Cultured irony: Plautus

About Titus Maccius Plautus(255-184 b.Ch.), a Roman writer of comedy much has been written, and I don’t want add other to already is said, but a short note about the irony, that didn’t save neither the holy, or Roman holy, this the memory, more mythological than real, that Plautus has adopted for example in Amphitrus, an his comedy where he has joked, with prudence, with mythological brothers Romulus and Remus, whose the first has founded Rome; the comedy begins with an explication of Mercury, Roman god of merchant, that explains what is argument of this comedy, and he highlights that Alcmena, husband of Amphitrus, is gravid of two sons, it is the clear reference to Romulus and Remus, but he rescues the two sons and the mythological origin because the childes are sons of Jupiter, hence an divine origin that avoid the illegal adultery, because the two sons have a paternal origin that is sublime. Anyway Jupiter changed his shape and become Amphitrus, that is busy in war, has met the Alcmena. But Plautus jokes also with the human figure of philosophers, as the Diogenes of Sinope(412 b.Ch.323b.Ch), that walked in Athens with a lantern during the day, and when some body asked because the lantern he answered: “I am searching the man”; this fantastic narration certainly is arrived to hears of Plautus, that has take occasion to joked about this strange habit, although he doesn’t mention Diogenes, but Sosia the serve of Amphitrus goes in the scene with a lantern, and this opinion is confirmed from the words of same Sosia: “What I could make , if now the guards throw me to prison? From there, tomorrow, I am going to take and I am going to bore the whip, and I am going to can defense me and nothing aid from my patron”; it is certainly can’t consider a philosophical discourse, if we read so and with of comedy wit and alone amusing; but behind is a truth; the philosopher Diogenes, was a cynic philosopher that lived through alone of necessary, without other; the similitude to Sosia is evident, he lives as a serve therefore alone the necessary, and when he said: “I am going to can defense me and nothing aid from my patron”, the reference is directly to Diogenes that hasn’t the patrons, and Sosia that has a patron, but when he is useful, he isn’t, inasmuch Sosia in that moment has a patron, as Diogenes., and the compel of Sosia toward his patron, that is Jupiter, is indicative od a dislike: “It is true that to be to orders of a rich patron is hard, that a slave of rich is more unlike: night and day. The patron, rich of needs and free from toil, every will he has had, he thinks that it is possible, he thinks that it is right: he doesn’t think on the toil that is necessary, and he is going not to think if his order is right or not. So to slavery occurred much dislike and injustices thing…”; it is the manifest will, although hide, of Sosia for the freedom; the same freedom that Diogenes has had always, because he was also naked, and he lived in the barrel because also the home was a slavery. Sosia is representation of Diogenes, and the two sons are from Romulus and Remus, cultured reference that Plautus has took and translated in comedy. A soliloquy of Mercury is indicative for other example, now Socratic; in fact Mercury, speaking od Sosia and his awareness, he said: “He has a quality much rare: he knows what he merits!”; it can seems an notation alone but behind is a example, Socrates, that refused the escape from prison, although a pupil, Critones has proposed it; hence Socrates was aware that his guilt was false, but he bored the death capital because as he said to Critones: “What say to me the laws of Athens, Socrates you have defensed and respected us and now you escape because you are scared from us?”; it is full awareness that Sosia has manifested. Other reference, now from Thebes, is the words of Sosia: “That city, that bitter fruits brought to Thebes, for the force an valor of our soldiers it was wined, above all for the lucky of Amphitrus…”; this reference to Thebes, in year 457 b.Ch. Thebes was wined from Athens army, and the celebration of Amphitrus is a hypothetic celebration of Pericles after this victory; because Amphitrus has sent Sosia to his husband, Alcmena, for to inform her that the victory: “From the harbor he sent me to his home, for to give his husband the notice: how he has hold the State through his lead, his command and his fortune.”; both us and Plautus can alone imagine that Pericles has said so, but certainly Pericles wasn’t much distant from this speech. A question is relevant for this hypothesis, and the question is: “How Plautus known the Pericles, these battles, Socrates and other Greek examples, Plautus was form actual Umbria, a Italian region and the books then aren’t, and Plautus didn’t know the ancient Greek, inasmuch he could not know it, therefore this hypothesis is mistook”, this is comment and the logic is purely Socratic, hence right, but we must consider that Rome, already from before of third century of Christ, has had commerce to Naples, that was a Greek colony, where the ancient Greek was the principal language and the information from the Greek arrived, thereupon Plautus can be informed from some seaman; because the Roman seamen gone toward Naples, but also from Naples toward Rome arrived Neapolitan seamen. The confirm of this method, that in that time was normal, is confirmed from the following words of Sosia, regard the narration that he must give to Alcmena, he says: “For every way, I will affect to be present there and I will refer that I have heard.”; the importance of these words is in the last verb, this is heard; why? It is question, simple because Sosia says to herself that he have to says, but he used the verb hear, not the verb see; in a fight Sosia would see and not alone heard; but Plautus took the common exercise of hear, as he has made for the merchants both to Naples and Rome. Further proof of this opinion, are the following words always of Sosia, that must before consider his lies: “I will begin so: We have arrived there, and we have landed, and Amphitrus picked the firsts, and he sent them as ambassadors; he ordered that they say to Teleboi.”; this last name is the confirm of the practical exercise of Plautus, why? Because he has took a information about a people that is absolutely imaginary, as the Teleboi, in Acarnania, a region of ancient Greek; Plautus certainly believed to this history because he could not control the credibility of this history, whereby he has took as truth, and he has set in the narration of Sosia.      

 

Alessandro Lusana