Classics 351 (Spring 2015) Exam #1: 244 total points Part I, Short Identifications (8 points each, 64 points total) Menander: most famous playwright of Greek New Comedy, especially admired for his plays psychological realism; Terence s main source for his plays. Cato the Elder: younger contemporary of Plautus, regarded as the archdefender of Roman tradition/conservatism; we read the anecdote about him (and the man exiting the brothel) in connection with Roman views of prostitution (= it s preferable to adultery with another citizen s wife and fine if it doesn't become too costly). Lysidamus: the lecherous old man in Casina, who is defeated by his wife (and sexually humiliated) in the play-within-the-play. contaminatio: the blending together of multiple plays or scenes from multiple plays, viewed as a fault by the likes of Luscius of Lanuvium, but critical to the Roman process of creatively adapting Greek literature. ekphrasis: an extended description of a work of art, pleasant place and the like in a work of literature, such as that of the painting of Jupiter & Danaë in the rape scene of Terence's Eunuchus. metatheater: theater that draws attention to itself as theater-in-the-process-ofbeing-performed by, e.g., references to the audience, play-within-the-play, etc. (as often in Plautus). Chremes: know-it-all old man in Terence s Self-Tormenter who gets his comeuppance in the end OR the name of Pamphila s brother in Eunuchus (his role is critical to Thais's plot to restore Pamphila to her family). Harpax: the assistant to the soldier in Pseudolus, who is impersonated by Simia in Pseudolus play-within-the-play. senex: the old man (character type) in Roman comedy, corresponding to the paterfamilias in real life, often the butt of the joke in Roman comedy; sometimes harsh and in other cases more lenient. Magna Mater: the Great Mother, as the Romans called the eastern fertility goddess Cybele; Roman comedies were put on at her festival (e.g., Pseudolus in 191 BCE) on the Palatine Hill.
Diphilus: Greek New Comedy playwright; his Lot-Drawers (Klerumenoi) is Plautus s source play for Casina. Simia: aka Monkeyman, the wickedly talented slave Pseudolus trains to impersonate Harpax in the play-within-the play of Pseudolus. Part II, Commentary (30 points each, 180 points total) Distribution of Points: (a): 4 points total (= 2 points for author and 2 for the work); (b): 4 points total (= 2 points each if 2 speakers); (c): 4 points total for context; (d): 18 points total for commentary: Passage 1 (Plautus Casina 1005-6) (a) Plautus, Casina; (b) Cleostrata; (c) Cleostrata explains why she will forgive Lysidamus (now publicly exposed after his tussle with He-Casina) near the end of the play; a. Cleostrata s forgiveness on the ground that the play s too long metatheatrically marks her control of the play as director/playwright behind the punishment of Lysidamus; b. her sudden (arbitrary?) forgiveness leads to a comic resolution to the domestic chaos Lysidamus s actions have wrought; b. the pardoning of Lysidamus suggests that the domestic status quo will be resumed after the play, including the power-dynamic between the spouses, which had been turned on its head in the festive world of the play, as well as Roman-style (male) adultery. Passage 2 (Plautus, Pseudolus 394-405) (a) Plautus, Pseudolus; (b) Pseudolus (c) after promising Calidorus that he has a plan to deceive Ballio and get possession of Phoenicum, Pseudolus confesses to the audience that he is in fact clueless; a. the improvisational nature of Pseudolus (and of the play in general); b. the notion of the clever slave as a creative, poetic figure and trickster;
c. Pseudolus is metatheatrically hinting at his play-making/controlling ability, and so forecasting his ultimate triumph (to a knowing New Comedy audience) in a scheme to get the girl. Passage 3 (Terence, Eunuchus 197-206) (a) Terence, Eunuchus; (b) Thais; (c) at the end of her first appearance in the play, Thais confides in the audience about the true nature of her relationship with Phaedria; a. Thais, in contrast to Parmeno s and Phaedria s suspicions (just expressed) has genuine feelings for the latter; b. Thais s genuine feelings for one of her customers defy comic stereotyping (she is not like the other women here and does not deceive Phaedria); c. again, in defiance of the meretrix-stereotype, she has complex and not wholly mercenary/self-interested motivations, both in regard to Phaedria and this girl (Pamphila), whom she plans to reunite with her brother ( a quite distinguished young man ). Passage 4 (Terence, Self-Tormenter 381-96) (a) Terence, Self-Tormenter; (b) Bacchis (Speaker 1) and Antiphila (Speaker 2) (c) as they are being taken to Chremes s house, the prostitute Bacchis has a candid discussion with Clinia s girlfriend Antiphila about the difference in their respective situations; a. the realism of Bacchis s delineation of sexuality, relationships, and social position relative to prostitutes vs. wives of free citizens; b. the description of idealized, romantic love between Clinia and Antiphila (rare in a society of arranged marriages); c. Terence s general interest in psychology, including that of women generally and of women on the margins of society in particular. Passage 5 (Plautus, Truculentus 64-76) (a) Plautus, Truculentus; (b) Diniarchus; (c) Diniarchus, a young man who is lovesick for the prostitute Phronesium, lays out his situation in the opening scene;
a. this opening scene effectively serves as an expository prologue, telling us more fully what the brief preserved prologue does not; b. the character of the adulescens Diniarchus, i.e., the self-aware, but nonetheless doomed young lover, often caught between emotional extremes; c. the passage is thoroughly Romanized through the description of the financial scene in the forum and brings home the idea that this is a play about Roman values/morals. Passage 6 (Terence, Eunuchus 580-91) (a) Terence, Eunuchus; (b) Chaerea; (c) Chaerea brags of his rape of Pamphila to his friend (and fellow soldier intraining) Antipho; a. the creepy ekphrasis of the painting of Jupiter and Danaë and Pamphila s innocence as she gazes at the painting; b. Chaerea s bold drawing of parallels between himself and the (sexually) allpowerful Jupiter as a self-exhortation to committing violent rape; c. the discordance between the brutality of Chaerea s act and his aestheticism (e.g. the ekphrasis, his quotation of a line from Roman tragedy), all part of Terence s unique presentation of the brutal rape in the middle of the play. Passage 7 (Plautus, Truculentus 874-80) (a) Plautus, Truculentus; (b) Phronesium (Speaker 1) and Diniarchus (Speaker 2); (c) Phronesium is convincing Diniarchus to allow her to keep his newly discovered baby a little longer in order to shake down Thraso for more cash; a. the willingness of Diniarchus to allow his baby to be used in Phronesium s scheme (just after its grandfather has instructed him to take care of it) demonstrates the absurdity of his infatuation, i.e., as stock comic adulescens; b. similarly, Phronesium (the stock meretrix) is here characterized as over the top in her relentless pursuit of cash from her customers/dupes; c. the (Romanized) booty-buddy reference points to a continued (financial) relationship after marriage (not inconsistent with Roman mores regarding adultery). Passage 8 (Plautus, Casina 64-86) (a) Plautus, Casina; (b) prologist;
(c) the prologist playfully informs the audience of various noteworthy points regarding the comedy (e.g., the son and Casina will not appear, slave weddings allegedly happen in the non-roman world, etc.); a. Plautus has taken great liberties with his Greek source play (esp., Euthynicus and Casina appeared as characters in the latter, whereas here the emphasis has shifted to wife vs. husband); b. in captatio benevolentiae style (i.e., here mostly joking), the prologist removes possible audience discomfiture about the legality of slave marriages (these were informal arrangements and not legally recognized in Rome or Athens); c. in revealing Casina s true status and eligibility for marriage with a fellow citizen, the prologist strikingly plays with the Roman actors real life low- or non-status (i.e., the actor who could have played Casina can be prostituted after the play). Passage 9 (Plautus, Pseudolus 574-91) (a) Plautus, Pseudolus; (b) Pseudolus (c) after his boastful encounter with Simo and a short monologue in which he again admits to the audience that he is clueless, Pseudolus returns (after the piper briefly plays) to claim total victory; a. this is another clever-slave s monologue in which Pseudolus is all bluster, as he has no plan, a situation which his chance meeting with Harpax will immediately confirm; b. Pseudolus extensively uses military language to celebrate his pseudo-triumph, an absurd appropriation of language and status for a conniving slave; c. we witness one of Plautus s favorite Saturnalian jokes when he has Pseudolus, who according to a Roman legal fiction has no parents, declare his grand ancestry (i.e., he again is scurrilously staking claim to the status of contemporary aristocratic generals).