12.2.1 Nausistrata in Phormio: Tradition and innovation

Toward the end of Phormio, Nausistrata discovers that her husband, Chremes, has kept another family– a daughter and a wife – in secret from her on the island of Lemnos. He has, moreover, been spending his wife’s dowry on the Lemnos family’s upkeep (788–791, 1012–1013). When her polygamous husband expresses disapproval of his son’s recent purchase of a courtesan, Nausistrata, already angered over her husband’s infidelity, points out his hypocrisy: “does it seem scandalous to you, if a young man keeps one girlfriend, while you have two wives?” adeo hoc indignum tibi videtur, filius / homo adulescens si habet unam amicam, tu uxores duas? (1040–1041).

Nausistrata follows up this bon mot with a series of quick decisions, which together show that the authority over the familia is, temporarily at least, in her hands. Earlier in the play, she had hinted at her husband’s inability to manage the estate, and wished she could be a man so she could do the task herself (788–793). Now her earlier expressed desire to take control of family affairs comes true as she places her son in charge of the bigamist’s fate (1045–1046), and offers to do the parasite Phormio a favor for having exposed Chremes’ infidelity (1050–1051). (The parasite of course immediately takes her up on the offer and asks for a place at the table.)

Although Terence shaped Nausistrata’s character on the last of the traditional dowered wife type, he gives that shape unique contours. Nausistrata fits the mold in three ways.¹⁹ First, like her Plautine counterpart, Nausistrata is “savage” (saeva, 744) and outspoken (792–793). Like the dowered wife in Pautus, she, too, has “dog-like” characteristics.²⁰ Second, like other plays with dowered wives – think Casina or Asinaria – Phormio ends with the discomfiture of the old man and the dowered wife’s assuming control over family affairs. In all these plays – both Plautine and Terentian – wives triumph over lecherous husbands. But it should be noted that the ending of Phormio stands in stark contrast to others in Terence’s oeuvre where the father reasserts his authority over his family (think Demea in Adelphoe, Chremes and Menedemus in Heautontimoroumenos, and Simo in Andria). Finally, like her Plautine counterparts, Nausistrata’s speech reflects her dominant role. Besides the interruption, unique among matrons in Roman comedy, both her present imperatives occur in this final scene, after the revelation of Chremes’ misdeeds (1042, 1048); and Terence assigns to her one of the few boosting hedges put in the mouths of women.

However, Nausistrata also stands apart from the stock character type. Her desire to control her dowry is well motivated: she sees that her husband mismanages it, and, as mentioned, wishes she were a man so she could do it herself (788–793). Nausistrata’s family-mindedness here contrasts with the Plautine dowered-wife’s single-minded drive, in Casina, to keep the eponymous maidservant in her possession simply because the servant is hers: “she is mine and was raised at my expense” (Cas. 194). Siess noted another point of contrast: unlike Matrona in Menaechmi, or Artemona in Asinaria, Nausistrata rewards the parasite for his revelation of the husband’s infidelity (1050–1054).²¹ In these two points then – concern for her family and generosity – Nausistrata stands apart from the Plautine dowered wife, while remaining recognizably within the confines of that traditional role.²²

12.3.1 Heus

Before considering patterns relevant to heus, it will be useful to briefly review how the particle is used in dialogue. Apart from summoning the addressee, heus both secures the attention of the hearer and prefigures most often a question or command.²⁷ As an attention-getter, 45.1 percent of all tokens in Roman comedy initiate conversation (60 of 133 total examples), 38.3 percent re-establish contact with the addressee during an already on-going conversation (51 examples); a minority (16.5 percent) serve, like the English “tell me something” above, to focus the addressee’s attention on an upcoming utterance (22 examples).²⁸ The following passages illustrate each one of these context-specific functions of heus.

When it initiates a conversation (7., above), heus functions like the modern telephone ring: void of lexical meaning, it is an audible signal whose purpose is to gain the interlocutor’s attention, which is a necessary precondition for conversation.²⁹ One further example:

Aeschinus’ heus does not select an addressee out from a group (again, compare a phone ring, followed by several people going to answer at the same time). With heus, therefore, a vocative must often be added to select the addressee; in fact, half of all instances in Roman comedy (68 of 133) occur together with a vocative.

Chaerea, in the first example quoted above, exploits this “generic summoning” function of heus in order to avoid a bothersome old man’s attempt to initiate a conversation. Donatus has a nice comment on this.

Thus, Chaerea chooses not to answer the generic summons, only stopping to do so when he hears his name.

Ancient writers assigned the particle to a low register and recognized its colloquial nature: the writer of the rhetorical treatise dedicated to a certain Herennius includes heus in a sample passage illustrating the lowest of the three styles of writing, attenuata figura, a style which “has been brought down to the lowest and everyday type of talk” (4.14).³⁰ In another passage of the same treatise, it also appears when exemplifying sermocinatio, the lifelike representation of the speech of another. In that example, a master addresses a slave: “‘hey [heus],’ he says to Gorgias, the children’s servant, ‘hide the boys, protect them, see to it that you bring them safe to manhood’,” “heus” inquit Gorgiae pedisequo puerorum, “absconde pueros, defende, fac ut incolumis ad adulescentiam perducas” (4.65).

The only time the particle makes an appearance in Cicero’s speeches is in fact when Cicero employs the very device of sermocinatio, in his defense of the bodyguard T. Annius Milo, when discounting slave testimony procured by the opposition under torture.

In Ciceronian dialogues, where the particle would seem most at home, it appears only once, in a dialogue reported recta oratio. The context there is informal and playful.³¹ But most often heus appears in the letters. Eleven of the 13 instances appear in letters addressed to those in Cicero’s most intimate circle: Atticus, Quintus, and Tiro.³² The remaining two instances are addressed to close friends. A certain M. Fadius Gallus, a friend of Cicero’s since 57, and one who shares his literary tastes and political alignment, is the recipient of a letter dated 45 BCE, in which Cicero urges his friend to lay his work on Cato aside, now that Caesar’s return is imminent: “But hey, you, take your hand from the tablet.³³ Teacher’s coming rather sooner than we’d thought. I’m afraid that the Catonists might end up in the can,” sed heus tu, manum de tabula! magister adest citius, quam putaramus; vereor, ne in catomum Catoni<a>nos (7.25 Shackleton-Bailey). Finally, C. Trebatius Testa, Cicero’s friend and protégé receives a jesting letter, in which Cicero expresses happiness at his friend’s improved health: “But listen [sed heus tu]: how are you? Is anything up? I see that you’re joking in your letters: these signs [signa] are better than the ones [signa] in my estate at Tusculum,” sed heus tu, quid agis? ecquid fit? video enim te iam iocari per litteras. haec signa meliora sunt quam in meo Tusculano (7.11.2 Shackleton-Bailey).³⁴ In these two examples, Cicero jokes with the addressee: note the word-play catonium–Catoninos in the letter to Fadius and the double-entendre in signa in his remarks to Trebatius. Elsewhere, too, the particle accompanies a joke (ad Att. 6.1.13, 6.6.2). The jokes themselves are positive-politeness devices that hint at an intimate connection between speaker and addressee.³⁵ By joking and using the low-register/informal particle heus with his addressee, Cicero indicates that he is willing to abandon a more formal manner of speaking with a friend. How is it used in comedy?

As noted above, the particle appears in two rhetorical simulationes – one from pro Milone and one in Ad Herennium; these are both directed at slaves. In Roman comedy, nearly half of the instances are addressed to slaves (65 of the total 133).³⁶ Moreover, the number of tokens of heus Plautus assigns to “high” characters – senes, adulescentes, matronae, and virgines – is quite low: 30 of the total 101 examples in that author, representing a proportion of 29.7 percent. The expected proportion was 41.2 percent. The chi-square test shows that Plautus prefers to give heus to low-status, rather than high-status characters.³⁷ In Terence, however, the same test shows that the particle is distributed at random throughout the plays.

When high status characters in Roman comedy utter heus, they usually direct the particle to low-status characters. Of the tokens put in high-status characters’ mouths, 86.7 percent are directed at low-status characters in Plautus (26 of 30 examples). Nine of the total 14 tokens Terence puts in high-status characters’ mouths, or 64.3 percent, occur in speech directed to low-status characters. I do not have the proportion of speech in Roman comedy directed to low-status characters, but these proportions seem high. The exceptions to the tendency for high-status characters to direct the particle to their inferiors are few and notable.³⁸

As observed in Chapter 1, heus is also characteristic of male speech. Plautus studiously avoids assigning the particle to women; Terence probably avoids doing so.³⁹ Women speak only three instances of the total 133 instances in comedy; in all three passages, the female character addresses a slave.⁴⁰ These findings suggest that the particle was not considered appropriate for women, nor for use with equals. If this pattern continues into the period of the later Republic, when Cicero used the particle thus (in the presence of an equal), this implies that speaker and addressee were on such intimate terms that they could use heus with each other without incurring offense. That heus is avoided in the higher registers of epic and tragedy, is frequent in comedy, and almost exclusively used by Cicero in letters guarantees its status as a low-register particle.

When and why does the particle appear in serious literature? In Republican and early Augustan literature, heus appears twice in Roman tragedy; one of these is probably an address to servants, a common use in Roman comedy, as we saw.⁴¹ Both of its two appearances in Vergil occur in Aeneid, in passages that, in addition to heus, bear other traces of comic diction. In one of the two passages, Venus speaks heus when, disguised as a huntress, she calls to her son: “‘Hey’ she said, ‘young men, show me if by chance you’ve seen any of my sisters wandering here’,” “heus” inquit, “iuvenes, monstrate, mearum/ vidistis si quam hic errantem forte sororum” (1.321–322). Heus, which, as we saw, is characteristic of male speech and speech of low-status characters in Plautus, is perfectly suited to the language of the masculine Carthaginian huntress that Venus claims to be.⁴² In the other passage, Ascanius jestingly (adludens) refers to the Harpy Celaeno’s prophecy (3.255–257) whereby founding Rome would be impossible until the Trojans ate their own tables: “‘Hey, are we eating our tables?’ asked Iulus in jest, nor did he say more,” “heus, etiam mensas consumimus” inquit Iulus, / nec plura, adludens (7.116–117). The humorous tone of the passage is underscored by heus, which, as we have seen, also appears with jokes in Cicero’s letters.

12.3.2 Eho

Eho overlaps with heus insofar as (1) it functions as a summons, though much less frequently used than heus in this context: 4 of the total 90 instances in Roman comedy;⁴³ (2) it serves as an attention-getter within conversation, to re-establish contact with the addressee (16 instances), or to initiate a conversation (5 instances); (3) it focuses attention on an upcoming utterance (16 instances).

Finally, eho most often occurs with angry, indignant, or surprised questions (often with the addition of the particle an; total 49 instances).⁴⁴ Consider passage (13) as an example.

Apart from this important difference between eho and heus – the former is predominantly used to introduce emotionally excited questions – there is a further distinction. Plautus favors heus to eho as an attention-getter: one instance of attention-getting or summoning eho appears for every four of heus in his comedies. Terence prefers eho in those functions, as it appears once for every two instances of heus.⁴⁵

The particle is not characteristic of female or male speech.⁴⁶ Terence, however, confines the particle to low-status women: maidservants (An. 766, Eu. 736, 856), and courtesans (Hec. 100). In Plautus, when the dowered wife directs eho to her husband as an attention-getter, this accords with her “bossy” tone: “Hey you, worthless, grey-haired gnat, I can scarcely keep my self from telling you the things that suit you,” eho tu nihili, cana culex, vix teneor quin quae decent te dicam (Cas. 239). This is the only occasion on which a woman directs “attention-getting” eho to a superior.⁴⁷ In Terence, women never use attention-getting eho.

If we consider eho holistically, we find that low-status characters rarely direct the particle to superiors. On the four occasions when women speak the particle to high-status characters, the situation is remarkable for some reason. We’ve already considered the single instance of “attention-getting” eho in the mouth of a dowered wife. As for the remaining examples, a maidservant in Poenulus expresses surprise when her Carthaginian master doesn’t recognize her.

But here, it may be significant that the addressee is the Carthaginian gentleman, Hanno.⁴⁸ A maidservant directs eho twice to a young man in Eunuch (736, 856). But in the first case the young man is quite drunk, which perhaps obviates the need to address him in the socially appropriate way, and in the second case, the young man is Chaerea, costumed as a eunuch. In Chapter 17, I show that when he is so disguised, Chaerea is addressed as a low-status character would be.

In Plautus, low-status men rarely direct eho to their superiors. Of the 23 instances the playwright puts in the mouth of low-status men, only five are spoken to superiors, and on each occasion the speaker is a trickster.⁴⁹ The pattern is the same in Terence. Low-status characters employ eho eight times. On four occasions, a low-status character directs the particle to a superior, and on each occasion, the speaker is a trickster.⁵⁰ From the foregoing, we may tentatively conclude that eho was not, as a rule, directed to superiors, and that in its attention-getting use, it was avoided by women.

12.3.3 Audin

We now move from “primary” signals to secondary ones: audin and quid ais. Both have a speech-act function as a command, to be distinguished from their use as a literal question. The following example illustrates the use of audin as a literal question.

Of the 45 instances of audin in Roman drama, 20 convey questions like the foregoing.⁵¹ Audin, however, when used as an interactional particle, features in the remaining 25 examples. Its use can be illustrated in the following passage.

Messenio, who has just finished speaking aside, now attempts to get his master’s attention with audin. Four instances of audin function as attempts to get the addressee’s attention and prefigure announcements, like Messenio’s audin does. Most often, though, audin prefigures requests (19 total); least often, questions (1 example); in one further example it appears to merely grab the addressee’s attention.⁵²

In 12 of the total 25 total instances of “pragmatic” audin, the speaker gets the attention of a character exiting the stage. In most of these, the speaker anticipates with audin a command to a slave or maidservant before the latter leaves the stage. To take one example from Casina, the lustful Lysidamus wants to get back inside his house, but the beautiful maidservant Casina, who is still inside, has allegedly gone insane and threatened him and his bailiff with death by sword. The would-be lecher begs his maidservant to have Casina pacified.

That audin is not responded to in this passage provides a further clue that it is not intended literally. In all but one of the 12 cases the exiting character is a low-status character, to whom the speaker wishes to give an order: a slave or a maidservant.⁵³ The one exception, from Trinummus, deserves closer inspection. It occurs during a scene when two old men hatch a plot to furnish a young lady with a dowry for her marriage.

While the passage does constitute an exception to the apparent rule (that audin is addressed only to low-status characters upon the latter departing the stage), it is situated in a scene in which both old men adopt a role unusual for an old man: that of a trickster.⁵⁴

Megaronides, who comes up with the plan, adopts the language of a tricky slave in this scene. The responsibility of training (meditari) another in deceit, given to Megaronides here, falls on the tricky slave (with Trin. 817 compare Ep. 375). The language in which Megaronides describes his plan echoes that of Palaestrio (Trin. 765–777, compare Mil. 908–913). Furthermore, one of his lines echoes a line of Palaestrio. Compare passage (19), Megaronides speaking to his friend, with passage (20), Palaestrio addressing an old man.

Callicles, the recipient of the plan, has just 12 lines previously praised his peer’s cunning, then expressed shame at having to play the trickster himself: “quite cleverly and well done! / Although I am ashamed to play the trickster at this time of my life,” sati’ scite et probe! / quamquam hoc me aetatis sycophantari pudet (786–787). Megaronides’ audin, then, addressed to Callicles, should be considered in this context, one in which the two old men are adopting roles and language not typical for the old man stock-character type.

Generally speaking, both authors restrict, or prefer to have speakers address, audin to low-status characters. In Terence, five of six examples of audin are addressed to low-status characters: four pre-requests addressed to a slave or maidservant (An. 299, 865, Eu. 706, Hec. 78), and one instance, a pre-announcement addressed to a soldier.⁵⁵

As for the distribution of audin in Plautine comedy, 68 percent, or 13 of the 19 total instances of audin are addressed to slaves or maidservants. All but one of the six exceptional instances can be explained and prove significant in themselves. Of the three examples addressed to old men, one (Trin. 799) has already been discussed above. It is surely significant that the remaining two of the three directed to old men are spoken to the Punic gentleman, Hanno, whose dress and language mark him as an outsider (Poen. 1006, 1155).⁵⁶ Two are addressed to a young man believed to be insane: the young man in Mercator (Mer. 953), and Menaechmus of Sicily (Men.310).⁵⁷

The last of these six total examples directed to high-status characters is again spoken to a young man. In Menaechmi, the “good” slave Messenio has been told to be quiet, but in an aside confesses he feels compelled to speak; see passage (16) above. That is, Menaechmus’ dire financial situation compels Messenio to address him again. To this passage we may compare others in which slaves, before speaking out of turn, signal their need to do so in their master’s interests.⁵⁸

Thus, in both Plautus and Terence, speakers share a preference for addressing pragmatic audin to a low-status character. In those exceptional instances when a high-status character is addressed, that addressee is an outsider or behaves in an atypical or wrongheaded manner.

Finally, audin is altogether avoided by female characters in Roman comedy. With only 25 instances of pragmatic audin, we should not attach too much significance to this finding. It is worth noting that there are no instances of audin attested in Republican Latin outside of Roman comedy. This is perhaps due to the fact that, outside of the comedies, few representations of dialogue are extant in Republican Latin literature.

12.3.4 Quid ais?

We can discern something of this expression’s brusque tone from a fable by Phaedrus. In the relevant passage, Pompey grabs the attention of an effeminate soldier suspected of pilfering the general’s baggage mules, which had been loaded down with plunder.

Like audin, quid ais is a “secondary” dialogue signal, a phrase that has become grammaticalized as an attention-getter. Like the previous three attention-getters, it belongs to the colloquial register of Latin. The phrase is virtually restricted to those genres in which an addressee is present or presumed to be present.⁵⁹ There are 126 instances in Plautus and Terence.⁶⁰ In Cicero’s works, quid ais appears seven times in letters to Atticus and once in the collection ad Familiares (in a letter to Marcus Caelius). The orator employs the phrase 12 times in his courtroom speeches and only once in a philosophical dialogue.⁶¹ All of this evidence points to the conclusion that the phrase was part of the spoken language. It probably also belongs to a low register, for there are no instances in tragedy.⁶²

There are two kinds of quid ais.⁶³ One kind “looks backward” and can be translated simply “what are you saying?” With this sense, the phrase registers incomprehension at what has been said.⁶⁴ Cicero, during his prosecution of Verres, asks a witness to clarify testimony as follows: “What are you saying? Speak, speak, please, more loudly so that the Roman people may hear about its taxes, farmers, allies and friends,” Quid ais? Dic, dic, quaeso, clarius, ut populus Romanus de suis vectigalibus, de suis aratoribus, de suis sociis atque amicis audiat.⁶⁵ Of this kind of quid ais, there is perhaps only one example in Roman comedy.⁶⁶

Much more typical is a usage whereby quid ais expresses surprise at a previous utterance. For instance, Phaedria in Eunuch reacts in shock on learning that the eunuch he has given to Thais as a gift committed an unspeakable act.

Phaedria of course understands what Pythias has said: unlike the example from Cicero’s Verrine orations, his quid ais is not a request for clarification; rather, it conveys surprise.⁶⁷ Donatus captures this very point in his comment on the passage: hoc admirantis est potius quam interrogantis: “this is [the utterance] of a person amazed, rather than of one asking a question” (ad 653).⁶⁸

In the second type of quid ais the expression “looks forward.” The following excerpt from Menaechmi illustrates this use.

Note that here quid ais prefigures an upcoming utterance (typically a question).⁶⁹ Note that, at the same time, it regains the attention of the addressee (Messenio had broken off contact with Menaechmus of Epidamnus ten lines previous, and now tries to regain his attention); this is a common use.⁷⁰ Note also the imperatival force, as captured by the translation (“tell me”). The tone tends to be especially demanding, as Hey notes: “most often this question directs the hearer’s attention to a second question, rather intensely demanding that a response be given to it,” saepissime vero haec interrogatio animum audientis ad alteram advertit interrogationem, intentius nempe flagitans, ut huic respondeatur.⁷¹

With these facts established, we can turn to the distribution of quid ais in male and female speech. In Plautus’ comedies, quid ais is a markedly masculine phrase.⁷² Women speak only 3 of the total 89 instances, representing a proportion of 3.4 percent, well under the expected one of 13.9 percent and a statistically significant result. For the sake of comparison, Terence puts the expression in the mouths of women 4 times, amounting to a proportion of 10.8 percent of the total 37 instances of quid ais. This result is not statistically significant (that is, it probably reflects a random distribution of tokens of quid ais in the plays). It is, however, worth noting, first, that in all these instances, the female character addresses a slave, and, second, that in only one of these four instances does the female character employ “attention-getting” quid ais, and that instance is put in the mouth of a courtesan, whose speech style is typically assertive (Eun. 829).⁷³

What accounts for the “male character” of quid ais in Plautus? To answer the question, it is necessary to note that most of the instances of quid ais in Plautus are of the second type surveyed above, quid ais when it means something like “tell me”: 81 of the 89 examples, or 91 percent.⁷⁴ As already noted, this particular usage of quid ais has a commanding tone. For this reason, that is, because of its predominantly commanding tone in his plays, the playwright did not feel it appropriate for his female characters, whose speech, as has been noted, is generally polite and deferential.

With this context we can now interpret the exceptions when women speak quid ais in Plautus. In Asinaria, a lena twice reminds her daughter of her imperium (505, 509) and issues an ultimatum: this is the last day on which the daughter will see her lover exclusively (532–534). With this attempt to bring her daughter under her imperium – a word she repeats twice within five lines – the lena assumes a male role, that of a paterfamilias. Her quid ais is in keeping with this masculine role and the commanding line she takes throughout the scene.

Of the two remaining instances, Plautus attributes one to a dowered wife, Dorippa of Mercator. The dowered wife interrupts a harried exchange between the cook and her husband, securing the latter’s attention with quid ais, the only time in Roman comedy when a woman directs quid ais to a male character: “Tell me something. Did they order these things too to be brought over to you?” quid ais tu? etiamne haec illi tibi / iusserunt ferri? (Mer. 751–752). With its typical directive force (“tell me”), this “attention-getting” quid ais is entirely suited to the “commanding” linguistic style of the dowered wife.

The remaining example is assigned to the pseudo-courtesan Adelphasium. At line 313 she gets her sister’s attention, eho tu, quid ais, “Hey you, tell me this.” The addressee, Anterastilis, signals that she is ready to listen (quid rogas, 313), and Adelphasium then draws attention to her own sparkling eyes (314). We should consider this remarkable instance of quid ais together with another fact. Martin notes that of “Plautus’ numerous examples [of apage], only once is it put in the mouth of a woman, at Poenulus 225 in the soliloquy of Adelphasium.”⁷⁵ Thus Adelphasium utters two typically masculine speech markers, quid ais and apage. Adelphasium’s speech is masculine also with respect to its content. Dutsch remarks that this pseudo-courtesan assumes both a male role as judging subject, speaking critically of women, and, as a female character, she stands as object of that criticism. Thus, Adelphasium’s talk contains “purportedly masculine and feminine threads [that] intertwine to form a through-provoking texture of a (fe)male voice.”⁷⁶

But why should this sister’s speech be markedly masculine in tone? First, we note that Adelphasium’s masculine speech markers all occur in scene 1.2 (Poen. 210–409). In this scene, Adelphasium and Anterastilis are characterized far differently than they are later on. For in the earlier scene, 1.2, they are depicted as experienced courtesans, while in later appearances, they are the image of virtuous innocence.⁷⁷ Partly on this basis, Fraenkel had shown that Plautus inserted scene 1.2, and this scene alone, into his adaptation of the Greek original, the Carchedonius.⁷⁸ The original of the inserted scene featured two hetaerae on their way to celebrate the Aphrodisia at the temple of Venus. In adapting it, Plautus preserved the characterization of Adelphasium as meretrix by endowing her with a masculine speech style.⁷⁹

How do Plautus and Terence differ in their use of the phrase? First, Terence favors the quid ais which conveys surprise: 57 percent of the total (21 of 37 instances); in Plautus, “surprised” quid ais occurs in only 8 percent of the examples (7 of the total 89).⁸⁰ Thamm had also noticed that Terence uses “surprised” quid ais more often than the attention-getting kind. He suggests that this preference results both from the African playwright’s avoidance of (pragmatic) formulae and the near absence of a like expression in the remains of his Greek forebear.⁸¹ With Thamm’s first point, I agree: most examples of “attention-getting” quid ais – 11 out of 16 – appear in the early Andria or the deliberately Plautine Eunuch. Terence, then, probably felt the “attention-getting” variety of quid ais to be less appropriate to the style of his plays. As to Thamm’s second point, that the analogue of quid ais is nearly absent in the remains of Menander, I find only three examples of the equivalent τί λέγεις functioning as a directive in the Greek author’s plays. No instances of τί φῄς function as an attention-getter. Rather, the latter expression either registers surprise or asks for clarification.⁸²

13.3.1 Salve, salvus sis, and salveto

Is Lysiteles’ greeting to Callicles, salve Callicles, with its arrangement salve + vocative, distinguishable in any respect from the semantically identical greeting, Callicles salve, with the reverse arrangement? In Plautus, greetings like Callicles salve, that is, vocative + salve, are much preferred to greetings that exhibit the reverse word order. That is, 50 percent of the initiating greetings in Plautus that contain salve, salveto, or salvus sis exhibit the word order in Callicles salve (49 of 99 total examples).

There are no discernible distinctions in register or politeness between the two variations, either in Plautus or Terence. The reverse type, salve Callicles appears in 25 percent of the total initiating greetings. Most examples of the type are directed at intimates, but some are spoken in rude contexts, and others to strangers. Speakers, however, prefer this type, salve Callicles, for return greetings: 33 percent of the total return greetings that contain vocative + salve, salve + vocative, salve, salveto, salvus/a sis, or the simple returns et tu or et te (13 of 39 examples); next most frequent is salve alone (9 of 39). Only 5.1 percent have the greeting format Callicles salve (2 of 39 examples).

These figures parallel what Müller has found for Terence. In the later playwright, vocative + salve (Menedeme, salve, Hau. 427) is much more frequent as an introductory formula than salve + vocative (salve Pamphile, Hec. 855).³² But other than their preferred positions within the discourse, there are, again, no discernible distinctions in register or politeness between the two variations. Thus Lysiteles’ greeting at passage (8) is a standard, if less frequently used, introductory greeting form.

Let us consider how these two variants – Callicles salve and salve Callices – are distributed in the fragments of light and serious Roman drama. There are ten greetings or parts of greetings in the fragments.³³ In fragments of light verse, we always find the order vocative + salve, the variety that most often initiates conversations. Context suggests that in two of these fragments from light drama the vocative + salve phrase indeed initiates a conversation. The first of these two passages has already been discussed above, at passage (7) in section 10.2.4. The other comes from an exchange in the Corollaria, a palliata play of Naevius.

The addressee’s refusal to reciprocate the greeting and the nearly inarticulate attat attatae, which expresses suprirse, convey to us a breakdown in the conversation already from its start. This inability or refusal properly to inaugurate linguistic interaction suits an attempted conversation between rivals.³⁴

The greeting in an Afranius togata play probably initiates a conversation.

Apart from this greeting, all other passages in the tragic fragments have salve + vocative. In two of these, we lack the context needed to determine how the greeting fits into the surrounding discourse. First, in Pacuvius’ Antiopa, Antiope at last reunites with her twin sons, greeting them with the words salvete, gemini, mea propages sanguinis, “greetings, twins, progeny of my own blood” (Pac. trag. 20R³).³⁶ In Pacuvius’ Medus, Medea, disguised as a priestess of Diana, returns to Colchis, whose people are suffering from famine. She is greeted eagerly by the speaker(s) thus: caelitum camilla, expectata advenis, salve hospita, “servant of the heavenly ones, you arrive as one expected; greetings, guest” (Pac. trag. 232R³).³⁷ Finally, consider Medea’s greeting to her children from another play featuring the heroine, the Medea Exul of Ennius.

Euripides’ Medea is the model for Ennius’ Medea Exul.³⁹ In the famous scene from Euripides’ play, Medea debates with herself whether to murder her children, while they stand on stage. She occasionally turns to speak directly to them (1021–1042, 1053). When she finally decides to commit filicide (Eur. Med. 1067–1068), she directs to her children the last words they will ever hear from her, asking them to give their right hands “to hold fondly”.⁴⁰ This passage is what Ennius translates above at (12). If Ennius had followed his model closely prior to these verses, Medea’s salvete would not initiate a conversation with her children; rather, it perversely functions as a farewell to them. This might be another instance, then, of Medea’s perversion of social rituals: before this point, she has upended ritual language to ask those who are pure to keep away from a “ritual” that is impure (that is, the filicide, Eur. Med. 1053–1055); and she manipulates the speech acts of the oath and supplication to gain her ends.⁴¹

In her study of conversation openings in the tragedies of Seneca, Roesch finds that the characters do not greet each other; and that the lack of greetings is the result of the nature of the tragic hero: beyond the pale of human society, he or she does not or cannot participate in the conventions of that society, which include greeting rituals.⁴²

The same is not true for tragic dramatists of the Republican era: characters in tragedy do employ the greeting. From the fragments of their plays, we may conclude tentatively that these greetings are more varied than their comic counterparts. What is more, the tragic playwrights appear to avoid the standard vocative + salve greeting, often used to initiate greetings in comedy, perhaps because even in this particular, they wished to distinguish their idiom from that of comedy. We will consider the last of the five examples of greetings in serious drama when we discuss third person greetings, below.

To return now to Roman comedy, in Plautus, salvus sis exhibits a preference for initial position; that is, it typically initiates greetings.⁴³ Salve is indifferent in this regard: ten appear in the initial position, nine as return greetings. Salvus sis and variants are perhaps neutral with respect to register.⁴⁴ I find one occurrence in the fragments of drama, from Naevius’ Tarentilla. There, one of the two slaves of the wayward young men, who have reunited with their fathers in Tarentum, greet the old men as follows: salvi et fortunati sitis, duo duum nostrum patres (com. 86R³).⁴⁵ Given the evidence from Plautus, the slave likely initiates the conversation with the masters’ fathers in this way. Perhaps the form was felt to be outmoded already by the middle of the second century, when Terence was writing. In his plays, it appears three times – two of these appear in the early Andria – and always in the mouth of an old character, or addressed to an old character.⁴⁶

To sum up, vocative + salve, salve + vocative, and salvus sis are neutral with respect to politeness. Salvus sis is probably neutral with respect to register, and the presence of salve in both tragedy and comedy suggests that it, too, is neutral in that regard. We have omitted salveto in the foregoing discussion. This expression, too, betrays no sign of belonging to a high register. It is used politely or mock-politely. Four of the seven total return initial greetings; two initiate greetings, and one is not used as a greeting at all.⁴⁷ In this last case, salveto signals a changed relationship between speaker and addressee: with salveto, a slave greets his true master, whom he has just distinguished from the master’s twin (Men. 1076).

13.3.2 Iubeo te salvere, the di te ament type, and others

Let us now analyze some alternatives to salve, beginning with quid ais. Terence has characters initiate a conversation with quid ais. When the character does so, he is angry and the conversation-opener is rude because it implies that the speaker wishes to get directly to the point (Hec. 523, Ph. 833). In Plautus, quid ais can re-initiate a conversation, even after a lengthy period during which the interlocutors have not made contact, but Plautus does not use quid ais to initiate a conversation.⁴⁸

The other two conversation-initiating signals to be considered here are polite: iubeo te salvere and di te ament. There are 16 examples of the former phrase in Roman comedy. I find no examples in the fragments. The formal intercession of the young man on his friend’s behalf, which concludes Mostellaria, furnishes a typical example.

Callidamates, the young man who speaks first in the passage, has just prior to this encounter identified himself as an orator, an ambassador coming on his friend’s behalf (1126). He therefore must be circumspect and polite in order to gain his object, which is nothing less than the old man’s forgiveness of his own profligate son. The initial iubeo te salvere greeting strikes the appropriate tone. As a formal and polite greeting, suited to addressing non-intimates, we find it in addresses to gods, quasi-divine beings, and priestesses (Bac. 172, Cur. 147, Rud. 263), in exchanges between strangers, which include prologue speakers addressing audiences (Cas. 1, Cur. 723, Poen. 621, Rud. 1055), and, like passage (13) above, in exchanges between non-intimates (Cur. 560, Truc. 577). At the end of the Casina, when Lysidamus has been caught in attempted adultery, his wife’s greeting signals her estrangement from the man: iubeo te salvere, amator (Cas. 969). There are 14 Plautine examples. We have discussed 11. In the remaining three, tricky slaves facetiously adopt a polite and formal tone (As. 297, Mos. 568, Ps. 454). Both Terentian examples are spoken by old men to old men, at the start of very serious and formal scenes (An. 533, Ad. 460).⁴⁹

Let us now discuss di te ament and its variants, which include di te amabunt and di dent quae velis. For convenience’s sake, I will call the form the di te ament type. This type is most often used in reply to an initial greeting, 21 of the total 24 examples. The remaining three initiate conversation: two are spoken by a slave, and one by an old man to a slave.⁵⁰ It would seem that the phrase, as an initial greeting, is characteristic of slaves. In fact, the exceptional instance – when an old man greets a slave with the phrase – confirms this tendency, for it is found in an “inversion scene,” the last scene of the Pseudolus (1285–1334). There, Simo must hand over the 20 minas he had earlier promised to the titular character. The language in the scene clearly demonstrates Pseudolus’ superior position. Simo points out the slave’s haughty stature and his fearless mien (1287–1289). Later Pseudolus crows over Simo, likening the old man to a conquered enemy (1317), and Simo identifies himself as his slave’s suppliant (1319). It is in this context, then, that Simo greets Pseudolus with di te ament (1294).

With only three examples of conversation-initial di te ament, we cannot be certain about our conclusion that, as an initial greeting, it is particular to slaves. (Terence does not use the expression at all.) It should be noted that of all 24 instances of the type, only one example is assigned to a female speaker.

Nothing in this exchange surprises: it is quite routine. Libanus’ vocative + salve is the expected initial phrase and Philaenium’s reply is also typical, as the statistics have demonstrated. What is surprising, perhaps, is that Philaenium should use dabunt di quae velis at all. For the di te ament type – of which Philaenium’s dabunt di quae velis is a variant – probably was felt to be inappropriate for women. The chi-square calculation suggests that the distribution is statistically significant (23 examples found in male speech; a single one given to a female speaker); that is, that Plautus avoids assigning the phrase to women. Not too much significance, however, should be attached to the result given the small numbers. If, however, the di te ament type is a male idiom, it is noteworthy that the courtesan, who otherwise adopts a masculine speech style, uses the phrase. To conclude, let us note a profligate young man’s initial exchange with his friend’s father.

We know that the duim-type was on its way out in Plautus’ time.⁵¹ Its presence here may simply be due to metrical reasons. But might Lesbonicus, with duint, accommodate his speech to his addressee, the morally upright old man Philto? And what about Philto’s greeting? Are such third person greetings more formal than ones with salve?

13.3.3 The third person greeting

As Poccetti observes, the third person greeting can serve the function of identifying speaker and addressee to the audience.⁵² Accordingly, at his first entrance in Bacchides, Nicobulus is greeted as follows.

But this is the only greeting for which informing the audience might plausibly be adduced as a reason for the choice of third person. If then, we discount this salutation and those which appear in letters, we have a total of 16 third person greetings in Roman comedy.⁵³ Under what circumstances are these used?

We can start with what the ancient commentators say about them. Gnatho’s elaborate third person greeting, “Gnatho imparts upon his best friend Parmeno hearty well-wishes,” plurima salute Parmenonem / summom suom impertit Gnatho (Eu. 270–271), arouses the following comment from Donatus.

Donatus at least has understood Gnatho’s choice of third person instead of the first and second persons as a “refined” choice. Indeed, elsewhere Donatus points out that, in interactions with others, strategic avoidance of the first and second persons can avert impressions of the speaker’s duritia or superbia.⁵⁴ Even though Donatus is writing much later than Terence, his intuitions about these usages are valuable. On the basis of the ancient scholar’s remarks, we can tentatively conclude that the third person greeting was polite, but a passage from Plautus confirms us in this conclusion.

Here a pimp announces that he will greet his guest politely, then proceeds to use the third person greeting. The form was a polite one, then, and conveyed that politeness by acknowledging a distance that prevails between speaker and addressee. (We could thus identify it as a negatively polite greeting.) Two further remarks can be made relevant to this type of greeting.

First, with this type of greeting, the speaker can encode the relationship between himself and the addressee using the appropriate terms. As Poccetti points out, the well-known greeting of gladiators to the emperor, “Greetings emperor. We who are about to die salute you,” have imperator, morituri te salutant (Suet. Cl. 21), juxtaposes the terms imperator and morituri to identify the relationship between addressee and speaker (note also the chiasmus).⁵⁵ The leno’s greeting above juxtaposes the terms for “guest” and “friend,” hospes hospitem, which anticipates the kind of formal relationship he expects. The absence of names acknowledges that speaker and addressee are unknown to each other.

Second, the third person achieves the effect of distancing the speaker from what he or she says, in effect reporting his or her greeting as if it were the greeting of another.⁵⁶ The distance from the addressee thus achieved may reflect the fact that the interlocutors do not know each other (Poen. 685–686; Mil. 900), or indicate the speaker’s refusal to approach the addressee on more intimate terms because of an angry standoff (Mer. 713, Ad. 792) or for other reasons: for instance, Pistoclerus in Bacchides, who refuses to be seduced by the tempting Bacchis sisters, addresses them circumspectly: “What are the two like-named courtesans doing?” quid agunt duae meretrices cognomines? (Bac. 39).⁵⁷

This polite third person greeting is especially suited, one might think, to tragedy; but none are found in the fragments (which of course does not mean that the greeting-type did not feature in tragedy at all). We do however find a third person greeting in a praetexta by Naevius (Romulus sive Lupus).

Amulius, as Bettini points out, could have been portrayed as a hateful tyrant, a characterization which could account for the rather curt return greeting here.⁵⁸ Yet without context, the entire passage could be the report of a greeting.⁵⁹

Because it is more carefully elaborated than a simple greeting with vocative + salve, the third person greeting is appropriate to characters whose speech is characteristically long-winded. A slave alludes to the soldier’s notorious garrulousness when he says “I don’t think that a soldier suitably concluded his speech,” haud opinor commode / finem statuisse orationi militem (Hec. 95–96).⁶⁰ The particularly elaborate third person requests of Amphitruo and Stratophanes in Truculentus accord with this style.

To conclude, speakers may use the third person greeting because they are unknown to each other, because the speaker wishes to acknowledge the addressee’s status relative to his or hers, or because the speaker wishes to create social distance from the addressee. In its more baroque manifestations it is suited to Plautus’ vain soldiers and the affected pomposity of the tricky slave and the parasite.⁶²

It should be noted that Terence’s parasite is the only character whose third person greeting comes close to the Plautine examples just cited, and that this “Plautine” greeting occurs in the deliberately Plautine Eunuch. All the remaining third person greetings in Terence are simple phrases with which the character gains the attention of the addressee to start the dialogue: eccum adest (Ad. 792), quid Davos narrat (An. 434), praesto adest (Eu. 150) and praestost (Ph. 51). Terence, moreover, uses the parasite’s Plautine greeting with good motivation: it further characterizes him as fulsome and insincere.