Vidovic - Dish to Cash Cash to Ash Queolus-FrGreedforFoodtoGreedforGold-Acaedu

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ANNUAL OF MEDIEVAL STUDIES

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VOL. 16 2010

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DISH TO CASH, CASH TO ASH: MANDROGERUS THE

APPLIED PARASITE AND THE EVOLUTION OF COMEDY1

Goran Vidovi

The anonymous comedy called Querolus siue Aulularia (The Complainer orThe Pot of Gold)2 is the only extant Roman comedy apart from Plautus andTerence and the first known drama after the tragedies of Seneca. The time andplace of production are unknown, but the majority of recent scholars agree onlate fourth- or earlyfifth-century Gaul. Considerable scholarly effort has beeninvested in identifying the author, but no satisfactory solution has so far beenoffered. The play poses a number of complex questions, many of which stillremain unanswered.3 In this paper I analyze one of the characters of theQuerolus,

1 This paper is based on my MA thesis Dish to Cash, Cash to Ash: The Last RomanParasite and the Birth of a Comic Profession, (Central European University, 2009); thethesis emerged from a paper I delivered at a conference on ancient drama held at BelgradeUniversity in October, 2008. For all the corrections, suggestions, and words of support, Iexpress my utmost gratitude to my thesis supervisor Niels Gaul and my external readersR. Mathisen and C. Pieper, as well as to M. Paki, V. Nedeljkovi, D. Stevanovi-Soleil, M.Molina Snchez, D. Shanzer, T. J. Moore, M. Fontaine, and J. F. Drinkwater. I also thank

A. Cain, I. J. Davidson, G. Nathan, and K. Smolak for sending me copies of their articles,not easily accessible to me at the time.2 The text and numbering I use is from an older edition, G. Ranstrand, Querolus siveAulularia, incerti auctoris comoedia(Gothenberg: Wettergren & Kerbers Frlag, 1951), which Ifound more reliable than the most recent one, the Bud edition of C. Jacquemard-LeSaos,Querolus(Le Grincheux) (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1994). While I occasionally provide myown, for the most part I use the only existing English translation, G. E. Duckworths TheComplainer or the Pot of Gold, in The Complete Roman Drama, vol. 2 (New York: RandomHouse, 1942), 891952; a brand new translation by R. W. Mathisen is still in progress.3 Perhaps the best guide through the maze of the Querolus, though now somewhatoutdated, is F. Corsaro,Querolus: Studio Introduttivo e Commentario (Bologna: Ptron, 1965);the 1994 edition of Jacquemard-LeSaos contains exhaustive discussions but usually leavesthe reader with many more questions than answers, whereas I. Lana,Analisi del Querolus

(Turin: G. Giappicheli, 1979) deals with less but offers proportionally more. Among olderworks, see a decent analysis of theQuerolusby R. Pichon, Les derniers crivains profanes(Paris:Ernest Leroux, 1906), 217242. Also useful is M. Molina Snchez, Estudio escnico,literario y comparativo deAululariade Plauto, Querolus sive AululariayAululariade Vitalde Blois (PhD diss., University of Granada, 1985), as well as his other works on concretetopics, such as Plauti per uestigia: La auctoritasplautina en la comedia latina medieval: losejemplos del annimoQuerolus siue Aululariay de laAululariade Vital de Blois, Cuadernosde Filologa Clsica, Estudios latinos27, 1 (2007): 117133. Fine insights are also to be found


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the parasite Mandrogerus, and his significance for the plot. I argue that thefigure of Mandrogerus is a result of the unknown authors experimenting withthe comic conventions, ultimately displaying a peculiar evolution of the stockcharacter or even the whole genre. Two of Mandrogerus traits are crucial forunderstanding his character: a radically revised form of comic gluttony and anambiguous attitude towards parasitic dependence.

Parasitic Conventions

Before dissecting the last Roman parasite, I will briefly touch upon the traditionalcomic treatment of this role.4 In Classical Roman comedy the role of the parasitealways had broad entertainment potential which often proved rewarding.5 Thedevelopment of this stock character, as we know it from Roman playwrights, israther complex.6 In Roman comedyflattery and gluttony became, and ultimately

in E. Snchez Salor, La ultima poesia latino-profana: su ambiente, Estudios Clsicos25 (198183): 111162. For studies on the Querolusprior to 1990, one may consult theannotated bibliography by D. Lassandro and E. Romano, Rassegna critica degli studi sulQuerolus, Bollettino di studi Latini21 (1991): 2651.4 The stock characters of the parasite and the flatterer are sufficiently explored; classical

works, still of certain value, are O. Ribbeck, Kolax: Eine ethologische Studie(Leipzig: Hirzel,1883), and A. Giese, De parasiti persona capita selecta (Berlin: R. Trenkel, 1908). A recentsurvey of the Roman comic parasite is, e.g., S. Flaucher, Studien zum Parasiten in derrmischen Komdie (PhD diss., University of Mannheim, 2002); the origin of Romanparasites is examined by E. I. Tylawsky, Saturios Inheritance: The Greek Ancestry of the RomanComic Parasite(New York: Peter Lang, 2002); see research into the relation between Greekand Roman comedy through the role of the parasite by A. Antonsen-Resch, Von Gnathonzu Saturio: Die Parasitenfigur und das Verhltnis der rmischen Komdie zur griechischen(Berlin:

Walter de Gruyter, 2004), with an updated bibliography. For a quick summary, see C.Castillo Garca, El tipo del parsito en la comedia romana, in Athlon: Satura grammaticain honorem Francisci R. Adrados, vol. 2, ed. P. Bdenas de la Pea, A. Martnez Dez, M. E.Martnez-Fresneda, E. Rodrguez Monescillo (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1987), 173182.

The most useful for me was Cynthia Damons work on the social aspects and literaryimage of the parasites, both in comedy and other genres, The Mask of the Parasite: A

Pathology of Roman Patronage(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997).5 P. Legrand, New Greek Comedy, tr. J. Loeb (London: William Heinemann, 1917), 76,claimed that [t]he talent of provoking laughter is one of the most useful assets ofthe parasite, while the parasite is the funny man par excellence, according to G. E.Duckworth, The Nature of Roman Comedy: A Study in Popular Entertainment(Princeton: PUP,1952), 265.6 Its roots stretch far and deep into Greek tradition, old Attic comedy, and Epicharmus.

According to some convincing arguments,parasitosis a fourth-century label for the comic


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remained, inseparable. The image of this poor creature was a spineless hanger-on,an adulator with no scruples, eager to do anythingto achieve his goal: the goal is, asthe name suggests, free food. In a word, the parasite was at his best as a voraciousclown.7

In addition, the Roman comic parasite sometimes also carried out scams,impersonation, and foul play of all sorts, which rendered him similar to the Greekcharacter of sykophnts. Sykophants were swindlers and blackmailers, abusersof legal procedures who flourished in Classical Athens8 and were quite likely toappear, in a certain form, as stock characters in Greek comedy.9 Comic parasites

thereby acquired multifunctionality, for they could occasionally, as a supplement toor a substitute for the seruus callidus, contribute to organizing the deceit necessaryfor the dramatic action. Parasites carried out these frauds exclusively on behalfof their sponsors, in order to win their favor, and John Lofberg makes a solid

type earlier known as kolax, the flatterer, and the two terms from that point on were noteasily distinguishable: see W. G. Arnott, Alexis and the Parasites Name, Greek, Roman andByzantine Studies9, No. 2 (1968): 161168. For the distinction between the two terms, seethe discussion in Damon, The Mask of the Parasite, 1319. See also the arguments of P. G.McC. Brown, Menander, Fragments 745 and 746 KT, Menanders Kolax, and Parasitesand Flatterers in Greek Comedy, Zeitschrift fr Papyrologie und Epigraphik 92 (1992): 91107,and L. Gil, El Alazn y sus variantes,Estudios Clsicos25 (198183): 3958. For a noveletymology of the term colaxin Roman comedy, see M. Fontaine, Parasitus Colax(Terence,Eunuchus30),Mnemosyne60 (2007): 483489.7 O. Wilner, The Character Treatment of Inorganic Roles in Roman Comedy, CPh26,No. 3 (1931): 264283, pointed out their gluttony, propensity to solicit invitations, theirfawning, ability at entertaining, and their abject lack of self-respect (272) as the recurrentcharacteristics of the parasites.8 Habitual prosecutors, as formulated by D. M. MacDowell, Sycophants in the OxfordClassical Dictionary, ed. S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth (Oxford: OUP, 2003). A thoroughanalysis of the sykophant-parasite connection is J. O. Lofberg, The Sycophant-Parasite,CPh15 (1920): 6172; the Roman comic parasites resembling sykophants are not to beimmediately identified with the Athenian sykophants in the technical meaning. For a studyon sykophancy in general see also his Sycophancy in Athens(Menasha, WI: Collegiate Press,1917 [PhD diss., University of Chicago 1914]), and R. J. Bonner, Lawyers and Litigants inAncient Athens: The Genesis of the Legal Profession(New York: Barnes & Noble, 1969), 5971.

See also essays of R. Osborne, Vexatious Litigation in Classical Athens: Sykophancy andthe Sykophant, 83102, and D. Harvey, The Sykophant and Sykophancy: VexatiousRedefinition, 103121, both in Nomos: Essays in Athenian Law, Politics, and Society, ed. P.Cartledge, P. Millett, and S. Todd (Cambridge: CUP, 1990). I find Harveys and Osbornesspelling sykophant, sykophancy, quite convenient to distinguish the Greek technicalterm from the modern English sycophant; except in quotations, I will use this spelling inthe present article.9 Lofberg, The Sycophant-Parasite, 62, with references.


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point in stating that the identification of the parasite with the sycophant wasbut natural.10 Perhaps the best example is Terences Phormio, the parasite who isrunning the show by himself, and who is, according to Gilbert Norwood, in fact,far less a parasite than a sykophnts, a subtle and elegant blackmailer.11 Be thisclaim perhaps overstated, it stresses well enough that in cases like Phormios theparasite was granted a certain amount of independent action and so contributedconsiderably to the development of the plot.

This multifunctionality should be kept in mind for the inquiry aboutMandrogerus. Cynthia Damon has provided an adequate formulation of the

parasites craft as the combination of hunger, dependency and spinelessness.12

The contentof the role of the parasite is indeed best described as a combination,and there can hardly be one satisfactory definition for all the parasites of Romancomedy, let alone Greek.13 Regarding the verynature of the role, however, thecomic parasite was accurately characterized by Michael Fontaine as a permanentlysurrealistic cartoon character.14 The inexplicably eternal and comically exaggeratedparasitic desire for food and nothing but food was deprived of any realinner motivation or psychological consistency, and its existence was imaginableonly on a comic stage.15

10 Lofberg, The Sycophant-Parasite, 68. The comic type of the parasite thus occasionallyunited flattery and deceitfulness, which seems to be a reply to the claim that [N]obodyhas yet come up with a good explanation of how the word [i.e., sycophant] got its modernsense of flatterer, MacDowell, Sycophants.11 G. Norwood,Art of Terence(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1923), 76. However, Damon, TheMask of the Parasite, 9798, with notes, challenges Norwoods and similar conclusionsabout Phormio, e.g., that of Lofberg, The Sycophant-Parasite, 6971. The examplesof parasites with significant influence on the plot are Plautus Curculio or Gelasimus.For Phormio see W. G. Arnott, Phormio Parasitus: A Study in Dramatic Methods ofCharacterization, Greece & Rome17, No. 1 (1970): 3257; see also below, n. 35.12 Damon, The Mask of the Parasite, 99100; her combination seems to have roughly covered

various possible assignments of this role, implied by the three terms,parasitos, kolax, andsykophnts. On page 7, Damon also defines the parasite (not necessarily the comic one) asa conveniently compact personified form of something quite abstract, of a complicatednexus of social irritants includingflattery, favoritism, and dependency. As outlined by

Duckworth, The Nature of Roman Comedy, 265, a parasite could be a professional jokester,a handyman, or a flatterer.13 M. Bieber, The History of Greek and Roman Theater(Princeton: PUP, 1961), 100, notesseveral different types of the theatrical masks of the parasites.14 M. Fontaine, Funny Words in Plautine Comedy(New York: OUP, 2010), 254.15 An important characteristic of comic parasitism is that the parasites typically fail to gettheir prey, and their hunt is to be continued ad infinitum(see R. May,Apuleius and Drama:The Ass on the Stage(Oxford: OUP, 2006), 146; and Damon, The Mask of the Parasite, 2526,


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Fontaines clever definition is suitable for all the Roman comic parasites except for Mandrogerus. In Mandrogerus, I argue, for the first time one cansee the parasite behaving almost like a human, albeit in the imaginary universeof comedy. It is exactly this degree of realism which makes Mandrogerusunconventional.16 A brief outline of the plot and prior events, retrospectivelynarrated in the Prologue, is necessary for further discussion.

Old miser Euclio hid a huge pile of gold in a funerary urn and set off ona journey without telling his son Querolus about the treasure. Havingfound himself on a deathbed abroad, Euclio shared his secret with a

recent acquaintance, the parasite Mandrogerus, offering him a half ofthe treasure if he informs Querolus of the existence and the locationof the gold. Mandrogerus decided to break the promise, trick the oldmans son and heir, and get the entire treasure. Together with two ofhis accomplices, Sycophanta and Sardanapallus, he finds Querolusand manages to get access to the urn by simulating fortunetelling anddivine inspiration. The impostors take away the urn explaining thatit contains evil fate and flee. The urn, however, appears to containnothing but ashes. The infuriated tricksters return to Querolus houseand hurl the useless pot through the window. Dashed into pieces,the urn reveals the gold hidden beneath the ashes. Mandrogerus now

takes his last chance and returns, boldly demanding a share of thegold initially apportioned to him by Euclio. After a prolix debate thedefeated trickster capitulates and finally becomes Querolus personalparasite.17

who calls comic parasites hungry, indeed insatiable.); risking a lapse into the trivial,I cannot resist the comparison of the ancient parasite with the cartoon hero Peter theCoyote and his perennial chase of the Road Runner.16 By realism I have in mind no specific theoretical concept; I use the term simply todenote a literaryfigure acting in a natural, understandable and, ultimately, human way as much as one literary character is able to. In my experience, the most comprehensiveanalysis of the ancient comic characters, with several insights into their realism, is [V.

Jankovic] . , [Menanders Characters andEuropean Drama] (Belgrade: Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti, 1978), unfortunately,available only in Serbian.17 An interesting view of the plot of the Querolus was offered by D. P. Lockwood,The Plot of the Querolusand the Folktales of Disguised Treasure, Transactions of theAmerican Philological Association44 (1913): 215232. Lockwoods hypothesis, one of therare noteworthy contributions to the subject, was unfortunately not developed further insubsequent scholarship.


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A quick glance at the plot is enough to see that there is nothing inherentlyfunny in Mandrogerus parasitism as such: no putting up with insults, no flattering,no suffocating on crumbs. So far he is at least unconventional inasmuch as he isdevoid of what is seen as one of the most useful assets of his role.18 It is alsoobvious that Mandrogerus is indispensable for the action; none of the events

would have taken place were it not for his intention to deceive Querolus; hisrole in the play is practically the leading one. The novelties of this parasite are,therefore, even more noteworthy: Mandrogerus, as it turns out, is an atypicalparasite in several respects and his unconventional appearance is precisely the

foundation of the entire dramaturgical arrangement of theQuerolus. In the pagesthat follow I shall attempt to analyze the instances where Mandrogerus displayshis unconventionality.

From Dish to Cash

The first practical break with the parasitic conventions in the Querolus is thetransformation of the gluttonytopos. Mandrogerus own introductory declarationof his program, parts of which will be referred to time and again further below,is worth quoting in its entirety:

Many men pride themselves upon their ability in dealing with swift-fl

eeing animals or ferocious wild beasts, either in tracking them down,or catching them in their lairs, or overpowering them by chance. Howmuch greater is my talent and my profit, for I hunt men in the sight ofall! And what men? Why, particularly the rich, the powerful, and thecultured. (proudly) I am Mandrogerus, the most pre-eminent by far ofall parasites. There lies near a certain pot, and the breeze has waftedits scent to me across the seas. Away, you mixers of sauces! Away, youconcoctions of cooks! Away, you recipes of Apicius! The secrets ofthis pot were known to Euclio alone. Why are you surprised? It is gold thatI follow;it is gold that sends its odour across seas and lands.19

18 See above, n. 5.19Quer. 23.1524.4:Multum esse sese aliqui laudant qui uel pugnaces feras uel fugaces bestias, autuestigiis insequuntur aut cubilibus deprehendunt aut casu opprimunt. Quanto mihi maius est ingeniumet lucrum, qui homines uenor publice. Sed quos homines! Diuites et potentes et litteratos maxime!Mandrogerus ego sum parasitorum omnium longe praestantissimus. Aula quaedam hic iacet cuius odoremmihi trans maria uentus detulit. Cedant iuris conditores, cedant omnia cocorum ingenia, cedant Apicifercula! Huius ollae condimentum solus sciuit Euclio. Quid miramini? Aurum est quod sequor:hoc est quod ultra maria et terras olet(emphasis mine). The (alleged) originality of the parasites


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A remarkable novelty of this parasite is that, regardless of the essenceand the title of his role, he is no longer yearning for a full stomach but a fullsack. A new target, real and palpable, is now a substitute for the conventional, orbetter, the symbolic one. The parasite himself takes care to reveal his intentions,seemingly contrary to the expectations of the audience. Whether the audience

was really meant to be surprised or this was just a generic formula perhapsalready conventional by that time, his declaration is striking. Mandrogerus is nota gluttonous and harmless sponger, a ridiculous cartoon clown drooling over apiece of bread on the floor: he is a downright thief, motivated by age-old human

desire. Nominally still hungry for food, this parasite is in fact hungry for gold.20

Thinking of precedents, one should remember the claim of Erich Segal:In Plautus, money is meaningless, coins are merely tokens to be redeemed forpleasure.21 Therefore, regarding the comic conventions, this transition from thenutritive motivation of the parasite to the financial in theQuerolus, is, mildly put,surprising. From a wider perspective, however, I suggest that such an evolution wasonly natural. Namely, the comic toposof parasitic hunger must have been utterly

worn out by the time theQueroluswas composed.22 The author needed a scrounger

methods and the overall boastful tone of the passage remind one of the monologue ofthe parasite Gnatho in Terences Eunuchus(241254); statements of purpose of thiskind were otherwise frequent in Republican comedy: compare the episode of the slave inQuer. 38.1942.20 with Plaut. Stich. 707733.20 The terminology is very indicative; Mandrogerus is called parasitusseveral times in theintroductory prologues (3.18; 4.1, 5, 13, 16), and only once in the play, by himself, in thepompous expos cited above (23.19); this is what he was officiallysupposed to represent.However, during the action of the play, he is only referred to by names implying criminalactivities: thief, impostor, and sacrileger. Apart from being calledfurcifer(53.16), scelestus(53.20; 57.17), sacrilegus (57.22), he is most often labeled fraudulentus(5.3, 6; 6.6; 53.9),perfidus(6.6, 15; 49.3; 51.10; 53.1), andfur(4.3; 6.12; 51.5, 10; 52.4; 61.6, 7); likewise, hisfellow-parasites are called coniurati(50.28). The most telling, however, is the frequency ofthe terms denoting his deeds, namely,fraus(3.20; 5.3; 6.15; 51.14; 54.18; 56.16) andfurtum(4.15; 6.11; 23.11; 51.5; 59.8, 17, 18; 60.3; 61.3).21 E. Segal, Roman Laughter: the Comedy of Plautus(New York: OUP, 1987), 61; his argumentis that [t]he characters of Plautus display an attitude diametrically opposed to the

markedly Roman regard for profit. His comedies almost always involve money matters,but never the pursuit of wealth for its own sake (57); for convincing explanations ofsuch an inversion, which he calls topsy-turvydom, and of its intended exceptions, e.g.,the greedyleno and the stingysenex, see the whole chapter, 4269 (see also below, n. 69).22 The social and literary importance of food, however, was evergreen; see the selectedletters of bishops from fifth-century Gaul analyzed by D. Shanzer, Bishops, Letters, Fast,Food, and Feast in Later Roman Gaul, in Culture and Society in Later Roman Gaul: Revisitingthe Sources, ed. R. W. Mathisen and D. R. Shanzer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 217236.


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less plastic and trivial than what the comic tradition had to offer him. Carnalhunger is indeed the most down-to-earth (and, so, typically the most humorous)manifestation of ones striving for wellbeing. In theQuerolus, this essentiallyanimalinstinct is at last raised to the level of understandable humanaspiration formaterial prosperity. Caricatured physical appetite was a commonplace motif

which the anonymous author applied only as an appropriate comic excuse forMandrogerus purely criminal intentions. Yet even if one imagines that financialprofit may have been an impliedobjective of a parasitic profession all along, this isthe first time it is said out loud in a comic context.23 After centuries of pretending,

the fun is over and the masks are down, as if the anonymous playwright finallydecided to disclose that the emperor is naked.

Gold, that Fragrant Object of Desire

It is most amusing to inspect in detail how the author presented this evolution. AsI intend to exemplify, he was fully aware of the comic conventions he transparentlyadapted, generating an effective parody of traditional parasitic requirements.

Concretely, allusions to food and gluttony in association with gold occurconstantly in theQuerolus. As early as in his expos quoted above, Mandrogerustwice stresses the power of the scent of gold which reached and attracted himbecause it is gold that sends its odour across seas and lands. The parasites expected

objective, food, is neatly replaced with the actual target of these parasites, gold,which accordingly has a pleasant fragrance. Immediately follows the reference tocooks and food. One of the lines in this passage is based on Plautus favorite playon the word ius, which means law, and right, as well as soup. Starting withiuris conditores, which alludes to both cooks and legislators, the author of the

Queroluscontinues the gastro-metaphor with a masterful wordplay on conditum,which can denote either spice, flavor (from condire), or depository, hiding-place (from condre). Thus, the line huius ollae conditum solus sciuitEuclio (24.3) can beunderstood either as only Euclio knew the flavor of this dish, or alternatively asonly Euclio knew the location of the urn. The joke makes sense only from theperspective of the unconcealed and humorous food-to-gold transition.24 Shortly

23 Alciphrons Letters910 record petty thefts by parasites; their prey was, convenientlyenough, silverware from the table.24 Duckworth, The Complainer, 951, spotted the pun without entering into furtherdiscussion, rendering it fairly well with the secrets of this pot.


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after a brief meeting about the conspiracy, the tricksters approach the house ofQuerolus, and Mandrogerus is as explicit as earlier: I smell gold inside. 25

The pot itself was an excellent starting point for puns, since the Latin ollacan be used for a funerary urn with ashes, a vessel with gold, or a dish with food26

all three of them being key points of the play. To the great disappointment ofthe parasites/robbers, that same gold which in the beginning smelled hypnoticallypleasant will later begin to stink, when they think that the urn contains only theashes of the deceased:

SYCOPH. Oh! My breath is caught in my throat. Ive heard it said

thatgold had an odour, but the smell of this is really strong The leadcover is full of openings and it breathes forth foul odours. I neverknew before this thatgold could have such a rank smell. It ought to have astench like this for moneylenders. MAND. So, what do the ashes smelllike? SYCOPH. Expense and grief, the sort of smell a wretched funeraldemands. MAND. These ashes would seem to have had honorabletreatment if they still have such a worthysmell.27

Here it is noticeable that at first the impostors are allegedly disgusted by thesmell of gold, while at the same time they believe there is no treasure in the urn.Furthermore, the gold reeks precisely and onlybecausethey lament over its absenceand the malodor is the materialization of their regret. Formally speaking, in their

misperception they would be able to smell nothing but the remains of a crematedcadaver, and their conversation thus proceeds in that direction. Insisting on thestench of the gold invisibleto the impostors is by no means an authors lapse, butjust another ironic reference to the aromatic attributes of this gold. Conveniently,the odor of gold is justified humorously by its culinary heritage in the play, and

25 25.27: Sed interius mihi aurum olet(translation mine).26 In its original meaning of cooking dish it is used, in its archaic form aula, e.g., in CatosDe re rustica (passim), and frequently in Plautus (e.g., Curc. 369); an ollafound containingmoney is, e.g., Cic. Fam. 9.8.14.23, or Plaut. Aul. 809. In a sense most interesting in

understanding the puns in theQuerolus, namely, that of a dish suitable for keeping ashes,it is found, e.g., in Plaut.Amph. 134, and Curc. 395396.27Quer. 48.1116: SYCOPH. Anima in faucibus. Audieram egometolere aurum, istud etiamredolet... Claustrum illud plumbeum densa per foramina diris fragrat odoribus. Nunquam ante haeccomperiaurum sic ranciscere. Vsurario cuilibet faetere hoc potest.MAND.Quisnamcinerum estodor?SYCOPH. Ille pretiosus atque tristis, cultus quem poscit miser. MAND. Honorifice hoc bustumtractatum apparet, cuius adhuc sic redolet dignitas (slightly modifed Duckworth translation;emphases mine).


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technically by the stench of the ashes in the urn. Throughout the Querolus it isgold which smells instead of food. Now, the ashes smell instead of gold.28

This overlapping of the three motifs food, gold, and ashes is masterfullyconceived. The impostors tragic illusion in the passage above finally yieldsSardanapallus cry of despair: Where are we to turn now, disowned as we are?

What spot will give us shelter? What pot will give us food?29 Duckworth mirroredthe almost untranslatable aula/ollawordplay (court/vessel) the best he could, withspot and pot, but he seems to have ignored or missed the possible ambiguityof the last line. The Latin Quae nos olla tuebiturcan be understood either, as in

his translation, what dish will feed us, or, in a slightly wider sense but in thesame vein, what receptacle will provide us a living. But I suggest it can also berendered as what urn will preserve our remains.30 In my interpretation, the lineis mora than effectively drawn, since it puns on the three leitmotifs of the play:the official target of all parasites (food), the means of providing it, the actualobjective of these parasites (gold), and the visible contents of the urn, whichdisguise the gold and ultimately hinder these parasites ambitions (ashes). Theimpostors tragedy is total, and the essential irony of the whole comedy, the dish-cash-ash triangle, is expressed in one ingenious pun.

28 The smell of gold is found in one instance in Plautus (Aul. 216), but without anydevelopment of a food-gold relation. The stench of a corpse was an association whichdid not escape Juvenal in describing his disgust at the smell of Vibius Crispus, whose reekis more overwhelming than a couple of funerals (4.109: quantum uix duo funera redolent;tr. S. M. Braund,Juvenal and Persius[Cambridge, MA: HUP, 2004], 65).29Quer. 47.2223: Quonam redituri sumus, tot abdicati? Quae nos aula recipiet? Quae nos ollatuebitur?30 In addition, this could be a double pun, one being the polysemy of the word olla,another on aulaand olla, since aula, apart from meaning court (Gk. aul), is also an earlierform of olla, used by Plautus exclusively(see above, n. 26, and OLD, s.vv.); in that case,both the lines quae nos aula recipietand quae nos olla tuebiturwould in fact mean the same,what pot will keep us.Aulaused instead of ollais found in theQuerolusas well (47.24:accede, amice, aulam iterum atque iterum uisita); immediately after follows a proverbial phrase,

perfectlyfitting the recurrent ambiguous symbolism of the pot in the play; the impostors,having failed to see the gold in the urn, at last gave up: You can look for another pot togive you hope, my friend: this one is not warming us (48.12: Aliam spem quarere, amice,poteras; haec iam non calet; translation mine). The adage, humorously adapted in theQuerolus,dates back to Petronius, 38.13.1 olla male feruet, the pot boils poorly, i.e., affairs are goingbadly. This pot let the impostors down, and conveniently so, by losing its original culinarypurpose, constantly punned upon: the proverbial pot boilspoorlybut the pot from theQuerolusis not even warm.


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Lastly, that the author was consistently transparent in his abuse of theconventional parasitic parameters suggests an almost unnoticeably ironic remark.It is inserted in the conversation in the fourth scene between the three impostors.Mandrogerus tells his accomplices his dream, which professed that he would bethe only one to come into possession of Euclios gold. The dream, however, alsoforetold that the treasure would only suffice to fill his stomach, and Sycophantapromptly comments: Why, thats a damned fine dream! What else are we lookingfor except to satisfy our bellies and gullets?31 The gold-rush of theQuerolusis herereduced to purely biological appetite, at first sight somewhat unexpectedly, since

the enormous pile of gold32

would have naturally been expected to provide fora great deal more than just a full belly. There the author admits once more that he

was well aware of what was supposedto be expected from parasites, but throughhis characters he mocks the conventional frame he had to force them into.33

31 25.39:MAND. Dicebat nescio quis somnianti nocte hac mihi thesaurum istum quem requirimusmihi seruari manifestafide nec cuiquam alteri concessum esse aurum illud inuenire nisi mihi. Sedinsuper adiecit ex istis opibus hoc tantummodo mihi profuturum quod consumpsisset gula. SYCOPH.Optime edepol somniasti. Quid autem aliud quaerimus nisi tantum quod sufficiat uentri et gulae?It issymptomatic that, although the three parasites are on a joint project, the gold is explicitlyreserved only for the leader, Mandrogerus, and it will fill only his stomach (nec cuiquamalteri nisi mihi; mihi profuturum). Perhaps it is not a coincidence, given that a groupof three parasites is not attested in earlier comedy; the only reference to three parasitestogether is in Alciphrons Letters,7. Perhaps the parasite is imagined as too selfish to shareanything, although, for that matter, no group of three characters appears in any of thepreserved plays.32Quer. 6.2: enorme pondus auri.33 A reflection upon the parasitic conventions is also to be found at the very end ofthe preserved part of the play. After Mandrogerus is installed as the personal parasiteof Querolus, the two remaining parasites, Sycophanta and Sardanapallus, now left ontheir own, ask Querolus for some money; they do it quite humbly since they know thatone house cant provide for three gluttons (62.57: SYCOPH. Et nosmet scimus, Querole,

quoniam tris edaces domus una non capit. Verum quaesumus, uiatici nobis aliquid ut aspergas, quoniamspem omnem amisimus). An earlier line (21.5) also seems to reveal parasitic terminology;confused about Lars announcement that he will become wealthy, Querolus is eager toknow:Numquid rex aliquid largietur?Here the term rexwas most likely chosen with respectto its meaning in the comic context (OLD, s.v. rex, 8), namely, the patron and the benefactorof the parasite, cf. Plaut.As. 919; Capt. 92; Stich. 455; Ter. Phorm. 338. Duckworth, TheComplainer, 912, translates it in that meaning; Jacquemard-LeSaos, Querolus, 23, offersmultiple interpretations of rex, and remains indecisive as usual.


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Cash to Ash: the Fallen Trickster

The extraordinary appearance of the parasite in the Querolusdoes not end withthe alteration of his target. Mandrogerus self-proclaimed profession in hismonologue quoted above, metaphorically presented as man-hunting, is swindlingand trickery, even in public.34 In two consecutive lines (23.1820) he declareshimself both an impostor and a parasite. Although tricks and scams, sometimesentrusted to parasites, have been powerful comic vehicles ever since, Mandrogerusaccumulation of these functions is drastically unconventional. He cannot even

be classified as a sykophant-parasite or a Phormio-type parasite, for he isnot conducting a fraud as an agent, at the request of and for the benefit of hispatron, but quite the opposite against the latters will and to his detriment. 35

To be sure, pretence of friendship was by no means foreign to the earlier comicparasites and opportunism was virtually mandatory.36 But Mandrogerus aim isatypical, not his means; he does not betray his patron to find a better one, but tobe emancipated.

Here we see a potentially severe violation of not only the elementaryparasite conventions but also of plain logic: a parasite does not exist without ahost. The one and only typical trait Mandrogerus displays is the abuse of trust

with a view to profiting from his victims navet which, incidentally, as Plautusclever slaves prove, was by no means only characteristic of parasites. But even so,

he betrays the comic type lacking the two basic ingredients, humble subservienceand dependence; gluttony, as shown, has already been taken care of. Strangely,

34Quer. 23.1520 (see above, n. 19). Shortly after, Mandrogerus uses the huntingcomparison again (26.13). Cf. Phormios showing-off with the number of victimsin327328 and the hunting metaphor in 330334; see also below, n. 56, and Damon,Maskof The Parasite, 18.35 Similarly to sykophants, and just like Phormio (cf. Phorm. 374), Mandrogerus professeslegal expertise (Quer. 61.1120), although without having actually attested it in action.

Also, Phormio, the most sykophantic of the parasites, is on several occasions, anddeservedly so, called amicus: 324, 562, 598, 1049 (562 even amico amicus, a [true] friendto a friend, cf. Plaut.Mil. 658). Giese, De parasiti persona, 21, called him adiutorfidelissimus

domini. See also a charming essay of T. J. Moore, Who Is the Parasite?: Giving and Takingin Phormio, in Greek and Roman Comedy: Translations and Interpretations of Four RepresentativePlays, ed. S. OBryhim, G. F. Franko, T. J. Moore, D. Olson (Austin: University of TexasPress, 2001), 253264; Moore sees Phormio as the greatest benefactor in a playfilled

with benefaction (260).36 Damon, The Mask of the Parasite, 100, reminds one that Plautus Curculio, for instance,

was ready to transfer his attentions to a new patron when it looked like the old one hadexhausted his resources.


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even though Mandrogerus is visibly anything but the conventional parasite, heis labeled precisely so,37 and frequent food-related puns are hardly a coincidence.I believe there are clear indications that the author deliberately insisted on theformal label ofparasituswhile investing his parasite with capacities improper tothe type, aiming at giving birth to a new comic character: the freelance impostor asa separate role.38 The parasite traditionally greedy and ready for anything wasthe best available candidate for such a conversion, but the parasitic conventions

were apparently still binding. Although the author did modify and overtlyparodythem, in a deft manner he ultimately preserved them.

This was achieved through the experiment I mentioned above. Mandrogerusis introduced in the comedy as the former parasite of Euclio, and ends it as theparasite of Querolus. In between, however, he is striving to become what theauthor wanted, yet what a parasite by definition cannot possibly be: independent.Interestingly enough, if only Mandrogerus had played it safe and accepted hisdesignated share of the treasure instead of risking for the whole what a pettyparasite, a born loser, would have been expected to do he would have eventuallybecome rich and ceased to be a parasite. 39 The outcome of his futile ventures isthus an amazing paradox.40 If Mandrogerus had acted conventionally he wouldhave ended utterly unconventionally. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately forthe conventions, his illegitimate ambitions are frustrated, and a happy ending the conventional, and indeed the only possible ending was just a matter of time.

The author, however, found a conveniently paradoxical solution: Mandrogeruswas sent back where he belongs not onlyin spiteof his efforts to escape being aparasite; he was restored to his initial and only appropriate status preciselybecause

37 See above, n. 19.38Quer. 26.23 and 29.312 implies that Mandrogerus would have been imagined as justone among many impostors who were wandering around in the world of theQuerolus.39 During his review of my drafts, Professor Timothy J. Moore expressed suspicion atthis point as to whether a parasite would even want to become rich and independentat all, rightly quoting Terences parasite Phormio (325340), who celebrates the destinyof parasites, boasting how they are much better off than patrons. Although Phormios

statement appeals to reason (parasites get everything they need but are luckily relievedof responsibility), it only conforms to the conventionally festive mood seen also in, e.g.,Plaut. Stych. 707733 and Quer. 38.1942.20, where the slaves praise their condition asfreedom. My impression is that within the theatrical cosmos the poor and the dependentare certainly happy as they are, but there is no instinct more innate to humans than thedesire for freedom and material security and the present study is all about that.40 As well pointed out by Jacquemard-LeSaos,Querolus, 26, and Lana,Analisi, 31, paradoxis the foundation of the structure of theQuerolus.


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of those efforts.41 In an original twist, he was assigned to violate the rules for themoment in order to observe them in the end.

The borderline between a mercenary trickster and an independent one wasfar thinner in real life than in a literary genre still limited by inherited conventions.

This experimental parasite was dispatched to point to that line and to cross it fora moment on his way to the real world a world in which criminals can succeed

but was withdrawn just in time to remain within the comic frame. In signalingone direction of the development of this comic role, the anonymous author stillmakes no attempt to deny that the Querolus is, before and after all, just a play,

staged in a cosmos of fantasy.

The Applied Parasites

So much for comedy. But Mandrogerus episode of independence, although onecan regard it as an entertaining interlude, is all too symptomatic to be discardedas just an original artistic treatment of a stereotypic comic figure. For the mostpart Mandrogerus does not fit the pattern of the comic type, but could have beeninspired by more concrete individuals.

The image of false friends perfidiously prowling around a rich acquaintancewhose end was near was known already to Cicero, Ovid, Horace, Persius,Seneca, Petronius, Pliny, Martial, Juvenal, and Apuleius; literary references to

this phenomenon are incalculable.42 The practice became known as captatio,legacy-hunting, and these predators, hoping for a share of the inheritance, were

41 As early as in the prologue, the restoration is actually announced: The outcome isthis: as a result offate and their own merit, the master and the parasite are restored each tohis due place (Quer. 4.1517:Exitus ergo hic est: ille dominus, ille parasitus denuo fato atquemerito conlocantur sic ambo ad sua; translation and emphasis mine). The other factor ofMandrogerus failure,fatum, intervening at the critical moment as a deux ex machina, hidingthe gold beneath the ashes; artificial as it may seem, this touch of magic was after all alegitimate dramaturgical instrument.

42 To list just the most celebrated instances, see, e.g., Cic. Parad. 5.39.16, Ov. Ars am.2.271272; Hor. Sat. 1.8, 2.1, 2.3, 2.5 (cf. Porph. Comm. Hor. 2.2,);Ep. 2.2.182198 (cf.Porph. Comm. Hor. Ep. 2.5); Pers. 5.73; Sen. Benef. 4.20.3; Petron. 124.24, 125.3; Plin.Ep.2.20; Iuv. 1.37, 6.40, 10.196202; Apul. Apol. 100. Martials epigrams are a treasury ofcaptatores: 1.10, 2.26, 2.76, 3.76, 4.5, 4.56, 6.33, 6.62, 8.27, 8.38, 9.8, 9.48, 9.80, 9.88, 9.100,11.44, 11.83, 11.87, 12.10, and 12.90. Martial, however, was far from allergic to captatiohimself: see C. A. Williams,Martial: Epigrams, Book Two (New York: OUP, 2004), 105, withreferences.


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sometimes called captatores (sc. hereditatis) or heredipetae, legacy-hunters.43 Howlong and by what means certain captatores had been preparing their profitablestrategic positions and what their particular relations were with their prospectivebenefactors depended on each case,44 but the favorite targets of captatio were therich, the old, and the childless.45 All of the captatoreshad in common that theyexpected substantial material compensation for their merits. The fact that a practiceas concrete as captatio was a frequent topic of colorful satirical descriptions showsthat it must have, in a presumably less colorful form, really existed; it is onlyhuman to hope for a great deal of money with as few investments as possible.

Naturally, one should be cautious in taking satire and epigrams for grantedin establishing statistics; Edward Champlin is justly skeptical about interpretingthe literary treatments of captatio as a source for social or legal history.46 Indeed,the objects of satirical writings were not necessarily the most widespread patternsof behavior and social practices, but often merely the most inspring ones.47 Afterall, Roman literary sources treated this potentially remunerative business as amoral and not as a social problem, and since the captatio was not a legal category,

43 On the notion of captatio, see V. A. Tracy, Aut Captantur aut Captant, Latomus39(1980): 399402; K. Hopkins, Death and Renewal(Cambridge: CUP, 1985), 237248; andespecially E. Champlin, Final Judgments: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills, 200 B.C. A.D.250 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 87102. Champlins definition ofcaptatio in legal and social aspect is worth remembering: Wherefalsum[i.e., forgery of a

will] was a legal crime, easy to charge and difficult to prove, captatiowas a moral crime, easyto charge and all but impossible to prove (87).44 Captators in literature come in all shapes and sizes, wives, fathers-in-law, cognates,mistresses, lovers, gigolos, freedmen, freedwomen, friends, priests, magistrates, even theemperor, Champlin, Final Judgments, 89.45 Hopkins, Death and Renewal, 240; these three recommendations for attractingcaptatoresare brilliantly summarized by Martial, 11.44.46 Champlin, Final Judgments, 94, warns that the term captatio, invented by Horace, doesnot occur in inscriptions and legal documents, and that with captatiowe are breathinga rather rarefied literary air, specifically that of Roman satire: it is not a word in dailycurrency (95); he thus replies to Hopkins statement that [t]he very existence of a

special word for them [sc. captatores] in Latin is evidence enough that their activities becamea well-established element in Roman life, Hopkins, Death and Renewal, 239. Hopkinswell-established element might be a slight overstatement, but both authors are right tosome extent, since the captatio, legally undefined, did not in fact require the word to beofficially acknowledged.47 Here I could not agree more with Hopkins, Death and Renewal, 241: I am not suggestingthat such behaviour was universal, only that such humour had a sharp point because thebehaviour it laughed at actually occurred.


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it was often a matter of personal impression.48 In any case, the frequency and thepower of the literary image are more significant for the present discussion thanits measurable correspondence to Roman reality.49

The captator, then, became a literarytopos. Originally a satirical stockfigure,it also proved to possess developmental and associative potential. There werenumerous points of contact between the captatorand the parasite, which satiristsdid not fail to underline.50 Typically, the methods of captatoreswere those of theparasite: persistent flattery, manipulating the victims vanity, simulating friendship,keeping company whenever possible, doing dirty jobs, and so on.51 In effect

the parasites only differed in their prey. But for evaluating the literary portrayalof both, this difference, I suggest, goes beyond economic consequences. Thecaptators expectation of a financial reward is simply more understandable, andthus closer to life, than the eternal parasitic craving for food-and-nothing-but-food. This is the realism of Mandrogerus that I argue for. Unlike parasitism,the captatio had certain detectable social connotations,52 and where the parasite wasbut a symbol and a caricatured mask, for at least some captatoresthere is evidencethat they existed.53 Briefly put, in the conventional and imaginarysetting of thecomic stage the parasites were the champions, but beyond it they were outplayedand outnumbered by the captatores.54

And what of theQuerolus? Although Mandrogerus profile is portrayed onlythrough the events that follow, according to all existing literary models he is to be

48 Champlin, Final Judgments, 101 ff.49 [W]hen figures like the captator become stock characters, there are two possiblereactions, not mutually exclusive. One, perhaps the natural one, is to conclude that there

was a lot of it about. The other, less obvious perhaps, is to look to quality, not to quantity:not that it was necessarily common, but that it was felt to be very, very bad, Champlin,Final Judgments, 102.50 In Classical comedy, legacy-hunting is coupled only with the neighboring activityof parasitism, sykophancy (Ter.Andr. 8145). For an elaborate discussion of the literaryimage of captatoresin connection with parasites, see Damon, The Mask of the Parasite, 118ff.51 Cf. Cic. Parad. 5.39.16, and Juv. 10.196202;

52 All the factors that fostered captatio Champlin calls social pressure points, Champlin,Final Judgments, 100101; see also Hopkins, Death and Renewal, 239240.53 For example, the infamous M. Aquilius Regulus (Plin. Ep. 2.20). Champlin, FinalJudgements, 98, suspects that many more instances of captatio would have been recordedin non-satirical sources if the pen had been in less friendly hands unlike, e.g., those ofCornelius Nepos when reporting on T. Pomponius Atticus (Att. 21.1).54 It was only logical that Juvenal professed this lucrative hypocrisy as one of the reasons

which made it impossible not to write satire (1.2938).


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imagined as practicing some sort of legacy-hunting while a parasite of Euclio. Or,if one is naively sympathetic, he simply happened to be how convenient inthe right place at the right time. Implicit as it may seem, Mandrogerus captatio wasthe imperative prerequisite of his future enterprise, and it even continues after thedeath of the testator, albeit with adjusted tactics. Alongside two other faces ofhim that we see that of the quasi-sykophant and the would-be-independentparasite Mandrogerus is de facto a heredipeta. The written agreement betweenMandrogerus and Euclio, announced in the Prologue and later seriously consultedas evidence for determining the legal heirs,55 proves that the Querolus was not

all about just anygold but about inheritedgold.56

It was more than a randomchoice of words that the impostors tragic disappointment with the contents ofthe urn was followed by Sardanapallus instinctive reaction: Treasure, you havedisinherited us.57

The fact that Mandrogerus is not actually caught inflagranteis, in my view,no obstacle to labeling him captator; it is, in fact, only expected. Namely, thestrategies of legacy-hunters often ridiculed in satire were, as listed above, nothingbut parasitical. First, I hope to have demonstrated that humiliations of that kind

would have been most inappropriate to Mandrogerus, whose parasitism wasonly nominal and temporary, and that for a reason. Second, the authors choiceto omit the explicitly derisible, parasitic side of captatio which in a comedy

would be most welcome and to use legacy-hunting merely as the premise of theplot instead, suggests that its humorous potential had already been thoroughlyexploited in literature and thereby consumed. In the Querolus, this notoriouslylucrative depravity was apparently downgraded to the level of ordinary humanbehavior, as common as any other basis of a plot; in Classical comedy it waslove.

55Quer. 3.19; 51.1214; 54.926.56 The hunting vocabulary from Mandrogerus expos (23.1520) was frequent in literarydescriptions of legacy hunting, as noted by Tracy, Aut Captatur aut Captant, 400401,

with references (cf. above, n. 34); captatio, after all, means hunting. Tracy, ibidem, alsoquotes quite a few instances of the hunted ones making good use of the hopes of the

hunting ones, and the captatoresultimately ending up swindled themselves just as washinted in the Prologue of the Querolus(4.7; 6.13; later confirmed by Lar in 51.57), andjust as Mandrogerus had feared (47.1015; 49.14; 60.1222). Lastly, it is perhaps morethan coincidence that the name of Horaces captator, Pantolabus, Take-all, (Sat. 1.8 and2.1), is used in the twelfth-century remake of theQuerolus, theAululariaof Vital of Blois,for the role of the slave named Pantomalus in theQuerolus; it may be that while readingtheQuerolusVital of Blois was reminded of Horaces scrounger.57Quer. 47.21: Exheredasti nos, thesaure.


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What Might People Say?

The literary toposof legacy-hunting was not short-lived. A source approximatelymatching the composition of theQuerolusboth geographically and chronologicallyadds another clue. St Jeromes letter 117, dated before 406,58 is addressed to ananonymous Christian woman and her daughter in Gaul. The former was a widow,the latter a virgin; the two women had been living separately and each had taken amonk into her home as a protector. Among providing other moral instructions,

Jerome warns the two women of the potential danger of their decisions, that is,

that gossip might arise. Referring to one of the monks, Jerome demonstrates howthe household, and consequently the community, might react: This one calls himparasite, that one calls him impostor, another call him legacy-hunter, some callhim by any other name they can think of.59

The letter is usually considered to be fictional, composed as a rhetoricalexercise.60 This is likely, but even for that purpose no one would have chosen atopic so absolutely unimaginable. In words of Andrew Cain, Jerome employedthe epistolary medium to declaim about a hypothetical scenario that conceivablycould have occurred anywhere in the Christian world.61 It is beyond doubt that

Jerome was adducing a valid example of legacy-hunting in depicting, like ancientsatirists, quite a familiar image. But unlike them, Jerome was faced with one specifictarget group. In the fourth-century West, in the Christian empire, the various

captatoresof the Classical world were replaced by a new breed of opportunists,who could profit considerably from inheritance-hunting the clergy.62 Letter

58 J. N. D. Kelly,Jerome: His Life, Writings and Controversies(London: Duckworth, 1975), 276,n. 9.59 Hier. Ep. 117.8: ille parasitum, iste inpostorem, hic heredipetam, alius nouo quolibet appellatuocabulo (translation mine).60 For a sound discussion on the nature of the letter, see J. Lssl, Satire, Fiction andReference to Reality in Jeromes Epistula117, Vigiliae Christianae 52 (1998): 172192.

The most recent analysis is A. Cain, Jeromes epistulaCXVII on the subintroductae: Satire,Apology, and Ascetic Propaganda in Gaul, Augustinianum 49 (2009): 119143. Cainclassified the letter as a specimen of the suasoriagenre of rhetorical writing (126).

61 Cain, Jeromes epistulaCXVII, 127.62 I. J. Davidson, Captatio in the Fourth-century West, Studia Patristica34 (2001): 3343,at 35; summarizing the phenomenon of captatio in antiquity, Davidson notes (p. 34) thatin reality the practice was just one among many social nuisances, while captatio as aliterary toposis intended to be a symptom of general moral depravity being traced in anindividual or social context, and concludes (p. 43) that [t]he underlying seriousnessof the quest to secure assets undoubtedly produced individual excesses, which in turnrendered appropriate the persistence of classical caricatures in Christian rhetoric. Cf.


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117 in particular was directed against the ancient Christian ascetic practice ofsubintroductae, the cohabitation of men and women in an intimate relationship

without engaging in sexual intercourse.63 Given that, Jeromes polemical remarkon the legacy-hunting practice of certain monks as a potentially related issue inone concrete case was only a side-effect, but precisely as such a useful hint for thepresent discussion.

Jeromes technique is most suggestive. Josef Lssl qualified the letter as apiece of fiction packed with satire,64 and Jeromes debt in this letter to bothHorace and Classical comedy has long been identified.65 Small wonder, then,

that Jerome applied the known satirical association and effectively decoratednotorious captatoreswith parasitical colors, just like Horace, Juvenal, or Apuleius

and just like the author of theQuerolus had done. In the quoted passage thechoice of words is indicative. Jerome employed the three terms parasitus, inpostor,heredipeta approximately as synonyms, and all three of them perfectlyfit the onlyknown comic parasite of late antiquity. Albeit deliberately disguised under thecomic mask ofparasitus, Mandrogerus is in practice a heredipeta, one whose modusoperandi is imposture.

This is far from proposing any intrinsic similarity between the legacy-huntingof the parasite in theQuerolusand Jeromes concrete and gender-related captatio.

The link I see is an adaptable commonplace. Two details are noteworthy. First,Jerome did not warn that he a rhetorician with a profound Classical education might evoke the learned satirical association of parasites with legacy-huntersat the sight of the monks in question. It was meant to be, so Jerome wouldhave us believe, an immediate and logical association for everyone, reportedlyeven slaves. Provided that his referring to a second-hand source was not onlya rhetorical trick for simulating objectivity, it is a good pointer for identifyingthe stock phenomenon. Second, and accordingly, Jerome mentioned the threerogues merelyen passant, without finding it necessary to insert additional bindingtissue among them. Such a casual remark, in a text so carefully constructed, is

valuable for this study precisely because it appears so casual. It suggests that all

also A. Cain, The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of ChristianAuthority in Late Antiquity(Oxford: OUP, 2009), 115 ff.63 Cain, Jeromes epistulaCXVII, 127ff, with references, and Lssl, Satire, Fiction andReference to Reality, 183.64 Lssl, ibidem.65 See, e.g., N. Adkin, TerencesEunuchusand Jerome, Rheinisches Museum fr Philologie137(1994): 187195, and Lssl, Satire, Fiction and Reference to Reality, 181183. For otherClassical reflections in the letter, see Cain, Jeromes epistulaCXVII, 142, n. 88.


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three members of the extortive trinity were by that time fully recognizable andmutually complementary stockfigures whose interchangeability needed no furtherillustration. Hence, if indeed Jeromes association of a parasite, an impostor, anda legacy-hunter was only natural, then so was Mandrogerus accumulation ofthese functions.66

As far as is known, Mandrogerus was unprecedented in comedy, but mostlikely inspired and assisted by the legacy-hunters who appear in the ancientsatirists and St. Jerome.67The satirical connection was already there, but not thereciprocity; everycaptatorwas by definition a parasite, whereas until Mandrogerus

appeared no known comic parasite had been a captator. The rules of the comicgenre were thus significantly updated, and, I think, not unexpectedly so. Captatio

was an upgraded version and the most practical application of parasitism, whileparasitism was the most fertile literary ground.68

One must not forget, however, that captatio was less a social than a literaryepidemic. Roman satire and epigrams, the quoted letter of St Jerome, and finallytheQuerolus, were concerned about nothing more than a hypothetical scenariothat conceivably could have occurred anywhere. The realism of Mandrogerusis thus only relative, but for comedy it was a giant step forward; all the earlier playsrecruited their parasites for scenarios that conceivably could have occurred only

66 Sidonius Apollinaris letter 3.13 (c. 480) employs the name of Terences parasiteGnatho (Chewer) as an emblem of parasitic craftsmanship; the lengthy and picturesquedescription includes numerous traits that cannot be attributed to the parasite of Classicalcomedy: Sidonius parasite was accused of nearly everything vile and abominable.67 Whether the anonymous author of the Querolus perhaps alluded to the very sameproblem as Jerome, greedy and perfidious monks, would be a challenging question, allthe more tempting given the other possible references to monasticism in the Querolus;see K. Smolak, Das Gaunertrio im Querolus, Wiener Studien101 (1988): 327338. The

very etymology of Mandrogerus name is an issue: see Jacquemard-LeSaos,Querolus, 75;I. Lana,Analisi del Querolus, 32; and Smolak, Das Gaunertrio, 333335.68 More than a millennium had to pass until Ariostos Il Negromante(1520) presented thecharlatan-magician or Ben Jonsons Volpone(1606) the legacy-hunter as fully comic roles.Interestingly, by the sixteenth century the legacy-hunter had become just as outdated as

the Roman comic parasite seems to have been in the time of Mandrogerus: see B. Parker,D. Bevington, Volpone of Ben Jonson(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 2.For tricksters and legacy-hunters as stock characters, see J. L. Burgess, The Trickster inElizabethan-Jacobean Drama: the Development of a Western Archetype (PhD diss.,Stanford University, 1979); W. R. Dynes, The Trickster-figure in Jacobean City Comedy,Studies in English Literature: 15001900, 33, No. 2 (1993): 365384; and J. D. Canfield,Tricksters & Estates: on the Ideology of Restoration Comedy(Lexington, KY: University Press ofKentucky, 1997).


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on a comic stage. Previously the comic parasite had been nothing but an abstractsymbol of inexplicable perennial hunger, an artificial depository of the lowestinstincts, and a grotesque, almost bestial, mask without a human face behindit. Mandrogerus was the first applied comic parasite; he is the incarnation ofa cartoon hero. From what is known of the history of comedy, Mandrogerusrepresents a decisive phase of development: the first definitional bad guy ofcomedyin statu nascendi.69

69 Segal, Roman Laughter, 7098, through an impressive analysis and inspiring interpretation,proves that the only characters to be perceived as negative in Plautine comedy are thosespoilsports (e.g., the leno, the miles, and the senexauarus) who are guilty only of being thepolar opposite of the spirit of festival and nothing else; cf. above, n. 21.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editors preface ............................................................................................................ 5

I. ARTICLES AND STUDIES ........................................................... 7

Goran VidoviDish to Cash, Cash to Ash: Mandrogerus the Applied Parasite and

the Evolution of Comedy ................................................................................... 9

Jelena JariThe Byzantine Army in the Central Balkans between theFifth and Seventh Centuries: A Survey of Military Insignia........................... 30

Nikoloz AleksidzeThe Role of Emperor Herakleios in Medieval Georgian Historiography ......... 46

Ivana DobchevaPatterns of Interdependence:

Author and Audience in theHistoryof Leo the Deacon............................... 62

Anna AdashinskayaThe Origins of the Joint Cult of St. Simeon and St. Sava of

Serbia Based on Visual Sources........................ ....................... ....................... 77

Drago Gh. NstsoiuPolitical Aspects of the Mural Representations of

sancti reges Hungariae in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries ................ 93

nige BenczeLate Medieval Ceramic Tableware from the

Franciscan Friary of Trgu Mure ....................... ........................ ................ 120

Gbor Mihly TthUsing Culture: Giovanni Rucellais Knowledge-Constructing Practice

in the MSZibaldone Quaresimale ............... ....................... .................... 142

Antoaneta SabuRewriting Through Translation: Some Textual Issues

in theVulgata of theEjercicios espirituales by Ignatius of Loyola.......... 155George-Florin Clian

Alkimia Operativa andAlkimia SpeculativaSome Modern Controversies on the Historiography of Alchemy..................... 166


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Conflict and Coexistence: New Views on the Crusades ............ 191

Michel BalardJihad, Holy War, and Crusading...................... ....................... ..................... 193

Attila BrnyThe Lastrex crucesignatus, Edward I, and the Mongol Alliance.............. 202

Irina SavinetskayaCrusaders Motivations and Chivalric Consciousness:

French Contributions to the Later Crusades .................................................. 224

II. REPORT OF THE YEAR ......................................................... 237Gyrgy Gerby

Report of the Year...................... ........................ ....................... ................... 239

MA Thesis Abstracts ....................... ........................ ....................... ............... 244

PhD Defences during the Academic Year 20082009 ................. ............ 258

A Tribute to Professor Ihor evenko by CEU Medievalists ................. 280

Documents

Vidovic - Dish to Cash Cash to Ash Queolus-FrGreedforFoodtoGreedforGold-Acaedu