I’ve spent a number of posts at this point talking about how often a specific type of slave achieves manumission in New Comedy: the servus callidus, the clever slave. The obvious counterpart to the servus callidus would logically be the serva callida, the clever slave woman. However, such a term does not exist for the discussion of New comedy because, in Plautus at least (the comedian who wrote the most plays that still survive), women rarely have the opportunity to be schemers like the men do. There are some exceptions, for example the two sisters in Plautus’ Bacchides are definitely schemers, however they are not slaves.
The other day though I came across a suitable candidate for a serva callida in Menander’s play Epitrepontes (the counselors). In this play, an Athenian young man has a raped a woman during a festival. Because of the wine and the general atmosphere of the festival, he cannot recall the woman’s face nor identify her. Nine months after this rape, a slave discovers a newborn baby in a forest. A certain prostitute named Harbotronon realizes that the child is likely the result of the rape of the woman at the festival, but decides that if she pretends that the child is her own the young man will likely be forced to marry her in order to avoid a scandal. She does not want to marry the young man because she is in love with him but because if she becomes his wife he will have to manumit her, as a fellow slave named Onesimos notes here:
ἐκεῖνο δ᾽οὐ λέγεις, ὅτι
ἐλευθέρα γίνῃ σύ, τοῦ γὰρ παιδίου
μητέρα σε νομίσας λύσετ᾽εὐθὺς δηλαδή. 538-40
There’s one thing you haven’t mentioned:
You will be free, for pretending to be
the mother of the child, you’ll be set free at once [lit. set loose].
After some banter with Onesimos, Habrotonon commits to the scheme, since, as she states, she very much wants to free:
ἐλευθέρα μόνον γενοίμην, ὦ θεοί.
τοῦτον λάβοιμι μισθὸν ἐκ τούτων. 547-9
By the gods it’s only that I want to be free;
I wish to take that as the cost of all else.
You might note from a close reading of my description of these lines how much of Habrotonon’s resolution is a result of Onesimos. If you are an astute reader of New Comedy, you then might suspect that it is Onesimos himself who is the manipulator here: that he is the servus callidus. I wouldn’t be surprised if a Roman writer would then rewrite this play in that way, but Onesimos states that he himself lacks ambition in comparison to Habrotonon:
ἀλλ᾽ἐγὼ τὸν πάντα δουλεύσω χρόνον,
λέμφος, ἀπόπληκτος, οὐδαμῶς προνοητικὸς
τὰ ταοιαῦτα. 660-2
But I will be a slave for all time,
driveling, senseless, no forethought for such affairs.
In these lines Onesimos not only renounces the pursuit of freedom but even denies that he has the wit to procure it! Onesismos, while a busybody, is not a schemer and therefore cannot be a servus callidus. Instead, Habrotonon is the schemer and therefore deserves the title of serva callida.
The other day though I came across a suitable candidate for a serva callida in Menander’s play Epitrepontes (the counselors). In this play, an Athenian young man has a raped a woman during a festival. Because of the wine and the general atmosphere of the festival, he cannot recall the woman’s face nor identify her. Nine months after this rape, a slave discovers a newborn baby in a forest. A certain prostitute named Harbotronon realizes that the child is likely the result of the rape of the woman at the festival, but decides that if she pretends that the child is her own the young man will likely be forced to marry her in order to avoid a scandal. She does not want to marry the young man because she is in love with him but because if she becomes his wife he will have to manumit her, as a fellow slave named Onesimos notes here:
ἐκεῖνο δ᾽οὐ λέγεις, ὅτι
ἐλευθέρα γίνῃ σύ, τοῦ γὰρ παιδίου
μητέρα σε νομίσας λύσετ᾽εὐθὺς δηλαδή. 538-40
There’s one thing you haven’t mentioned:
You will be free, for pretending to be
the mother of the child, you’ll be set free at once [lit. set loose].
After some banter with Onesimos, Habrotonon commits to the scheme, since, as she states, she very much wants to free:
ἐλευθέρα μόνον γενοίμην, ὦ θεοί.
τοῦτον λάβοιμι μισθὸν ἐκ τούτων. 547-9
By the gods it’s only that I want to be free;
I wish to take that as the cost of all else.
You might note from a close reading of my description of these lines how much of Habrotonon’s resolution is a result of Onesimos. If you are an astute reader of New Comedy, you then might suspect that it is Onesimos himself who is the manipulator here: that he is the servus callidus. I wouldn’t be surprised if a Roman writer would then rewrite this play in that way, but Onesimos states that he himself lacks ambition in comparison to Habrotonon:
ἀλλ᾽ἐγὼ τὸν πάντα δουλεύσω χρόνον,
λέμφος, ἀπόπληκτος, οὐδαμῶς προνοητικὸς
τὰ ταοιαῦτα. 660-2
But I will be a slave for all time,
driveling, senseless, no forethought for such affairs.
In these lines Onesimos not only renounces the pursuit of freedom but even denies that he has the wit to procure it! Onesismos, while a busybody, is not a schemer and therefore cannot be a servus callidus. Instead, Habrotonon is the schemer and therefore deserves the title of serva callida.