In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ISTO VILIVS (Suetonius fr. 112, Terence Ad. 981)A. S. GratwickA corrupt passage in Charisius, quoted below, preserves the bare bones of an anecdote, attributed to Suetonius, which is meant to illuminate the obscure expression isto uilius, "more meanly than" or "more meanly by that." The phrase occurs elsewhere only in Terence (Ad. 981), with a quite different sort of explanation in Donatus' note. The passage in Suetonius ought somehow (...) to relate to the one in Terence, but it is unclear what the relationship may be, and though Bentley (1725 ad loc.) took the story to explain the Terence passage, the problem has been neglected by most of Terence's subsequent commentators.My aims here are first to examine the two contexts separately, next to propose a new solution of the problem in Charisius, and lastly, putting both passages together, to suggest that it is the passage in Terence which gives a witty point to the story in Suetonius, rather than the other way around.1We begin with Terence. "Marry the elderly Sostrata, reward Hegio, free Syrus—oh, and free Phrygia too to be his wife, and, of course, give them a helping hand": in the finale of Terence's Adelphoe (924-97), Demea well and truly gets his own back on Micio. Terence makes Demea use the same stratagem five times over, balancing the mechanical aspect of the repetitions with variation of the scale and wording.1 But each time essentially the same three things happen: Demea's apparently generous suggestion elicits a wary or grudging reaction from Micio; Aeschinus' admiration of Demea grows; and Micio gives way when it is pointed out by Demea or indicated by the young man himself that he [End Page 79] oh, so wants Micio to say yes. For us the audience, the reversal of the roles of manipulator and manipulated makes excellent farce; the timing is superb, Micio's bewilderment and consternation are comic, and against our expectation they cumulatively alter our earlier perception of him as a cool philosophe. His gravitas is undermined, and mockery is made of his educational principles, which are made to seem nothing but easygoing indulgence of Aeschinus' every selfish whim; and this all leads swiftly to the startling Terentian conclusion that Demea, not Micio, is the true father for all seasons (Ad. 984-97).This is all done with technical bravura, but in debatable taste, and the debate is of long standing; here, however, we wish only to recall the context, not to add to the debate. When we probe the detail of Terence's presentation, the broad consideration that this is the Terentian, not the Menandrian conclusion to the play2 is relevant in that it should prevent us from wondering about any close Menandrian equivalents in Terence's choice of words or expression.MICIO. Syre, processisti hodie pulchre.DEMEA. siquidem porro, Micio, tu tuom officium facies atque huic aliquid paullum prae manu dederis unde utatur; reddet tibi cito.MICIO. istoc uilius.AESCH. frugi homost.SYRUS. reddam hercle, da modo.AESCH. age pater!MICIO. post consulam.DEMEA. faciet.SYRUS. o uir optume!AESCH. o pater mi festiuissume!(Ad. 979-83)AE. frugi homo est Σ: DE. frugi homo est Lindsay and Kauer (OCT)In focusing on the fifth and last of Demea's sallies, we are not looking at a passage like, say, Heauton Timorumenos 61-66, where we have external evidence that Terence was specifically translating his model, but at one of which Terence himself is the author. In seeking an explanation for istoc uilius, the idioms and proverbs of New Comedy [End Page 80] and other Hellenistic Greek literature do not in fact help, but that is scarcely surprising in a purely Terentian Latin context.Micio's reaction (981, istoc uilius) to the suggestion that he should subsidize Syrus corresponds in the earlier episodes to the rejections me ducere autem? (934), de te largitor puer! (940), paullum id autemst? (950), istunc liberum? (960), and ob eam rem? (977), all of which express protest, surprise, reluctance. Here he has had enough and, instead of just protesting, refuses straight out—but immediately... (shrink)

The ways of naming the comedian which happen to survive to us are Plautus, Macci Titi, Maccus, accius, and T. Macci Plauti; the best attested oi these names, Plautus, is twice adorned with curiously arch flourishes. The evidence as a whole presents two main problems: how do we interpret and reconcile Macci Titi, Maccus, and Maccius: and how do these names relate to the name Plautus? The purpose of this paper is to emphasize more strongly some known facts and relate (...) them to a point not brought into the discussion before. (shrink)

‘The sudden emergence of all the post-classical functions of habeo+Infinitive in Tertullian is very remarkable’, as Mr. Coleman has said in his important paper on the origin and development of this structure, so prominent in the formation of the Future and Conditional paradigms of the main Romance languages. The functions which he has in mind are all Prospective: he distinguishes meanings tangential, as he puts it, to Possibility, Obligation/Necessity, Futurity, and, for the past tenses of habeo, Futurity-in-the-Past and Conditioned Unreality (...) . In this he essentially follows received opinion, though there have been those who would also distinguish a meaning tangential to Volition. Mr. Coleman gives these short shrift . Whether rightly, the reader may judge from what follows. (shrink)

This is clearly meant to ‘speak’, and offer thereby some clue to the interpretation. But what it ‘says’ is debatable. Most modern edd. settle for Ipsitilla as the least badly attested form. The prominence of bidding in the poem best accords with the assumptions that the stem is indeed ipsa connoting ‘mistress of the establishment’ and that the denotation is something facetious like ‘Miss Bossy-wossy’, ‘Imperia’, ‘Your nibsy-wibsy’.

In his interesting paper on babeo and aueo published in CQ 66 , 388–98, Dr. A.S. Gratwick raised a number of questions bearing on my own discussion of the origin and development of the babeo+infinitive construction in CQ 65 , 215–31. First the collapse of the earlier future-tense system. As I said, this was ‘the product of a number of different linguistic events’, phonetic, grammatical, and semantic, which were summarized and illustrated on pp. 220–1 of my paper. Even so (...) Dr. Gratwick believes that I assigned too much weight to ‘phonetic attrition of the future simple’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.4 (2002) 587-599 [Access article in PDF] Isto Vilius, Immo Carum:Anecdotes About King Romulus J. Linderski ISTO VILIUS. Lovers of words will love A. S. Gratwick's recent piece (2000) on this idiom. Yet this is only part of the puzzle. There exists a complement at the other end of the scale: Immo carum.A brief introduction: At the conclusion of Terence's Adelphoe, in a comical (...) reversal of roles, the stingy Demea goads the generous Micio into headlong spendthrift spending. Micio drags his feet, and when Demea suggests that in addition to freeing the crafty slave, Syrus, and his female companion, he should also provide them with a loan so that they may start a business, Micio responds, istoc vilius (line 981). This choice of words to express a petulant demurral has for centuries (or rather for millennia, if we begin with the scholia) intrigued philologists, and Gratwick guides us expertly through all the meanders of the argument. He points out that—surprisingly—the commentators of Terence have generally neglected the testimony of Suetonius preserved by the late fourth-century grammarian Charisius. It is to this text that we ought now to direct our attention. We read under the lemma Isto vilius: 1 rex qui vocabat ad caenam, 2 si sibi ea res exhibenda indiceretur quam exhibere non posset, respondit (respondebat), 3 ut Tranquillus refert, isto vilius hominis erit caena. [End Page 587]Gratwick (2000, 85) gives the following translation: A rex who regularly entertained, if a thing were stipulated (for him to provide) which he was unable to provide, would reply, as Suetonius reports, isto vilius hominis erit caena. It has long been recognized, indeed, since the time of the Renaissance scholars, that the main textual problem resides in the word hominis, which (so it might appear) can hardly be forced into any sensible construction or meaning. Emendations were considered, and here Gratwick's proposal (2000, 88) nihilo minus deserves acknowledgement. Following in the footsteps of several earlier erudites, and in opposition to Bentley, 4 he takes hominis (or whatever hides in it) as belonging to the quotation itself. We thus receive the text: Isto vilius, nihilo minus erit caena or (tortuously) "by that (much) the more meanly, but (by) none the less will it be a feast."But who is the rex who uttered this quip? Certainly not any real king, says Gratwick (2000, 88-91), but rather a man of influence, a "boss," a "padrone," as defined by OLD s.v. rex 8. At a dinner, an impudent guest makes an outrageous demand (e.g., in addition to food, he would also wish to have dancing girls; "caviar and striptease," as Gratwick puts it). The host gives a witty response. "The dictum has to be taken as a specific quotation of Terence's Micio, but a quotation given a deliberate twist." The twist would reside in the addition of nihilo minus and a play on the [End Page 588] causal 5 and comparative interpretation of istoc. The ill-mannered person will miss the subtlety (for a boor must ex definitione be also ill-educated) and will take this Micio-like petulant refusal for a conciliatory bon mot. "The more cultivated bystanders" will knowingly sneer at the illiterate boor and mentally applaud the refined host.In sum, a perfect donnish joke that would fare very well indeed at an Oxonian high table. "The point of Suetonius' anecdote... was to illustrate the witty comitas of some specific famous eques or senator of the past." Gratwick concedes that this person must remain anonymous for us, but his preferred urbane padrone who entertained boorish guests is none other than Atticus. Rex Atticus? Why not Maecenas, who also loved to entertain and claimed a royal lineage? In point of fact, this is not at all a likely context of the anecdote.The perusal of evidence for rex in the sense of "patron" seemingly strengthens Gratwick's conceit, for in several passages, the rex appears in a convivial context. But on closer scrutiny, the rex reveals himself as... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Characterization of Hanno in Plautus’ PoenulusGeorge Fredric FrankoPoenulus commands our attention because it is the one specimen of Roman New Comedy in which the main characters are not Greeks. Although the action takes place in the Aetolian city of Calydon, the young lover Agorastocles, his beloved Adelphasium, her sister Anterastilis, and the title character Hanno are all natives of Carthage. While the first three are represented as if (...) they were typical Greeks in Roman comedy, Hanno is represented as patently Punic in his physiognomy, dress, speech, and behavior, making him the earliest extant portrayal of a Carthaginian in Latin literature. Since the Carthaginians were the most formidable and vilified enemies of the Romans, any Roman portrayal of a Carthaginian figure holds our interest. Yet the portrayal of Hanno rouses special interest because he is not a villain. Modern readers familiar with the anti-Punic discourse prevalent throughout Latin literature are continually struck by the “sympathetic” portrayal of this Carthaginian, especially since Poenulus was composed when the Second Punic War was in recent memory. A. S. Gratwick, in his masterly chapter on Roman drama in the Cambridge History of Classical Literature (vol. 2, 94) observed that Hanno’s “portrayal is wholly (if disparately) sympathetic, and there is no trace of xenophobia, although the play was certainly produced within Hannibal’s lifetime.... that Plautus should even have envisaged its successful production tells us something of his authority in the theatre and of the openmindedness of his audience.” Others have seen more than mere sympathy and openmindedness. For example, a review of a recent performance of Poenulus observed that “the play is timely in light of the American university’s recent preoccupation with multiculturalism” and proceeded to make much ado about the sympathetic portrayal of the Carthaginian title character and the magnanimity that such sympathy reveals. The review even saw proof of “Plautus as humanitarian and social commentator” (Frauenfelder, “Plautus non manu”). Certainly the fact that an amiable Carthaginian is portrayed as neither villain nor scapegoat deserves our close attention; however, Poenulus must not be appropriated as an example of benevolent Roman multiculturalism without reflection because while there are indeed cosmopolitan elements in the play there are also powerful images of xenophobia and ethnocentrism. We must not allow our present-day preoccupations with magnanimous pluralism to influence our interpretation of [End Page 425] how the play was understood by a Roman audience. This analysis of Hanno’s characterization will reveal that the attractive aspects of his portrayal are offset by some unsavory ethnic stereotyping.We should not dismiss Hanno’s portrayal as “sympathetic” (whatever one takes that word to mean) without further comment, for his portrayal is far more complex than that, containing strongly positive and strongly negative elements which do not permit encapsulation by such a simple adjective. In fact, there are at least four distinct components or layers of Hanno’s characterization and these components constantly play off of each other. 1) Hanno is first and foremost a senex filling traditional roles in the palliata. He is primarily the father who recovers his lost children, a pater pius like Hegio in Captivi or Daemones in Rudens. He also assumes the role of senex lepidus, like Periplectomenus in Miles, and thus at times he behaves like a servus callidus (Gratwick, “Drama” 110). He is indeed the “master of many roles” (Slater, “Plautine Negotiations” 143). 2) But Hanno is unique because he is our only extant Carthaginian senex and the Roman audience must have viewed him differently from other senes because of his Punic ethnicity. The speaker of the prologue, the slave Milphio, and the soldier Antamoenides draw the audience’s attention to negative stereotypes of Punics and attribute perceived vices in Hanno’s behavior to his non-Greek ethnicity. 3) Although Hanno does display some stereotyped Punic vices, he also manages to display two peculiarly Roman virtues, namely, exemplary pietas and a mastery of Roman law. This is not a mere sidelight but a central issue of the play: Hanno uses Roman strengths, not the expected Punic or servile trickery, to recover his family and achieve a happy ending. 4) Yet Hanno also uses these Roman strengths for frivolous... (shrink)

My purpose in this paper is, firstly, to investigate the relationship of the three passages printed below, and, secondly, to illustrate in passing the curious chain of historical accidents which have prevented the truth about that relationship from becoming common lore long ago.

Most editors and commentators have acquiesced without enthusiasm in the reading in Creta religasset at 174, though Mynors in his Oxford text reverted to what had been the old vulgate in Cretam religasset ; Vulpius' . If we read in Cretam, the sense must be ‘ had not untied his rope.

Examines to what extent Heidegger accepted the Nazi philosophy, assesses his anti-Semitism, and looks at the links between philosophy and politics.