Most of what I have posted on Roman comedy has been focused on Plautus. Plautus does get most of the attention, both scholarly and critical, when it comes to Roman comedy. The general consensus seems to be that his work is funnier, in part because it gets more raucous and ribald. Also there is more of it: 21 plays of Plautus survive while there are only six by Terence.
Terence is also particularly interesting for my work because he himself used to be a slave. That his plays don’t show any particular sympathy for slaves has upset some historians, like MI Finley, who are disappointed that texts that could provide valuable insight into the perspectives of Roman freedmen don’t directly talk about issues of slavery and freedom.
More on those problems later I’m sure, but for now ethnicity. Sometimes ethnicity gets addressed in these plays quite directly, such as when in the Eunuch Thais, a madam in charge of a brothel, asks her lover for both a eunuch and an African maid (Act 1 Scene 2). While a eunuch has some utilitarian purposes in a brothel, Thais’ fixation on having an African maid appear to be because of how this particular slave gets categorized as exotic and therefore a luxury item. The maid’s skin color, which is explicitly commented on in Act 2 scene 2, is the primary reason for her presentation as exotic, although the connections with very black skin with Ethiopia specifically points to how for the Romans, ethnology was always a very literary project (Ethiopia being a place connected with isolation beginning in Homer and continued in Herodotus).
Ethnicity also appears in slaves in Terence in more oblique ways. Sometimes it is simply the slave’s name. In the Self Tormentor, one of the main characters is a slave named Syrus. In Latin, Syrus is simply an adjective meaning from Syria. Such an ethnicity in the Greco-Roman world did not come without prejudicial associations. Indeed, in Plautus’ Trinommus there is a comment on how Syrians are naturally better at surviving heat (Act 2 Scene 4).
Other times ethnicity comes up in Terence’s plays through the description of a slave. For example in Terence’s Phormio, the slave Davus is explicitly described as having red hair (Act 1 Scene 1). While this may be a reference to the type of costume worn by the actor, it could also be Terence writing this slave as being of a particular ethnicity.
Terence is also particularly interesting for my work because he himself used to be a slave. That his plays don’t show any particular sympathy for slaves has upset some historians, like MI Finley, who are disappointed that texts that could provide valuable insight into the perspectives of Roman freedmen don’t directly talk about issues of slavery and freedom.
More on those problems later I’m sure, but for now ethnicity. Sometimes ethnicity gets addressed in these plays quite directly, such as when in the Eunuch Thais, a madam in charge of a brothel, asks her lover for both a eunuch and an African maid (Act 1 Scene 2). While a eunuch has some utilitarian purposes in a brothel, Thais’ fixation on having an African maid appear to be because of how this particular slave gets categorized as exotic and therefore a luxury item. The maid’s skin color, which is explicitly commented on in Act 2 scene 2, is the primary reason for her presentation as exotic, although the connections with very black skin with Ethiopia specifically points to how for the Romans, ethnology was always a very literary project (Ethiopia being a place connected with isolation beginning in Homer and continued in Herodotus).
Ethnicity also appears in slaves in Terence in more oblique ways. Sometimes it is simply the slave’s name. In the Self Tormentor, one of the main characters is a slave named Syrus. In Latin, Syrus is simply an adjective meaning from Syria. Such an ethnicity in the Greco-Roman world did not come without prejudicial associations. Indeed, in Plautus’ Trinommus there is a comment on how Syrians are naturally better at surviving heat (Act 2 Scene 4).
Other times ethnicity comes up in Terence’s plays through the description of a slave. For example in Terence’s Phormio, the slave Davus is explicitly described as having red hair (Act 1 Scene 1). While this may be a reference to the type of costume worn by the actor, it could also be Terence writing this slave as being of a particular ethnicity.