Plautus Trinummus 2.4

Henry Thomas Riley (Translator)

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Trinummus. Plautus. Henry Thomas Riley (Translator). London. 1912.

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Current edition Perseus

Trinummus: The Three Pieces of Money (English) (Plautus. The Comedies of Plautus, Volume 1. Riley, Henry Thomas, translator. London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1912.)

Editions (1)
Trinummus Perseus (Plautus. Plauti Comoediae, Volume 2. Leo, Friedrich, editor. Berlin: Weidmann, 1896.) — 2.4 focus

Notes on the current edition

Trinummus: The Three Pieces of Money

1. Washed away in baths: This will probably refer, not to the money paid for mere bathing at the public baths, which was a quadrans, the smallest Roman coin, but to the expense of erecting private baths, which generally formed a portion of the luxuries of a Roman house. The public baths, however, may have possibly been the scene of much profligacy, and have afforded to the reckless and dissipated ample opportunities for squandering their money. That this may have been the fact, is rendered the more likely when we consider the equivocal signification of the word bagnio.
2. Make all due deductions: Si sumas. Literally, if you subtract.
3. The money’s gone: Instead of a Latin word, the Greek οἴχεται is introduced, which means is gone, or has vanished. Greek terms were current at Rome , just as French words and sentences are imported into our language; indeed, the fashions of Rome were very generally set by the Greeks.
4. Has sold his house: He feels satisfied now that Lysiteles has been correctly informed, and that Lesbonicus really is in difficulties.
5. The beggar’s gate: He probably alludes to the Porta Trigemina at Rome , which was upon the road to Ostia . It received its name from the three twin-born brothers, the Horatii, who passed beneath it when going to fight the Curiatii. This, being one of the largest and most frequented roads in Rome , was especially the resort of mendicants; among whom, in the opinion of Philto, the father of Lesbonicus will have to take his place. Some Commentators would read ponte instead of portâ, and they think that the allusion is to the Sublician bridge at Rome , where we learn from Seneca and Juvenal that the beggars used to sit and ask alms.
6. His son’s stomach: He satirically alludes to the reckless conduct of Lesbonicus, who has spent everything to satisfy his love for eating, drinking, and debauchery.
7. Olympic drachmae: As already mentioned, the drachma was about ninepence three-farthings in value. As one hundred made a mina, one fourth of the price received for the house would go to satisfy the banker’s claim.
8. To the banker: The Trapezitae were the same as the Argentarii at Rome , who were bankers and money-changers on their own account, while the Mensarii transacted business on behalf of the state. Their shops, or offices, were situate around the Forum, and were public property. Their principal business was the exchange of Roman for foreign coin, and the keeping of sums of money for other persons, which were deposited with or without interest, according to agreement. They acted as agents for the sale of estates, and a part of their duty was to test the genuineness of coin, and, in later times, to circulate it from the mint among the people. Lending money at a profit was also part of their business. It is supposed that among the Romans there was a higher and a lower class of argentarii. The more respectable of them probably held the position of the banker of modern times; while those who did business on a paltry scale, or degraded themselves by usury, were not held in any esteem. Their shops, being public property, were built under the inspection of the Censors, and by them were let to the argentarii. Trapezitae, as they are here called, was properly the Greek name for these persons, who were so styled from the τραπεσα, or table, at which they sat. All will remember the tables of the money-changers mentioned in the New Testament. The mensarii were employed to lend out the public money to borrowers at interest.
9. I was security for: Spondeo, I promise, was a term used on many occasions among the Romans, derived from the Greek σπενδόμαι, pour out a libation; the usual mode of ratifying a treaty. Among others, it was pronounced by a person when he became security that another should repay money, as Lesbonicus, to his misfortune, had done in the present instance.
10. Say, rather: Stasimus will not allow his master to mince the matter in the slightest degree. Don’t say I was security for it, but I paid it down.
11. You used to say: He probably alludes to some former occasion, on which his master, having been duped into the belief, was telling him of the extraordinary wealth of his new acquaintance.
12. With his savings: Peculium was the property amassed by a slave out of his savings, which he was permitted to keep as his own. According to the strictness of the law, the peculium was the property of the master. Sometimes it was agreed that the slave should purchase his freedom with his peculium when it amounted to a certain sum.
13. I am a man: This is somewhat like the celebrated line in Terence:
Homo sum, humani nihil alienum a me puto,
I am a man, nothing that is human do I think unbecoming to me.
14. Friend in need: Ferentarius, The ferentarii were the light-armed troops, who, being unencumbered with heavy armour, were ready to come immediately and opportunely to the assistance of those who were in danger of being overpowered by the army. The word is here used figuratively, to signify a friend in need.
15. And go hang yourself: The word dierecte is supposed to come from an obsolete verb, dierigo, to extend out on both sides, and to allude to a punishment inflicted upon slaves, when they were fastened to a stake in the ground, with the arms and legs extended. Applied to a slave, it would be an opprobrious expression, equivalent to go and be hanged.
16. Be forbidding me: He means, that if he should take his master at his word and go away, he would be the first to stop him.
17. Both to act: -2. The exact meaning of these lines is somewhat obscure. Thornton’s translation is:
Or in word
Or deed to play the trifler would ill suit
One of my years.
18. The one-eyed man: He means that he is determined to speak out at all risks, even if his master should be as good as his word, and tear his eye out.
19. As your neighbour: Par here means a close neighbour, as reclining next to him on the same triclinium, or couch, at the entertainment.
20. Style a public one: It is not certain what kind of public banquets are here referred to. Public entertainments were given to the people on the occasion of any public rejoicing: such, for instance, as a triumph, as we learn from Suetonius in his life of Julius Caesar. They were also given when the tenths were paid to Hercules. The clients, also, of the Patricians were in the habit of giving entertainments to their patrons on festival days, when each client contributed his share in kind; and numerous invitations were given, abundance and hospitality being the order of the day. Sometimes these feasts were held in a temple, and perhaps they are here referred to. There were also frequent entertainments in the Curiae, or Court-houses of Rome , at which the curiales, or men of the curia, or ward, met together.
21. There the decision: Scaliger supposes that Stasimus is making a parody on the transaction of business by the Senate, who were said to give their decisions on matters sacred and human; and that he means to say that the feast is his Senate-house, and the food are the things sacred and human which he is bound to discuss, without respect for anybody.
22. Without incumbrances: Every Roman family of consequence was bound to perform particular sacrifices, which were not only ordained by the pontifical laws, but the obligation was also rendered hereditary by the civil law, and ordered to be observed by the law of the Twelve Tables: Sacra privata perpetua manento, Let private sacrifices remain perpetual. This law is quoted and commented upon by Cicero in his Second Book on the Laws. He there tells us that heirs are obliged to continue their sacrifices, be they ever so expensive; and for this reason, as by the above law these sacrifices were to be maintained, no one was presumed to be better able to supply the place of the deceased person than his heir. A property exempt from this necessity, might be truly said to be one without incumbrances.
23. The salt-cellar: By this expression, Plautus seems to mean that life is to the body as salt is to flesh; it preserves it from corruption.
24. At Acheron : Acheron was a river of the Brutii in Campania . There was another river of this name in Epirus . The word usually denotes one of the rivers of Hell; here it means the Infernal regions themselves.
25. As your name imports: The meaning of Stasimus is— Perhaps when you are dead, in leaving your property to another, you may really prove yourself the amiable man your name would bespeak you to be; Philto being derived from the Greek θιλέω, to love.
26. I agree: Spondeo was a word in general use to denote that the person entered into a promise or engagement. Being the nearest male relation of the damsel, Philto wishes Lesbonicus to close the matter by saying spondeo, I agree to betroth her, which he hesitates to do; on which, Stasimus, alluding to his having been the security for the thousand drachmae, tells him that he had been ready enough to say spondeo when it was not to his advantage; namely, at the time when he aid spondeo, I promise, and became the security to the banker for his friend. See Note 1 in page 24.
27. Part of line 525 in the Latin.
28. Backgammoned state: Ad incitas redactus, brought to a standstill, was a term borrowed from the game of Duodecim Scripta, or twelve points, and was applied when one of the parties got all his men on the twelfth point, and, being able to move no further, lost the game in consequence. Probably the game partook of the nature of both backgammon and chess.
29. The hogs die: From Pliny the Elder we learn that angina, or swelling of the throat, was a common distemper among hogs.
30. The Syrian natives: He makes mention of the Syrians, because living in a hot climate, they would be most likely to be able to endure extreme heat.
31. The solstitial fever: He seems to mean, that if a person went to live there at the beginning of the year, he could not possibly live there beyond six months, being sure to die of fever at the time of the Solstice, or Midsummer.
32. I believe, Stasimus: Philto only says so for peace sake, as no man in his senses was likely to believe a word of it. As he does not want the piece of land for his son, he wishes to make no words about it.
33. But the Campanian: He just makes this remark casually, probably to show Stasimus that he knows about things in general as well as he does. Some think, however, that he intends to correct Stasimus, and to tell him that even the Campanians, who were considered an effeminate race, could boast of more hardihood than the Syrians.
34. To impose upon: Os quoi sublinat—literally, can besmear his face. This expression alludes to the practical joke of making a fool of a person by painting his face while he is asleep.
35. I have cleverly frightened: As before remarked, he is probably much mistaken in thinking so.
36. He is a man: His meaning seems to be, he is a man, with feelings like ourselves, and naturally wishes for his freedom,
37. Do go now: Stasimus is continually urging him to follow Philto, and bring the matter to a conclusion, as he fears that so good an opportunity may be lost through his master’s habitual carelessness especially as Philto has agreed not to receive the land as a marriage-portion.
38. ’Tis all over: He means that he will no longer have any support from his master, and that he will have to turn soldier, and so earn his livelihood.
39. Atia or to Cilicia : , Alluding, probably to the wars which were continually occurring between the Greeks and the Persian monarchs, or else to the custom of hiring themselves out as mercenary soldiers, as Xenophon and the ten thousand did to the younger Cyrus.