C. W.

Marshall
The Young Man in Plautus’ Asinaria 127–248
In Plautus’ Asinaria, two young men, Argyrippus and Diabolus, seek the attentions
of the meretrix Philaenium.1 Though they eventually decide to share her with a joint
short-term lease (847–48, 915–18), earlier in the play the audience is presented with
rival lovers. Argyrippus, whose romantic and financial concerns motivate the plot,
is onstage at lines 585–745 and 828–942; Diabolus his rival is onstage at 746–827.
Which of these two is the young man earlier in the play, at lines 127–248, is the sub-
ject of controversy. Despite the testimony of the manuscripts that this is Argyrippus,
it has become increasingly common to claim with Havet that the first young man is
Diabolus:2 Fontaine calls this proposition ‘the single greatest advance in the history
of editing the Asinaria.’3 The increasing prominence of this suggestion, especially in
the Sarsina and Loeb texts,4 elevates it to a position of unwarranted authority.
Havet’s theory is mistaken. I am not the first to resist this trend, and the argu-
ments here build on those offered by Lowe, Hurka, and others in support of the man-
uscript assignment of these lines to Argyrippus.5 The issue is central to any examina-
tion of character in Plautus and to the interpretation of the play.6 Lowe’s arguments
should have put the matter to rest, but additional arguments can be mustered.
To be clear, the question of line attribution is not simply an understanding of
the manuscript tradition: mistakes can be made,7 and the unanimity of the Pala-
tine manuscripts (with the silence of the Ambrosian palimpsest) that the young
man is Argyrippus does not grant certainty. The approach I am taking privileges
instead how meaning is created during performance. Who is the first young man
that the audience sees? Framed this way, the problem is not one of textual con-

||
1 I am grateful to John Porter for fruitful conversation on this topic, though his conclusions
differ from mine, to Jim Tatum for encouragement, and for the valuable feedback at the Trends
in Classics conference in Thessaloniki, May 2014.
2 Havet 1905, 94–5 and 1925; see also Bertini 1968, Danese 1999, 59–66 and 76–78, Danese
2004, Hartkamp 2004, 256–60, Henderson 2006, 137–40 and 223–4, de Melo 2011, 136, Porter
2013, and those sources listed at Lowe 1992, 159 n. 36
3 Fontaine 2005.
4 Danese 2004, de Melo 2011.
5 Lowe 1992, 158–63 and 1999, 14–17, Hurka 2010, 46–9; see Webster 1953, 235–6, for an earlier
attempt to grapple with the problem.
6 Konstan 1983, 55 n. 7 accepts Havet, notes there may be interpolation (cf. 1978, 220 n. 4). Scafuro
2003/04, 13–4, notes that the play has many inconsistencies, and the identity of the lover is only one.
7 Andrieu 1953, 165–7, esp. 166 where it is argued that similar errors have to occur twice in the
text of Asinaria for Havet’s suggestion to be correct (and see 276). For other cases of misattribu-
tion, see Bertini 1968, 295.

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254 | C. W. Marshall

servatism or being led astray by (post-Plautine) scene headings. What survives as

a question of line attribution originates in practical terms as a question of mask,
costume, and actor deployment, and of the interpretability of the theatrical mise-
en-scène by an audience in Rome.
Meaning must be able to emerge from the performed reality: in adopting this
approach, it is possible to circumvent some non-arguments that have been of-
fered. It is not sufficient to claim that the manuscript reading presents narrative
inconsistencies, since there are inconsistencies in Asinaria under both readings
of the play:
(a) If the young man is Argyrippus, he does not obey instructions well: the lena
Clearata suggests he write a contract (238), and Argyrippus does not do this,
though Diabolus does.8
(b) If the young man is Diabolus, there are financial inconsistencies that are
not explained: ‘The lover … has no money now … [but] Diabolus appears to
have no lack of funds.’9 The audience must assume that there has been a
substantial change in Diabolus’ fortunes off-stage during the course of the
play that is not mentioned.

Given that at least one of these inconsistencies must exist in the play, neither
argument can stand on its own.
Stage movement is also not a determinative variable for this question. One
could also point to the fact that the young man exits to the market (245 ad forum)
along a wing, and Argyrippus’ next entrance is from within the house of Phi-
laenium at 585. Though such a move is paralleled elsewhere (Tranio exits along a
wing at Most. 932 and enters through the house at 1044), there is the appearance
of a greater consistency of movement if it is Diabolus who goes to market at 248
and returns with a contract and a parasite at 746. Appearances can deceive, of
course. The presence of two empty stages following the initial departure of the
adulescens (Asin. 503/4, 544/5) means that there exists no narrative/cognitive
dissonance when Argyrippus appears from within the house. The audience sees
a recapitulation of the earlier scene, with Argyrippus’ different behavior arising
from the woman to whom he speaks (the lena Clearata at 153–242, Philaenium at
582–745). Further, regardless of who the initial young man was, the audience
must assume that Argyrippus has entered the house unseen, a move that is easily

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8 De Melo 2011, 136.
9 Lowe 1992, 160.

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 The Young Man in Plautus’ Asinaria 127–248 | 255

assumed to have happened at one of the empty stages (504, 545).10 This is easier,
I contend, if the audience has some previous visual familiarity with the character
making the unexpected entrance, but the matter is not determined in either case.
Characterization is similarly open-ended. I am suspicious of an argument that
suggests that the anger expressed by the young man is somehow inconsistent for
the character of Argyrippus.11 Diabolus’ cold and mechanical treatment of his rela-
tionship when he is dealing with the contract is no less inconsistent than if it the
earlier discussion comes from an emotional, desperate Argyrippus (quite the oppo-
site, in fact). Beneath this line of argumentation lies an assumption that characteri-
zation in Plautus is somehow predictable or simplistic. The adulescentes in Plautus
are not all nice men, and they do not behave identically. There is much to be
gained by comparing Argyrippus with Charinus in Mercator and Diniarchus in Tru-
culentus, neither of whom are the morally upstanding ineffectual naïf that Havet
and others would have Argyrippus be. As a result, I would even resist the conces-
sion granted by Lowe, that ‘Plautine rewriting has in these scenes depicted Ar-
gyrippus’ relationship with Philaenium in a way that is inconsistent with what is
implied elsewhere in the play.’12 Subsequent Latin literature presents the locked-
out lover vacillating between anger and heartfelt passion, and that must be seen as
a viable possibility here. Characterization only emerges from the play and the di-
rectorial choices made in staging it: presumptions of how a character should act
cannot determine the shape of a play. Similarly irrelevant are arguments concern-
ing contamination, source criticism, and interpolation, which have beset the play
since the 19th century, and to which Havet was originally responding.
Any play must be interpretable by an audience in performance: I contend that
structural and performance-based factors argue in favor of Argyrippus as the first
young man, and one such factor is the use of music. In the play’s only polymetric
canticum, the young man sings as an exclusus amator (Asin. 127–52). As I argued
in 2006, Plautus’ metrical and musical practices elsewhere demonstrate that this
should be the sympathetic adulescens Argyrippus.13 Asinaria contains one of the
longest musical passages in Plautus, with continuous accompaniment from the

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10 For the angiportum as a narrative device that allows a run from a wing to behind the stage build-
ing, see Marshall 2006, 54–5 and 107–8. For the stage setting generally, see Rosivach 1970, 446–9.
11 E.g. de Melo 2011, 136: ‘the angry outbursts seem more in keeping with Diabolus’ character,
whereas Argyrippus is presented as a man more prone to tears.’ Porter 2013: ‘Argyrippus is both
the naively devoted lover and (as reported by Leonida at 267–71) the young rake, who mocks his
father in the final scene before retiring to enjoy the delights of his courtesan paramour.’ It is over-
interpreting 270 pariter scortari solent to take this to refer to spending time with any courtesans
except on the terms that (I argue) we have already seen in the play at 127–248.
12 Lowe 1992, 163.
13 Marshall 2006, 205–6, and see Moore 1998, 250.

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256 | C. W. Marshall

tibicen from lines 127–745 (66.4% of the total length of the play), with the second
musical section from 830–947 (constituting another 12.5% of the play). The only
time music is not playing once it begins is in the scene between Diabolus and the
parasite. In the later scene, Diabolus’ presence on stage stops musical accompa-
niment. Music starts again when Argyrippus returns to the stage. Moore’s work on
characterization by means of musical accompaniment makes it clear that the
locked-out lover in the first scene should be the character elsewhere associated
with music, and that is Argyrippus, who even describes himself as having been
shut out (596 exclusus).14
Another structural measure involves how an audience identifies a dramatic
character. Because characters are for the most part costumed and masked in
stereotypical ways, their identities become fixed for an audience in performance
through naming and through the explicit identification of relationships. This is in
fact true of any theatrical character: the audience must continually negotiate iden-
tity through observation of the mise-en-scène. Following a short prologue (1–15),
there is an iambic scene between the senex Demaenetus and his slave Libanus that
establishes both the focus on Demaenetus’s son and the ways that this plot differs
from other similar plots the audience might have seen in other plays. The scene’s
first line identifies tuom … unicum gnatum (16, ‘your only son’), and subsequent
discussion states the problem (49–57, the son is in love but has no money; 67–83,
yet his father is uncharacteristically willing to help) and names Argyrippus (74–6):

nam me hodie orauit Argyrippus filius

uti sibi amanti facerem argenti copiam;
et id ego percupio opsequi gnato meo.

Today my son Argyrippus has asked me to supply him with money for his affair. And I’m
very keen to oblige my son in this.15

The problem is restated with specifics: uiginti iam usust filio argenti minis (89, ‘My
son needs twenty silver minas at once’). Then follows the twist that distinguishes
this plot form other palliatae: Demaenetus challenges Libanus to cheat him of
the money his son will need (90–117). This is similar to the challenge in Pseudo-
lus (484–556), as Pseudolus reveals to his master Simo that he will trick Simo out
of the money Calidorus needs to purchase Phoenicium. This provides exciting
variation on an expected narrative pattern.16

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14 For the musical structure of Asinaria, see Moore 1998, 249–50.
15 I use the text and translation of de Melo 2011 throughout, so as not to stilt my argument.
16 Of course, this later proves to be a false clue, when it is revealed Demaenetus is in fact angling for
his own sexual gratification (734–6), re-asserting the father-son rivalry seen, e. g., in Casina and

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 The Young Man in Plautus’ Asinaria 127–248 | 257

Following the young man’s scene, Argyrippus is again named when Libanus
fears he is going to be corporally punished ni hodie Argyrippo argenti essent ui-
ginti minae (364, ‘unless Argyrippus had twenty silver minas today’). This use of
proper names becomes a frame around the young man’s scene, and should be
conclusive for determining the visible character’s identity.17 The fact that the
basic economic demand is also repeated within the scene allows for each specta-
tor to maintain the connection when Clearata names her price: tene? uiginti mi-
nas; | atque ea lege: si alius ad me prius attulerit, tu uale (230–1, ‘For you? Twenty
minas. And on these terms: if anyone else brings it to me earlier, it’s good-bye to
you’). If this is addressed to Argyrippus, spectators recognize that Clearata is
repeating information she has given him before; the reference to another (231
alius) constitutes the initial pointer to the existence of an unspecified rival, urg-
ing him to act quickly. This situation offers no interpretative difficulties. If how-
ever this is addressed to Diabolus, spectators perceive that Clearata is here re-
peating the same deal that Argyrippus’ father knew had been offered to someone
else; since Diabolus is unnamed at this point, we must also assume that an audi-
ence when hearing alius makes the association with the young man who has
been named. Of these two possibilities, the case favouring Argyrippus requires
the audience to extrapolate less information.
Diabolus is not mentioned by name until much later in the play (633–5):

argenti uiginti minae med ad mortem appulerunt,

quas hodie adulescens Diabolus ipsi daturus dixit,
ut hanc ne quoquam mitteret nisi ad se hunc annum totum.

Twenty silver minas has driven me to my death; young Diabolus said he’d give it to her
today so that she wouldn’t send her anywhere except to him for a whole year.

He appears at 746 and is again named right away, when the parasite begins read-
ing the proposed contract (751 Diabolus Glauci filius …). This makes the stage
figure’s identity unambiguous right away, in a scene that demonstrates his rela-
tionship to Philaenium. For a spectator making sense of the play in performance,
spectators must assume that Argyrippus was told of the rival by name during his
time with Philaenium inside (545–84). This is the case regardless of who the
initial young man was, and as a narrative inconsistency, this is relatively minor.
More striking is the fact that only Argyrippus is named in the discussion between

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Mercator. It is not impossible that the rival lover be brought onstage first: that happens, e. g., in Miles
Gloriosus. The contrast between these two scenes is striking, however, Pyrgopolynices appears
onstage with his parasite Artotrogus, before the prologue, in a scene that names both characters.
17 Andrieu 1953, 275–7.

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258 | C. W. Marshall

Clearata and Philaenium (504–44, cf. 522 Argyrippum filium Demaeneti). The
absence of any mention of Diabolus when the two women are alone on stage and
free to discuss all suitors again suggests that Diabolus has had no stage presence
before line 504: at this point of the play Diabolus does not exist.
Naming is important, because it provides a crucial marker that a spectator
can use to identify a character with certainty. This is the central obstacle to Ha-
vet’s theory: if the first adulescens is Diabolus, then Plautus deliberately creates
confusion among his audience. Having spoken about Argyrippus (16–126) and
introduced a young man (127–248), the audience has no resource to understand
that it has not been Argyrippus for some time. The confusion persists throughout
the exchange between Libanus, Leonida, and the Merchant (249–503), and the
exchange between Clearata and Philaenium (504–44). Argyrippus has been men-
tioned by name in both scenes (364, 522), and the natural assumption for every
audience member is that the character being named is the infatuated young man
that they have seen. Further, if we have not seen Argyrippus before the mother-
daughter exchange, the stakes of that scene are greatly reduced: Philaenium is
pining for an abstraction that may not even appear as a character in the play.18 It
is of course possible that costume or skin tone on the mask could be used to
discourage the identification (e. g. if the young man wore exotic, foreign clothing
that suggested that he was not related to Demaenetus),19 but even with the assis-
tance of costuming, the use of proper names means that there will always be part
of the audience who will be confused.
For those in the audience who make the association between Argyrippus and
the young man they have seen regardless, there is nothing in the play that would
challenge this impression until 585–6. Henderson, who follows Havet, is explicit
that this is Plautus’ intention: ‘I am sure Plautus does fool with his audience
here: it’s no great feat to trick spectators in this theatre …’.20 When Argyrippus

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18 In Casina, neither the title character nor the lover Euthynicus appear on stage; the possibility of
withholding the appearance of a character must be considered by an audience, even if it is a rare
event.
19 Porter 2013 suggests, ‘it is possible that the actor’s attire helped to identify him from the
start as the dissolute impoverished lover [by which he means Diabolus] rather than the love-
lorn son.’
20 Henderson 2006, 137. He continues, ‘... in fact it’s a built-in option because (say it out loud),
in the absence of names, a mask for a part such as the adulescens amator specifies the role, not
the individual.’ This is, no matter how loudly spoken, not true. During performance, any stock
mask represents an individual within the world of the play, and (as we’ve seen) there in fact is
a name that any intelligent spectator might reasonably attribute to the character. If fooling the
audience is part of Plautus’ intention, this must be so. Henderson continues in his footnote
uninterested in engaging with opposite views: seeing Diabolus in the first scene as ‘vital to any

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 The Young Man in Plautus’ Asinaria 127–248 | 259

appears, he is named immediately (585–6), but this is also the beginning of a

split-focus (eavesdropping) scene (585–618), which becomes the extended ludifi-
catio (619–745).21 If Havet were correct, audience members who have been suc-
cessfully confused must suddenly reconfigure what they think they know about
Argyrippus in the light of new evidence at this point and interpret it on the fly,
during a split-focus scene. Confirmation of this realignment of identities does not
come until Argyrippus makes reference to a rival named Diabolus at 633–5.
Only at these lines would the identity of the initial young man be unambigu-
ously clarified, as they then anticipate Diabolus’ return to the stage at line 746.
They also recall the earlier discussion between the young man and Clearata at
230–5, where the price and duration of the contract are outlined.
Havet’s theory therefore requires Plautus to mislead part of his audience at
least from line 127 until 586 (460 lines; almost exactly half the play), with the
likelihood of some residual confusion until line 635 (509 lines; 54%). For modern
readers, who know the play’s outcome and have access to a cast list, this is possi-
ble, but still a challenge to follow. In its original performance context, the play
becomes simply uninterpretable. The ambiguity created, where spectators are
misled about the identity of an on-stage character when the other stage characters
are not so misled through the deliberate contrivance of the playwright, is without
parallel in ancient theatre practice (and, I think, ancient narrative practice gener-
ally). Elsewhere, we see Plautus at pains to ensure that the audience has the re-
sources to interpret his play: compare the care with which he warns the audience
that apparent twins (Miles Gloriosus 72–4) will in fact be the same woman pre-
tending to be twins, or the opening of Captivi (1–68), where actors are brought
onstage to model the unusual narrative features of the plot described by the pro-
logue.
The scene with Diabolus, introducing the new rival late in the play, is crucial
to the play’s overall structure, because it is only through Diabolus that the play’s
true blocking figure, Demaenetus, will be overcome. Diabolus’s intended contract
becomes a plot device: because of the contract, Argyrippus can exclude his father
whose sudden revelation as the blocking figure, despite his initial boasts, means
that he must be defeated. Argyrippus’ victory is accomplished through the deal
with Diabolus, who has arrived just in time. This narrative arc makes most sense if
Diabolus has not been previously seen, and appears as a fulfillment of the unspeci-

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reading of the play which is not after analyst dismantling’ (224 n. 5) is – as I hope to have
demonstrated in this study – also not true. Henderson’s note misleadingly suggests the last
voice sounded against Havet was Phillimore 1926.
21 Lowe 1992, 169–70, traces the so-called Plautine expansion in this scene; see also Marshall
1999, 114–15.

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260 | C. W. Marshall

fied other (231 alius). Two young men sharing a non-citizen meretrix is not objec-
tionable; and given her uncharacteristically high price it might even be seen as a
practical solution. Neither is under the illusion that this is a permanent relation-
ship: that is never the case with free prostitutes in Roman comedy. Their deal is
better than the alternatives seen in Cistellaria and Truculentus, even if it is not quite
exclusive.
Seldom does uncertain line assignment change the narrative and emotional
shape of the play as drastically as does the identity of the adulescens at 127–248. If
this were Diabolus, then necessarily Plautus misleads his audience for over 450
lines (Asin. 127–586). Such uncertainty is unparalleled for unnamed characters in
Roman comedy, and it actively limits audience interpretation of the play. As Ar-
gyrippus, the adulescens becomes more emotionally complex and dramatically
polarized against the legalistic Diabolus who arrives unexpectedly only at line 746
and threatens to undermine Argyrippus’ faltering sexual pursuit of Philaenium,
preparing for the surprise revelation that the true opponent to Argyrippus’s rela-
tionship is his father.
Preference has to be given to the solution that entails the least confusion for
the audience. This also allows Argyrippus to emerge as a more nuanced charac-
ter. My case against the devil’s advocates assumes that any playwright will want
his play to be interpretable by an audience in performance. Arguments about the
nature of dramatic arias and the practices of identifying new characters in come-
dy can be added to the more analytical (but still persuasive) arguments of Lowe.22
Asinaria is a challenging play, but it should not be a confusing one. At its most
elemental level, part of the play’s communication with its audience resides in

||
22 One final argument can perhaps be mustered. According the online database of the Archive
of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, there have been five productions of the play since
Havet’s idea was first presented:
1. University of Sydney (1964);
2. Westminster School, England (1976);
3. University of Victoria, Canada (1997), directed by myself;
4. Ancient Theatre of Segobrigo, Spain (1997); and
5. Teatro del Semenario Diocesano, Spain (2003; these last two part of the Festival Juvenil
peo de Teatro).
See <http://www.apgrd.ox.ac.uk/productions/canonical-plays/asinaria-the-comedy-of-asses/130>.
While I have not been able to confirm details about the Spanish productions, I have anecdotal
or first-hand knowledge that the other three productions had Argyrippus appear as the first
young man. I can find no evidence that any modern director has attempted to stage the play
with the young man as anyone other than Argyrippus. I do not think it is possible to make such
a dramatic choice coherent in performance without aggressively heavy-handed intervention
from the director.

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 The Young Man in Plautus’ Asinaria 127–248 | 261

characters appearing and being named at moments when failing to do so would

result in identity confusion and a loss of dramatic coherence. Roman comedy is
not averse to complexity, but it does not dupe the audience into believing some-
thing is the case that every character on stage knows not to be the case. That is
how we know that Argyrippus is the young man in Asinaria 127–248.

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