Plautus Poenulus 5.5

Henry Thomas Riley (Translator)

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Poenulus. Plautus. Henry Thomas Riley (Translator). London. 1913.

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Current edition Perseus

Poenulus, or The Young Carthaginian (English) (Plautus. The Comedies of Plautus, Volume 2. Riley, Henry Thomas, translator. London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1913.)

Editions (1)
Poenulus Perseus (Plautus. Plauti Comoediae, Volume 2. Leo, Friedrich, editor. Berlin: Weidmann, 1896.) — 5.5 focus

Notes on the current edition

Poenulus, or The Young Carthaginian

1. As his chamberlain: Atriensi. The duties of this domestic are fully referred to in the Notes to the Asinaria.
2. I took a pledge: It is not quite clear what he refers to, but he probably means to say that he has laid hold of something valuable in the Procurer’s house, which will, at all events, procure a substitute in part for the prandium out of which he has been cheated
3. Military way of payment: By the mention of aes militare, some Commentators think that he alludes to his sword, and draws it. He seems to refer, however, to the stipend which the soldiers receive for their services, with full liberty to lay their hands on anything that belongs to the enemy.
4. Carry the buckets: He alludes to the slaves whose duty it was to hold the buckets to the horses in the Circus for them to drink from. Exposure to sun and dust would tend to render them swarthy.
5. A womanish race: Muliersous generally means fond of women. It clearly however, in this passage means womanish, or womanlike.
6. You great toe of a man: From this expression it has been conjectured that Hanno was a man of diminutive stature, and that the Play took its name of Pœnulus, the little Carthaginian, from that circumstance.
7. Of Serapis: It is not fully known what the meaning of Sarapis is, as it occurs nowhere else. It has been conjectured, that, owing to the African features of Hanno, the Captain compares him to the little ugly images of Serapis, which were carried about in harvest-time by the priests of that God, for the purpose of collecting money.
8. You sheepskin-jacket: This garment, being worn with the wool on, was remarkable for its offensive smell. Halagoras hama is supposed to mean the pots of common sea-salt exposed for sale in the market-place.
9. Use a drum: The priests of Cybele, who were either eunuchs, or persons of effeminate and worthless character, walked in their processions beating a tympanum. a drum or tambourine. The Captain, by his question, contemptuously implies that Agorastocles is such a character. See the Truer lentus, l. 608, and the Note.
10. Action of damages to be brought against him: Multum dici has been adopted as the reading, in preference to multo induci, which seems capable of no translation consistently with sense. The passage may possbly mean that he prefers an action at law to summary proceedings.