Plautus Trinummus 4.3

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.) — 4.3 focus

Notes on the current edition

Trinummus: The Three Pieces of Money

1. For your shoulder-blades: The slaves among the Romans were whipped most unmercifully with the flagellum, a whip, to the handle of which a lash was fastened, made of cords or thongs of leather, especially from the ox’s hide. It was often knotted with bones, or pieces of bronze, or terminated by hooks, and was then not inaptly termed a scorpion. The infliction of punishment with this on the naked back was sometimes fatal, and was carried into execution by a class of slaves who were called lorarii.
2. Smacks of the bull’s-hide: Cottabus was a game played by the Sicilians and Greeks, in which the players had in turn to throw wine out of a goblet into a metal basin at a certain distance, in such a way as not to spill any of the wine. The methods in which the game was played are stated with precision in an able article in Dr. Smith’s Dictionary. As one of the merits of the game was that the wine thrown should in its fall produce the strongest and most pat sound, Stasimus here calls the smacks of the whip on his back so many bubuli cottabi, ox-hide smacks.
3. Forgotten your ring: We learn from Caelius Rhodiginus that condalium was a peculiar kind of ring worn by slaves.
4. At the liquor-shop: The thermopolia are supposed to have been the same as the popinae, shops where drinks and ready-dressed provisions were sold. They were very numerous throughout Italy. The keepers of them were called popae. In the present instance we learn what kind of people visited them, and Cicero tells us that they were frequented by the slaves and the lower orders. They sat on stools or benches, while they drank calda, or calida, mulled wine, which was always kept hot. It was probably mixed with spices, and was the favourite drink of the lower classes. It was measured out in poteria, draughts, which are here mentioned; and which formed, probably, about a moderate cupful. Claudius commanded the thermopolia to be closed at one period of his reign.
5. His throat is his taskmaster: He has overheard what Stasimus has said about warming his throat in l. 1014; and, talking to himself, he remarks that his throat will be the cause of his learning how to run, as he warms his throat, gets drunk, loses his ring, runs homeward, and then runs back to find it.
6. Would keep their hands off: There is no doubt that this is intended to be said satirically.
7. Cricolabus, Collabus: These are either nicknames, or, possibly, names really given to slaves, as in all ages and countries masters have especially tried to show their wit in naming their slaves.
8. Whipped-necks: Collicrepidae and Cruricrepidae were probably cant terms for slaves, who carried the marks of punishment on their necks and legs. Crepidae is from the verb crepo, to crack, and alludes to the sound of the lashes. Ferriterius was a slave who bore the marks of the chain with which he had been fastened for refractory conduct, while mastigia was a name given to a slave who had passed the ordeal of flogging. A liquor-shop was a likely place for the resort of worthless and refractory slaves.
9. From a running footman: Cursores were slaves who ran before the carriage of their masters for the same purpose as our outriders. Perhaps, however, this is not the meaning of the word here, as the name was given to all slaves whom their masters employed in carrying letters and messages. Stasimus hints by this that his boon companions were not only very expert at thieving, but that they would prey inst as readily on a fellow-slave as any other person.
10. Tack about, then: Cape vorsoriam was a sea-phrase, meaning ’turn, or tack about; as vorsoria was the name of the rope by which the sail was turned from one direction to another
11. Parents to their children: This is said satirically in reference to the corruptness of the age, in which all the relations and duties of life were turned upside down.
12. Are even hung up: He alludes to the custom among the Romans of writing or engraving the laws and ordinances on wood or brass, and hanging them up for public inspection upon pegs or rails in the Capitol, Forum, and Curiae, or Court-houses.
13. If you lend: Stasimus has experienced this, and has applied for the talent which he lent, but in vain; unless, indeed, his meaning is that he got back the talent, but lost his friend. Shakspeare has a somewhat similar passage in Hamlet:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loseth both itself and friend.
14. Do you set down: Appone. This word is used figuratively, it being employed to mean, in mercantile matters, to set down to one’s account. So Horace says:
Quem sors dierum cumque dabit, lucro
Appone—
Whatever lot each day shall bring, set that down as clear gain. This, we may here observe, is a similar sentiment to that conveyed in the remark of Callicles, L. 65.
15. Should be sprinkled: His meaning is, you should have beer as ready to give your assistance at the time when my fortunes were in their death- struggle through the conduct of my son Lesbonicus.