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THE STRUCTURE OF PLAUTUS’ MENAECHMI

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2019

Christopher Lowe
Christopher Lowe*
Affiliation:
Islip, Oxfordshire
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Extract

Widely different views have been held concerning the structure of Plautus’ Menaechmi. On the one hand, the sequence of misunderstandings arising from the presence in the same city of a pair of identical twins with the same name has been likened to clockwork and attributed in essentials to an unknown Greek dramatist. On the other hand, E. Stärk has stressed features of the play which are typical of improvised comedy and put forward the bold theory that it was constructed by Plautus himself, following traditions of pre-literary Italic drama but using stock motifs of Greek New Comedy. I wish to suggest that the truth lies between these extreme positions.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , May 2019 , pp. 214 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2019 

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References

1 E.g. Lejay, P.-E., Plaute (Paris, 1925), 100Google Scholar; Taladoire, B.-A., Essai sur le comique de Plaute (Monaco, 1956), 117Google Scholar; Questa, C., Sei letture plautine (Urbino, 2004), 72Google Scholar.

2 Die Menaechmi des Plautus und kein griechisches Original (Tübingen, 1989).

3 E.g. Leo, F., Geschichte der römischen Literatur (Berlin, 1913), 138Google Scholar; Fraenkel, E., Plautinisches im Plautus (Berlin, 1922), 421Google Scholar; Duckworth, G.E., The Nature of Roman Comedy (Princeton, 1952), 328Google Scholar.

4 Cf. Barsby, J., Plautus Bacchides (Warminster, 1986), 142–3Google Scholar.

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6 Cf. Zagagi, N., ‘Review of E. Stärk, Die Menaechmi des Plautus und kein griechisches Original (Tübingen, 1989)’, JRS 80 (1990), 202–3Google Scholar; Braun, L., ‘Keine griechische Originale für Amphitruo und Menaechmi?’, WJA 17 (1991), 193–215Google Scholar, at 205–15; Questa, C., ‘Review of E. Stärk, Die Menaechmi des Plautus und kein griechisches Original (Tübingen, 1989)’, Gnomon 64 (1992), 670–3Google Scholar; Gratwick, A.S., Plautus Menaechmi (Cambridge, 1993), 23–4Google Scholar n. 27.

7 Legrand, P.-E., Daos: tableau de la comédie grecque durant la période dite nouvelle (Lyon and Paris, 1910), 475–6Google Scholar. So Hunter, R.L., ‘The comic chorus in the fourth century’, ZPE 36 (1979), 23–38Google Scholar, at 29; Damen, M., ‘Actors and act-divisions in the Greek original of Plautus’ Menaechmi’, CW 82 (1988/9), 409–20Google Scholar, at 409–12; Gratwick (n. 6), 23; Primmer, A., ‘Die Handlung der Menaechmi’, WS 100 (1987), 97–115Google Scholar and WS 101 (1988), 193–222, at 195; Braun (n. 6), 209; Masciadri, V., Die antike Verwechslungskomödie (Stuttgart, 1996), 98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Cf. Michaut, G., Plaute (Paris, 1920), 1.122Google Scholar.

9 Beare, W., The Roman Stage (London, 1964 3), 248–55Google Scholar; Handley, E.W., The Dyskolos of Menander (London, 1965), 129Google Scholar; Frost, K.B., Exits and Entrances in Menander (Oxford, 1988)Google Scholar, 103 n. 5; Leigh, M., Comedy and the Rise of Rome (Oxford, 2004), 105–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Damen (n. 7), 412–14.

11 Cf. Masciadri (n. 7), 148.

12 For example, Stärk (n. 2), 78–80 was not the first to notice substantial verbal repetition in the confrontations of Menaechmus S first with Cylindrus and then with Erotium. The possibility of Plautine omissions has also to be reckoned with. If the prehistory of the plot is in some ways problematic, the explanation of Gratwick (n. 6), 25–30 that Plautus has made significant omissions, in the prologue and elsewhere, is more likely than Stärk's theory that the Latin prologue is a Plautine ‘remake’ of the Agorastocles-story of the Poenulus.

13 Stärk (n. 2), 88–9; Gratwick (n. 6), 25; the counter-arguments of Masciadri (n. 7), 147 are unconvincing.

14 Primmer (n. 7), 99–112 recognizes that the spinter presents problems and admits that a Plautine insertion would be in accordance with Plautus’ practice elsewhere, but unconvincingly opts for a more complicated and less likely hypothesis, that Plautus omitted later scenes which made greater dramatic use of the object; cf. Braun (n. 6), 210 n. 48.

15 Lefèvre, E., ‘Plautus–Studien II. Die Brief-Intrige in Menanders Dis Exapaton und ihre Verdoppelung in den Bacchides’, Hermes 106 (1978), 518–38Google Scholar; Primmer, A., Handlungsgliederung in nea und palliata: Dis exapaton und Bacchides (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 441) (Vienna, 1984), 48–53Google Scholar; Barsby (n. 4), 170.

16 Gratwick, A.S., ‘Plautus’, in Easterling, P.E. and Kenney, E. (edd.), Cambridge History of Classical Literature (Cambridge, 1982), 2.1.95–115Google Scholar, at 2.1.98–101.

17 Lefèvre, E., ‘Plautus–Studien IV. Die Umformung des Ἀλαζών zu der Doppel-Komödie des Miles Gloriosus’, Hermes 112 (1984), 30–53Google Scholar, at 32–7.

18 Lefèvre, E., ‘Plautus–Studien I. Der doppelte Geldkreislauf im Pseudolus’, Hermes 105 (1977), 441–53Google Scholar, at 431–3; Gaiser, K., ‘Zur Eigenart der römischen Komödie’, ANRW 1.2 (Berlin, 1972), 1027–113Google Scholar, at 1082.

19 A. Krieger, De Aululariae Plautinae exemplari Graeco (Diss., Giessen, 1914), 64–5; Kuiper, W.E.J., The Greek Aulularia. A Study of the Original of Plautus’ Masterpiece (Mnemosyne Supplements 2) (Leiden, 1940), 89–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hunter, R.L., ‘The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original’, PCPhS 27 (1981), 37–49Google Scholar, at 39–41.

20 Stärk (n. 2), 100–2. Cf. Fraenkel (n. 3), 77–9 on the mythological references in 745 and 748.

21 Webster, T.B.L., Studies in Later Greek Comedy (Manchester, 1953), 70Google Scholar; Braun (n. 6), 211 n. 50. Primmer (n. 7), 111 n. 46 argues in support of his hypothesis of a Plautine omission here that it would explain the rather drastic telescoping of dramatic time.

22 Stärk (n. 2), 103–4. Other Plautine examples of a character left idle on stage for a long period include 966–96, Bacch. 925–78, Mostell. 684–784.

23 Gratwick (n. 6), 208.

24 Gratwick (n. 6), 209–10.

25 Stärk (n. 2), 102–3.

26 Fantham, E., ‘Mania e medicina nei Menaechmi e altri testi’, in Raffaelli, R. and Tontini, A. (edd.), Lecturae plautinae Sarsinates X: Menaechmi (Urbino, 2007), 23–45Google Scholar; cf. Stärk (n. 2), 105–9.

27 Stärk (n. 2), 107; cf. Fantham (n. 26), 35.

28 Stärk (n. 2), 107.

29 Stark (n. 2), 108; Fantham (n. 26), 30; Masciadri (n. 7), 132 n. 62; Stärk (n. 2), 106–9 also notes several small incongruities in the passage, some of which have been attributed to textual corruption.

30 Leo, F., Plautinische Forschungen (Berlin, 19122), 134Google Scholar; Frank, T., ‘Two notes on Plautus’, AJPh 53 (1932), 243–51Google Scholar, at 246–8; Webster (n. 21), 69, 133.

31 Fantham (n. 26).

32 Lefèvre, E., Plautus und Philemon (Tübingen, 1995), 38–9Google Scholar. The same Euripidean play seems to have inspired Plautus to create a novel kind of prologue for the Trinummus: like Iris sending Lyssa into the house of Heracles (HF 822–74), Luxuria sends Inopia into the house of Charinus (cf. Lefèvre [this note], 86–8; J.C.B. Lowe, ‘The prologue of Plautus, Trinummus’, RhM [forthcoming]). Somewhat similar to the chariot-motif in the Menaechmi and the Mercator is Alcesimarchus’ crazed demand for armour, horse and soldiers in Cist. 283–95, but the interpretation of that lacunose passage is quite uncertain. It could be Plautine exaggeration of a pretended threat to go into exile similar to that of Charinus in Men. Sam. 658–87; cf. Stockert, W., T. Maccius Plautus Cistellaria (Munich, 2012)Google Scholar, ad loc.

33 Cf.  Capt. 562 and Ter. Phorm. 6–8; Hunter (n. 7), 29 n. 34; Stärk (n. 2), 105; Fantham (n. 26), 32–9.

34 Ladewig, T., ‘Einleitung und Anmerkungen zu den Menaechmis des Plautus’, Philologus 1 (1846), 275–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 289 = Schriften zum römischen Drama republikanischer Zeit (Munich and Leipzig, 2001), 113–35, at 126.

35 Steidle, W., ‘Zur Komposition von Plautus’ Menaechmi’, RhM 114 (1971), 247–61Google Scholar; cf. Gaiser (n. 18), 1063; Stärk (n. 2), 117–18; Hofmann, W., ‘Zum Verständnis der plautinischen Menaechmi’, in: Reinhardt, U. and Sallmann, K. (edd.), Musa iocosa: Festschrift A. Thierfelder (Hildesheim, 1974), 131–40Google Scholar, at 137; Braun (n. 6), 200–15; Muecke, F., Plautus Menaechmi (Bristol, 1989), 72–3Google Scholar; Hunter (n. 7), 29. The counter-arguments of Woytek, E., ‘Zur Herkunft der Arztszene in den Menaechmi des Plautus’, WS 16 (1982), 165–82Google Scholar and Damen (n. 7), 419–20 are unconvincing.

36 Stark (n. 2), 115–16; Fantham (n. 26), 40–1.

37 Fantham (n. 26), 44.

38 Woytek (n. 35), 165–82.

39 Steidle (n. 35), 259–61. So Gaiser (n. 18), 1063.

40 Cf. Gomme, A.W. and Sandbach, F.H., Menander: A Commentary (Oxford, 1973), 99–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar on Asp. 433–64; Masciadri (n. 7), 121.

41 Gomme and Sandbach (n. 40), on Asp. 459–60.

42 (n. 26), 40.

43 Already Ladewig (n. 34), 289 (= 126) allowed this to be a possibility.

44 Jones, P. Thoresby, T. Macci Plauti Menaechmi (Oxford, 1918), 190Google Scholar; Stärk (n. 2), 117; Fantham (n. 26), 44.

45 Fraenkel (n. 3), 243–5, 349; Webster (n. 21), 70; Stärk (n. 2), 118–19; Primmer (n. 7), 200 n. 20; Masciadri (n. 7), 97.

46 (n. 6), 227–8.

47 Damen (n. 7), 414–16 plausibly argues that the brief presence of Senex in 990–6 is due to Plautus; cf. Gratwick (n. 6), 227. The objections of Braun (n. 6), 215 n. 63 can be met by supposing that in the Greek play the slaves were led by an overseer played by a speaking extra or parachorēgēma.

48 Webster, T.B.L., An Introduction to Menander (Manchester, 1974), 77Google Scholar.

49 So Braun (n. 6), 210.

50 (n. 6), 236. Cf. Thoresby Jones (n. 44), 7–8. Thierfelder, A., De rationibus interpolationum Plautinarum (Leipzig, 1929), 49Google Scholar recognized that at least some of the repetitiveness of the scene was designed to enhance the status of the slave. Cf. Stärk (n. 2), 122–6; Primmer (n. 7), 111.

51 (n. 6), 28–30.

52 Cf. above on 753–72 and 966–89 with nn. 23, 45. Plautine expansion is also clear in 571–601, where the action is delayed for thirty lines, while Menaechmus E delivers a canticum of distinctly Roman content (clientela) and Peniculus and Matrona stand back to observe him (570 huc concedamus, 602 satin audis quae illic loquitur?); cf. Fraenkel (n. 3), 159–60; Gratwick (n. 6), 193–7.