Plautus Miles Gloriosus 3.4

Henry Thomas Riley (Translator)

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Miles Gloriosus. Plautus. Henry Thomas Riley (Translator). London. 1912.

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Current edition Perseus

Miles Gloriosus, or The Braggart Captain (English) (Plautus. The Comedies of Plautus, Volume 1. Riley, Henry Thomas, translator. London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1912.)

Editions (1)
Miles Gloriosus Perseus (Plautus. Plauti Comoediae, Volume 2. Leo, Friedrich, editor. Berlin: Weidmann, 1896.) — 3.3 focus

Notes on the current edition

Miles Gloriosus, or The Braggart Captain

1. Asleep, gulping: Sorbeo means not only to drink up, but to make that gulping noise in snoring which is produced by inhaling the breath with the mouth open, and the head thrown back. Palaestrio purposely misunderstands him, for the purpose of getting a confession out of him.
2. Part of line 822 in the Latin.
3. A cask of nardine: According to the reading here adopted, he guesses that Sceledrus has got drunk upon some nardine wine, that had been lately tapped. The Romans used many articles for flavouring their wines. Spikenard, an Eastern aromatic, is here referred to. Horehound, squills, wormwood, and myrtle-berries were used for making medical wines. Cornels, figs, medlars, roses, asparagus, parsley, radishes, laurels, junipers, cassia, cinnamon, and saffron, with many other particulars, were also used for flavouring wines.
4. His deputy-butler: Some Commentators take this passage to mean, that Sceledrus really was the promus, or butler; but it seems more probable that Palaestrio says, by way of accusation, Sceledrus has not only been acting the butler on this occasion, but you have been acting as his deputy, in secretly helping him to draw it. Lucrio was the subcustos of Sceledrus, the deputy-keeper of Philocomasium, and the under-butler as well.
5. Didn’t just: He adheres to his promise by denying it in words, but m such a way as to make a full confession of what has happened. Hemina was a measure among the Greeks and Romans of nearly half a pint.
6. Drink it hot: It has been already remarked, that the Romans were much in the habit of drinking wine, made warm and mixed with spices. The taking it at prandium, about twelve in the day, shows how Sceledrus presumed on the office of trust which had been conferred upon him.
7. Vinegar-water: Posca was the name of the mixture of vinegar and water which constituted the drink of the Roman soldiers, the lower classes, and the slaves. Palaestrio grumbles on finding that while he is drinking vinegar and water his fellow-slave is enjoying himself on mulled wine.
8. Standing on their heads: He means to say that the amphorae, no doubt, were often turned bottom upwards for the purpose of pouring out their contents.
9. The casks would not: The whole of this passage is of somewhat obscure signification. The two lines probably mean, The casks ( cadi) would not have fallen down there so very much, had it not been that one part of the cellar was very slippery indeed. He then shows how ( sic) the pot was put close by the casks, so that, they slipping down, it was filled as often as ten times in one day; and he concludes by saying, that when the pot acted the Bacchanal ( debacchabatur), the casks slipped down again. Probably by acting the Bacchanal he means to say that the pot got filled and was then emptied, just like the Bacchanals, who, doubtless, were not particular at vomiting a part of the enormous quantities of wine which they imbibed; and he naively tells the truth, by saying that the cask slipping was the result of the pot being emptied, and so laying the fault more upon the pot than the drinker.
10. don’t you tell him: These occasional addresses to the Spectators, in the middle of the dialogue, were made in the same spirit and for the same purpose for which the clown on our stage addresses his jokes to the audience, namely, to provoke a hearty laugh.