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HORSEPLAY IN PLAUTUS’ ASINARIA
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2024
Abstract
This article argues that the game presented in the third scene of the third act of Plautus’ Asinaria involves a horseplay rather than an assplay (Asin. 697–710). This is suggested by the young master's name, Argyrippus, and by a list of equine terms occurring in the text: uehere, inscendere, descendere, subdomari, tolutim, quadrupedo, aduorsom cliuom, in procliui.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
References
1 Henderson, J. (ed.), Asinaria: The One about the Asses. Plautus (Madison, WI, 2006), 210–11Google Scholar.
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3 Gellar-Goad, T.H.M., ‘Assplay in Asinaria’, CQ 72 (2022), 217–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 217.
4 Gellar-Goad (n. 3), 217.
5 Gellar-Goad (n. 3), 220.
6 Asin. 588–90 LE. attatae, modo hercle in mentem uenit, | nimi’ uellem habere perticam. LI. quoi rei? LE. qui uerberarem | asinos, si forte occeperint clamare hinc ex crumina. The text of Plautus cited throughout this article is taken from the edition of Lindsay, W.M., T. Macci Plauti comoediae, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1910)Google Scholar.
7 Persa 316–17 SAG. ah ah! abi atque caue sis | a cornu. TO. quid iam? SAG. quia boues bini hic sunt in crumina.
8 Truc. 654–5 ego †perpera† minas | ouis ín crumina hac <huc> in urbem detuli.
9 Melo, W.D.C. de, Plautus: Stichus, Three-Dollar Day, Truculentus, The Tale of a Travelling-Bag, Fragments (Cambridge, MA, 2013), 341Google Scholar.
10 Gellar-Goad (n. 3), 220. Earlier explained by Gray, J.H., T. Macci Plauti Asinaria (Cambridge, 1894), 85Google Scholar.
11 Cf. Epid. 360 ipse in meo cóllo tuo’ pater cruminam collocauit; Truc. 652 homo cruminam sibi de collo detrahit.
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14 The verb subdomari (a hapax legomenon) in Asin. 702 refers to the humbling of a young man before the servants (cf. OLD s.v. subdomo) and also to the taming of animals (cf. OLD s.v. domo 1). The humour in the phrase sic istic solent superbi subdomari (Asin. 702) lies in the ambiguity of the verb and in the mock tragic style: Porter (n. 13), 143.
15 Otto, A., Die Sprichwörter und Sprichwörtlichen Redensarten der Römer (Leipzig, 1890), 125Google Scholar recognizes a proverbial sentence in this ironical phrase, which means that we treat someone as a stupid man (‘du bist nicht klüger als ein Pferd’).
16 M. Kokoszko, K. Jagusiak, Z. Rzeźnicka, Cereals of Antiquity and Early Byzantine Times: Wheat and Barley in Medical Sources (Second to Seventh Centuries ad) (Łódź, 1997), 322.
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18 Gray (n. 10), 91; Hurka (n. 13), 234.
19 W.D.C. de Melo, Plautus: Amphitryon, The Comedy of Asses, The Pot of Gold, The Two Bacchises, The Captives (Cambridge, 2011), 219.
20 W.D.C. de Melo, ‘The language of Atellan farce’, in R. Raffaelli and A. Tontini (edd.), L'Atellana letteraria. Atti della Prima Giornata di Studi sull'Atellana (Urbino, 2010), 121–55, at 137.
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22 I.L. Ussing, T. Maccii Plauti comoediae, 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1875), 1.415 gives examples of other such calques in Plautine comedies: malacisso (Bacch. 73), moechisso (Cas. 976), patrisso (Mostell. 639, Pseud. 442), cyathisso (Men. 303) and apolactizo (Epid. 678). The verb graecisso (Men. 11) could also be included in this list.
23 Cf. also a pun in Aristophanes’ Birds: 42 τὸν βάδον βαδίζομεν.
24 Hurka (n. 13), 234 identifies the contrast between the sounds of tolutim and badizas. tolutim is Latin and therefore familiar to the audience; badizas is Greek and therefore foreign. However, the whole phrase may have been modelled on the expression from the Greek original: τρέχων βαδίζεις.
25 Ussing (n. 22), 1.415: ‘quadrupedo … cursus significans, non saltui similem, quod tolutim dicebant … , sed eam, qua quattuor equi pedes aequis interuallis solum pulsant’. Similarly, Gray (n. 10), 91.
26 Ortoleva (n. 17), 142; Hurka (n. 13), 234; Porter (n. 13), 144.
27 M.P.J. van den Hout, A Commentary on the Letters of M. Cornelius Fronto (Leiden, 1999), 50.
28 Panayotakis, C., Decimus Laberius: The Fragments (Cambridge, 2010), 410CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. the humorous nonce word tolutiloquentia, ‘a monotonous or jogging flow of speech’ (OLD; a hapax legomenon used by Novius, Gallinaria fr. II Frasinetti o pestifera, Ponticum fera, trux tolutiloquentia) derived from the adjective tolutilis = tolutaris, ‘moving at a trot’ or ‘jogging’; see M. De Nonno, ‘I grammatici e la tradizione dell'Atellana letteraria’, in R. Raffaelli and A. Tontini (edd.), L'Atellana letteraria. Atti della Prima Giornata di Studi sull'Atellana (Urbino, 2010), 37–67, at 40 n. 8; de Melo (n. 20), 140.
29 Sergi (n. 13), 40 n. 15.
30 Cf. Otto (n. 15), 86, who considers the expression equus/caballus in cliuo a proverbial phrase meaning ‘encountering obstacles’.
31 Gellar-Goad (n. 3), 218. Similarly, Traina, A., ‘Uomini e asini (per una rilettura dell’Asinaria)’, BStudLat 44 (2014), 1–6Google Scholar, at 4 n. 19 claims that Argyrippus is first demoted in his social status and then transitions from a human to an animal—a horse—and finally changes from a horse to an ass. Cf. Hurka (n. 13), 233.
32 E. Segal, Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus (New York, 1987), 103–9. See also G. Vogt-Spira, ‘Asinaria oder Maccus vortit Attice’, in E. Lefèvre, E. Stärk and G. Vogt-Spira (edd.), Plautus barbarus. Sechs Kapitel zur Originalität des Plautus (Tübingen, 1991), 11–69, at 52–8.
33 Cf. e.g. Wright, J., Dancing in Chains. The Stylistic Unity of the Comoedia Palliata (Rome, 1974), 50Google Scholar, 63–4.
34 Moritz, L.A., Grain-Mills and Flour in Classical Antiquity (Oxford, 1958), 100Google Scholar.
35 Segal (n. 32), 108; Hurka (n. 13), 235.
36 A.S. Gratwick, ‘Paternal “obsequelia”: some passages of Plautus, Nonius, and Terence’, Hermes 129 (2001), 45–62, at 47 n. 8.
37 Schmidt, K., ‘Die griechischen Personennamen bei Plautus II’, Hermes 37 (1902), 353–90Google Scholar, at 356. Schmidt also notices that the name Ἀργύριππος is a parallel to Χρύσιππος. G. Chiarini, Introduzione a Plauto (Rome and Bari, 1991), 29 claims that the name Argyrippus indicates an inferior horse to the one indicated by the name Chrysippus.
38 Henderson (n. 1), 161; Porter (n. 13), 144. D. Fogazza, ‘Plauto 1935–1975’, Lustrum 19 (1976), 79–296, at 226, following Schwarz (n. 2), 877—‘silbergraues Pferdchen’, ‘Grauschimmel’, ‘Esel’—translates the name ‘il piccolo cavallo grigio, l'asino cioè’. However, the name does not suggest that the horse is small; therefore, it does not refer to an ass.
39 Sergi, E., ‘Giovani e cavalli nell'immaginario antico. Plauto e il tipo dell'efebo in “-ippo”’, in G. Petrone (ed.), Lo sperimentalismo di Plauto. Scritti a margine di letteratura e teatro antichi (Palermo, 1999), 9–27Google Scholar, at 25. Some scholars (Sergi [n. 13], 39; Traina [n. 31], 1 n. 2) see a stylistic figure of antiphrasis in this name, as an adulescens ironically does not possess any silver.
40 Gray (n. 10), 90; Henderson (n. 1), 161.
41 Moritz (n. 34), 100.