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Plautus' ‘Trinummus': The Absurdity of Officious Morality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2017

William S. Anderson
William S. Anderson*
Affiliation:
University of California Berkeley
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Extract

Plautus' Trinummus has won much praise from those who seek a strong ethical line in comedy and believe that, in the rare instance of this Plautine play, they have found it. Such critics classify it as an exception from the usual irreverence of the playwright, along with the Captivi. More than 200 years ago, Lessing extolled the Captivi as the finest play, not just of Plautus, but of antiquity. The Trinummus came a close second in his estimation, and he demonstrated his affection for both plays by translating and commenting on the Captivi, and by adapting the Trinummus for the German stage in 1750, at the youthful age of twenty-one. Ritschl chose the Trinummus as the first Plautine work to bring out in a careful critical edition, and his edition elicited one of the finest reviews of Theodor Bergk in 1848. The apparently noble ethics of this play encouraged E. P. Morris to edit it for American school and college students, at the end of the nineteenth century. In this century, affection for pronounced ethics has somewhat declined. Therefore, although critics continue to perceive the same emphasis, they are less willing to extol the play as a masterpiece. E. F. Watling, in his Penguin translation of 1964, rather tepidly summarizes the Trin. as ‘a cool leisurely comedy, which offers an agreeably convincing, if partial, picture of Graeco-Roman family problems.’ A decade later, Erich Segal provocatively labeled it as Plautus' only boring play, precisely because of its unusual ethical contents.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 35 , 1979 , pp. 333 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Lessing, G. E., Beiträge zur Historie und Aufnahme des Theaters (1750). I have used the edition by K. Lachmann of Lessing's Samtliche Schriften (Stuttgart 1889) IV. Of the Captivi in the above essay, Lessing wrote: ‘Es ist gewiss, dass es das vortrefflichste Stuck ist, welches jemals auf Schauplatz gekommen ist’ (79). He repeats that opinion in his preface to the translation (83) and defends it, with but slight modifications, against hostile attack (191).Google Scholar

2 See 81.Google Scholar

3 Lessing returned to Philemon's title and called his play Der Schatz, and, as I intend to demonstrate in another paper, he also made some changes which tended to recapture the dramatic sequence and ethical coherence of the Greek play.Google Scholar

4 This review is most easily found in Bergk's, Kleine philotogische Schriften (Halle 1884) 3–29. It was followed in 1849 by ‘Commentatio de Plauti Trinummo,’ 53–70. And at the end of his life Bergk came back to the Trinummus with further textual observations that were published posthumously in this same volume as ‘Adversaria zu Plautus’ Trinummus,' 615–44.Google Scholar

5 Morris, E. P., The Captives and Trinummus of Plautus (Boston 1901). Since Morris dates his introduction Jan. 1, 1898, he worked on the edition in the 1890s.Google Scholar

6 Watling, , Plautus, The Rope and Other Plays 161.Google Scholar

7 Segal, , ‘The Purpose of the Trinummus,’ American Journal of Philology 95 (1974) 252.Google Scholar

8 For the general features of Philemon's drama, see the still-useful chapter in Webster, T. B. L., Studies in Later Greek Comedy (Manchester 1950) 125–51; for the reconstruction of Plautus' source in the Trinummus, see 135–38. See also Grimal, P., ‘Analis del Trinummus e gli albori della filosofia in Roma,’ Dioniso 43 (1969) 363–75 : Grimal presents Plautus as a transmitter of Greek philosophic thought at the beginning of the second century B.C. Most recently, Fantham, Elaine, ‘Philemon's Thesauros as a Dramatisation of Peripatetic Ethics,’ Hermes 105 (1977) 406–21, has attempted to fix more firmly the source of Philemon's ethics.Google Scholar

9 Another minor inconcinnity is the abandonment of Megaronides immediately after he has devised the impersonator-device (819). Apparently forgetting the role of Megaronides in that scene, Segal (above n. 7) 255, calls him a ‘protatic persona.’ Google Scholar

10 We cannot know whether or not Philemon brought any women on the stage in his play, but there is no need to postulate such female roles: he could have made — and no doubt did so make — the love motivation entirely credible through the speeches of the young men.Google Scholar

11 Leo, , Geschichte der römischen Literatur (Berlin 1913) 116–17. Jachmann, G., Plautinisches und Attisches (Berlin 1931) 242ff. has criticized Leo forcefully.Google Scholar

12 It is customary to draw comparisons between the Trinummus and Mostellaria (generally assumed to have been drawn from another original by Philemon). The absence of father, the wastrel son, and the opening monody all show similar techniques of development. I note, however, that Lesbonicus is farther advanced toward reform precisely because of the presence of Inopia and the obvious loss of his meretrix (unlike Philolaches).Google Scholar

13 Webster, (above n. 8) 141.Google Scholar

14 Watling, (above n. 6) 159–60.Google Scholar

15 Fraenkel, Ed., ‘Plautinisches in Plautus,’ Philol. Untersuchungen 28 (1922) 349: ‘Liebhaber.’ Cf. the Italian translation of Munari 332: ‘innamorato.’ Google Scholar

16 Segal, 256 n. 33.Google Scholar

17 Leo, (above n. 11) 117 n. 1.Google Scholar

18 Leo assumed that in the original Lysiteles expressed his sympathy for Lesbonicus. I would modify that assumption, for, although Lysiteles may have defined his friendship, he mainly presented himself as a foil here to Lesbonicus; therefore, he had to be primarily disapproving.Google Scholar

19 For the change of name from the Greek Thensaurus to Trinummus, see the Prologue of Luxuria, 18–20. Other Plautine plays were also given new titles as a result of the obvious brilliance of certain scenes in the Latin adaptation: cf. Bacchides, Cistellaria, Rudens. Google Scholar

20 Webster 137 made a brilliant connection between the pious reprovai of Philto by his son and what at that time was a wretched fragment of Menander's Dyskolos. Now that we have recovered the Dyskolos (cf. 811ff.), we can see that the conversation of son and father about a match with a dowry-less girl, the natural reluctance of the father, the son's criticism of materialism, and the father's capitulation form a conventional situation. As elsewhere, however, Menander exhibits greater dramatic economy than Philemon, who seems to have deliberately elaborated the ethical discussion.Google Scholar

21 Lysiteles uses these terms in his opening remarks (628–29), and the context clearly indicates that he is there concerned for Lesbonicus' honor and reputation. Later, however, his concern focuses on his own vulnerability to rumor (703).Google Scholar

22 I therefore disagree with Segal (257), who asserts that Lesbonicus suddenly ‘reforms’ in the later scene, as a result of the critical speech of Lysiteles. In my opinion, Lysiteles' sermon is gratuitous and accordingly functions ironically, affecting audience and Lesbonicus in varying ways, but decidedly not as the puritanic Lysiteles intended.Google Scholar