Laughter in Ancient Rome (52 page)

75.
Menander,
Kolax
frag. 3 (= Plutarch,
Mor.
57a =
Quomodo adulator
13): γελῶ τὸ πρὸς τὸν Κύπριον ἐννοούμενος. Plutarch does not mention the title of the play but does name two of its characters. See Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 432; Pernerstorfer 2009, 112–13. Lefèvre 2003, 97–98, is almost alone (and unconvincing) in believing that these words “have nothing to do with Terence.”

76.
Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 432; Brown 1992, 94; Pernerstorfer 2009, 113.

77.
Wallace-Hadrill 2008 (lamps: 390–91); Spawforth 2012 (cultural comportment: 36–58).

78.
Halliwell 2008, 343–46, 351–71 (with 332–34, clearly summarizes the evidence and impact—including Beckett 1938, 168). McGrath (1997, vol. 1, 101–6; vol. 2, 52–57, 58–61) offers useful discussions of several of Rubens’s versions of Democritus. For Heraclitus, see Halliwell 2008, 346–51.

79.
De or.
2.235. He assumes Democritus’ expertise in laughter, not necessarily that Democritus is known as a laugher.

80.
“Laughing Mouth” (Γελασῖνος) is Aelian’s term (
VH
4.20); Halliwell 2008, 351, 369 (for “patron saint”); Juvenal 10.33–34; see also Horace,
Epist.
2.1.194–96.

81.
Hippocrates, [
Ep.
] 10–23 (with text and translation in W. D. Smith 1990). Hankinson 2000 and Halliwell 2008, 360–63, offer clear introductions.

82.
[
Ep.
] 10.1 (ὁ δὲ πάντα γελᾷ).

83.
[
Ep.
] 17.5 (ἐγὼ δὲ ἕνα γελῶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον).

84.
The only reference to laughter in a (possibly) authentic surviving fragment of Democritus is 68B107a DK, which states that one should not laugh at the misfortune of others. The earliest explicit reference to Democritus being a renowned laugher himself (rather than an expert) is Horace,
Epist.
2.1.194–96.

85.
Plutarch,
Lyc.
25 (statue);
Agis and Cleom.
30 (shrine); Halliwell 2008, 44–49, offers a brief survey of the evidence for Spartan laughter.

86.
Plutarch,
Lyc.
12, 14.

87.
Plutarch,
Mor.
217c =
Apophthegmata Lac.
, Androcleidas.

88.
A temptation not resisted by David 1989.

89.
The Roman-period reconstruction of (and investment in) primitive Sparta is a theme in Spawforth 2012 (e.g., on the traditions of the
sussitia,
86–100). In part, this tradition was no doubt the Spartans’ own way of claiming a distinctive identity (happy to provide theme-park reenactments of primitive rituals); in part, it was a literary/discursive phenomenon, as writers of Roman date created a distinctive vision of the Spartan past.

90.
Cordero 2000, 228, reviews the possibilities. They suggest that the tradition may go back to the third century, but “rien ne le prouve.”

91.
Plutarch,
Lyc.
25, cites the Hellenistic historian Sosibios (Jacoby,
FGrHist
595F19).

92.
Chesterfield 1774, vol. 1, 262–63 (letter of 3 April 1747).

93.
Cicero,
De or.
2.217, sums it up; Plautus,
Pers.
392–95, is a comic version of the hierarchy.

94.
Plutarch,
Mor.
854c =
Comp. Ar. & Men.
4. The cultural complexity is nicely signaled by the fact that Plutarch here not only Hellenizes a Roman term to talk about the Greek dramatist Menander but goes on to compare Menander’s “salt” to the salt of the sea from which Aphrodite was born. The reference at Plato,
Symp.
177b, is almost certainly literally to salt rather to than wit.

5. THE ORATOR

1.
Quintilian,
Inst.
6.3.47–49. The force of the pun relies on the particular similarity between
quoque
and the vocative case of
coquus
(
coque
), so “I will vote for you
too
” is heard as “I will vote for you,
cook
,” jokingly rubbing in the man’s humble origins. The second pun was at the expense of a man who had been flogged in his youth by his father: the father was
constantissimus
(completely steadfast), the son
varius
(“vacillating” or “multicolored,” i.e., black and blue).

2.
Quintilian,
Inst.
6.3.49. The background and outcome of the trial are discussed by Mitchell 1991, 198–201; Riggsby 1999, 112–19; Steel 2005, 116–31. In pondering this pun, I have canvassed other possible linguistic resonances (with
sericus,
meaning “silk,”
sero,
“to bolt or bar,” and
sero,
“to join or contrive”) but without finding any plausible or pointed result.

3.
Rawson 1975, xv; Simon Goldhill, interviewed by an Australian newspaper (
The Australian,
24 September 2008) about his ideal ancient dinner party companions, chose Sappho, Hypatia, Aristophanes, Alcibiades, and Phryne, as “that would be more fun than Augustus, Caesar, Jesus, St Paul and Cicero.” I am not so sure.

4.
Brugnola 1896 is a nice monument to Cicero “the jokester,” very much in the ancient tradition.

5.
Plutarch,
Cic.
1 (chickpea), 24 (self-importance), 27 (jokes—ἕνεκα τοῦ γελοίου). Against the man with ugly daughters, he quoted a line of some tragic drama (“It was against the will of Phoebus Apollo that he sired children”). The joke against Faustus Sulla (son of the dictator) rested on a double entendre. He had fallen into debt and issued notices (προέγραψε) advertising his property for sale; Cicero quipped that he preferred the son’s notices to the father’s (Sulla senior had issued notices with lists of those to be put to death—the word προγράφω, or
proscribo
in Latin, refers to both kinds of notice).

6.
Plutarch,
Cic.
38.

7.
Though written in the form of a speech, this was never actually delivered and most likely was always intended for written circulation only; Ramsey 2003, 155–59.

8.
Cicero,
Phil.
2.39–40.

9.
The possibility (or difficulty) of laughter in times of trouble is a common theme in Cicero’s letters:
Att.
7.5.5 (SB 128);
Fam.
2.4.1 (SB 48), 2.12.1 (SB 95), 2.16.7 (SB 154), 15.18.1 (SB 213).

10.
Comp. Dem. & Cic.
1.

11.
Comp. Dem. & Cic.
1 (also quoted at Plutarch,
Cat. Min.
21); on possible senses of λαμπρός, see Krostenko 2001, 67–68.

12.
“Funny”: Rabbie 2007, 207; “comedian”: Krostenko 2001, 224. Dugan 2005, 108, offers “amusing.” The Loeb Classical Library version of
Cat. Min.
21 runs “What a droll fellow our consul is,” and of
Comp. Dem. & Cic.
1, “What a funny man we have for a consul.”

13.
Inst.
6.3.1–5.

14.
Macrobius,
Sat.
2.3.10, 7.3.8; Seneca,
Controv.
7.3.9. The repartee starts with a gibe by Cicero against Laberius, who had just been given equestrian rank by Caesar and was trying to take his seat in the designated equestrian area—when everyone sat close together so as not to let him in. Cicero quips, “I would have let you in except that I am cramped in my seat” (the implication being that elite rows had become full of any riffraff promoted by Caesar). Laberius retorts, “How strange, given that you usually sit on two seats” (a dig at Cicero’s vacillations of support between Caesar and Pompey). Seneca makes the parallel absolutely explicit: “Both men speak very wittily, but neither man has any sense of boundary in this area.”

15.
Sat.
2.1.12 (a phrase here ascribed to Vatinius); with Cicero,
Fam.
9.20.1 (SB 193), implying that his friend Paetus had called Cicero
scurra veles
(a “light-armed
scurra
,” “the
scurra
of the troop”), presumably in friendly banter.

16.
Other, in my view less likely, suggestions for Cato’s original words include
facetus
or
lepidus
(Leeman 1963, 61, 398n100; Krostenko 2001, 225); the quip would then point to the “overaestheticized” implications of those terms, incompatible with the masculine traditions of public speaking and office holding.

17.
Inst.
6.3.5. Macrobius,
Sat.
2.1.12 notes that some people suspected that Tiro himself had made up some of the jokes.

18.
Fam.
15.21.2 (SB 207).

19.
Macrobius,
Sat.
2.3.3.

20.
Macrobius,
Sat.
2.3.7. This is a subtler pun than it at first seems, as Ingo Gildenhard has helped me appreciate, playing on the conflict between military preparations and those for a dinner party (see Brugnola 1896, 33–34). As I have translated it, the joke consists in Cicero displacing the life and death issues of civil war by turning to the trivial business of when you should arrive at a dinner party, but the military reading surely remains latent, with
nihil . . . paratum
also referring to the general lack of preparation of the Pompeians (“Look who’s talking: the state of preparation in this camp is pathetic”). Corbeill’s reading (1996, 186) produces a more
frigidus
point: “You’ve arrived late in the day” . . . “But not too late, as you have nothing ready.”