Adamietz, 25-53. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Schutter, Klaas Herman E. 1952. Quibus annis comoediae Plautinae primum actae sint quaeritur. PhD Dissertation, University of Groningen.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

319

Schwartz, Hillel. 1996. The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimiles. New York: Zone Books. Scobie, Alex. 1983. Apuleius and Folklore. Toward a History of ML3045, AaTh567, 449A. London: The Folklore Society. Seaford, Richard. 1998. “In the Mirror of Dionysos.” In The Sacred and the Feminine in Ancient Greece, edited by Sue Blundell and Margaret Williamson, 128-146. London; New York: Routledge. Sedgwick, Walter Bradbury. 1993. Plautus: Amphitruo. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. Segal, Erich. 1987. Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus. Second edition. New York: Oxford University Press. Sergi, Emilia. 1997. Patrimonio e scambi commerciali: metafore e teatro in Plauto. Messina: Edizioni Dr. Antonino Sfameni. Settis, Salvatore. 1968. “Alessandro e Poro in campis Curculioniis.” La Parola del Passato 23: 55-75. Sharrock, Alison R. 1996. “The Art of Deceit: Pseudolus and the Nature of Reading.” Classical Quarterly 46: 152-174. —. 2008. “The Theatrical Life of Things: Plautus and the Physical”, Dictynna 5: 2-14. dictynna.revues.org/419. —. 2009. Reading Roman Comedy: Poetics and Playfulness in Plautus and Terence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. —. 2014. “Terence, the Corrective Reader and Imitator.” In Terence and Interpretation, edited by Sophia Papaioannou, 119-142. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Shaw, Tony, and Youngblood, Denise J. 2010. Cinematic Cold War: The American and Soviet Struggle for Hearts and Minds. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press. Shipp, George P. 1953. “Greek in Plautus.” Wiener Studien 66: 105-112. —. 1954. “Plautine Terms for Greek and Roman Things.” Glotta 34: 139152. Sier, Kurt. 1992. “Die Rolle des Skythen in den Thesmophoriazusen des Aristophanes.” In Zum Umgang mit fremden Sprachen in der griechisch-römischen Antike. Kolloquium der Fachrichtungen klassische Philologie der Universitäten Leipzig und Saarbrücken am 21. und 22. November 1989 in Saarbrücken, edited by Carl Werner Müller, Kurt Sier and Jürgen Werner, 63-83. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Skutsch, Otto. 1968. Studia Enniana. London: Athlone. Slater, Niall W. 1995. “The Fabrication of Comic Illusion.” In Beyond Aristophanes: Transition and Diversity in Greek Comedy, edited by Gregory W. Dobrov, 29-45. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

320

Bibliography

—. 2000 [1985]. Plautus in Performance: The Theater of the Mind. Second Edition. Amsterdam: Hardwood academic publishers [First Edition Princeton: Princeton University Press 1985]. —. 2001. “Appearance, Reality, and the Spectre of Incest in Epidicus.” In Studien zu Plautus Epidicus. ScriptOralia 125, edited by Ulrike Auhagen, 191-203. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. —. 2016. “Speculating the Unreal Estate: Locution, Locution, Locution.” In Roman Drama and its Contexts, edited by Stavros Frangoulidis, Stephen J. Harrison and Gesine Manuwald, 43-66. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. Sluiter, Ineke. 2016. “Anchoring Innovation: A Classical Research Agenda.” European Review 25.1: 20-38. Smith, Federica. 2000. L’immagine di Alessandro il Grande sulle monete del regno (336-323 a.C.). Milan: Edizioni ennerre. Smith, Tom W. 1983. “The Polls: American Attitudes towards the Soviet Union and Communism.” Public Opinion Quarterly, 47: 277-292. Sommerstein, Alan. ed. 2014. Menander in Contexts. New York: Routledge. —. ed. 2019. The Encyclopedia of Greek Comedy, 3 vols. Chichester and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Stace, C. 1968. “The Slaves of Plautus.” Greece & Rome 15: 64-77. Stang, Charles M. 2016. Our Divine Double. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Stärk, Ekkehard. 1989. Die Menaechmi des Plautus und kein griechisches Original. ScriptOralia 11. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Starks, John H. 2000. “Nullus me est hodie Poenus Poenior: Balanced Ethnic Humor in Plautus’ Poenulus.” Helios 27: 163-186. Stefanelli, Rossana. 1995. “ǹੁȖȪʌIJȠȚȠ įȚȚʌİIJȑȠȢ ʌȠIJĮȝȠ૙Ƞ.” In Studi linguistici per i 50 anni del circolo linguistico fiorentino e i secondi mille dibattiti 1970-1995, 229-258. Florence: Leo S. Olschki. Stewart, Andrew. 1993. Faces of Power: Alexander’s Image and Hellenistic Politics. Berkeley; Los Angeles; Oxford: University of California Press. Stewart, Roberta. 2008. “Who’s Tricked: Models of Slave Behavior in Plautus’s Pseudolus.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Supplementary Volumes. Vol. 7: Role Models in the Roman World. Identity and Assimilation, 69-96. —. 2012. Plautus and Roman Slavery. Malden MA; Oxford: WileyBlackwell. Stoneman, Richard. 1994. “Romantic Ethnography: Central Asia and India in the Alexander Romance.” The Ancient World 25.1: 93-107.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

321

—. ed. 2007-2012. Il Romanzo di Alessandro. Translated by Tristano Gargiulo. 2 vols. Milan: Mondadori. —. 2008. Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend. New Haven; London: Yale University Press. Stramaglia, Antonio. 1996. “Fra ‘consumo’ e ‘impegno’: usi didattici della narrativa nel mondo antico.” In La letteratura di consumo nel mondo greco-latino, edited by Oronzo Pecere and Antonio Stramaglia, 97166. Cassino: Università degli Studi di Cassino. Stronach, David. 1978. Pasargadae. A Report on the Excavations Conducted by the British Institute of Persian Studies from 1961 to 1963. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stürner, Ferdinand. 2011. Monologe bei Plautus. Ein Beitrag zur Dramaturgie der hellenistisch-r٠mischen kom٠die. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Sturtevant, Edgar Howard. 1912. “The Pronunciation of cui and huic.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 43: 57-66. Suerbaum, Werner. 1968. Untersuchungen zur Selbstdarstellung älterer römischer Dichter: Livius Andronius - Naevius - Ennius. Spudasmata 19. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Sutton, Dana F. 1980. The Greek Satyr Play. Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain. Taladoire, Barthélémy-A. 1956. Essai sur le comique de Plaute. Monte Carlo: Les Éditions de l’Imprimerie Nationale de Monaco. Taplin, Oliver. 1993. Comic Angels and Other Approaches to Greek Drama through Vase-Paintings. Oxford: Clarendon Press. —. 2008. Review of Davidson 2009: www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jan/05/history.society. Tarn, William Woodthorpe. 1948. Alexander the Great, 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thierfelder, Andreas. 1939. “Plautus und Römische Tragödie.” Hermes 74.2: 155-166. Thompson, D’Arcy Wentworth. trans. 1910. Aristotle: Historia Animalium. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Todorov, Tzvetan. 1970. Introduction à la littérature fantastique. Paris: Seuil. Traill, Ariana. 2005. “Acroteleutium’s Sapphic Infatuation (Miles 121683).” Classical Quarterly 55.2: 518-533. —. 2015. “Shakespeare and the Roman Comic Meretrix.” In Women in Roman Republican Drama, edited by Dorota Dutsch, Sharon L. James and David Konstan, 213-231. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

322

Bibliography

Tsitsiridis, Stavros. 2015. “Mime, kinaidoi and kinaidologoi (II).” Logeion 5: 205-241. Turner, Andrew, and Torello-Hill, Giulia. eds. 2015. Terence between Late Antiquity and the Age of Printing. Leiden: Brill. Turner, Eric Gardner. 1979. The Lost Beginning of Menander, Misoumenos. London: The British Academy Papers. Umbrico, Alessio. 2009. “«Casinus» sotto il velo nunziale: ancora sul rapporto tra Casina plautina e ȀȜȘȡȠȪȝİȞȠȚ difilei.” Giornale Italiano di filologia 61: 15-45. Vahlen, Iohannes. ed. 1903. Ennianae Poesis Reliquiae. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. van Rooy, Charles August. 1965. Studies in Classical Satire and Related Literary Theory. Leiden: Brill. van Thiel, Helmut. ed. 1974. Leben und Taten Alexanders von Makedonien. Der griechische Alexanderroman nach der Handschrift L. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Viney, William. 2014. “Curious Twins.” Critical Quarterly 56.2: 47-58. Volk, Katharina. 2015. “Roman Pythagoras.” In Roman Reflections: Studies in Latin Philosophy, edited by Gareth D. Williams and Katharina Volk, 33-49. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. von Koppenfels, Werner. 1981. “Mundus alter et idem. Utopiefiktion und menippeische Satire.” Poetica 13: 16-66. von Lauenstein, Ursula. ed. 1962. Der griechische Alexanderroman. Rezension ī. Buch I. Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain. von Möllendorff, Peter. 2000. Auf der Suche nach der verlogenen Wahrheit. Lukians Wahre Geschichten. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. —. 2015. “Stoics in the Ocean: Iambulus’ Novel as Philosophical Fiction.” In Philosophy and the Ancient Novel, edited by Marília P. Futre Pinheiro and Silvia Montiglio, 19-33. Groningen: Barkhuis; Groningen University Library. von Wyss, Wilhelm. 2012 [1889]. Die Sprichwörter bei den Römischen Komikern. PhD Dissertation, Zürich 1889 (reprinted, Paderborn 2012). Waltenberger, Monika. 1981. “Plautus’ Casina una die Methode der Analyse.” Hermes 109: 440-447. Warmington, Eric Herbert. trans. 1936a. Remains of Old Latin, Vol. 1: Ennius and Caecilius. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press. —. trans. 1936b. Remains of Old Latin, Vol. 2: Livius Andronicus, Naevius, Pacuvius, Accius. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

323

—. trans. 1938. Remains of Old Latin: Lucilius, The Twelve Tables, Vol. 3. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press. Waszink, Jan-Hendrik. 1956. “Camena.” Classica et Medievalia 17: 139148. —. 1972. “Problems concerning the Satura of Ennius.” In Ennius: sept exposés suivis de discussions, edited by Otto Skutsch, 97-137. Geneva: Fondation Hardt. Weber, Gregor. 1998/99. “Hellenistic Rulers and Their Poets. Silencing Dangerous Critics?” Ancient Society 29: 147-174. Wehrli, Fritz. 1936. Motivstudien zur griechischen Komödie. Zurich; Leipzig: Max Niehans Verlag. Weinreich, Otto. ed. and trans. 1949. Römische Satiren. Ennius - Lucilius Varro - Horaz - Persius - Juvenal - Seneca - Petronius. Zurich; Stuttgart: Artemis Verlag. Weis, Rudolf. 1992. “Zur Kenntnis des Griechischen im Rom der republikanischen Zeit.” In Zum Umgang mit fremden Sprachen in der griechisch-römischen Antike. Kolloquium der Fachrichtungen klassische Philologie der Universitäten Leipzig und Saarbrücken am 21. und 22. November 1989 in Saarbrücken, edited by Carl Werner Müller, Kurt Sier and Jürgen Werner, 137-142. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Welborn, Laurence L. 1999. “The Runaway Paul.” The Harvard Theological Review 92.2: 115-163. Welsh, Jarrett T. 2013. “The Text of Ennius’ Portrait of a Parasite.” Phoenix 67.1-2: 107-118. West, Martin L. 1968. “Two Passages of Aristophanes.” Classical Review 18: 5-8. —. 2007. Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. West, Stephanie. 1997. “Alternative Arabia: A Note on ‘Prometheus Vinctus’ 420-4.” Hermes 125.3: 374-379. Westall, Richard. 2011. “Rome and Ptolemaic Egypt: Initial Contacts.” In Aegyptiaca et Coptica: Studi in onore di Sergio Pernigotti, edited by Paola Buzi, Daniela Picchi and Marco Zecchi, 349-360. Oxford: Archaeopress. Whitehorne, J. E. G. 1975. “Golden Statues in Greek and Latin Literature.” Greece & Rome 22.2: 109-119. Whitman, Cedric Hubbell. 1964. Aristophanes and the Comic Hero. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

324

Bibliography

Whitmarsh, Tim. 2013. “Addressing Power: Fictional Letters between Alexander and Darius.” In Epistolary Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature, edited by Owen Hodkinson, Patricia A. Rosenmeyer and Evelien Bracke, 169-186. Leiden; Boston: Brill. Wiggermann, Frans A. M. 1992. Mesopotamian Protective Spirits. The Ritual Texts. Groningen: Styx & PP Publications. Wiggermann, Frans A. M., and Green, Anthony. 1993. “Mischwesen.” In Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, vol. 8, edited by Dietz Otto Edzard, 222-264. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter. Wiles, David. 2004. The Masks of Menander: Sign and Meaning in Greek and Roman Performance. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Willi, Andreas. 2003, Languages of Aristophanes: Aspects of Linguistic Variation in Classical Attic Greek. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williams, Craig A. 2010. Roman Homosexuality. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. 2012. Reading Roman Friendship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, Gordon. 1983. “Roman Poets as Literary Historians: Some Aspects of Imitatio.” Illinois Classical Studies 8: 211-237. Wilson, Nigel. 2014. “The Transmission of Aristophanes.” In The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, edited by Michael Fontaine and Adele Scafuro, 655-666. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Winiarczyk, Marek. ed. 1991. Euhemeri Messenii Reliquiae. Stuttgart; Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. —. 2011. Die hellenistischen Utopien. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter. —. 2013. The Sacred History of Euhemerus of Messene. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. Winkler, John J. 1985. Auctor & Actor. A Narratological Reading of Apuleius’s Golden Ass. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press. Winston, David. 1956. Iambulus: A Literary Study in Greek Utopianism. PhD Dissertation, Columbia University. Wiseman, Timothy P. 2016. “Was it really a translation?” [Review of Feeney 2016] London Review of Books 38.18: 35-36: www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n18/tp-wiseman/was-it-really-a-translation. Wittkower, Rudolf. 1942. “Marvels of the East. A Study in the History of Monsters.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5: 159197.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

325

Wright, John. 1974. Dancing in Chains: the Stylistic Unity of the Comoedia Palliata. Rome: American Academy in Rome. —. 1975. “The Transformations of Pseudolus.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 105: 403-416. Wright, Matthew. 2012. The Comedian as Critic: Greek Old Comedy and Poetics. London: Bristol Classical Press. —. 2013. “Sosia’s Ancestry and Plautus’ Predecessors (Amphitryo 3849).” Latomus 72.3: 619-624. Wyke, Maria. 1994. “Woman in the Mirror: The Rhetoric of Adornment in the Roman World.” In Women in Ancient Societies: An Illusion of the Night, edited by Leonie J. Archer, Susan Fischler and Maria Wyke, 134-151. New York: Routledge. Wysk, Hans. 1921. Die Gestalt des Soldaten in der griechisch-römischen Komödie. Giessen: Druckerei Wilhelm Herr. Zagagi, Netta. 2012. “What do Greek Words do in Plautus?” In Greek into Latin from Antiquity until the Nineteenth Century, edited by John Glucker and Charles Burnett, 19-36. London: Warburg Institute. Zaganelli, Gioia. 1995. “Alessandro Magno in India: storia di un’epistola e di un’immagine del mondo.” In Medioevo romanzo e orientale. Oralità, scrittura, modelli narrativi, edited by Antonio Pioletti and Francesca Rizzo Nervo, 139-153. Messina: Rubbettino Editore. Ziolkowski, Adam. 1992. The Temples of Mid-Republican Rome and Their Historical and Topographical Context. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Zwierlein, Otto. 1990. Zur Kritik und Exegese des Plautus I: Poenulus und Curculio. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

GENERAL INDEX

Alexander Romance 127, 127 n.9, 130, 133, 142, 145 Alexis of Thurii 14, 79-120 passim altruism 179-180, 191 anacyclic verse 239, 240, 261-263, 263 nn.67, 68 anagnorisis 101, 115, 116 n.138, 206, 214 anagnorismos 33-35, 33 n.21, 34 n.22 Ancient Theater history 3, 71, 85 n.41, 86 Aristophanes 82-83, 82 n.27, 90-91, 90 n.56, 93-109, 103 n.93, 104 n.98, 108 n.111-112, 111 n.124, 114-117, 117 n.140, 119 n.145, 122 n.3, 123124, 139 n.35, 243 Aristotle 12 n.53, 109, 109 n.116, 127, 128 n.12, 177-180, 186, 190191, 198, 198 n.23, 200, 207 n.63, 209 ‘barbarians’ 91-93, 92 n.63, 94 n.72, 100, 103, 109 n.115, 155, 168 braggart soldier 15-16, 33-34, 34 n.23, 36-39, 37 n.28, 38 n.31, 49, 121-125, 121 n.1, 123 n.4, 125 n.5, 128-129, 146-149, 150 n. 57, 242 (see also miles gloriosus) Caecilius Metellus 232-234, 233 n.43 Callimachus / Callimachean 18, 48, 240, 247, 255-256, 260-263, 265 n.2 Casina 18, 27, 51-72, 169, 170, 177 n.7, 226 n.17 characterization (stereotyping) 2749, 76-79, 77 nn.12-13, 81 n.21, 93,

102, 112-113, 113 n.129, 119, 158, 164, 176, 183 Chryses 185, 185 n.32 Cistellaria 10, 26, 33 n.21, 170 n.45, 217-236 colloquialism 154-155, 270-271 contaminatio 17, 23-49, 69 n.51, 81 n.21, 180, 180 n.15 dictation 223-224, 224 n.12, 224 n.14 diction 106 n.104, 265-271, 274, 279, 285 doubles 187 n.39, 195-196 Ennius 1 n.2, 12 n.50, 19, 71, 150, 150 n.58, 158, 165, 167, 168 n.37, 172, 240, 252, 259, 260-262, 265285 Epicurus / Epicurean 176, 179-184 Euripides 14, 78, 82-83, 82 n.26, 90 n.56, 93, 101-109, 113, 113 n.128, 117, 119 n.145, 167, 185 friendship 11, 13, 175-193 Greek culture 153-171, 259-260 Greek customs 15, 103, 168-171 Greek language 15, 154-162, 157 n.17, 171, 171 n.47 Greek myth 15, 135 n.24, 155, 163166, 171-172, 171 n.46, 197 n.15, 252-253 Greekness 153-172 Hegesander of Delphi 255 histories of Alexander the Great 16, 126-150

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

328

General Index

Kolax (play) 37, 125, 242 n.9 L. Caecilius Metellus (see Caecilius Metellus) loan-word 248, 274-279, 285 Lysimachus of Alexandria 255 n.51 Martial 213, 248, 250, 260-162, 263, 263 n.66, 274 n.32 medicine / medical writings 2, 7 n.35, 11, 197, 198 n.21, 199-201, 200 n.32, 201 n.35, 203-205, 203 nn.44, 46-47, 215, 215 n.100, 216, 278, 282 Menandrian comedy 3, 4 n.6, 12 n.53, 17, 25-29, 30-33, 36-39, 41 n.35, 41-45, 48-49, 149 metapoetics 23-49 passim, 62 n.32, 263 n.66 metatheatre 6, 6 n.23, 8 n.41, 26 n.9, 40 n. 33, 40, 47 n.46, 53, 60-61, 61 n.31, 63, 70, 119 n.145, 226 Middle Comedy 36, 40, 109 n.115, 109, 123 Miles gloriosus / The Braggart Soldier (play) 11, 11 n.49, 14, 31, 33-34, 37 n.28, 45, 58, 72 n.58, 160, 162, 165, 167, 170 n.45, 175-177, 175 n.2, 177 n.6, 180-186, 187 n.39, 193, 195-196, 195 n.6, 196 n.14, 198 n.18, 204 n.49, 206, 206 n.61, 213 n.93, 239, 241-245, 243 n.15, 252, 256, 258-260 miles gloriosus 33-34, 34 n.24, 3639, 122, 122 n.2, 133, 141, 147 mirrors 11, 191 n.44, 197, 207 n.63, 211-214, 211 nn.78-79, 214 n.95, 214 n.97 monsters 127, 129, 131-132, 132 n.17, 134, 135 n.24 Naevius 14-15, 52-53, 72, 82 n.26, 86, 87, 172, 239, 244-245, 257, 260, 267-268, 267 nn.6&7, 275, 275 n.36, 275 n.39, 284 new 51-72, passim

New Comedy (Greek) 2, 3, 12, 1617, 23-49, 63-64, 64 n.36, 68 n.45, 70 n.54, 72 n.58, 82, 82 n.27, 86, 89, 101, 101 n.84, 109-114, 124-126, 149, 153, 176-177, 196 n.7 novelty 18, 51-72, 213 n.93 On Meters (anonymous treatise) 261 orality 149, 273-274, 285 palindromes 239-240, 249, 260-261 paradoxography 16-17, 16 n.62, 128, 149-150, 205 n.54 parasite 32, 34-36, 34 n.24, 36 n.26, 84, 116-118, 121, 157, 160-161, 165, 168, 180-182, 184, 185 n.30, 186, 191-192, 192 n.47, 266, 269, 275-277, 275 n.36, 277 n.48, 281285, 283 n.64, 284 n.68 Parasitus Piger (play) 269 parody 10, 101, 101 n.83, 103, 119 n.145, 128, 131-134, 132 n.17, 139140, 141 n.39, 146, 148-149, 150 n.57, 165, 167, 180, 184 n.29, 202, 212 n.85, 217-229, 234-236, 262 philosophy 2, 4 n.9, 6-8, 7 n.36, 1112, 12 nn. 50&53, 15, 19, 25, 26, 109 n.116, 166, 168-169, 172, 175193, 197, 197 n.17, 198 n.21, 201 n.36, 208, 210-211, 213 n.93, 216 nn.102&103 Pliny 133 n.20, 150, 204 n.50, 217218, 217 n.2, 222 n.7, 223-224, 223 n.10, 224 n.12, 225-234, 233 n.43, 250, 250 nn.37&38, 270 n.18, 278 plot-structuring / plot-writing 17, 25-36 prayer 10, 110, 112, 217-218, 221, 222 n.7, 223-230, 234-236 prologue 18, 23 n.2, 39, 51-54, 52 n.5, 64-65 n.40, 66 n.42, 66-67, 67 n.43, 68 n.45, 69, 77 n.12, 90 n.55, 96 n.74, 153-154, 166, 170, 185 n.31, 204, 208, 235, 242, 248, 275 Pseudo-Plutarch 254-255

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy Ptolemy I Soter 240 Ptolemy II Philadelphus 146, 239, 241, 247, 252-255, 258-260 Ptolemy III Euergetes 140, 140 n.36 pun 53, 62, 62 n.32, 105, 114 n.131, 155, 159-162, 166, 170-171, 171 n.47, 226, 229, 236 n.53, 241, 243 n.15, 244 n.17, 248 n.31, 250-251, 256-258, 270 n.18, 272-273, 272 nn.24&25. rivalry / rivals 11, 33, 35, 37 n.28, 44, 54, 106 n.104, 143, 158, 190 n.43, 197, 205-209, 205 n.56, 213, 215, 278 Roman Religion 2, 9-10, 217-236 satire 2, 18-19, 146, 149, 155, 182 n.21, 250, 265-285 science 2, 7-8, 11, 19, 199-200, 203205, 215 self-interest 11, 176, 178-180, 183185, 192 servus callidus 1 n.1, 8 n.41, 10 n.46, 14, 36, 36 n.26, 39-48, 48 n.47, 76-79, 80, 84-85, 115, 118 simultaneity 208-209, 209 n.72, 215 Sotades 239-263

329

temple dedication 10, 218, 222 n.7, 224 n.14, 228-231, 233-234, 236 Terence 5, 6, 23, 23-24 n.2, 33 n.21, 36-37, 39, 41 n.35, 42 n.36, 51-53, 52 n.5, 66 n.42, 71 n.56, 86, 86 n.41, 88-89, 90 nn.55&56, 114 n.133, 125, 181 n.20, 213 n.93, 240-241, 265 n.1, 268-269, 269 n.15, 271, 273-275, 273 n.29, 275 n.39, 284 theatergrams 13-14, 75-119 translation 6, 18, 23 n.2, 51, 51 n.2, 54, 64, 65 n.40, 67, 71, 118, 149150, 156 n.12, 160-161, 171 n.47, 205, 254 travel literature 2, 121-129, 126 n.8, 137-140, 143, 146-150, 150 n.57 twins 111, 11 n.49, 190 n.43, 195216 virtue 11, 175 n.2, 178-182, 189, 193 wonders 122, 126-128, 137, 142, 197 n.17

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

INDEX LOCORUM

Aelian On the Nature of Animals 4.21: 132 Aeschines Against Ctesiphon 160: 145 Aetius Placita 5.10: 201, 201 n.36 Afranius (ed. Ribbeck) 61: 273 n.27 97: 269 307: 273 n.27 330: 270 n.18 Alexander Romance (PseudoCallisthenes) 1.36-38: 145 1.36.2: 145 2.23-41: 141 n.40 3.17: 127 n.9, 141 n.40 3.25-26: 142 3.27-28: 127, 141 n.40 3.27.6-8: 142 α 3.17.20: 131 n.15 α 3.17.21: 131 α 3.27.3-4: 146 n.53 α 3.28.2: 130 α 3.28.3-4: 146 n.53 β 2.32.3-4: 131 n.15 β 2.32.4: 131, 133 β 2.33.1-4: 130 β 2.33.3-4: 131 β 2.33.8-13: 131 β 2.33.12-13: 131 β 2.33.13: 133 β 2.37.4-5: 131 β 2.40.1-3: 133-134 β 3.28: 143

γ 2.29.4-11: 131 γ 2.29.10-11: 131 γ 2.29.11: 133 γ 2.31.4-8: 146 n. 53 γ 2.34.1: 146 n.53 γ 2.34.3-5: 131 n.15 γ 2.34.4: 131 γ 2.34.5: 133 γ 2.34.6: 130, 131 γ 2.42.6-13: 130, 142 γ 2.42.7-12: 131 γ 2.42.12-13: 133 γ 2.42.13: 133 γ 2.44.4-7: 131 L 2.41: 134 L 3.28: 130, 131 n.15 Alexis (ed. K.-A.) fr. 63: 124 fr. 105: 110 fr. 265: 110 n.117 fr. 246: 259 Amyntas (FGrH 122) F6: 147 n.53 Anonymous Historians of Alexander (FGrH 153) F2: 127 F8: 145 n.50 Antigenes (FGrH 141) F1: 142 n.41 Antiphanes (ed. K.-A.) fr. 189: 40 n.32 fr. 200: 123

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

332 Apicius 1.25.1.1: 278 Apuleius Apologia 14.8: 211 15.8-15: 214 Archelaus (FGrH 123) F1: 137 Aristobulus (FGrH 139) T3: 136 n.26 T4: 136 T6: 136 n.26 F9a-c: 141 n.39 F44: 136 F55: 138 n.32 F56: 138 n.32 Aristophanes Acharnians 19-22: 94 28-29: 94 33-36: 94 40: 94 54: 94 59: 94 65-67: 94 69-75: 124 70: 94 71-72: 94 73-75: 94 81-84: 123, 124 85-89: 124 91-92: 112 95: 94 96: 94 100-102: 95 100: 115 103-110: 95 104: 96 104-109: 116 106-107: 115 107: 96 109: 96

Index Locorum 110: 96 117: 94 117-118: 96 123: 94 Birds 551-552: 96 1264-1267: 96 1274-1275: 96 1516-1520: 96 1520-1524: 96 1531-1533: 112 1567-1573: 97 1575-1576: 96 1575: 97 1579-1580: 97 1595: 97 1599-1602: 97 1616: 97 1626-1630: 98 1628: 98 1629: 97-98 1674-1684: 98-99 1674-1679: 97 1675: 99 1679: 98, 99 1680: 99 1681: 98 1682: 100 Thesmophoriazousae 76-85: 103 626-635: 103 773-774: 103 850: 103 856-857: 103 871-873: 103 874-876: 116 917-918: 104 929-934: 104 1009-1014: 104 1059: 104 1065-1081: 104 1083-1097: 104 1083-1086: 104-105 1092: 105

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy 1093-1094: 116 1093: 105 1094: 105 1098-1135: 105 1100-1104: 105, 116 1101-1102: 105 1110-1120: 105 1116-1124: 106 1119-1120: 106 1125-1127: 106 1125: 104 1127: 104 1128-1129: 107 1160-1163: 107 1165-1169: 107 1170-1171: 107 1172-1175: 106 1181-1183: 107 1197: 108 1210-1217: 108 1210: 107 1223-1227: 108 1223-1225: 108 Peace 196-220: 139 n.35 Aristotle Categories 14b25-6: 209 De optimo genere animalium (Gen. An.) 4.4.772a36-b1: 198 4.4.772b 8-10: 200 n. 29 Historia Animalium (HA) 7.4.585a: 198 Magna Moralia 1213a10-26: 190 Nicomachean Ethics 1156a6-17: 178 1156b8-12: 178 Politics 1272b24: 109 n.116 Rhetorica ad Alexandrum 1432b11: 56 n.18 Arrian Anabasis 1 prooem: 136 n.26

333

2.5.2-4: 141 n.39 5.1-2: 143 n.46 6.1: 138 6.1-5: 138 n.32 6.3: 143 n.46 6.18.2-21.2: 138 n.32 6.28: 143 n.46 7.21: 138 n.32 Indica 5.4-9: 143 n.46 7.4-8: 143 n.46 9.9-11: 143 n.46 Atellena incerti nominis (ed. Ribbeck) fr. IV: 269 Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 12.514e-f: 146 n.53 12.530a-c: 141 n.39 14.13, p. 620F: 255 14.620: 243 n.12, 250 n.35 14.620e: 243 n.13 14.621a: 247 n.24 14.621b: 250 n.39 15.699E: 277 Aulus Gellius 9.4: 150 18.2.7: 280 Baeton (FGrH 119) F5: 133 n.20 Callimachus Aetia fr. 75.4-5 Harder: 255 Epigram 28 Pfeiffer: 240, 260, 263 Callisthenes (FGrH 124) F34: 141 n.39 Carmina priapea 7: 251-252

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

334 Cato De agricultura 112.3: 269 n.14 157.5: 269 n.14 134: 227 n.20 Orationes 12a.1: 226 n.19 Celsus De Medica 2.31.1.6: 278 3.21.10.5: 278 Chares (FGrH 125) F2: 146 n.53 Cicero Ad Atticum 6.1.17: 231 n.33 Ad familiares 2.10.3: 150 9.22: 251 n. 40, 257-258 Brutus 42: 150 79: 280 n.57 De amicitia 20: 188 n.41 De finibus 1.29: 181 n.19 De inventione 2.167: 179 De legibus 1.7: 150 De natura deorum. 2.91: 154 n.6 De officiis 1.111: 155 3.74: 183 n.26 De oratore 2.276: 282 In Verrem 2.2.87: 168 2.4.4-5: 168 2.4.13: 168 2.4.94: 168 Pro Archia poeta 23: 154 n.8 Pro Murena 74: 226 n.19 Pro Sexto Roscio 57.3: 282 n.62 Republic 2.42.69: 213 Tusculan Disputationes 1.5: 155 4.67: 226 n.19

Index Locorum Cleitarchus (FGrH 137) F15: 142 n.41 F16: 142 n.41 F17: 143 n.46 Comica Adespota 1293 Kock=179 Meinecke: 109 n.116 Corpus Hippocraticum On Regimen 1.30: 198 On Superfetation 1: 200 14: 200 CIL (Corpus Insciptionum Latinarum) I2 215: 228 n. 28, 231 n.32 I2 240: 230, 231 I2 245: 230, 231 VI 32323: 228 n.26 XIII 1752-4: 224 nn.12, 14 Cratinus (ed. K.-A.) fr. 13: 97 n.76 Ctesias (ed. Lenfant) fr. 1b: 140 n.36, 146 n.53 fr. 5: 146 n.53 fr. 45.15: 132 fr. 45.32: 147 n.54 fr. 45.43: 147 n.54 fr. 45dβ: 132 fr. 45ke: 147 n.54 fr. 52: 147 n.54 fr. 75: 147 n.54 Demetrius De Elocutione 189: 249 n.34 Demosthenes 54.39: 97 n.76 Diodorus of Sicily 2.2.3-4: 140 n.36 2.9.5-6: 146 n.53

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

335

2.34.3-5: 146 n.53 2.38.3-6: 143 n.46 2.55: 139 2.57.4-5: 147 n.54 5.43.2: 138 5.44.3-6: 138 17.2.2: 145 n.50 17.3.6: 145 n.50 17.7.1-2: 145 n.50 17.77.1-3: 142 n.41

fr. XIII: 272, 282 fr. XIV: 270, 272, 273, 276 n.43, 278, 280 fr. XV: 274 fr. XVI: 270 fr. XVII: 270, 272, 274 fr. XVIII: 273

Diogenis Laertius 2.33: 214 n.94 7.23 [= SVF 1.71]: 179 7.25 : 109 n.116 10.119: 183 n.26

Sota fr. 5 FRL II: 260-261

Diomedes Grammaticus (ed. Keil, Grammatici Latini) 1.485.33-34: 267 Dionysius (FGrH 717) F1: 143 n.46 Ennius Annales (ed. Skutsch/FRL I) 1.3: 275 6.184-185: 158 n.21 7.207: 275 Satires (ed. Russo) fr. I: 268, 268 n.11, 270-274, 279 n.53 fr. II: 272-273, 273 n.29 fr. III: 273, 274 fr. IV: 269, 272-273, 279 fr. V: 272, 273 n.27, 275, 276-277, 279 n.52, 280 fr VII: 269, 271-273, 274, 279 n.53, 282 fr VIII: 269, 272, 277, 278 fr IX: 269, 272, 273, 274, 276 fr. X: 266 n.5, 273 fr. XIB: 272, 272 n.23 fr. XII: 268 n.11, 269, 270, 280281

Sat. Inc. Lib. fr. 14 FRL II = fr. 7 Vahlen: 266 n.5, 272

Tragedies Alcmeo fr. 12.2 FRL II [= 14.17 Jocelyn]: 268 n.11 Iphigeneia fr. 84 FRL II [= 241-248 Warmington]: 281 fr. 86 FRL II [= 98 Jocelyn, p. 332]: 268 n.11 Telephus fr. 129 FRL II [= 287 Jocelyn]: 268 n.11 Incerta fr. 13 FRL II = fr. 27 Courtney and Blänsdorf: 266 n.5, 274 fr. 19 FRL II = fr. 25 Courtney and Blänsdorf: 266 n.5, 274 fr. 23.10 TrRF / FRL II: 165 Ephippus (ed. K.-A.) fr. 5: 124 fr. 19: 124 Epicurus Sententiae Vaticanae 28: 183-184 34: 184 39: 184 52: 179 Letter to Menoeceus 128-129 [= LS 21B2]: 181 n.19

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

336

Index Locorum

Epistula Alexandri Macedonis ad Aristotelem magistrum suum 7-78: 141 n.40 8: 146 n.53 10: 146 n.53 35a: 143, 146 n.53 39: 137 40: 130 44: 143 73: 131 78: 146 n.53 Etymologicum Magnum 275.9-20: 139 n.34 Eubulus (ed. K.-A.) fr. 75.3: 97 n.76 Euhemerus Hiera Anagraphe (ed. Winiarczyk) fr. 38: 138 fr. 50: 138 Euripides Helen 1-3: 103 53: 102 75: 102 94: 102 155: 102 273-276: 102 528-629: 118 542: 102 563-624: 101 785: 102 1021: 102 1049-1054: 101 1077-1078: 101 1163-1202: 102 1165-1205: 112 1165-1168: 102 1172: 102 1173-1176: 102 1177-1183: 102 1181: 102 1183: 102

1204: 102 1206-1208: 103 1231-1236: 102, 107 1250-1273: 103 1278: 103 1281-1284: 103 1512: 108 1624-1626: 102 Iphigeneia among the Taurians 725-830: 119 810-826: 101 1029: 101 1153-1155: 112 1174: 102 1309-1310: 108 1429-1430: 102 fr. 87b-104 (TrGF): 167 Eutropius 3.1: 259 n.61 Festus p. 32 Lindsay: 245 Fest. Paul. p. 259, I Lindsay: 64 n.40 Gaius Inst. 3.189: 80 n.16 Gellius 3.3.15: 245 n.19 9.4: 150 Herodotus 3.23.1-3: 147 n.54 Homer Iliad 4.522: 262 13.548: 262 16.289: 262 22.133 : 249 Odyssey 4.477: 138 4.581: 138-139

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy Horace Satires 1.10.20-35: 155 2.5: 183 n.26 2.8: 182 n.21 2.6.27-31: 280 ILS (=Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae) 5050: 228 n.26 5050a: 228 n.26 Insciptiones Italicae 13.2: 230, 231 Jerome (ed. Fotheringham) ad Euseb. Chronicon a. Abr. 1816/Olymp. CXLIV (201 BCE): 245 n.19 1839/Olymp. CL (178 BCE): 267 n.7 Josephus Against Apion 1.34: 255 n.51 Justin 30: 259 n.61 Juvenal 1.165: 276 2.8-10: 250 3.243-8: 280 5: 182 n.21 Livy 1.24.8: 227 n.23 4.21.5: 224 n.12 8.8.4: 224 n.12 8.9.4: 224 n.12 8.38.13.2: 271 9.46.6: 224 n.12 10.28.14: 224 n.12 23.2.1.3: 271 31.9.9: 224 n.12 36.2.2-5: 224 n.12 39.18.3: 224 n.12

39.22.4: 230, 231 41.21.11: 224 n.12 42.28.7-9: 224 n.12 Lucian How to Write History 12: 136 Macrobii 22: 136 n. 26 True Histories 1.11-20: 134 1.35-39: 131, 132 1.37: 133 2.44: 131, 133 2.46: 131 Lucilius 454: 275 5.194: 277 5.195: 277 9.331: 278 Macrobius Saturn. 1.10.18-20: 232 n.37 Martial 3.17: 248 2.86: 260-261 6.26: 250-251 9.16.1: 213 Megasthenes (FGrH 715) F4: 143 n.46 F11: 143 n.46 F12: 143 n.46 F14: 143 n.46 F27: 133 n.20, 147 n.54 F33: 143 n.46 Menander (ed. Arnott) Aspis 206: 45 242: 45 Dis Exapaton 18-30: 111 n.123 Dyskolos 183-184: 44 959: 41 n.35 Epitrepontes 557ff.: 45

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

337

338 Kolax frr. 2-6: 125 frr. 2-4: 37 Misoumenos 1-14: 37 15-17: 37 Perikeiromene 177ff.: 37 186-187: 36-37 294: 37 n.28 354ff.: 36 492-503: 37 504ff.: 37 774-778: 38 976ff.: 37 1016-1017: 38 n.30 Samia 265-266: 87 268-356: 87 454-537: 87 459: 86 n.46 474-475: 86 n.47 481: 87 n.49 493-494: 87 n.49 506-513: 86 n.46 519-520: 248 521-537: 87 n.48 535-536: 87 537-615: 87 fr. 25 K.-A.: 124 Metz Epitome (ed. Baynham and Yardley) 12: 143 n.47 Mnesimachus (ed. K.-A.) fr. 7: 124 Naevius (ed. Warmington) Appella 18-19: 269 20: 269 Gymnasticus 55: 272 57: 284 n.68

Index Locorum Tarentilla 76: 272-273 83-84 R(ibbeck)2: 86 n.46, 87, 87 n.50 86 R(ibbeck)2: 87, 87 n.48 92-93 R(ibbeck)2: 87 Nearchus (FGrH 133) F20: 138 F32: 138, 138 n.32 F33: 138 n.32 Onesicritus (FGrH 134) F1: 142 n.41 F11: 147 n.54 F24: 147 n.54 Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae 54: 140 n.36 Ovid Amores 1.1-4: 262 1.1.25: 91 1.27-38: 262 2.16.11: 226 n.17 Ars Amatoria 3.135-136: 213 Metamorphoses 1.294: 258 n.58 4.723: 282 n.62 P. Oxy. 413 2: 118 17: 118 49: 118 49-50: 117 58-59: 117 60: 117 64-66: 118 64-65: 117 69: 117 72-73: 118 92-93: 117 115-116: 117 126-127: 117

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

Pausanias 9.31.8: 210 n.73 Persius 6.9: 266 n.5 Petronius 56.7.1-56.9.5: 118 n.142 Philemon (ed. K.-A.) fr. 23: 281 Photius Bibliotheca 46a1-12: 132 Plato Alcibiades 133: 214 n.96 Phaedo 111b: 147 n.54 Respublica 10.596d-e: 211 Plautus Amphitruo 33-36: 269, 281 64-74: 67 n.43 100 : 208 n.70 111: 199 nn.27-28 112: 208 n.70 116: 208 n.70 120: 208 n.70 123: 43 n.38 129: 208 n.70 131: 208 n.70 135: 208 n.70 140: 208 n.70 142-147: 205 142: 208 n.70 149: 208 n.70 168-172: 250 n.36, 271 n.21 180-185: 206 365-462: 207 n.66 398-399: 206 441-443: 210 456: 210, 212 n.90 458-459: 212 480-490: 199

565-569: 208 577-579: 208 n.67 594: 208 n.67 601: 196 n.13, 206 n.58 615: 196 621: 58 n.26 686: 58 n.26 785-786: 196 806: 271 n.19 810-811: 200 n.31 877-890: 199 n.27 1068-1070: 196 1085-1088: 200-201 1141-1143: 200 n.31 Asinaria 9-12: 153 11: 248 90: 58 n.26 196-203: 169 287: 58 n.26 471: 268 598-602: 163 697-710: 163 n.31 748: 275-276 772: 277, 277 n.48 Aulularia 25-27: 27 n.11 31-32: 27-28 32-36: 29 86: 162 n.30 120ff.: 28 149-150: 28 154: 28 172-173: 28 173-174: 28 178ff.: 28 217-219: 28 238-239: 28 255-260: 28 350: 282 413: 57 n.26 551-559: 163 603: 29 689: 29

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

339

340 690: 271 691-692: 29 704: 162 n.30 745: 29 792: 29 752: 29 Bacchides 96: 228 n.29 121-124: 164 121: 248 215: 243 n.15 240: 159 241-242: 159 360-362: 159 494-562: 159 n.23 500-525: 111 n.123 548: 269, 281 583: 282 613: 270-271 635-636: 181 n.20 640-662: 41 640-650: 111 n.122 640-641: 159 640: 146 649-650: 41, 111 n.122, 159 658: 42-43 686-688: 159 702-705: 159 742-744: 169 n.41 812-813: 169 n.41 831: 58 n.26 910-912: 166 925-978: 165 925-974: 43 987: 43 1146-1148: 282 n.62 1162-1163: 157 Captivi 37-39: 190 61-62: 185 n.31 77: 283 80: 283 83-85: 283 86: 283

Index Locorum 98-99: 192 n.46 106: 192 176-191: 192 203-230: 186 n.36 225: 186 228: 186 229-230: 186-187 247-248: 187 249: 187 255-256: 281 261: 187 n.39 274-276: 168 276: 186 n.34 277-289: 161 311: 187 n.37 347-350: 188 365-368: 187 n.37 387: 188 401-406: 189 410-411: 189 414-421: 189-190 416: 190 421: 190 428: 190 469-470: 192 502-503: 272 557-563: 167 613-615: 167 633-635: 161 720: 190 n.43 769: 229 n.31 877-885: 157 912-915: 283-284 971-975: 161 Casina 5-14: 66 30-34: 153 31-34: 65 37: 68 64-66: 67-68 67-77: 170 67-70: 55 70: 53, 58 n.26 71-74: 55 118: 56

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy 126-127: 278 359: 70 370: 226 n.17 437: 271 n.19 626: 56 n.21, 70 649-652: 170 n.44 649/50-652: 70 674: 226 n.17 703: 226 n.17 759-762: 61, 169 768: 269, 269 n.14 782-783: 56 798: 56 815: 56 857-858: 62, 67 859: 56 860-861: 62 878: 57, 62-63, 70 879: 274 n.32 881: 57 892: 57 979-981: 65 n.40 1011: 57 Cistellaria 163: 200 n.29 512-527: 217-236 668: 58 n.26 Curculio 216-222: 201-202 231: 201 n.38 236-240: 203 280ff.: 36 288-295: 169 290-291: 269 341: 276 359: 277 n.48, 277 371-461: 34 393: 270 406-410: 158 423-424: 34 424: 123, 135 438-452: 123 438-448: 34 439-442: 141 n.39

439-441: 146 442-448: 140 499: 272 n.26 533: 35 577-578: 202 n.40 591-592: 276 597-598: 282 n.62 628-661: 35 641: 33 655: 41, 271 n.19 Epidicus 18: 272 n.26 23-28: 160 29-38: 164 177-179: 165 284: 273 n.29 382-387: 213-214 483: 58 n.26 625-626: 168 645: 271 678: 58 n.26 Menaechmi 7-12: 153 17-24: 204-205 199-202: 163 245-246: 206 247: 273 n.29 258-262: 162 404: 243 n.15 409: 142 n.30 411-412: 162 n.30 675: 282 899-902: 163 n.33 946: 273 n.29 1062-1064: 210-211 1062: 210 n.76 1063: 210 n.76 1064: 210 n.77, 214 n.99 1087-1090: 196 n.13 1102-1104: 209 Mercator 139-140: 203 n.45 418: 58 n.26

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

341

342 487-489: 164 516-518: 159 523-526: 169 564: 269 595-596: 278 606: 58 n.26 689-690: 163 Miles gloriosus 13-54: 142 13-15: 158 25-57: 34 25-30: 34, 122, 135 32: 35 n.24 36-37: 35 n.24 36: 35 n.24 37: 35 n.24 40-41: 1 40: 34 n.24 42-47: 34 42: 35 n.24 46: 133 n.19 48: 35 n.24 49: 35 n.24 55: 35 n.24 60-65: 165 75: 162 n.30 86: 242 n.7 107: 228 n.29, 229 n.31 135: 176 n.3 147: 1 n.1 155ff.: 31 200-214: 46-47 207ff.: 46 207-208: 47 209: 244 210-212: 244 211-212: 239 211: 275-276 213: 47 214: 47 226: 276 238-240: 196 n.13 285: 270 n.18 393-394: 206 433-440: 162

Index Locorum 441-442: 206 n.61 516: 206 532: 206 551-552: 196 n.13 600-606: 281 618: 181 619: 181 626: 181 n.17 631-632: 181 n.17 633-634: 181 n.17, 183 640-642: 181 643-648: 182 645-646: 182 649: 182 651-654: 182 659-660: 182 660-661: 181 663-668: 181-182 668: 242 672-674: 183 685: 58 n.26 714: 184 716-717: 198 n.18 723-724: 184 725-735: 183 n.27 740-744: 167, 183 n.25 749-750: 184 n.25 751-756: 182 n.22 758-762: 182 n.22 768: 37 n.28 806-809: 162 n.28 874-946: 8 n.41 923-924: 37 n.28 951: 162 n.30 999-1000: 182 n.23 1007: 72 n.58 1021: 182 n.23 1037-1040: 58-59 1047: 182 n.23 1052-1057: 160 1065-1066: 123 1077-1083: 123, 147 1080: 271 1086-1087: 182 n.23 1344: 58 n.26 1379: 58 n.26

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

Mostellaria 11-12: 271 n.19 19: 272 n.26 20-24: 169 n.41 62: 278 62-65: 169 n.41 250-251: 211-212 665: 276 775: 162 n.30 826-828: 170 842: 274 n.32 959-961: 169 n.41 969-974: 156 1053-1165: 87 n.50 1106: 88 1107: 88 1126: 88 1143-1146: 88 1146-1147: 86 n.46 1149: 88 1149-1151: 40 n.33, 88, 111 n. 122, 166 1153-1165: 88 1167-1168: 86 n.47 1168-1180: 87 n.50, 88 1178: 88 Persa 1-6: 166 118-126: 168 339: 162 n.30 393-396: 170 n.44 503-509: 161 549: 229 n.31 695-696: 206 n.61 826: 250 n.36 845: 276 Poenulus 1-45: 154 53-55: 153 132: 228 n.29 135-139: 156 152: 271 157: 276

165-166: 79 182-186: 80 n.16 181-184: 79 442-444: 163 470-487: 129-130 470-492: 122 472: 133 485-487: 132 522-525: 110 n.117 532: 278 561-563: 79 600-603: 169 n.41 662-666: 163 678-679: 114 n.131 684-706: 79 691: 58 n.26 694: 162 n.30 699-703: 169 707-712: 79 735-737: 79 785: 80 n.16 761-787: 79 825: 58 n.26 894-895: 80 908-910: 80 930-960: 110-112 930-939: 109, 171 940-949: 109, 171 950-960: 110 975-976: 114 975: 114 n.133 977: 78 978-979: 114 979-981: 119 980-981: 114, 114 n.131 982: 114 n.133 990-1038: 110 990-1028: 117 994-1028: 115 1002: 115, 116 n.137 1013-1015: 118 1028: 117 1029-1031: 115 1029: 117 1032-1034: 115, 117 1035-1039: 115

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

343

344 1039: 114 n.133 1073-1074: 282, 282 n.62 1099-1103: 80 1102-1103: 80 1137: 76 1141-1142: 110, 116 1146: 271 n.19 1169-1173: 115 1186-1190: 76 1198: 269 1211-1270: 119, 119 n.145 1223-1250: 76 1223: 76 1271-1273: 168 1303: 114 1318: 110 Pseudolus 77: 272 n.26 98: 58 n.26 222: 271 n.19 394-408: 47 395-405: 52 n.5, 59-61 397-405: 16 n.61 399-400: 47 401-405: 18, 66 n.42 401: 58 n.26 405: 58 n.26 464-465: 168 476: 269 477-488: 157 493: 269, 271 532: 162 n.30 562-568: 47 568-570: 60 600α-602: 47 601-602: 60 619: 58 n.26 636-639: 43 637: 44 653-657: 162 n.29 667-686: 47 702-707: 167 704-705: 281 711-715: 162 n.29 744-750: 270 n.18

Index Locorum 790-891: 40 812: 278 817: 269, 277-278 820-821: 278 868-872: 164 n.34 908-910: 47 966: 58 n.26 984-985: 47 1009-1010: 162 n.29 1019-1036: 47 1063-1064: 163 n.33 1238-1245: 163 1262: 277 n.48 Rudens 32-33: 153 83-88: 167 469: 58 n.26 508-509: 163 583: 248 586-591: 169 610: 270 n.18 824: 58 n.26 947: 274 n.32 1001-1005: 168 Stichus 1-87: 31 1-57: 31 53-54: 31 75-87: 31 70: 31 74: 31 75-79: 31 80-83: 32 84-87: 31 155-273: 32 174-180: 161 239-244: 161 302-307: 169 425: 277 n.48 446-448: 170 468: 277 n.48 577: 273 n.29 605: 273 n.29 629-630: 161

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy 703-708: 156 708: 277 n.48 712: 277 n.48 Trinummus 18-21: 153 19: 248 169-170: 273 n.29 419-421: 156 563: 269 705-708: 67 n.43 928ff.: 139 928-945: 122 939-944: 137 942: 139 Truculentus 51-56: 169 77-78a: 160, 236 n.53 86-87: 169 n.41 269: 270 n.18 315-316: 277 482-486: 167 505-511: 123, 144 551-558: 156 730-731: 163 914: 58 n.26 928-929: 158 Pliny the Elder Natural History 6.49: 143 n.47 7.11: 133 n.20 7.28: 147 n.54 7.37: 204 n.50 7.140: 233 n.43 11.174: 217, 218 28.11: 217 n.2, 223 Pliny the Younger Epistulae 5.3.2: 250 n.38 10.52: 224 n.12 10.96.5: 224 n.12

345

Plutarch Alexander 11.6: 145 n.50 46: 142 n.41 48.5: 145 n.50 60.12: 137 Demosthenes 23.2: 145 n.50 On the fortune or virtue of Alexander 327d: 145 n.50 Pollux 4.147: 37 n.28 Polybius 3.78.1: 109 n.116 9.11a: 259 n.61 Polycleitus (FGrH 128) F3a: 146 n.53 F8: 142 n.41 Porphyry Quaestiones Homericae ad Iliadem 16.174: 139 n.34 Propertius 1.1.1: 91 Ptolemy (FGrH 138) F28a-c: 142 n.41 Quintus Curtius 3.3.16: 146 n.53 6.5.24-32: 142 n.41 7.9.15: 143 n.47 Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.13: 56 n.18 Satyrus Vita Euripidis fr. 39.7.8-22: 101 n.84 Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius 2.904-10a: 143 n.46

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

346 Scholia on Homer Iliad 16.174b: 139 n.34 Iliad 17.263: 139 n.34 Odyssey 4.477: 139 n.34 Odyssey 7.284: 139 n.34 Seneca Apocolocynthosis 13.3.2: 278 Quaestiones Naturales 1.15.7: 211 1.17.4: 213 1.17.6, 8, 10: 214 Sotades fr. 4a Powell: 249 n.34 frs. 4a-c Powell: 262 n.65 fr. 16 Powell: 253 n.44 P.Oxy. 3010, v.30 (Iolaus): 258 n.57 Sidonius Epistulae 8.11.3.28: 276 Statius Thebaid 1.587: 282 n.62 Strabo Geographica 3.5.5: 143 n.46 11.5.4: 142 n.41 14.1.41: 243 n.13 14.5.9: 141 n.39 15.1.6-7: 143 n.46 15.1.25: 138 15.1.34: 147 n.54 15.1.35: 127 15.1.57: 133 n.20, 147 n.54 15.1.58: 143 n.46 15.3.21: 146 n.53 16.1.9-11: 138 n.32 Suda 1138α: 113 n.129 Tacitus Historiae 1.36: 224 n.12

Index Locorum

Teles fr. IVA Hense: 128 n.12 Terence Adelphoe 12: 52 413-419: 191 n.44 415: 213 n.93 Andria 9-12: 39 873: 87 n.49 889-890: 86 n.47 894: 87 nn.48, 50 901: 87 nn.48, 50 941: 273 n.29 Eunuchus 7-8: 23 n.2 36-41: 36 41-43: 52-53 65: 271 n.19 397-433: 125 Hautontimoroumenos 7: 52 n.4 29: 52 n.4 34: 52 n.4 43: 52 n.4 151-157: 89 206: 274 940-948: 89 960-968: 86 n47 971-972: 89 n.53 973-977: 88-89 1004-1023: 88 nn.48, 50 1033-1035: 89 1033-1034: 87 n.49 1037: 86 n.46 1045-1067: 87 n.48 1045-1046: 89 Hecyra 2: 52 n.4 5: 52 n.4

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

Plautus’ Erudite Comedy

347

12: 52 n.4 14: 52 n.4 19: 52 n.4 29-36: 90 n.55 37: 52 n.4 57: 52 n.4

Turpilius (ed. Ribbeck) Demetrius fr. IX: 268

Phormio 9: 52 n.4 14: 52 n.4 24: 52 n.4 339-342: 266 420: 271 n.19

Varro Lingua Latina 5.92: 229 n.30 6.21: 228 n.28, 230, 231, 232 n.39 6.61: 224 nn.12, 14 6.95: 224 n.12

Theopompus (FGrH 115) F75c: 147 n.54

Vergil Aeneid 1.8: 261 10.707: 282 n.62

Tibullus 1.9.73: 278 Timocles (ed. K.-A.) fr. 17: 124 Titinius (ed. Ribbeck) fr. 89: 274

Val. Max. 4.1.10: 224 n.12 8.13.2: 233 n.43

Volcacius Sedigitus ap. Gell. 15.24: 267 n.7 William Gager Ulysses Redux (UR) I.117-120: 43 n.39

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

CONTRIBUTORS

Emilia A. Barbiero is Assistant Professor of Classics at New York University. Her research interests focus on Roman republican literature in general and Plautus in particular, as well as ancient epistolography both Greek and Latin. Peter Barrios-Lech is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. He has published on Roman and Greek New comedy; Greek and Latin syntax, pragmatics and sociolinguistics; and is at work on two projects: one on the indirect question in Latin and another, a book project, entitled Linguistic Interaction in Greek Comedy. He lives with his daughter and wife in Providence, Rhode Island. Ruth R. Caston is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan, where she has been teaching since 2005. Her work is mainly in Latin literature, especially elegy, satire and comedy. In addition to a number of articles in these areas, she has a book on jealousy in Roman love elegy (Oxford 2012), a co-edited collection (with Robert Kaster) on positive emotions titled “Hope, Joy and Affection in the Classical World (Oxford 2016), and is currently writing a book on all six plays of Terence for Oxford University Press. Chrysanthi Demetriou studied Classics in Cyprus, and received her MPhil in Classics from Cambridge University and her PhD from the University of Leeds. She is currently a teaching fellow in Latin at the Open University of Cyprus and the University of Cyprus. She has published articles and book chapters on the comedies of Plautus and Terence, the ancient scholia on Terence, the interaction between theatre and rhetoric, and the survival of Terence’s comedy in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Michael Fontaine is Professor of Classics at Cornell University. His latest books are The Pig War (Paideia Institute Press, 2019) and How to Drink: A classical guide to the art of imbibing (Princeton University Press, 2020).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use

350

Contributors

Seth A. Jeppesen is Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, USA. His research focuses on the performance of Greek and Roman theatre, Plautine comedy, Roman religion, and the reception of Greek tragedy. Seth has recently published chapters on obscenity in Roman Comedy (Ancient Obscenities, 2015) and lament in early Roman drama (The Fall of Cities in the Mediterranean, 2016). Ioannis M. Konstantakos studied in Athens and Cambridge and is now Professor of Ancient Greek at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. His scholarly interests include ancient comedy, ancient narrative, folklore, and the relations between Greek and Near-Eastern literatures and cultures. He has published many studies and essays on these topics. He has received scholarships from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation and the Onassis Foundation. In 2009 he was awarded the prize of the Academy of Athens for the best monograph in classical philology. In 2012 he was shortlisted for the Greek state prize for critical essay. Gesine Manuwald is Professor of Latin at University College London (UCL). Her research interests cover Roman drama, Roman oratory, Roman epic and Neo-Latin literature; she has published widely on all these areas, including a survey of early Roman drama Roman Republican Theatre (2011). She is currently the general editor of the Loeb series Fragmentary Republican Latin (FRL) and has recently contributed two volumes on Ennius to this project (2018). Sophia Papaioannou is Professor of Latin Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her research interests include Roman Comedy, Ancient epic, and Latin literature of the Age of Augustus, and she has published several books and articles on the above topics. She has edited Terence and Interpretation (2014) and co-edited (with A.K. Petrides) New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy (2010) for the Pierides Series of CSP. Her current projects include a book on the reception of the Latin tradition in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca. Ariana Traill (B.A. Toronto 1991, Ph.D. Harvard 1997) is an Associate Professor and Lynn M. Martin Professorial Scholar in the Department of the Classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include Greek and Roman comedy, women in antiquity, and the reception of ancient comedy. She is the author of Women and the Comic Plot in Menander (Cambridge, 2008) and co-editor of A Companion to Terence (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, with Antony Augoustakis).

EBSCOhost - printed on 3/21/2021 9:31 PM via UNAM. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use