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The Senex Amator in Plautus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

K. C. Ryder
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Extract

Of the twenty-nine series in the Plautine corpus, seven may legitimately be called senex amator – that is, an old man who for some reason contracts a passion for a young girl and who, in varying degrees, attempts to satisfy this passion. They are Demaenetus (Asinaria), Philoxenus and Nicobulus (Bacchides), Demipho (Cistellaria), Lysidamus (Casino), Demipho (Mercator), and Antipho (Stichus). Two others – Periplectomenos (Miles) and Daemones (Rudens) – still, perhaps, feel the sap rising, but they keep their instincts within acceptable limits, and both are regarded as senes lepidt, a description which usually denotes approval of a character.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , October 1984 , pp. 181 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1984

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References

1. Asin. 15ff., 42ff., 62ff., 85ff.

2. Asin. 88ff.

3. Asin. 333ff.

4. The Prologue tells us that Demophilus wrote the original of this play (Onagos), and of course it is possible that Plautus here has merely translated what he found before him; even if that is the case, the fact that he has kept what he found (we know from elsewhere that he was quite capable of changing his source material) argues an appreciation of the balance anyway.

5. Asin. 864ff.

6. Lewis & Short: ‘Addictus: one who has been given up or made over as servant to his creditor.’

7. One enjoys the irony of course, as it is this very corrupting influence that the old man has gone there to complain about in the first place.

8. Forehand, Walter E., ‘Plautus' Casina: an Explication’, Arethusa 6 (1973), 233–56Google Scholar.

9. Cody, Jane M., ‘The senex amator in Plautus' Casina’, Hermes 104 (1976), 453–76Google Scholar.

10. Op. cit., passim: Lysidamus is ‘only concerned with encompassing his plans for his lechery’ (238). ‘This old fool develops no qualities or explanations to win even a small measure of our sympathy’ (242). ‘The old man is a lecher, pure and simple, without redeeming virtues’ (244). ‘He is a lecher to the manner born’ (245). ‘…the old man remains a thoroughly objectionable character from beginning to end’ (253).

11. Oxford Latin Dictionary (1983).

12. Much has been written concerning morality in general, and adultery in particular, in Ancient Athens, and one has to conclude that the dice were very heavily stacked against the woman. Two very readable and authoritative accounts appear in Lacey, W. K., The Family in Classical Greece (London, 1968)Google Scholar, and Harrison, A. R. W., The Law of Athens (Oxford, 1968)Google Scholar. There seems not to be available the same quantity of authoritative information concerning Rome, and what there is mostly covers the late Republic and after. Presumably, though, adultery in old men must have been a recognizable and fairly commonplace feature of Roman life in Plautus' own day for the situations created in the plays to have had any comic point.