Classics 351
January 27, 2022

Erotic Frescoes in Brothel, Pompeii, 1st century CE

Pseudolus (conclusion)

• play about making a Plautine comedy; breaking free of the restraints of Greek New Comedy; injecting musicality, freshness, boisterousness, improvisation, messiness, etc.; Pseudolus's soiling his cloak (pallium, 1280) as symbolic act (cf. fabula palliata, "play in Greek dress")?
  

Plautus's Truculentus

• Greek source play unknown: title after country slave of Strabax's family; "The Fierce One" (Scenes 4, 11, with Astaphium?)
  
  Truculentus 276-280 (Truculentus to Astaphium)
  Me touch you? I solemnly swear by this little hoe of mine
  That I'd rather canoodle with a broad-horned cow out in the country
  And spend the whole night long lying in the straw with her
  Than receive a hundred free nights with the likes of you, dinner included!
  You think country-living's disgraceful? I'm ashamed to even think of your way of life!
  
  The principal characters
  
  Diniarchus (city lover)
  
  Astaphium (Phronesium's slave)
  
  Phronesium (brothel owner & meretrix; "Intelligence" in Greek)

  Stratophanes (soldier-outsider; miles gloriosus)

  Strabax (country lover; "Squinter" in Greek)
  

• late play in Plautus's career, as Pseudolus (191 BCE), ca. 10 years after 2nd Punic War; era of unprecedented Roman wealth, new (esp. Greek) cultural influences in Rome; fear & backlash ("culture wars")
  
  
  Roman Republican portrait
  
  
• prostitution & elite males in Rome; Cato the Elder (234-149 BCE), arch-defender of traditional Roman values:
  
  When Cato saw a man he knew coming out of a brothel,
  He says, in all his god-like wisdom, “Congratulations!
  The instant that foul lust expands the veins of young men,
  It’s right for them to come down here,
  And not to grind other men’s wives.” (Horace Satires 2.31-35)
  
  [version reported by ancient scholar on Horace: “Cato, after seeing this man exiting the brothel on multiple occasions, says: 'I praised you on the grounds that you were a visitor here, not that you lived here'”]
  
  
  Lupanar ("wolf's den") in Pompeii

• Prologue (1-20; more lost)
  
  (1) theatrical space: "Plautus seeks a small slice of your city ... Where he can construct Athens without a construction crew" (1-3)
  
  (2) highlights audience's finances ("What if I asked for some of your private property?, 6) and "good old-fashioned values" (7) > satirical play about morality & money
  
  (3) Phronesium "truly embodies the morality of our time" (13); Phronesium's transactional nature as comic meretrix; a misogynistic play ("As all women do ....", 14-17)?
  
  (4) the false pregnancy/baby plot (18-19)
  
  (5) no mention of rape & marriage (lost? more central in Greek source?)
  
  Scene 14: the pre-play rape of Callicles's daughter (rape/marriage/transition of young man scenario of New Comedy)
  
  Truculentus 807ff. (Callicles appears with his Maid and Syra, Diniarchus eavesdrops)
  Callicles                                         
  Thanks to another’s labor, this one gave birth painlessly!
  What a blessed child. He has two mothers and two grandmothers.
  I shudder to think how many fathers he has! Such is the nature of female behavior!
  Maid
  Surely the blame here belongs to men much more than women:                                    
  A man, not a woman, got her pregnant.
  Callicles
                                                              I understand that too.
  Fine chaperone you were!
  Maid
                                                  “Where there’s greater strength, there’s greater power.”
  He’s a man, he’s stronger. He overtook her and took what he wanted ...
  
  
  Callicles
  ... Tell me who raped my virgin daughter
  Maid
  Hey, wall-prop! I can see you and I know what you did.
  Diniarchus (aside)
  I can’t tell if I’m dead or alive, and I have no idea what to do! I’m t-t-totally t-terrified!
  Callicles
  Going to name him or not?
  Maid                                                                                   
                                                  Diniarchus—the man you betrothed her to first.                        
  Callicles
  Where is he?
  Diniarchus
                        Right here, Callicles. I beg you by these knees of yours I’m grasping:
  Find the wisdom to pardon my utter stupidity!
  Pardon me for an offense I committed under the influence of wine.
  Callicles
  I don’t buy it. You’re passing on the blame to a speechless mute.
  If wine could speak, it would defend itself here.                                                           
  It’s the custom of men to have control over wine, not vice-versa—
  Decent men, that is. But a person who’s bad by nature
  Is bad regardless whether he’s a drinker or abstains altogether.
  Diniarchus
  I know I must listen to what I don’t want to hear because I’m guilty.
  I acknowledge my guilt and I’m at your mercy.  
  
  
  Via Sacra ("Sacred Way") in Roman Forum
  
  
• Romanization in Scene 1 (Diniarchus's opening monologue as the self-aware & foolish lover):
  
  (1) "Greek jewel box" (one of a prostitute's typical demands, 55); refers to Greek-style partying (87)
  
  (2) bankers' booths along Via Sacra in the forum (rebuilt 193 BCE, 64ff.), where prostitutes & pimps gather
  
  (3) Diniarchus's patriotic invitation to fellow citizens:
  
  Truculentus 74-6
  Bottom line: in this great nation of ours,
  Made up as it is of so many men living in leisure following the defeat of our foes,
  It behooves all who have the wherewithal to buy themselves some lovin’.
  
  
  *GROUPS*
  
  
  

  *Performance of Scene 16: Joel (Strabax), Patricia (Phronesium), Veronica (Stratophanes)*

• is all the world a stage?
  

Truculentus 931-932 (Phronesium to Stratophanes's objection about Strabax)
I just remembered a proverb an actor once uttered in the theater:
“All human beings can be either thick-skinned or finicky depending on the profit to be made.”

• Plautus's most satirical play (contemporary issues, focus on lovers' gullibility)?
  
  Truculentus 964-968 (Phoenicium's last words)
  What a lovely day of hunting, with everything done just the way I wanted!
  All my business has turned out so fine! I can do just the same for you:
  If anyone's in the mood for love, be sure to let me know.
  How about some applause for Venus' sake? This play's been made under her supervision.
  Spectators! Fare well! Stand up and applaud!
  
  UNC @ Chapel Hill NEH Seminar Performance of Scene 14: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edXXFVWuh-k