Laughter in Ancient Rome (56 page)

45.
Leg.
361: πάλιν πρὸς τὴν πεῦσιν γέλως ἐκ τῶν ἀντιδίκων κατερράγη τοσοῦτος, τῇ μὲν ἡδομένων τῇ δὲ καὶ ἐπιτηδευόντων ἕνεκα κολακείας ὑπὲρ τοῦ τὸ λεχθὲν δοκεῖν σὺν εὐτραπελίᾳ καὶ χάριτι εἰρῆσθαι, ὥς τινα τῶν ἑπομένων αὐτῷ θεραπόντων ἀγανακτεῖν ἐπὶ τῷ καταφρονητικῶς ἔχειν αὐτοκράτορος.

46.
Leg.
361. As Smallwood 1970, 322, puts it, if this was the rule, “Dio and Suetonius know nothing of this.”

47.
Leg.
362–67.

48.
Inst.
6.3.58 (the standard modern text simply draws from Horace’s account in
Sat
. 1.5 to fill the obvious gap in what has survived of Quintilian).

49.
Martial,
Epigram.
1.101. Plutarch,
Mor.
760a (=
Amat.
16), recounts a joking encounter between Gabba (called a γελωτοποιός) and Maecenas; see also Quintilian,
Inst.
6.3.27, 6.3.80 (6.3.62 may also refer to Gabba).

50.
Tacitus,
Ann.
15.34: “Vatinius inter foedissima eius aulae ostenta fuit, sutrinae tabernae alumnus, corpore detorto, facetiis scurrilibus.”

51.
The sense of
copreae
might be rather “found on the dung heap” (from κοπρία, “dung heap”), but I have been unable to resist “little shits.”

52.
I include in this the “courts” of rivals or enemies; Dio (in a speech of Octavian) refers to the table companions of Antony and Cleopatra being called κοπρίαι (Dio 50.28.5).

53.
Dio 74(73).6.

54.
Tib.
61.6.

55.
Suetonius,
Claud.
8.

56.
Pliny,
HN
37.17; Seneca,
Ben.
2.12.1. Caligula was said to wear them—see Suetonius,
Cal
. 52: “socco muliebri.”

57.
Soccus
could, in fact, be used as a metonym for comedy, as
cothurnus
(buskin) was for tragedy; see Horace,
Epist.
2.1.174; Ovid,
Rem. am.
376. For a parasite’s
soccus,
see Plautus,
Persa
124.

58.
I am aware that there may seem to be something risky about assuming that Suetonius’ account is much closer than that of the SHA to the reality of court life. But it’s not too risky. Suetonius had inside experience of the Roman palace (Wallace-Hadrill 1983, 73–96), and the use of the term
copreae
in different contexts and writers implies a recognizable referent. It is, as I have been suggesting, another case where these late imperial biographies hit the spirit if not the fact of Roman imperial life.

59.
CIL
6.4886 (=
ILS
5225): “. . .] Caesaris lusor / mutus argutus imitator / Ti. Caesaris Augusti qui / primum invenit causidicos imitari.” The fullest and most acute recent discussion is Purcell 1999 (who, however, prints the text as “mutus et argutus”).

60.
Wallis 1853, 79–80.

61.
Argutus
on its own is a term that is more generally associated with the repartee of the Roman wit or jokester; see, for example, Plautus,
Truculentus
491–96.

62.
Garelli 2007, 251; a late antique glossary defines a female pantomime actress as “omnium artium lusor” (
CGL
5.380.42); Petronius,
Sat.
68, has perhaps a similar household “imitator.”

63.
Laes 2011, 470, evades the problem by punctuating differently, to read “Mute and bright imitator. Of the household of Tiberius.” But the isolated phrase “Of the household of Tiberius” is very awkward, even by the standards of this awkward Latin.

64.
Purcell 1999, 182–83, reviews various possible settings (including public performance), but the repeated stress on the emperor in this text strongly suggests that we are dealing principally with a court entertainer.

65.
See, for example, Pliny,
Ep.
3.1.9, 9.17; with further references and discussion in C. P. Jones 1991 and Dunbabin 2008.

66.
Ep.
50 (esp. 2). Pliny,
Ep.
5.19, also concerns a resident household comedian; similarly, Petronius,
Sat.
68 (n62).

67.
Barton 1993, esp. 107–8 (“What did the Romans see in the mirror of deformity?”) and 141 (Seneca’s Harpaste as a “freakish avatar” of the elite philosopher). This is an extremely powerful discussion (also linking the mimes I will be treating in the next chapter); in general, however, Barton stresses the roles of derision and monstrosity more strongly than I think plausible.

68.
Vesp.
19.2.

69.
Suetonius,
Iul.
51. See also Suetonius,
Iul.
49.4; Dio 43.20; and the discussion in Beard 2007, 247–49.

70.
The clearest ancient example of laughter presented in these terms is found in the Greek story of Baubo, who exposes her genitals and makes the mourning Demeter laugh; it is explicitly called apotropaic by, for example, Zeitlin 1982 (145). For further references and brief discussion, see above, p. 174.

71.
The “evil eye” is far too catchall a solution to be useful; see further Beard 2007, 248.

72.
Barton 1993, 140, briefly discusses Vespasian’s funeral (though not the triumph)—seeing the joker along these lines, as “the monstrous double” of the emperor.

73.
For example, Juvenal 5; Martial,
Epigram.
2.43, 3.60, 4.85; Pliny,
Ep.
2.6. Gowers 1993, 211–19, discusses the ideology and the practice of such inequalities.

74.
SHA,
Heliog.
25.9.

75.
Petronius,
Sat.
49, raises all kinds of questions about food and deception. Apicius’ “
patina
of anchovy without anchovy” is a more mundane case (4.2.12).

76.
D’Arms 1990 is a useful overview of the general paradoxes of equality and inequality of the
convivium;
further aspects are discussed by Barton 1993, 109–12; Roller 2001, 135–46; Roller 2006 (for the hierarchies implied by posture), esp. 19–22, 85–88, 130–36.

77.
The most acute discussions of this particular area include Roller 2001, 146–54 (focusing on verbal exchanges witty and otherwise at the dinner party), and Damon 1997, an important study that lies in the background of much of my exploration in the pages that follow.

78.
I am borrowing here Lévi-Strauss’s famous phrase, for which see Lévi-Strauss 1997 [1965].

79.
Schlee 1893, 98.18–21.

80.
Damon 1997, 1–19, is a good introduction, with further bibliography, to some of the main debates about parasites; 23–36 sketches the main characteristics of the figure; 252–55 summarizes her key conclusions on the “sites of discomfort” (255) in the institution of patronage. Other useful recent discussions of different aspects of the parasite, and his cultural origins, include Nesselrath 1985, 88–121; J. C. B. Lowe 1989; Brown 1992; J. Wilkins 2000, 71–86; Tylawsky 2002; König 2012, 242–65.

81.
Xenophon,
Symp.
1.11–16, and, for example, 2.14, 2.20–23, 4.50. Halliwell 2008, 139–54, is a sharp discussion of different modes of laughter throughout this work, rightly stressing the role of mimicry and questioning quite how uninvited we should imagine Philip to be (143–55). Huss 1999, 104–6, lists numerous close—or not so close—ancient parallels.

82.
Damon 1997, 37–101, reviews these plays. Maltby 1999 discusses four particular characters (from Plautus’
Menaechmi, Captivi, Persa,
and
Stichus
). How far we are meant to identify significantly different types in this repertoire of characters—to distinguish, say, the “parasite” from the “flatterer”—is anything but certain; I have not here attempted to delineate any precise calibration of these hungry, flattering jokesters.

83.
Arnott 1972 remains one of the best, most sympathetic introductions to the play—and to the role of its parasite.

84.
Stich.
221–24: “logos ridiculos vendo. age licemini. / qui cena poscit? ecqui poscit prandio? / . . . ehem, adnuistin? nemo meliores dabit.”
Logi
is a loan word whose Greek associations may have remained strong (see also ll. 383, 393), but later in the play (l. 400) the Latin
dicta
is used as an exact equivalent for these jokes.

85.
Stich.
454–55: “Libros inspexi; tam confido quam potis, me meum optenturum regem ridiculis logis.” For the role of jokebooks, see above, pp. 201–5.

86.
Ridiculus: Stich.
171–77 (whose precise order is uncertain), 389.
Catagelasimus: Stich.
630 (the slightly awkward translation brings out the point). Ritschl 1868, 411, asserts that
ridiculus
never holds a passive sense in this period (“non sit is qui risum movet invitus, sed qui iocis et facetiis risum dedita opera captat”), a view widely followed (by, e.g., Maltby 1999). This seems to me highly implausible and—by missing the subtlety signaled in l. 630—reduces the
Stichus
to the uninteresting play it has been taken to be. (See the damning comments on it summarized by Arnott 1972, 54.) Bettini 2000 reaches similar conclusions on Gelasimus to my own, by a different route (see esp. 474); Sommerstein 2009, despite an apparent zeal to oversystematize laughter in Aristophanes, also points to some of these ambivalences.

87.
It provides, for example, the main subject of a long essay by Plutarch:
Mor.
48e–74e (=
Quomodo adulator
).