A.1.1 Introduction

I utilize Gilleland’s exhaustive word count of the extant corpus of Roman comedy in my calculations.¹ This Appendix lays out lines (as defined in Chapter 1) distributed by character type, gender and status.

A.1.2 Total speech by character type – men

Associated with each character type are two data: the absolute number of lines and the proportion this number represents of the total lines given to all male characters. Table A.1.1 groups separately those characters that do not fit any stock role.² Unnamed prologue and epilogue speakers are not included in this table.³

As the argument in Chapter 2 has shown, there is reason to distinguish the language of tricky slaves from other slaves. Tricky slaves in Plautus: Leonida and Libanus (As.), Epidicus (Epid.), Chrysalus (Bac.), Tranio (Mos.), Palaestrio (Mil.), Sagaristio (except when he plays the role of the Persian guest), Toxilus (Per.), Milphio (Poen.), Pseudolus and Simia (Ps.). I follow Duckworth in classifying Davus of Andria, Syrus of Heautontimoroumenos, and Syrus of Adelphoe as tricky slaves.⁴

A.1.3 Total speech by character type – women

Table A.1.2 presents lines allotted to each female character type in Plautus and Terence. Madams (lenae) are Cleareta in the Asinaria and Syra (or “Lena”) and Melaenis in the Cistellaria, all of whom are the mothers of courtesans. In Terence, the following are the courtesan characters: Chrysis in the Andria, Bacchis in the Heautontimoroumenos, Thais in the Eunuch, and Philotis and Bacchis in Hecyra. Fidicinae are also included in the count.⁵ As for pseudo-courtesans, in Terence, I count Antiphila of Heautontimoroumenos, whose recognition gets under way starting with line 614, but who speaks all of her lines before then, in scene II.4; and Glycerium of Andria (recognition proceeds after line 796, but who speaks before then at lines 473 and 773–774). Women classed under “Other” are Acroteleutium, when she impersonates a matrona in Mil., and women who are impersonated by male characters in Epid. (24–244, 250–253) and Mil. (61–65), in addition to Ptolemocratia in Rud.⁶ I also include in the “Other” category the women whose speech Epidicus and Artotrogus make up for the benefit of their listener in Epidicus 243–244, 250–253 and Miles Gloriosus 61–65 respectively.

A.1.4 Male and female speech – overview

Table A.1.4 summarizes statistics by gender and status.

Men are assigned 86.2 percent of the speech of all extant Roman comedy; to women is assigned 13.8 percent of the total speech.

A.1.5 Free and slave speech – overview

Table A.1.5.1 divides male characters in Plautus and Terence by status (free/unfree).¹³ Some characters’ status is uncertain, so these have been listed separately under the rubric “Excluded.”¹⁴

This means that for men in Roman comedy generally, 62.7 percent of the total speech is assigned to free characters, 36.0 percent is assigned to slaves (leaving the amount assigned to characters I have excluded at 1.3 percent).

Table A.1.5.2 gives the corresponding figures for female speech.¹⁵

Of the lines assigned to women in Roman comedy, free women speak 59.5 percent and unfree women, 32.2 percent. Women of ambiguous status speak 8.2 percent of the total lines assigned to women in Roman comedy. (This leaves 0.1 percent assigned to characters marked “Excluded.”)

On the whole, 62.2 percent of the total speech in Roman comedy is assigned to free characters, and the corresponding statistic for unfree characters is 35.5 percent.¹⁶

A.1.6 High- and low-status characters

For the distinction between “high” and “low” characters, I have followed Karakasis.¹⁷ Senes, adulescentes, matronae, and virgines form the group of high-status characters; low-status characters consist of slaves, ancillae, meretrices, freedmen, and the professional types – bankers, cooks, lenones, soldiers, and parasites. The pseudomeretrices, as mentioned above, constitute borderline characters. Table A.1.6.1 gives the proportions for male characters.¹⁸

Corresponding figures for female characters can be found in Table A.1.6.2.¹⁹

Table A.1.6.3 lays out the totals.²⁰

In Table A.1.6.4 are itemized the corresponding figures for Terence. (This table should be read across.)

A.2.1 The database

My corpus consists of the 27 fully or partially extant plays of Plautus and Terence, in addition to the fragments of republican Roman drama.¹ All directive speech acts in this corpus are isolated and categorized.

The following forms are not counted:

1. 1 Greetings and leave-taking formulae: salve, vale, and bene ambula(to).²

2. 2 The imperatival intensifiers i and age are not counted as separate directives; instead, these and other intensifiers are considered separately in Chapter 10.³

3. 3 Attention-getting quid ais? for which, see section 12.3.4.

4. 4 Exclamatory phrases: (1) apage;⁴ (2) ultro + accusative: “away with X!” (e.g. Am. 320); (3) abi when used as an interjection;⁵ (4) di immortales obsecro (vostram fidem);⁶ (5) age, when conceding or giving ground: Bac. 89: age igitur, equidem pol nihili facio nisi caussa tua, “fine then: I don’t care myself, except for your sake”;⁷ (6) sine, when it means “very well!”; “agreed!”⁸

5. 5 Generalizing second person subjunctive: Ad. 372: huic mandes siquid recte curatum velis! “You should go ahead and order this man to do it, if you want it done well!”⁹

The following expressions are counted only once (1) abi atque + present imperative;¹⁰ (2) repeated imperatives: Hau. 613: mane, mane. Ellipsed imperatives are counted if the context makes clear the form to be supplied.

A.2.2 Speech acts

I use the following definitions of speech-act types to categorize directives. Instructions occur in specific contexts. Typically, the speaker has a claim to knowledge that is desired by the addressee. Such “speakers” with superior knowledge include the narrator of a legal text or technical manual, and – in comedy – tricky slaves who instruct their addressees in the execution of a plot.¹¹

Addressee-beneficial requests are those that benefit the addressee, for instance “take some more cookies.” Advice and suggestions are in the interest of the addressee: “you should take another aspirin” or “I’d be careful crossing that bridge if I were you.” Risselada describes suggestions as being less binding on the hearer than advice. This distinction proved difficult to make, so in practice I have grouped the two together.¹²

Addressee-beneficial requests, advice, and suggestions are all directives that benefit the hearer in some way. The difference between addressee-beneficial requests on the one hand and advice and suggestions on the other, is that, in the former, the hearer is told to do something she presumably wants to do (take more cookies, have a piece of cake, and so on). By contrast, advice and suggestions recommend actions that are in the interest of the addressee but not necessarily those he or she wants to do (for instance, take that cough-syrup, eat your vegetables, and so on).

Permissions allow the addressee to do something which, as is clear to both participants, she or he wants to do. Compare concessions, or “disinterested permissions: mea quidem hercle caussa salvos sis licet, “be well, for all I care” (Rud. 139).¹³ In challenges, it is clear that the speaker “actually prefers the addressee not to realize the action involved.”¹⁴

Entreaties involve the speaker humbling himself before the addressee to make a request. By abasing him- or herself before the hearer, the speaker flatters the latter.¹⁵

Curses or maledictions express an action that is not controllable by an agent, like “go ahead and sweat, die from frost, or get sick” in the following line: tu vel suda vel peri algu vel tu aegrota vel vale (Rud. 582).

Threats impose sanctions intended to prevent an action or incite the addressee to carry it out. Truculentus 267–268 displays the typical syntax: nisi abis actutum … / iam hercle ego hic te, mulier, quasi sus catulos pedibus proteram, “Unless you get out of here immediately, by golly, I’ll soon tread you underfoot right here, woman, like a sow does her piglets.”

Finally, invitations and proposals are requests which involve both the speaker and the addressee in some way. In either case, the speaker commits him- or herself in some way should the addressee accept the proposal or invitation.¹⁶