Classics 351
February 1, 2022

Gutiérrez Arribas, Fountain of Cybele (Madrid, ca. 1760)

Examination #1: Thursday, February 10

Terence (Publius Terentius Afer, "The African")

• (later) ancient biography: born 184 BCE (?) in Carthage (?); taken as good looking slave to Rome (?); Terence dies 159 BCE during trip to Greece (?)
  
  
• 6 comedies in 160s BCE preserved with production notes; Terence's association with powerful Romans (wave of Hellenism = Greek art, literature, philosophy, rhetoric, etc., following Battle of Pydna, 168 BCE, Greeks defeated by Romans)
  
  
• Terence follows Greek New Comedy models (esp. Menander) more closely than Plautine comedy: less verbal play, virtually no song, plainer language
  
  
• interest in psychology of characters (inner feelings, motivations, speech & thought patterns)
  
  
• metatheater more subtle in Terence (e.g. Chaerea to Parmeno about their plan: "do you think the thing to do is pull off some scheme at my father's expense?", 386), less interaction between actors and audience (vs. Plautus) > naturalistic drama
  
  
• Eunuchus, 161 BCE (popular play), festival of the Magna Mater (Cybele's eunuch priests)

  
  
  Cybele's consort Attis
  
  
• Terence's prologues: avoid exposition of plot/background, engage in esoteric dramatic/literary criticism; T.'s rival Luscius of Lanuvium ("a certain someone ... who takes good Greek plays and converts them into bad Latin ones / By translating accurately enough but far too literally," 4ff.)
  
  
• purist charges of plagiarism/theft, "contamination" of Greek sources in formative years of Latin literature (cf. "intertextuality")
  
  Terence's Eunuchus: adaptation of Menander's Eunuch
  
  Eunuchus 19-41 (prologist defends Terence against Luscius)
  The play we’re about to perform is Menander’s Eunuch.
  After the aediles purchased it,                                                                                   
  He arranged a little sneak preview for himself.
  The presiding magistrate showed up, the rehearsal began,
  And our friend shouts out: “A thief, not a playwright, composed this play,
  But he’s not pulling the wool over my eyes!
  There’s an old play called The Flatterer. Naevius and Plautus                       
  Produced versions of it, and that’s where he’s stolen the characters
  Of the parasite and the soldier from.” If our playwright’s guilty as charged,
  This is an oversight, not an intent to commit theft!
  You can all decide for yourselves if this is so soon enough.
  The original version of The Flatterer is by Menander.                                                 
  There’s a fawning parasite and a braggart soldier in it.
  Our playwright does not deny that he transferred these characters
  From the Greek play to his own Eunuch. But he categorically denies
  Any knowledge of the existence of the two previous Latin plays.
  And besides, if he’s denied the right to use the same characters as other writers,           
  Wouldn’t he also be prohibited from scripting in the role of a running slave,
  Or from bringing virtuous wives, nasty prostitutes,
  A hungry parasite, and a braggart soldier on stage,
  Or having a baby passed off as someone’s, an old man tricked by a slave,
  Or including love, hate, and suspicion at all?                                                            
  The bottom line: you can’t say anything that’s never been said before.
  
  
  *GROUPS*
  
  
  
  Danaë & Zeus L: Athenian calyx, 5th century BCE; R: South Italian krater, 5th century BCE
  

• Scene 10: the rapist's celebration; includes ekphrasis (description of a work of art, etc.) of Jupiter (Zeus) & Danaë
  
  
• usual treatment of rape in New Comedy (cf. Diniarchus in Truculentus): 9 months prior to play, alcohol, festival, reaction of male guardian & compromise > young man's assumed passage to adulthood
  

  
     
  Gustav Klimt, Danaë, 1907
  

  
  Eunuchus 580-612
  Chaerea
                                                                                                              “I’m off to dinner,”
  She says, and takes some maids with her. Just a few of the newer ones
  Were left behind to tend to the girl. They start the preparations for her bath.
  I encouraged them to be quick about it. As that’s happening,
  The girl sits in her room looking up at a painting. The subject of it
  Was the story of how Jupiter shot a shower of gold into Danaë’s lap.                        
  I started to gaze at it too. The fact that so long ago he had pulled off
  The very same trick made me even more excited:
  A god had made himself into a man and secretly penetrated
  Another man’s roof, and a woman was tricked via a skylight!`
  And what a god it was: “He whose thunder rattles the lofty foundations of the sky.”
  Could I, a mere mortal, possibly do the same? I could … and I did it gladly! 
  As I’m mulling over all this, the girl is called to her bath.
  She left, she bathed, she returned. Then the maids set her down on the bed.
  I stood up and awaited my orders. One comes up to me and says: “Hey, Dorus!
  Take this fan and create a nice little breeze for her while we take our baths.            
  You can take a bath if you want when we’re done.” I hiss at her and grab the fan.
  Antipho
  I’d have loved to see that shameless face of yours at that moment!
  You must have had quite the demeanor—and so big an ass as you holding that little fan!
  Chaerea
  She’d barely gotten the words out of her mouth when they all storm out of the room.
  They go off to take their bath with the usual hullabaloo slaves make                       
  When their master’s away. In the meantime, the girl’s overwhelmed by sleep.
  I secretly take a sideways peek through the fan like this. At the same time,
  I look all around, to see if the coast is clear. It was, and so I bolted the door.
  Antipho
  Then what?
  Chaerea
                          What do you think, moron?
  Antipho
                                                                          Okay, you got me there.
  Chaerea
                                                                                                              An opportunity            
  Like that handed to me, brief and unexpected as it was, but so longed for!           
  Do you think I was going to pass it up? Then I would have been a eunuch for real!
  Antipho
  Damn straight about that. But what about our party? What’s happening with that?
  Chaerea
  It’s all ready.
  Antipho
                          Good man! Where? Your house?
  Chaerea
                                                                                      No, at our freedman Discus’ house.
  Antipho
  That’s a long way from here. All the more reason to rush. You’ve got to change clothes!          
  Chaerea
  But where, damn it? I’m practically banished from home now. I’m afraid                         
  My brother’s there, or even worse, my father’s back from the farm by now.
  Antipho
  My place is close by and you can change there. Let’s go.