Laughter in Ancient Rome (54 page)

59.
Zinn 1960, 43.

60.
Fam.
7.32.2 (SB 113).

61.
Ingo Gildenhard has suggested to me that the name is significant: at the very least there is something a bit joking in having the disquisition on joking delivered by a man whose name means “squinter.” And just suppose we were to imagine that “Strabo” was a stock comic character; then we might also imagine a running metaliterary joke in the criticism of mime.

62.
De or.
2.218 (“leve nomen habet utraque res”).

63.
Or.
87.

64.
Leeman, Pinkster, and Rabbie 1989, 189, followed by Fantham 2004, 189.

65.
Inevitably, the influence of earlier Greek terminology has been sought here. Kroll 1913, 87, for example, sees the Peripatetic terms
charis/gelōs
behind
facetiae/dicacitas
(though in this case even Grant [1924, 103–18] is unconvinced and finds no exact Greek equivalent for the pairing).

66.
De or.
2.251 (
ridicula/faceta
), 2.260 (
frigida/salsa
), 2.222 (
bona dicta / salsa
).

67.
Grant 1924, 100–131, while acknowledging the difficulties, attempts a series of systematic definitions; likewise Leeman, Pinkster, and Rabbie 1989, 183–88 (“Einige Differenzierung zwischen dem Gebrauch der verschiedenen Termini ist . . . möglich, wobei aber Grant . . . manchmal zu weit gegangen ist,” 183), and Guérin 2011, 145–303. Krostenko 2001 offers a highly technical sociolinguistic study of many of these key terms, emphasizing their mutability. Ramage 1973 attempts to track ideas of
urbanitas
throughout Roman history. Fitzgerald 1995, 87–113, is the clearest introduction to the issues.

68.
Krostenko 2001, 207–14.

69.
Inst.
6.3.18–19: “Salsum in consuetudine pro ridiculo tantum accipimus: natura non utique hoc est, quamquam et ridicula esse oporteat salsa. Nam et Cicero omne quod salsum sit ait esse Atticorum non quia sunt maxime ad risum compositi, et Catullus, cum dicit, ‘Nulla est in corpore mica salis,’ non hoc dicit, nihil in corpore eius esse ridiculum. Salsum igitur erit quod non erit insulsum.” This passage reveals some of the acute difficulties in translating, let alone in making precise sense of, Roman discussions of wit and its terminology. In the first sentence, is Quintilian saying that
salsa
ought also to be
ridicula,
or that
ridicula
ought also to be
salsa
? The position of the
et
strongly suggests the former, but the explanations that follow (after
nam
) make the latter almost certain. And what is the sense of
ridiculum
? Modern translators render Quintilian’s comment on Catullus as “He does not mean there is nothing ridiculous in her body” (D. Russell in the Loeb Classical Library) or “Non c’è niente di ridicolo” (Monaco 1967). It makes perfect sense in English (or Italian), but it ignores the other, active Latin sense of
ridiculum
—to make you laugh. Catullus could well be saying (as some modern commentators agree; see, e.g., Quinn 1970, 424) “there is not a spark of wit” in her. Throughout the passage there is an instability between the active and the passive sense of these words (as in
ad risum compositi
). Matters are further confused by the fact that Cicero (
De or.
2.251) attempts (tendentiously maybe) to distinguish the
salsum
of the orator and the mime actor.

70.
De or.
2.235. For the reading of
venas
or
genas,
see Leeman, Pinkster, and Rabbie 1989, 238.

71.
De or.
2.236.

72.
De or.
2.279.

73.
De or.
2.248.

74.
De or.
2.248.

75.
De or.
2.254.

76.
De or.
2.255, 2.260; see also p. 28.

77.
De or.
2.255 (for the financial sense, see Plautus,
Rud.
1327).

78.
De or.
2.245.

79.
De or.
2.252.

80.
De or.
2.90–92; though there are dangers even in this kind of imitation, as Antonius points out (you have to make sure that you copy the most important features of the model, not merely those that are easy to imitate).

81.
De or.
2.242.

82.
See, e.g., Edwards 1993, 98–136 (see 117–19 for the comparison of actors and orators). Dupont 2000 is a subtle discussion of the interrelationships between Roman oratory and theater, as is, more briefly, Fantham 2002 (drawing particularly on Quintilian,
Inst.
11.3). See further above, p. 167.

83.
De or.
2.251.

84.
De or.
2.247, 2.256.

85.
Corbeill 1996, 26.

86.
De or.
2.262.

87.
One classic statement of this “brain-balkanisation” is Feeney 1998, esp. 14–21.

88.
Krostenko 2001, 223–25; Dugan 2005, 105–6.

89.
Seneca,
Constant.
17. Vatinius is here dubbed (like Cicero) a
scurra
—but also
venustus
and
dicax.
“He used to joke about his own feet and scarred neck; in this way he escaped the wit [
urbanitas
] of his enemies—who outnumbered his deformities—and particularly Cicero’s.”

90.
Macrobius,
Sat.
2.3.5. Relations between Cicero and Vatinius were more complicated than the terms of simple enmity in which they are often painted. Cicero defended Vatinius in 54 BCE. Even if this was largely under pressure from Caesar and Pompey (see his lengthy explanation in
Fam.
1.9 [SB 20]), there are later clear signs of cordiality, in, e.g.,
Att.
11.5.4 (SB 216);
Fam.
5.9–11 (SB 255–59).

91.
“Interactive” (as Ingo Gildenhard encourages me to say) is key here, and a feature lost from the necessarily nondialogic character of the speeches as circulated in written form. One might be tempted to say that the aggressive humor is a feature more of the written versions than of the original oratorical scene; that, in writing, invective has replaced the dialogic banter that is so central to the picture of joking in
De Oratore.

92.
Inst.
6.3 (with Monaco 1967, including Italian translation and notes); Fernández López 2007 is a brief introduction to the work as a whole.

93.
Cicero’s account is explicitly referenced at, for example,
Inst.
6.3.8 (
De or.
2.236), 6.3.42 (
Orat.
87).

94.
Inst.
6.3.23 (
verbo/re
), 6.3.26 and 29 (funny faces), 6.3.34 (classes of people).

95.
Inst.
6.3.50.

96.
De or.
2.267;
Inst.
6.3.67.

97.
Inst.
6.3.102–12.

98.
De or.
2.271 (see also 2.227);
Inst.
6.3.19.

99.
Inst.
6.3.28.

100.
As suggested in another context (see pp. 131, 252n11) by Sherwin-White 1966, 305.

101.
Inst.
6.3.82. See above, n. 89, for a
scurra,
Vatinius, who apparently told jokes on himself to his advantage.

102.
Inst.
6.3.112, 6.3.54 (“est enim dictum per se urbanum ‘satagere’”). Martial,
Epigram.
4.55.27–29, suggests that foreign place-names could be funny too.

103.
Inst.
6.3.8, 6.3.32.

104.
Inst.
6.1.48.

105.
De or.
2.240–41.

106.
Inst.
6.3.6, 6.3.70 (“ridiculum est autem omne quod aperte fingitur”).

107.
Phaedrus,
Fabulae
5.5; see also John Henderson 2001, 119–28. Here, as Henderson observes (224n70), the phrase
urbanus sal
signals Roman “show biz.”

6. FROM EMPEROR TO JESTER

1.
SHA,
Heliog.
26.6, 25.1.

2.
Variations on this theme are found in other ancient reflections on the autocrat’s relationship to laughter and joking—in, for example, the story of the young Julius Caesar’s encounter with the pirates. In captivity, Caesar joked with the pirates that when he was free, he would crucify them, which is what he did. Suetonius (
Iul.
4; see also 74) underlines the point: he really carried out “what he had often threatened them as a joke” (“quod saepe illis minatus inter iocum fuerat”). The message is that in different ways, the jokes of the powerful could turn out to have a greater truth-value than you might want.