University of California Press Classical Antiquity

Cooks in Plautus
Author(s): J. C. B. Lowe
Source: Classical Antiquity, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Apr., 1985), pp. 72-102
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25010825
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J. C. B. LOWE
Cooks in Plautus
THE AIM OF THIS paper' is to distinguish the Greek and Roman elements
in Plautus' cook scenes. The fact that Plautus' plays are adaptations of Greek
plays and profess to depict Greek life (cf. Men. 7-9) poses notorious problems
for the interpreter. The critic needs to steer a course between the Scylla of
exaggerating the Greek elements and the Charybdis of exaggerating the Ro
man elements in Plautus. No one doubts that Plautus' cooks are in some sense
the heirs of the mageiroi of Greek comedy. How closely they have been copied
from Plautus' Greek models, however, and how far they reflect Greek life,
how far Roman, are questions which have not yet been satisfactorily answered.
H. Dohm, in his monograph on the mageiros of Greek comedy,2 holds that
Plautus' cook scenes for the most part follow mageiros scenes of his Greek
models, although he allows for considerable Plautine Eindichtungen. I believe
that he does not make sufficient allowance for Plautus' originality and that he
underestimates the specifically Roman features of Plautus' cooks. P. P.
Spranger,3 on the other hand, sees Plautus' cooks, whether household slaves or
hired from the market, as reflecting contemporary Roman life. I believe he
underestimates the extent to which Plautus' cooks inherited features of the
1. An earlier version was read to a seminar at the Institute of Classical Studies, University of
London. I am grateful to several friends, especially John North and Erich Gruen, and to the
anonymous referees of Classical Antiquity, for suggesting improvements.
2. Mageiros (Munich 1964).
3. Historische Untersuchungen zu den Sklavenfiguren des Plautus und Terenz (Mainz 1961)
77f.
) 1985 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LOWE: Cooks in Plautus 73
mageiroi of his Greek models which

contemporary Rome.
The first part of the paper will exa
comedy and argue that he was quite
Rome. The second part will examine Pla
depict Greek mageiroi, how far Roman
criteria, to determine what changes
ATHENIAN FOOD AND THE MAGEIROS
Greece is not an agriculturally rich land and is in general ill suited for meat
production.4 In antiquity the meager diet of 'EX.irves; [tlQOTj9tEtOLt
(viXXoTQoyE;5 was notorious. The Athenians were among the most frugal;
Athenaeus (4. 137c-d) quotes Alexis (fr. 213 K.) to illustrate the poverty of
Athenian dinners (6ELtYv(lELV 'ATTlXr]q(0;) in comparison with those of the
Thessalonians (EiOTxQ6JEoL OETczaXoi). Cereals formed their staple food (sitos),
enlivened by some kind of opson, especially fish.6 Preparation of ordinary
meals was of course the task of household slaves (cf. Xen. Oec. 9. 9, Arist.
Pol. I. 1255b22-27). Meat was eaten seldom, normally only on special occa
sions which called for the sacrifice of an animal. Most of the meat that was
consumed came from sacrificed animals, the main exception being a certain
amount of meat from hunted wild animals. The eating of meat normally had
religious significance.7 This explains the combination of ritual and culinary
functions which attached to the person of the mageiros, professional sacrificer
as well as butcher and cook.8 Although the origins of the mageiros are obscure,
the use of the adverb CIayEtixOL at Ar. Pax 1017 and Ach. 1015 attests him as
an expert in both ritual slaughter and cooking in later fifth-century Athens.9
Probably in the same period, and certainly in the fourth century, the mageiros
4. E. C. Semple, The Geography of the Mediterranean Region (New York 1932), esp. 317
24. Cf. M. H. Jameson, CJ 73 (1977/78) 122-45, on the agriculture of Attica.
5. Antiph., fr. 172 K.; cf. Ath. 4.130e ff., A. E. Zimmern, The Greek Commonwealth
(Oxford 1931 ) 49f.
6. Plut. Quaest. conv. 667 f. TroXXoiv 6VTWOV 6Oowv ExvEv(xTxcv 6 L.xg'; pvo;g .i IkloT6 '
oiov xXeiCoOcal; cf. Ath. 7.276e, modern Greek iptl < o6WdQov.
7. P. Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusaltertimer (Munich 19203) 105f.; M. Detienne, Diony
sos mis a mort (Paris 1977) = Dionysos Slain (Baltimore 1979) chs. 3-4; Detienne and J.-P.
Vernant, La Cuisine du sacrifice en pays grec (Paris 1979).
8. E. M. Rankin, The R61e of the MayeiQol in the Life of the Ancient Greeks (Chicago
1907); K. Latte, RE 14.1 (1928) 393-95, s.v. iuyelQos; Dohm (supra n.2) 4-8; G. Berthiaume,
Les Roles du mageiros (Mnem. supp. 70; Leiden 1982).
9. Cf. Eur. Cycl. 397 "Atbov c[tayEc a of the Cyclops killing and cooking Odysseus' compan
ions.
74 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 4/No. 1/April 1985
could be hired from the market by private individuals to sacrifice and cook an
animal for a special occasion.10 He also sold meat in the market,1 most of it, if
not all, probably from ritually slaughtered animals.12 By the end of the fifth
century the functions of the mageiros had extended to include the cooking of
other foods such as would be desired for a special meal, especially fish of every
kind.13 He was never, however, an ordinary cook, but cooked only for special
occasions. He was also much more than a cook, and if by the later fourth
century his social status was low (Thphr. Char. 6.5 aioXQav @Qyaaciav) he still
retained his sacrificial function and could with some justice boast that his art
was a sacred one (Men. Dysc. 646, Athenio, fr. 1 K.).
MEALS AND THE MAGEIROS IN ATTIC COMEDY
Food and drink play a considerable part in Attic comedy. In Old and
Middle Comedy, as Aristophanes and the comic fragments quoted by Athe
naeus amply demonstrate, mouth-watering descriptions of food contribute an
element of Schlaraffenland, which can be traced back to comedy's origins in
the komos. The tradition of the komos is still alive, if attenuated, in New
Comedy, and many plays involve a feast, especially in connection with a wed
ding. It is therefore natural that the mageiros should frequently appear, even in
Menander (n.10), for whom descriptions of food as such are relatively un
important.14 He became in fact a stock character of comedy, with certain
conventional characteristics, chief among which are pretentiousness and lo
quacity.15 Athenaeus preserves many long passages of monologue and dia
logue in which mageiroi boast of their skills, sometimes with absurd exagger
ation,'6 and remarks &akaovltxv 6' eToZi rv TO T()V aioyeLcQv q)hkov (7.290b).
Mageiroi sometimes use grandiloquent language17 and tend to ask many ques
10. Ar. Av. 1637 at the Hoopoe's house, Ran. 517 at Persephone's, probably reflecting
ordinary Athenian life; Men. Dysc. 430 ff. at the shrine of Pan, Asp. 216 ff., Sam. 283 ff. for a
wedding; Hegesipp., fr. 1 K., for a funeral; Poll. 9.48; Diog. Laert. 2.72.
11. Ar. Eq. 418-20; Alexis, fr. 98.23f. K.; Thphr. Char. 6.9; Artem. On. 3.56. It seems
probable that xQ@ecoIXt;g was only an alternative name for the mageiros in this capacity (Pollux
7.25 XQEWJToXcUa: TOSl 6' coal'To/ xai [cayeiouvg khyovoLV; cf. Berthiaume [supra n.8] 62). It is
attested for fourth-century Athens only by Thphr. Char. 9.4 and does not occur in the remains of
Attic comedy, whereas Jacobi's index lists sixteen examples of LX0Ovoo)XnTg, two of TaQlXoX0T.ArT ,
and one of tElatxoackiXg (cf. E. Fraenkel, Plautinisches im Plautus [Berlin 1922] 131 n. l=Elementi
Plautini in Plauto [Florence 1960] 124 n.1).
12. Ar. Eq. 300-302 and : ad loc.; Artem. On. 5.2; Berthiaume (supra n.8) 64-69.
13. Ar. Ran. 517 Tet6Xul (usually fish), Dohm (supra n.2) 104-28.
14. T. B. L. Webster, Studies in Later Greek Comedy (Manchester 1950) 155.
15. Ph. E. Legrand, The New Greek Comedy (London and New York 1917) 98-100; Webster
(supra n.14) 66; A. Giannini, Acme 13 (1960) 206-11; A. W. Gomme and F. H. Sandbach,
Menander: A Commentary (Oxford 1973) 25.
16. 7.288c-93e, 9.376e-80c, 14.660e-62d; cf. Dohm (supra n.2) 104-211.
17. E.g., Men. Dysc. 946-53; cf. E. W. Handley, The Dyskolos of Menander (London 1965)
ad loc.; Philemon, fr. 123 K., xaLva raltta cL :TE trEo ltogvog.
tions in and out of season (Men. Sam.

essence of the comic role of the mageiro
is full of self-importance.18 It is signif
mageiros that he was not inferior to
another expert.19 One aspect of his art
sation with his fellow professionals, but
is how to exploit his opportunities for p
usually a free man, not a slave. Athenae
slave mageiroi are not to be found in co
no reason to doubt that he is at least sub
of the comic mageiros made it appropri
whatever may have been the norm in
parent exceptions. Menander's Epitrepon
geiros called Carion,22 which is a standa
phebi (fr. 10 K.) had an apprentice mage
however, that these characters were fre
a real exception to the general rule for t
pupil, to be called mageiros also; the on
in comedy, in Posidippus Syntrophi,
mageiros.24
Ordinary, as well as special, meals are
edy, as part of the everyday world whic
And. 368 f. Davos describes how he ob
obol's worth of vegetables and small fis
typical Attic everyday fare, Davos' obser
motif must go back to Menander.25 In
18. Handley on Men. Dysc. 393.

19. Cf. O. Ribbeck, Alazon (Leipzig 1882) 15-1
20. Dohm (supra n.2) 129-34.
21. Immediately after the mention of Posidipp
ues (659a) 6o0Xko 6' 6Ooxotoi o a rcXk0ov 07to6 J
although it does not actually state, that the app
connected with the Macedonian domination of At
century Athens (P1. Leg. 720), but the religious c
slaves from the profession for longer. FGrH 115
household-slave mageiroi in fourth-century Athe
22. Themist. Or. 21.262c; cf. U. v. Wilamowitz
(Berlin 1925) 48-50.
23. Cf. Aeschin. 2.157; Rankin (supra n.8) 33
24. He says xcTa' ayoQav eQyioitctaL' ErQL(cTo
(supra n.8) 20f. In Ter. And. Sosia is a hired coo
Terentian invention (Don. ad 14), a freedman m
precedent. In Dionysius' Homonymi (fr. 3 K.)
Dromon is not exclusively a slave name (cf. Ath
25. Cf. Ephipp., fr. 15 K., for a slave marketi
76 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 4/No. i/April 1985
their preparation can also perform a useful technical function by marking the
passage of time26 and by motivating characters' movements.27 There are a
number of references in New Comedy and its Latin adaptation to cooking by
household slaves. For example, in Ter. Ad. 361 ff. Syrus returns home from
market with an eel and other fish and gives orders to two fellow-slaves, Dromo
and Stephanio, to start preparing them; he makes it clear that he will himself
supervise their cooking.28
MEAT AND BUTCHERS IN ROME
It is probable that meat was eaten more often in Plautus' Rome than in
Menander's Athens, if only because Italy is much better suited than Attica for
pasturage.29 In the second century B.C. pasturage was increasing, as capitalist
farming replaced peasant small holdings.30 Cato rated grazing as more profit
able than cereals (Agr. 1.7; Cic. Off. 2.89; Col. R.R. 6 praef.4 f.); for a farm of
240 iugera specializing in olives he prescribes 100 sheep and includes among the
laborers a shepherd and a swineherd (Agr. 10). In the Greco-Roman world
only pigs were reared specifically for meat; oxen were bred primarily as
draught-animals and sheep for wool and milk-products.31 Nevertheless, calves
and lambs were regularly sacrificed (Cato Agr. 141.4; Col. R.R. 7.4.3) and
therefore provided meat (vitulina Plaut. Aul. 375, agnina Aul. 374, Capt. 819,
849). On appropriate occasions mature animals (maiores) were sacrificed;32 for
public sacrifices the number of victims was often large-as many as 300 oxen in
the crisis of 217 B.C., 120 for the triumph of Aemilius Paullus in 167 B.C.'!
Plautus refers to beef (bubula Aul. 374, Curc. 367). Large herds of cattle and
sheep, even if not primarily intended for meat, would sooner or later supply
large quantities of meat. Pigs must always have been abundant, and in the
26. W. G. Arnott, PapLivLatSem 2 (1979) 348-51.

27. E.g., in Men. Dysc. 546-50 smoke from the cooking motivates Getas' entrance: in Plaut.
Bacch. 97 ego opsonabo motivates Pistoclerus' exit.
28. Although the scene-heading before 355 in A describes Dromo as cocus, this has no
authority; he is clearly not a professional cook but, like Stephanio, a household slave subordinate
to Syrus (cf. K. Dziatzko and R. Kauer, Adelphoe [Leipzig 1903] 75, 168). Other references to
household slaves cooking are: Men. Sam. 221 ff.; Plaut. Merc. 398. 416; Stich. 679-81; Ter. H. T.
126, Ad. 846f.
29. Fraenkel, Elementi (supra n.11) 409-11. K. D. White, Roman Farming (London 1970)
204-6 summarizes the advantages of the various regions of Italy for stock-raising.
30. P. A. Brunt, Italian Manpower (Oxford 1971) 370-75; C. Nicolet, Rome et la conquete du
monde mediterraneen. vol. 1: Les Structures de l'Italie romaine (Paris 1977) 95-142; Gabba in E.
Gabba and M. Pasquinucci, Strutture agrarie e allevamento transumante nell'Italia Romana (Pisa
1979) 15-54.
31. Cic. N.D. 2.158-60; Varro R.R. 2.4.10; Col. R.R. 6 praef.6, 7.21; Virg. Geo. 3.49-62.
384, 394; R. Billiard, L'Agriculture dans l'antiquite d'apres les Georgiques de Virgile (Paris 1928)
274f.
32. Arnobius Adv. Nat. 7.18; G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Romer (Munich 19122)
412-15.
33. Liv. 22.10.7; Plut. Aem. 33.2. Wissowa (supra n.32) 415 n.5.
earlier period, when small holdings w

other animals.34 Columella (R.R. 7.
where, especially where oak and ot
(R.R. 2.4.3) implies that every Roman
millers kept pigs to consume surpl
7.9.2). In these circumstances meat wo
poor might not eat it very often.
An indication of the abundance of
served by salting and smoking and
necessary. There are plenty of refere
Latin literature. Later writers speak
Romans before they acquired a tast
ample direct evidence for the Repu
half pounds of lardum in an offering
Syri 2; Lucil. 79) and gives instruct
(Agr. 162).36 Posidonius (FGrH 87
customary during the triumphs of
xarTvtoTa xQea c (dO6 to be consumed
roast meat from the newly sacrificed
the abundance and size of its pigs, w
Italy in the time of Polybius (2.15;
for private consumption and for the
limits on the purchase of smoked m
97 B.C. on the consumption of drie
According to Varro (R.R. 2.4.3), i
idleness and extravagance to buy sa
instead of obtaining it from one's own
Plautus has a number of referenc
served pig-meat,38 comprising the gre
34. Cf. evidence from tombs cited by Pasquin

n.186.
35. Ov. Met. 8.647-50 terga suis nigro pendentia tigno in Baucis' cottage, Fast. 6.169-74
lardum; [Virg.] Moretum 56 f. suspensa focum carnaria iuxta, durati sale terga suis; Juv. 11.82-85
sicci terga suis . . . lardum; cf. Hor. Sat. 2.2.116 f. fumosae . . . pernae, 6. 64 pingui . . lardo;
Pers. 6.70 fumosum sinciput; Petr. 70.2 lardum . . . perna; Stat. Silv. 4.9.34 lardum ... perna;
Juv. 7.119 siccus petasunculus; Mart. 5.78.10 rubente lardo, 10.48.17 perna; J. Andre. L'Alimen
tation et la cuisine a Rome (Paris 19812) 141-43.
36. Cf. 88.2 muries . . . carnem . . . quo condas, 13.1, 14.2 carnaria. Col. R.R. 12.55 also
gives instructions on salting pork, with or without smoking.
37. R. W. Davies, Britannia 2 (1971) 122-42, shows that Roman armies regularly ate a
substantial amount of meat and refutes the idea that this was an unpopular food. The food of a
soldier on campaign would not always conform to his normal diet at home, but in the long run it
would not differ greatly. The evidence collected by Davies therefore supports my argument.
38. Capt. 847-50 laridum . . .pernul>am, 901-8 tegoribus . . . pernis . . larido . . . sumi
ni . . . callo, 914 f. carnarium . . tegoribus glandia, Curc. 366 pernam, sumen, glandium, Men.
Mommsen39 saw that these references reflect Roman rather than Greek life, and
Fraenkel40 showed that the Plautine origin of most of them, at least, is confirmed
by characteristic Plautine features of style; it is significant that four of them are
spoken by a parasite (and a fifth in the hearing and for the benefit of a parasite),
two by a leno, and one by a slave, characters whose roles were probably enlarged
by Plautus. There is nothing comparable in Terence. In Attic comedy there are a
few references to meat preserved by drying (Antiph., fr. 185 K., pig's trotters, as
the context of the fragment in Athenaeus implies) or salting (Mnesim., fr. 4. 13
K.; Aristom., fr. 12 K.),41 but the disparity with the many references to salt fish
(T6tQXog) and the Roman evidence for preserved meat is marked. Certainly
some meat was preserved by drying, salting, or pickling in Attica42 (smoking is
not attested before the Roman period), but the amount was probably negligible
in comparison with the salt fish, of which the Athenians were notoriously fond
(Ath. 3.119f). For the Italian peasant, however, pig-meat would be more readily
available for preserving than fish. It seems clear that the pernae to which Plautus
so often refers were a traditional food of Italy but not of Greece. Significantly,
jQvca was introduced into Greek as a loan-word from Latin. Plautus' references
to preserved pig-meat are part of the Roman coloring he gave to his Greek
originals. Sometimes he has mixed Roman meat with Attic fish (Capt. 847-51,
M.G. 759 f., Pers. 105-11, Pseud. 166-69). The fact that the majority of the
references to meat in Plautus are to preserved meat and Plautine additions is an
indication of Roman popular taste and confirmation that the Romans were
greater meat-eaters than the Athenians.
In keeping with this is the existence in Rome of the profession of lanii,
already well attested in Plautus,43 and, it seems, purely secular butchers and
meat-sellers with none of the other functions of mageiroi. Varro (R.R. 2.5.11)
speaks of lanii buying oxen either for slaughter (ad cultrum) or for sacrifice (ad
210 f. glandionidam suillam, laridum pernonidam, aut sincipitamenta porcina, M.G. 759 pernam,
Pers. 105 pernam, Pseud. 166 pernam, callum, glandium, sumen, 198 carnaria tria gravida tegori
bus, Stich. 360 pernam et glandium deicite, Carbon. fr. 1 pernam, sumen, sueres, spetile, callum,
glandia. On the meaning of glandium see L. D. Johnston CPh 49 (1954) 244-50.
39. Romische Geschichte (Berlin 19029) 1.899.
40. Plautinisches (supra n.11) 57, 145, 247f. = Elementi 53, 138, 238f.
41. Cf. Aristom., fr. 6 K.; Eubul., fr. 7.10 K. Thphr. Char. 9.2 supports the idea that
a&Xiraorc were salted for storage, but not necessarily for long-term storage. Athenaeus distin
guishes akincaora from jreQval (14.657e-f).
42. Cf. Hipp. Vict. 2.56.1, 3.79.2; Cic. N.D. 2.160 and A. S. Pease (Cambridge, Mass. 1958)
ad loc.
43. Capt. 818, 905, Curc. 483, Pseud. 197, 327, 332, Trin. 407; cf. Epid. 199 lanienas. The
existence of the word is the important thing. Curc. 483 in Velabro vel pistorem vel lanium vel
haruspicem clearly alludes to Roman life; Epid. 198 f. in part suggest Greek life, which could as
well be S. Italian as Attic, but may also contain purely Roman elements (cf. Fraenkel [supra n.11]
Plautinisches 132 with n.2=Elementi 125 with n.2; P. Harvey, Athenaeum 59 [1981] 484 n.19;
C. De Ruyt, Macellum [Louvain 1983] 237f.). According to Liv. 3.48.5, lanii existed in Rome in
449 B.c. (cf. 22.26.1 [217 B.c.]). Lanii appear in six republican inscriptions: A. Degrassi, Inscrip
tiones Latinae liberae rei publicae (Florence 12 1965, 2 1963) nos. 97, 98, 105a-b, 716, 794; half of
them are freedmen, indicating that the profession had low social status.
altaria). In the latter case the animal

Pseud. 327 f. lanii seem to be mentio
victumae.44 The sucking lambs and pigs f
(R.R. 7.3.13; cf. 7.9.4) speaks of as be
intended for sacrifice. The boar over th
ever, that Varro (R.R. 2.4.8) speaks of
conciliator suillae carnis datus populo, w
lanius and sold as meat.45 There is no e
possible that they bought some meat fro
however, that a substantial amount of m
come from sacrificed animals. When Co
if plague attacks a herd of goats, they shou
necanda saliendaque, sacrifice can hardly
(Agr. 2.7) recommends the sale of defec
meat was, exceptionally, eaten from
sacrificed;48 the larger number of anim
larger amount of unsacrificed meat and
COOKS IN ROMAN LIFE
It is already clear that there did no

equivalent to that of the Athenian mage
combined in the mageiros were in Rom
Only the r6les of butcher and meat-selle
is no evidence that the lanius ever sacrif
are distinguished from coqui in all peri
It is possible that within temple precin
44. On the Plautine origin of this passage see

Elementi 109f.
45. Cf. 3.2.11 verres lanio vendis, 2.4.3 succid
essent vocabula, ubi caro venit carnaria diceretu
Plautinisches [supra n.11] 131-34=Elementi 124-2
ing is obscure, but at least it seems clear that dup
Gloss. Lat. 6.623 lanius: xpeotrc)Xbg.
46. There is some evidence for the sale of m
immolatarum . . . hostiarum exta ad quaestores ae
bove immolato Herculi carnes carius vendebantur
cannot be true of the ara maxima, but, even if f
practice in general), Fest. p. 479 L. pestilentia .
stated that the meat came from sacrifices, but it
47. For culling cf. Varr. R.R. 2.5.17; Col. R.R.
religion required that victims should be carefully
Macr. S. 3.5.6; Wissowa [supra n.32] 416; J. Marqua
172; K. Latte, Romische Religionsgeschichte (Mun
were lax in this matter, at least for private sacrif
48. Berthiaume (supra n.8) 88-93.
49. The pun on ius in Plaut. Pseud. 197 suggests
50. Plaut. Trin. 407 f.; Ter. Eun. 257 (lanii coqui
7.61.9; Apul. Apol. 41 lanio vel coquo (both cut u
his sacrificial function.51 A plausible etymology of the word would support that
(cf. popina)52 and so would the obesity attributed to popae by Pers. 6.74.
Certainly some cooking took place within temple precincts, both of exta53 of
sacrificed animals, and, in some cases, of meat for human consumption.54 The
functions of popae perhaps corresponded fairly closely to those of the mageiroi
attached to Greek sanctuaries.55 However, the evidence for the activities of
popae connects them primarily with public sacrifices, and there is no reason to
believe that they ever cooked for hire in private houses.
It remains to consider what kinds of private cook were active in Rome in
Plautus' time, and in particular whether cooks were available for hire who
possessed something of the culinary skills of mageiroi, even if not their reli
gious functions. There is no doubt that by the middle of the second century
culinary luxury in Rome had grown to a level much higher than that enjoyed
by earlier generations of Romans. Sumptuary laws were passed in an attempt
to check it-the lex Orchia in 182, the lex Fannia in 161.56 Ennius, who died in
169, in his Hedyphagetica adapted a Greek gastronomic poem. Cato constantly
protested at the culinary extravagance of his day, contrasting it with the sim
plicity of the past, which he himself strove to imitate.57 In his Carmen de
moribus (fr. 2 = Gell. 11.2.5) he expressed approval of earlier generations who
equos carius quam coquos emebant and who stigmatized as idlers those who
devoted themselves to dinners (or poetry). This passage implies that by the
time it was written increased demand had greatly raised the price of (slave)
cooks.58 In a speech Cato protested the erection of statues to two cooks (ORF'
fr. 96); this again shows the enhanced status cooks could now achieve in the
Roman world. What is more difficult to establish is how far the growth in
culinary luxury had progressed during the period in which Plautus was active as
a dramatist, that is, before 184.59 Here Cato's remarks do not help. The only
51. Cf. Wissowa (supra n.32) 498; Latte (supra n.47) 384.
52. Cf. A. Walde and J. B. Hofmann, Lateinisches eytmologisches Wbrterbuch (Heidelberg
19543); E. Ernout and A. Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine (Paris 19594) s. v. It
appears from Cic. Mil. 65 that popa Licinius kept an eating house in the circus maximus; cf.
T. Kleberg, H6tels, restaurants et cabarets das l'antiquite romaine (Uppsala 1957) 128 n.32.
53. Marquardt (supra n.47) 3.183; Wissowa (supra n.32) 418; Latte (supra n.47) 389.
54. Wissowa (supra n.32) 278f., 419f.; Latte (supra n.47) 217, 391.
55. E.g., Delos; cf. Ath. 4.172f; Latte (supra n.8); Dohm (supra n.2) 73; Berthiaume (supra
n.8) 27-32; cf. O. A. Danielsson, Glotta 16 (1928) 91f. "popa . . . etwa mit dem griech. d 0yriQog;
zu vergleichen."
56. Cf. I. Sauerwein, "Die leges sumptuariae als r6mische Massnahme gegen den Sittenver
fall" (diss. Hamburg 1970); G. Clemente in Societa romana e produzione schiavistica, ed.
A. Giardina and A. Schiavone (Rome 1981) 3.1-14.
57. ORF3 frr. 139, 144-6;A. E. Astin, Cato the Censor (Oxford 1978) 91-93.
58. Cf. Diod. 37.3.5 T&v 6E aCyeiQ(Wo Ot 6La0E@QOVVT?g o6pa4QTVtLxaL; X.OTEXVLati l TaXtdvTwV
TETTaoQWV (EtCoXo`vzo). It seems clear that this statement, like the neighboring reference to Cato,
originally referred to the middle of the second century (cf. 31.24).
59. Cic. Brut. 60 puts Plautus' death in 184 B.C. This probably means that official records
showed this as the date when his last play was produced (F. Leo, Plautinische Forschungen [Berlin
19122] 69f.).
datable one postdates the end of Plaut

opposing the repeal of the lex Orchia
Cato contrasts the present with the r
was the growth of luxury.
It is probable, however, that this gro
the Second Punic War. Culinary luxu
forms of luxury, although not necessa
pal cause was Rome's increased wea
isolated cases of extravagance. P. Co
B.C., was removed from the senate by
he was found to possess ten pounds of
may have been some general increas
during the second half of the third cen
the Second Punic War, however, the
complained is unlikely to have been
there is abundant evidence of a massiv
Rome during the first half of the seco
conquests. T. Frank has estimated that
this period.62 A corresponding increas
cally likely and is supported by our a
agreement in dating the introduction
ruption of Roman morals, after the e
different writers emphasize different
ever, the successive influxes of wealth
likely that the level of luxury reached
comparison with the heights reached b
Of special importance for our presen
9), according to which the luxuriae per
Asiatico returning to Rome in 187 aft
Vulso. Livy is shown to be here followi
that some of the luxury items he me
cos) were also mentioned by L. Piso,
34.14) as having been introduced to
When therefore Livy continues, epula
apparari coepta. turn coquus, vilissimu
60. Mommsen, Romisches Staatsrecht (Leipzig

consultum which preceded the lex Fannia set a
61. A. Lintott, Historia 21 (1972) 629, suppo
Punic War. There is little evidence for it, howe
time of crisis in 215 B.C. is not evidence of a re
62. An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, v
63. F. W. Walbank, A Historical Comment
Sauerwein (supra n.56) 177-79; Lintott (supra n
(Erlanger Studien 3, 1974) 185-89.
64. Lintott (supra n.61) 628.
usu, in pretio esse, et quod ministerium fuerat, ars haberi coepta, this statement is
likely to go back to the same second-century source. There seems no reason not
to accept it as substantially true: if not directly corroborated by other evidence,
it fits in with other evidence and is very plausible. It provides a date for the rise
in the price of cooks attested by Cato. That there was a significant increase in
luxury in Rome after 187 B.C. is supported by the well-attested fact that Vulso's
army collected an exceptional amount of booty,65 and that culinary luxury was
involved is strongly supported by the passing of the lex Orchia in 182, the first
known sumptuary measure directed at culinary extravagance. Some increase in
luxury must indeed be allowed as probable in the 190s, when substantial wealth
was already flowing into Rome. As early as 195 Cato and others showed their
serious concern about this by their vigorous and unpopular opposition to the
repeal of the lex Oppia.66 It should be noted, however, that it was not culinary
luxury which was at issue on this occasion but the wearing of expensive dress and
use of vehicles by women, which were also the targets of Cato's discriminatory
taxation as censor in 184.67 In any case, even if Livy's account somewhat over
simplifies the truth, the probability is that before 187, that is, until the very end
of Plautus' life, culinary luxury was at least not widely prevalent in Rome, and
that skilled cooks were rare and confined to a few wealthy households.68
Moreover, it is probable that in Plautus' Rome cooks were always, or at
least normally, household slaves. In Carm. de mor. fr. 2 equos carius quam
coquos emebant, Cato clearly has in mind household-slave cooks, formerly
cheap, in his own day expensive. Livy 39.6.7 certainly refers to slave cooks
with regard to the past (vilissimum antiquis mancipium) and presumably also
with regard to the period after 187. We can hardly doubt that in ancient Rome
from the earliest times, as in Greece, if a household had slaves they would
normally do the cooking. The work coquus, "one who cooks," was presumably
originally used to denote the kitchen-slaves of larger households. One can
compare the words denoting other specialized household slaves-ianitor, atri
ensis, cellarius, promus.69 So long as the cooking was simple a kitchen-slave
65. Polyb. 21.36; Liv. 38.15.3, 8, 10, 23.10, 40.4-15, 45.7-9, 46.8, 39.1.3, 7.1-5.
66. Astin (supra n.57) 25-27.
67. Astin (supra n.57) 83. There are probably echoes of this controversy in Plautus (Spranger
[supra n.3] 101f.; P. A. Johnston, TAPA 110 [1980] 143-59).
68. According to Plin. N.H. 18.108, there were no professional bakers in Rome before the
war with Perseus (171-168 B.c.). This is open to doubt, however; cf. L. A. Moritz, Grain-Mills and
Flour in Classical Antiquity (Oxford 1958) 69-73. Plaut. Asin. 200 a pistore panem petimus seems
to indicate that in the time of Plautus some pistores had already taken on the task of baking and
selling bread. Whenever commercial bakeries started in Rome, the development was probably not
so much a sign of more fastidious tastes as of urbanization (J. M. Frayn, Subsistence Farming in
Roman Italy [London 1979] 104), and perhaps a shortage of firewood (cf. F. Braudel, Capitalism
and Material Life 1400-1800, trans. M. Kochan [New York 1973] 269-71, and Civilization and
Capitalism. Vol. 1: The Structures of Everyday Life, trans. S. Reynolds [New York 1981] 362-67).
69. Cf. G. W. Leffingwell, Social and Private Life at Rome in the Time of Plautus and
Terence (New York 1918) 82-85.
would have a hard job70 and a low st

(hence vilissimum mancipium). As the
would be prepared to pay more for th
than hire, and foreign slaves, especiall
able in abundance to supply the deman
It may be objected that demand from
skilled cook would create a profession
occasions. Three points can be made in
broadly based demand for culinary lu
gests that no such demand yet existed
have done so by the middle of the cen
profession of cooks hired for special o
The special circumstances which in Gr
free and only later slave, did not hold
increased demand for skilled cooks in
qualified household-slave cooks. Thir
period of Roman cooks being hired fr
the manner of Greek mageiroi.'
It seems clear that in all periods coq
When in Ath. 14.658e-62e a slave
length on the dignity and free status of
cooks were the norm in the Roman w
(N.H. 18.108) states that in earlier tim
servitiis eosque ex macello conducebant
household-slave cooks were the norm
return).74 Cooks commemorated by som
or freedmen (the latter having presum
70. Cf. Ter. Ad. 845-47.

71. In Mart. 7.61.9 tonsor, copo, cocus, lanius
operated we cannot say.
72. Cf. C. G. Harcum, Roman Cooks (Baltim
are attested for the Republican period in Cic.
Sail. Jug. 85.39.
73. Cf. Ath. 6.275b vWv 6b, d)g 6 EOEoTottog
TOv ElTQgo; ei6toQovvwv, 6otLg oi) oXTuTokve
OetQacrnEv iakkrlv ex:xtrTaL. The Roman Lar
though he uses (adapts?) a quotation from Theo
was regularly used of household-slave cooks; c
74. Cf. N.H. 9.31 nunc coqui triumphorum pr
75. Harcum (supra n.72) 67f. Harcum cites
much-discussed dedication of a collegium of
192), but this depends on the probably false assum
Faliscans in Sardinia, whose dedication appear
J. Linderski, Parola del Passato 13 [1958] 47-50)
the Republican period suggest that the Faliscan
Warmington, Remains of Old Latin vol. 4. [L
The clearest reference to a hired cook is in Porphyrion on Hor. Sat. 1.1.101,

but here the cook is evidently a regular member of the household, although a
freedman hired by the year rather than a slave.76 It seems probable that the
other freedman cooks worked on similar long-term contracts, especially those
who belonged to the imperial household. It is true that Pliny, in the passage
just cited, states that there had once been a time when the Romans had no
cooks in servitiis but hired them from the market. That statement, however, is
open to grave doubt. We have already seen that in Cato's time there were
certainly cooks in servitiis. To suppose that before Cato's time no household
slaves cooked in Rome not only contradicts Cato but is also contrary to com
mon sense. The only way to make sense of Pliny's statement is to interpret
cocos as meaning cooks worthy to be called cooks by the standards of his own
time and to suppose him to mean that such were available for hire in Rome
before Cato's time. But how can Pliny have known this? Is it not most likely
that his statement is based solely on scenes in palliatae which depict Greek
mageiroi? Plautus' reference to forum coquinum in Pseud. 790 has been taken7'
as supporting Pliny and as alluding to a real locality in Rome, where cooks
were available for hire. This is far from certain, however. The play is set in
Athens and the scene in question depicts a hired cook, i.e., a mageiros. Even if
790 is a Plautine addition, which, as we shall see, it probably is, it can still be
taken as referring to Greek life, with which many of the audience would be
more or less familiar. That forum coquinum is an ad hoc coinage is suggested
by the fact that it leads up to the word-play with furinum forum. It is impossi
ble to disprove the hypothesis that during Plautus' lifetime there was an estab
lished market in Rome, known as the forum coquinum, where cooks could be
hired. No evidence, however, can be adduced in support of it which is free
from the suspicion of being based on Greek life, and it runs counter to all the
evidence that has been cited that culinary luxury only developed in Rome
during the second century B.C. Even if we cannot altogether rule out the
possibility that there were some cooks for hire in Plautus' Rome, it seems
unlikely that there were many and even less likely that they were free men. In
only other inscription of Republican date that mentions cooks is the dedication of a collegium of
Praenestine coques atrienses, CIL 12.1447 (Degrassi [supra n.43] 104). They describe themselves as
slaves; Mommsen plausibly inferred from atrienses that they were attached to a temple, and the
Faliscan cooks may have been likewise. In arguing that "professional" cooks were already well
established in Rome by Plautus' time, Harcum was influenced by the fact that the Faliscan cook
inscription was then generally dated in the third century B.C., but it is more likely that it belongs to
the later second century B.C. (Ernout, Recueil de textes latins archaiques [Paris 19574] 36;
G. Giacomelli, La lingua falisca [Florence 1963] 264; E. Perruzzi, Atti. e Mem. dell'Ac. Tosc. di
Sc. e Lett., La Colombaria 31 [1966] 115-62).
76. Libertum Damam nomine cocum Sallustius Crispus . . . fertur centenis milibus annuis
conductum habuisse. Juv. 7.185 veniet qui pulmentaria condit is taken by E. Courtney, A Commen
tary on the Satires of Juvenal (London 1980) ad loc., to refer to a hired cook; if so, it probably
refers to long-term hire but it may refer to the purchase of a slave cook.
77. Most recently by De Ruyt (supra n.43) 245, 364f.
any case we may take it as certain

household slaves.
The upshot of this argument is that
quite like the mageiros of Greek com
free man and an expert cook (inter ali
Roman coquus was normally, if not
cases not very skilled. In default of a
natural that coquus should be used to
connotations of the two words differ
retained the peculiar features of mag
to a Roman audience, part of the exot
palliata,78 comparable with mercenary
after all, to that very sphere of activi
pergraecari.79
II
We may now turn to the scenes of Plautus' plays in which cooks appear.
The differences between the Greek mageiros and the Roman coquus discussed
above will furnish a useful criterion for distinguishing Greek from Roman
elements in the Plautine scenes. It will be shown that Plautus' cooks show both
Greek and Roman characteristics in differing degrees. Some show strong re
semblances to the mageiroi of Greek comedy; professional cooks hired in the
marketplace to prepare special meals, they behave in a manner typical of comic
mageiroi. Others are ordinary household slaves, like real-life Roman coqui,
and have little in common with mageiroi. Between the two extremes are cooks
who combine in their roles Greek and Roman features, even at the expense of
consistency; thus one cook is now treated as a free man, now as a slave. In this
combination of Greek and Roman elements Plautus' cooks illustrate once
again a familiar feature of Plautine comedy.80
The differentiation of Greek and Roman features in Plautus' cooks also
helps to determine Plautus' original contributions to the scenes in which they
take part. It must be stressed, however, that this is not the only criterion for
distinguishing between inherited Greek material and Plautine additions. In
deciding whether a cook is entirely a Plautine creation an even more important
consideration is whether his role is integral to the plot of the play. If a Plautine
cook is essential to the plot and also exhibits typical characteristics of a magei
78. So P. Grimal, Le Siecle des Scipions (Paris 19752) 262, and U. E. Paoli, Comici latini e
diritto attico (Milan 1962) 35f., whereas Mommsen (supr n.39) 1.898, gave as the explanation of
Plautus' vivid depiction of cooks "dass griechische Koche ihre Dienste schon damals auf dem
romischen Markt taglich ausboten."
79. Cf. Plaut. Most. 64 f. bibite, pergraecamini, este, ecfercite vos, saginam caedite.
80. Cf. F. Leo, Geschichte der romischen Literatur, vol. 1 (Berlin 1913) 139-47.
ros, that is a strong indication that Plautus is copying a mageiros scene in his
Greek model. If, on the other hand, a Plautine cook resembles Roman coqui
more than Greek mageiroi and is dispensable to the plot, that favors the
hypothesis that he is a purely Plautine creation; other clues-for example,
characteristically Plautine features of content or style in the cook scene or
inconsistencies with its context-may provide confirmation. More often, the
problem is more complicated, with Plautus' cooks showing both Greek and
Roman features. If a cook is essential to the plot but shows some Roman
characteristics, that points to Plautine modification of a character of the Greek
play; Plautus may, for example, have transformed a character of his model by
turning a free mageiros into a slave or turning a household slave into a cook.
Finally, if a Plautine cook is dispensable to the plot, the fact that he exhibits
mageiros-like characteristics is no guarantee that Plautus took him over from
his Greek model; it will be shown that Plautus sometimes uses Greek motifs in
his original contributions. In each case it is necessary to consider what hypothe
sis will best account for all the evidence.
MERCATOR 741-82
At 587, Demipho and his neighbor Lysimachus set off for the market in
order to hire a cook (578-81), who is to prepare lunch in Lysimachus' house
for Demipho and Pasicompsa. At 692 Lysimachus returns and reports that
while Demipho has been buying enough food for ten men, he has himself hired
the cook. He is met by his wife who has just returned from the country, earlier
than expected, and found a strange girl in the house; she naturally assumes that
Pasicompsa is Lysimachus' mistress, and he is unable to exonerate himself for
fear of incriminating Demipho. At this point the cook arrives with his atten
dants and provisions and unwittingly completes the discomfiture of Lysimachus
with remarks that confirm the suspicions of his wife. The cook scene is thus
thoroughly integrated into the plot and must have been inherited by Plautus
from his model, the Emporos of Philemon. The cook is clearly a Greek hired
mageiros and the scene contains several motifs typical of mageiros scenes in
comedy, although they are introduced with a light touch, reminiscent of Me
nander's treatment of the mageiros; the cook lectures his assistants on the
character of his client, on the lover's lack of appetite, and on the opportunities
for pilfering (741-46), he is loquacious and concerned about his pay (748
78).81 It seems probable that in this scene Plautus has followed his Greek
model fairly closely.
AULULARIA 280-459
At 264 Megadorus sets off with his slave Strobilus for the market to make
arrangements for the marriage he has just arranged between himself and Eu
81. Dohm (supra n.2) 260-62.
clio's daughter. At 280 Strobilus return

Congrio, their assistants, tibicinae, and
once makes clear, Megadorus has given i
go to his own house, the other half t
reluctance to spend money, Megadorus
him as well. There follows a scene of co
their paraphernalia are dispatched into
lowing into his own house at 370. No
Congrio from inside the house, and dash
occupied by a brief appearance of An
tourage at 406, chased by an irate Eucli
Congrio follows and Euclio fetches h
allowing the others in again. As in the
are essential to the plot and must have
original; but for the presence of Congr
removed his gold and the plot would n
cooks are clearly mageiroi; there are se
(280, 448, 452, 455, 457) and each has a
complaint at having to cook for a sting
his assistants (398 f.), and the referenc
ing (390 f., 400 f.) can all be paralle
comedy,83 even if there is little empha
their role in forwarding the plot, the c
characterization of Euclio in conversati
self; that they performed this function
striking resemblance of the description
Choricius 32.73 of a character from Men
Ev6ov 6 xacTvo6 o'lXotxo (P)@wv, wh
rightly,84 to refer to the original of th
the kernel of the Aulularia cook scen
however, that he introduced much mate
It is not necessary here to try to dist
scenes, which have been much discussed
At least the following passages are prob
82. The speaker of 363-70 is clearly still Megad

(cf. 697). FITODICUS in the scene-heading befo
error is not certain (cf. W. Ludwig, Philolog
Philologus 107 [1963] 316f.; B. Bader "Szenent
Tibingen 1970] 112-16, 156f.).
83. Dohm (supra n.2) 245, 252f.; Men. Dysc. 4
84. Cf. Gomme and Sandbach (supra n.15) 4f
85. WS 69 (1956) 265-77.
86. (Supra n.2) 243-59, with references to e
(1972) 1096f.
ment is possible over the precise limits of Plautus' work: 283-88a, digression
involving an obscene pun on dividere; 302-20, accumulation of fantastic ex
amples of Euclio's miserliness, culminating in the absurd story of the kite
hauled before a Roman court; 324-26, mutual abuse by the cooks referring to
nundinae and playing on fur; 365-70, fantastic cure for the rapacity of cooks;
402, grotesque comparison of gallus with volsus ludius; 445, oath by Laverna,
Roman goddess of thieves. Substantial Plautine expansion is probable in 406
14, an inflated entrance monody with repeated references to bacchanal87 and to
beating, and 415-34, a slanging match with references to tresviri, beating, and
homosexuality, and puns on caput sentit and coctum. The additions, amounting
to at least 50 lines, slow down the progress of the dramatic action for the sake
of momentary comic effects and include examples of fantastic exaggeration,
puns, indecency, and abuse, all characteristic features of Plautine comedy. It is
clear that Plautus has chosen to make these cook scenes the vehicle for a lot of
his particular brand of comedy, and to this end has expanded them well beyond
their original length. Two aspects of his additions deserve special emphasis.
First, these scenes contain five references to the thieving propensities of
cooks, a traditional mageiros motif (322-26, 344-49, 363-70, 404,88 445).
Three of them, however, show at least Plautine elaboration (324-26, 365-70,
445) and are very likely entirely Plautus' invention. This is of great methodo
logical importance, since it demonstrates that a traditional Greek motif in
Plautus is not necessarily to be attributed to Plautus' Greek model but may be
due to Plautus himself.
Second, it is highly significant that in 309 f. Plautus speaks of the cooks as
slaves. This is not only contrary to the normal status of mageiroi in New
Comedy, as we have seen, but contradicts 456-58, which imply that Congrio is
free and capable of seeking legal redress.89 We can hardly doubt that the
counterparts of Anthrax and Congrio in the Greek play were free men and that
Plautus has lowered their status. We may say that, in terms of real life, Plautus
has to some extent Romanized them; Greek mageiroi have been at least par
tially assimilated to Roman slave coqui, although they could not become house
hold slaves. There is considerable evidence too that Plautus has coarsened their
characters in line with their lower status; thus they abuse each other (285 f.,
324-26) and indulge in indecency (285f., 304 f., 402, 422), and Congrio threat
ens Staphyla with fire (357 f.) and Euclio with his knife (417 f.).9' Plautus' use
87. Cf. Fraenkel Plautinisches (supra n.11) 152=Elementi 145; W. Stockert in Antidosis
Festschrift fur W. Kraus (WS Beiheft 5, Vienna 1972) 398-407; W. T. MacCary, Hermes 103 (1975)
459-63.
88. Cf. A. O. F. Lorenz, Ausgewahlte Komodien des T. Maccius Plautus. Vol. 4: Pseudolus
(Berlin 1876) on Pseud. 363 (375).
89. The implications of 455-58 for Roman law are doubtful (cf. A. Watson, The Law of
Obligations in the Later Roman Republic [Oxford 1965] 100f.); it seems probable that in the Greek
play the mageiros here claimed compensation for injury.
90. See infra on Truc. and M.G.
of the thieving motif works in the sam

relatively minor element in the convent
The motif probably occurred in the Gr
tus has made it much more prominent.
the comic mageiros, a propensity to th
Plautus' conception of a slave cook. Aga
that in 406ff. Plautus puts such emp
received; and Congrio's exaggerated exp
of servus currens entrances.92 In short
mageiroi so far as their function in the
formed by Plautus that they have mor
acters than with Greek comic mageiroi
PSEUDOLUS 790-895
Again there is no reason to doubt that
the Greek original. The cook bears all t
hired by Ballio in the market (790-94
boastfulness of comic mageiroi (794 m
powers (829 f.), denigrates his rivals (81
fictitious (814-17, 831-36), and uses
udes). His appearance is well motivated
repeated references in the play (165, 23
Ballio's orders to his slaves in 157 and
hire a cook. It is true that the cook is n
this scene we hear less of him and the
expect, although there is an allusion to h
Plautus has considerably changed the end
these changes have eliminated further r
Ballio's house.95 In any case the tradi
scene goes a long way toward justifying
suppose that the author of the Greek
cerned as Menander was to integrate a
Dohm96 has shown, however, that t
cook scenes of the Aulularia, has in all
by Plautus, and I have elsewhere97 argu
91. Plautus again grossly exaggerated the motif

n.I 11) 80f. = Elementi 75f.).
92. Compare 407 with Amph. 984-87.
93. Cf. Dohm, (supra n.2) 142f., 146-50.
94. G. Williams, Hermes 84 (1956) 440-44; E.
95. W. G. Arnott, WS 16 (1982) 144-48.
96. (Supra n.2) 141f., 150f.
97. CQ [forthcoming].
more extensive than Dohm supposed. The arguments cannot be repeated here,
but it seems probable that the following are Plautine additions: 790f., gratu
itous accusation of thieving with word-play furinum forum; 795-97, further
gratuitous insult alluding to cena feralis; 817-21, exaggeration of the effects of
condimenta, ludicrously identified with striges; 839-46, grotesquely exagger
ated boast by the cook of his divine clientele with word-play demissis (or
dimissis) pedibus/manibus; 850b-80, thieving motif elaborated at length with
comic comparison coquus-milvus and tirade of orders by Ballio to his slave
echoing Roman legal language, further claim to magic powers by the cook,
who compares himself to Medea but gets his mythology wrong, another in
stance of the thieving motif with play on servare, play on digitos praerodere
taken literally; 885-88, yet another instance of the thieving motif with further
play on digitos praerodere. Thus the Plautine additions amount to about 50
lines, mainly concentrated in the second half of the scene; the first half has
been relatively little altered and presents essentially unchanged a typical ex
ample of a boastful comic mageiros. Plautus' additions have prolonged the
verbal duel between Ballio and the cook and clothed their exchanges in more
exaggerated and colorful language, without radically changing the character of
the cook. Nevertheless, one aspect of Plautus' additions is of some significance
for the present argument. It is clear that Plautus has again, as in the Aulularia,
greatly emphasized the thieving motif. This emphasis on the thieving propensi
ties of cooks, and particularly this cook's admission of guilt to his employer's
face (851f.), has probably somewhat coarsened the portrait of the mageiros
drawn by the Greek dramatist. It also suggests that Plautus thought of this
cook as a slave, even if he has not made this explicit, as he did in the Aulularia.
This receives some confirmation in the allusion to the cooking of food for the
dead in a cena feralis (795-97), which would normally be the task of slave
coqui. It will receive further support from other Plautine cooks who are clearly
slaves (Men., Truc., M.G., Curc.).
MENAECHMI 219-25, 273-332

In 208-9 Menaechmus I gives instructions to Erotium that lunch should be
prepared for the two of them and Peniculus the parasite, and that provisions
should be bought from the market for this purpose.98 In 218 Erotium summons
a cook named Cylindrus from her house and sends him to market. He returns
with the provisions at 273, to find Menaechmus II outside Erotium's house.
Confusion inevitably results, and this is Cylindrus' dramatic raison d'etre; after
this scene he does not appear again, although we hear more of the lunch in
Erotium's house. Cylindrus' trip to the market and the scene of misunderstand
ings in which he takes part on his return are integral to the plot and must go
back to the Greek original. It seems certain, however, that in the Greek play
98. Lines 210-12, referring to preserved pig-meat, are a Plautine addition; see supra p. 77.
Cylindrus was not a mageiros but an or

the Truculentus (see below). Even Dohm
roi, notes that it did not need a cook t
tion; and, as we have seen (p. 76 with n
household slave buying and cooking foo
indications in Plautus' text that Cylindr
Erotium as eram meam in 300 (cf. 275
house before the lunch party was plann
302f. saepissume cyathisso apud nos).
tween Cylindrus and the traditional com
only incidentally a cook and shows little
istic of mageiroi. When in 273f. he expr
bene opsonavi atque ex mea sententia, b
bus, this is a far cry from the rodomon
however, Dohm regards Cylindrus as
should rather be recognized as not a
tium's household slave is conclusive. Ev
century Athens, it is very improbable th
be used of a household slave in the posse
individual.
Why then did Plautus call Cylindrus coquus rather than servus? Partly, at
least, because in Roman life that was the normal word for a household slave
responsible for cooking. That is probably a sufficient explanation of the use of
the word coquus at Capt. 917 to refer to a cook behind the scenes, who must
be a household slave, not a hired mageiros. It seems likely, however, that
Plautus wished to exploit the associations the word coquus had acquired
through being used to translate mageiros, in order to give extra color to the
role. We have already seen that in the Aulularia and Pseudolus Plautus ex
panded original mageiros roles, and in the process used in his own way motifs
traditionally associated with mageiroi in Greek comedy. There are indications
that in the Menaechmi he added some traditional mageiros motifs to the role of
Cylindrus. Cylindrus comes out of Erotium's house at 219, Erotium being
already on stage. Since Cylindrus could hardly be played by either of the actors
who made their exit in the direction of the town at 216, four actors would here
be required, contrary to what appears to have been the normal practice of New
Comedy.1'1 A plausible explanation is that in the Greek play Cylindrus was
played by a mute for his first brief appearance, when he only needs to listen to
99. (Supra n.2) 264-66.

100. Dohm (supra n.2) 264.
101. Gaiser (supra n.86) 1037f.; F. H. Sandbach in Le Monde grec-Hommages a Claire
Preaux (Brussels 1975) 197-204; idem, The Comic Theatre of Greece and Rome (London 1977) 78
80. An act-division is probable in the Greek play after 225, which would obviate the need for four
actors in 225f.
Erotium's orders, and that Plautus gave him a few lines to speak. In Greek
drama a speaking character is sometimes temporarily played by a mute,1(2 and
Latin adapters sometimes give a speaking role to a character who was mute in
the original."'3 Of Cylindrus' utterances in 219-25, several are obviously dis
pensable: 220 habeo, 224 licet, 225 iam ego hic ero. His inquiry after the
character of the expected guests in 221, quoiusmodi hic homines erunt? is
reminiscent of Greek mageiros scenes,'"4 but leads only to a very Plautine joke
on the greed of parasites in 222f. In 225, cocta sunt, iube ire accubitum can also
be seen as an echo of the boastfulness of mageiroi, but the crude exaggeration
of the boast, before the food has even been bought, is more typical of Plautus
(cf. Pseud. 891 f.) than of a mageiros, and it anticipates Erotium's invitation in
368 ire licet accubitum. If Plautus is responsible, as seems probable, for Cylin
drus' role in 219-25, the reminiscences of Greek mageiros scenes could be
unconscious, prompted by the fact that Cylindrus is also a cook, but it is
perhaps more likely that they are deliberate. In 330, dum ego haec appono ad
Volcani violentiam may also be a Plautine reminiscence of the grandiloquence
of mageiroi; Cylindrus does not otherwise speak in this style, and 328-3(
contain other features that suggest a Plautine insertion (the play with the
numquid vis? formula,"'5 the curse-retort with an unexpected innocent end
ing,'"6 the further anticipation of Erotium's invitation in 368). It seems, then,
that Plautus was consciously trying to make the role of Cylindrus, originally an
ordinary household slave, approximate to the stock type of the mageiros. This
hypothesis is supported by evidence that Plautus has elsewhere introduced
cooks who did not exist in his Greek models.
TRUCULENTUS 551-630
In 425-33 Diniarchus, on taking leave of Phronesium, promises to send his

slave with a present (munus) for her; and in a monologue after Phronesium's
exit he declares his intention of ordering five minae to be taken to her and
provisions bought (opsonari) for one mina (444f.). At 551 the slave of Diniar
chus (572, 579) called Cyamus (583, 586, 702)"07 arrives at the house of Phrone
sium with a crowd of others (549 pompam tantam) bearing the promised gifts.
Cyamus apparently carries the five minae, the other slaves the provisions (579f.
eru meus . . . ad te ferre me haec iussit tibi dona quae vides illos ferre et has
quinque argenti minas); the provisions are referred to by Cyamus as opsonium
102. E.g., Men. Dysc. 611-19 Daos, Mis. 259-69 Getas.

103. Sandbach, Le Monde grec (supra n.101) 199.
104. Dohm, (supra n.2) 264.
105. J. N. Hough, AJP 66 (1945) 289-302.
106. Cf. Capt. 868f. and W. M. Lindsay, The Captivi of Plautus (London 1900) ad loc., Merc.
161, Pseud. 251, Rud. 374 f.
107. Variously corrupted in the MSS, even, it seems, to Geta in 577; cf P. J. Enk, Plauti
Truculentus (Leiden 1953) ad loc.
(561) and by Diniarchus' rival Stratoph

holerum atque escarum et poscarum
joyed by Cyamus' report that the d
(702f.), but is refused admission by P
he reminds her of his gifts (739 f. <iu
praeterea unam in opsonatum), and de
(747 non licet . . opsoni me particip
bringing gifts for Phronesium is thu
motivates his return afterwards (cf
Phronesium parallel those of his rival
be doubted that the Cyamus scene in
model.
It is clear that Cyamus is a household slave of Diniarchus, and there is no
reason to suppose that he was a mageiros in the Greek play. He purchases food
in the market, delivers it with Diniarchus' other gifts to Phronesium, and then
returns home; he has not been hired in the market and his function in the plot
does not involve cooking. It is probable, however, that Plautus regarded Cy
amus as a coquus, even if he does not call him that (cf. 428 servolum). For in
reply to Stratophanes' threat to cut him in pieces with his sword, Cyamus
boasts of his prowess in the kitchen with knife and spit (614f. ego <te> hic
agnum faciam et medium distruncabo. si tu legioni bellator clues, at ego culinae
clueo, 627f. istam machaeram longiorem <tu> habes quam haec est. sed verum
<me> sine dum petere). Moreover his name, "Bean," seems intended to suggest
a connection with the kitchen.108
Now there is no a priori reason why a household slave in the Greek play
should not have referred to his culinary activities as well as buying food in the
market; both activities fell within the normal province of a Greek household
slave. Nevertheless, the facts that the only thing that marks Cyamus as a cook
is his kitchen knife, that this is introduced solely for the sake of a comic duel
with the sword-bearing soldier, and that the passages in which the knife motif
is developed exhibit some characteristically Plautine features of style suggest
that the motif was added by Plautus. In particular, 611b-15 look like a Plautine
addition. The abusive exchanges between Cyamus and Stratophanes in these
lines are dispensable and separate Stratophanes' question addressed to Phrone
sium in 608-11a from Phronesium's reply in 616 f.; the transformation motif of
614 ego <te> hic agnum faciam is characteristically Plautine,1"9 as is the comically
grandiose 615 bellator. . . culinae clueo. Cyamus' and Stratophanes' further
exchange of threats in 620b-9 is equally dispensable and could well be at least
108. Cf. Anthrax ("Coal") and Congrio ("Eel") in Aul. All these names are probably Plau
tus' invention, despite their Greek form. In nearly all the cases where we have definite information
(Plaut. Bacch., Cist.; Ter. Eun.) the Latin adapter has changed the names of his Greek model.
109. Fraenkel, Plautinisches (supra n.11) 25=Elementi 23.
largely the work of Plautus. The suspicion that Plautus has here enlarged the
role of Cyamus is strengthened by the fact that there are signs of Plautine
expansion also in his long entrance monody 551-76 and in 583b-87 (obscene
pun on vasa110 and fourth speaking character)1' and that Plautus alone is re
sponsible for depicting Cyamus as a cook will be supported by the other cases
in which Plautus has introduced a cook, especially Cario in the Miles Gloriosus
(see below). The use of traditional mageiros motifs in several passages of
Cyamus' part, an extended reference to pilfering (559-67), comic business with
the cook's knife (614-29), and bombastic language (605) are no obstacle to
attributing these passages to Plautus. On the contrary, it seems likely that, as
in the Menaechmi, Plautus has consciously used traditional mageiros motifs to
turn an ordinary household slave into a coquus. It is possible indeed that in the
Greek play the gifts brought by the slave to Phronesium did not include food
and that Plautus added this to support his characterization of Cyamus as a
cook; the references to food and drink in 445, 561, 585, 609, 740, 747-50, and
854 f. could all be Plautine additions.
MILES GLORIOSUS 1394-1427
Central to the plot of the Miles Gloriosus is the enticement of the vain and
amorous soldier Pyrgopolinices, by means of a fictitious love-message, to an
assignment with Acroteleutium posing as Periplectomenus' wife; it is an essen
tial part of Palaestrio's scheme to secure the release of Philocomasium (766
804). The play ends with the would-be adulterer being dragged out of Periplec
tomenus' house and receiving a beating with threats of worse (1394-1427),
before learning that he has been tricked into letting Philocomasium go (1428
37). In essentials Plautus is likely here to be following the action of the Alazon
(86).l12
Prominent in the punishment scene 1394-1427 is the figure of Cario, who,
armed with a knife, gleefully threatens Pyrgopolinices with instant castration.
As I have shown elsewhere,"3 however, it is probable that the sections of the
scene that involve Cario and the threat of instant castration are the work of
Plautus and that Plautus added Cario with his knife to the nameless slaves who
inflict a flogging on Pyrgopolinices (1424). We may assume from his slave
name and the fact that he comes from Periplectomenus' house that Cario is
Periplectomenus' slave. In the scene-heading he is described as COCVS, but
110. Cf. P. J. Enk, Mnemosyne 1 (1948) 134.

111. Bothe was probably right to hold that Astaphium speaks in 584 and 586 (cf. F. Leo,
Plauti Comoediae, vol. 2 [Berlin 1896] on line 586), although there has been no sign of her presence
since 514. She was almost certainly not still present in the corresponding scene of the Greek play,
but Plautus, being free to have more than three speaking characters on stage at once (n. 101) may
well have prolonged her presence.
112. Pace E. Lefevre, Hermes 112 (1984) 41f.
113. BICS 32 (1985).
scene-headings have no ultimate aut

merely an inference from 1377 culter
ence. There is no reason to regard C
Roman slave coquus, and it seems lik
mark him as a cook, like Cyamus in
hold slaves none would be so likely to
view of Plautus' deliberate blurring of
and Greek mageiroi, it is relevant tha
the equipment of mageiroi;'4 it promp
phorical sense of x6OjrTEv, "bore to
Cario as cooks by means of their kniv
aware that he was using a stock mage
consciously turning it to a new use. In
mageiros is never depicted as physicall
knife,l"' but such threats occur thr
nently in the roles of Cyamus and Ca
Aul. 417 f., a probable Plautine additio
three passages (characteristically) explo
thug comedy; and it is perhaps not fan
the traditional XOJTTELV joke to give dr
in its literal sense. It is possible tha
mageiroi of the same name,17 but the
is doubtful whether in antiquity it w
mageiroi. Once again, then, Plautus h
slave of his Greek model into a cook,
acter out of a mute extra.
CURCULIO 251-370
In 223 the slave Palinurus comes o
master Phaedromus inside as he doe
emerged from the neighboring shrin
Cappadox asks Palinurus whether he c
and Palinurus confidently replies that
so (248-50). At this moment, howev
house, rebukes Palinurus for idlene
from the storeroom (depromere) wha
pected arrival of the parasite Curculio
to interpret Cappadox's dream first,
114. Dohm (supra n.2) 71f.

115. Gomme and Sandbach (supra n.15) on
116. Posidippus, fr. 1.9 K. Elg aC;g uatXaiQac
117. See supra p. 75; Dohm (supra n.2) 268
(253b-54); Palinurus acknowledges his master (255-57) and must be supposed

to make his exit into the house after 257. After a comment on Palinurus'
unusual modesty, Cappadox turns to the cook (258 f.). In 260-72a Cappadox
narrates his dream and the cook advises him to return to the shrine to placate
Aesculapius. Cappadox agrees and makes his exit (272b-73a), the cook mut
tering a curse after him as he goes (273b).
According to current texts of Plautus, the cook makes his exit after 273,
but Palinurus suddenly returns at 274, observes the approach of Curculio,
summons Phaedromus from his house (274-79), and plays a minor role in the
following scene (280-370). It was recognized by C. C. Conrad,'18 however,
followed by Dohm19 and E. Fantham,'20 that the cook must remain on stage
until 370 and that Palinurus does not reappear after 257. The belief that Palinu
rus is on stage in 274-370 rests on notae personarum in the MSS, which attrib
ute 303a, 313a, 314, 315a, c, 317a, and 321a to him and on SERVVS in the
scene heading before 280 (i.e., Palinurus, as in the heading before 216,
whereas that before 251 has COCVS). Neither scene headings nor notae per
sonarum, however, have any ultimate authority and there is no evidence in the
text for the presence of Palinurus in 274-370. There is no indication of the
cook's exit or of the re-entry of Palinurus. Nothing in 274-370 requires the
presence of Palinurus, and the utterances of and references to a third character
besides Phaedromus and Curculio suit a cook at least as well as Palinurus.
From Plautus' point of view there was no reason why a cook of Phaedromus
household should be less able than his fellow-slave Palinurus to recognize
Curculio;1'2 there is therefore no objection to attributing to the cook 274-76
and 227b-79a (in fact so attributed in the MSS)122 or 303a (clearly spoken by
the speaker of 227b-79a after he has, with Phaedromus, eavesdropped on
Curculio's entrance monologue). In the meeting between Phaedromus and
Curculio in 303b-70 a third character speaks (how much is uncertain) only in
308b-26, a passage of comic dialogue based on the idea of the parasite's
greed; that this character should be a cook is particularly appropriate to the
theme of the passage. In 311 f. Phaedromus orders slaves to fetch water to
revive Curculio, who pretends to be fainting from hunger; if it is a cook who
speaks 313a vin aquam? Curculio's reply si frustulenta est, da, opsecro hercle,
opsorbeam has more point. In 314b-16 the fooling based on the ambiguity of
ventum also suits a cook well, since a fabellum must have been a regular item
of kitchen equipment.123 In the second half of the scene, 327-70, the only
118. CP, 13 (1918) 389-400.

119. (Supra n.2) 271-74.
120. CQ 15 (1965) 93-97.
121. Cf. G. Monaco, Teatro di Plauto. I. II Curculio (Palermo 1963) 49.
122. The attribution by the MSS of 277 and 279b to Palinurus instead of Phaedromus is
patently wrong and has rightly been rejected by editors since Angelius.
123. Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. ant. 2.1152.
indication that a third person is prese

says to Phaedromus in 369, hic minist
ministrabit could refer to any slave, i
cook. The cook's role then extends ove
It is almost certain, however, as G. W
invented by Plautus and played no pa
For in the first place it is odd that, a
dream-interpretation, he should hand
dream to a cook, whose craft has noth
unlikely that a Greek dramatist woul
tion for the interpretation of Cappado
that Plautus would have invented th
resemblance to a Greek mageiros. Sinc
he has been hired, it is more natural
his behavior is more typical of Plauti
His connection with cooking is superf
trance and exit (251-33a, 369). Third,
meal that motivates his appearance as
indications that in the original design
was not known in advance. Curculio h
339). A journey from Epidaurus to C
considerable time and the exact date o
be predicted. Although Plautus can m
usquartus Cariam petere argentum, is
dramatist would not have committed
linurus' words to Phaedromus in 22
layed; Palinurus interprets the delay a
collecting money. If the time of Curc
meal could not be prepared for him
confirmed by the references to left-o
culio was in fact fed. There was, then
What action in the Greek play di
Plautus introduce him? Lines 251-59 a
cook and removing Palinurus from
presumably remained on stage and i
lead us to expect. How far 260-73 diff
Greek play we do not know. Williams
Cappadox's dream is very short and
luppiter Capitolinus as punisher of pe
124. Hermes 86 (1958) 103-5; cf. Dohm (sup

(supra n.118) 400 n.2 hinted at the possibility t
the view that he was Greek in origin and retain
cut out a much longer dream-interpretation, perhaps by a professional inter

preter, and introduced the cook as a substitute. All the evidence, however,
points to the cook having replaced Palinurus as dream-interpreter. The original
interpretation of the dream may, then, not have differed very greatly from that
given by the cook; Iuppiter Capitolinus may only be Ze0g "OQxlog in Roman
dress. In the Greek play it was again probably Palinurus who, after the exit of
Cappadox, observed the approach of Curculio and made haste to inform Phae
dromus (274-76). Palinurus had received Phaedromus' confidences in the open
ing scene of the play and was alone in a position to understand why Phaedro
mus awaited Curculio's return with such anxiety; references to the parasite's
return in earlier dialogues between him and Phaedromus (67-69, 223-28) lead
us to expect that it should be Palinurus who recognizes Curculio and fetches his
master. This consideration has no doubt helped to bring it about that 274-76
and 277b-79a were for so long attributed to Palinurus in the text of Plautus,
although it would hardly have bothered Plautus. It seems likely that in the
Greek play Palinurus, on seeing Curculio, went into the house to fetch Phae
dromus and did not return, since there is no trace of him in the following
scene. The cook's role in 280-370 is probably to be regarded as entirely a
Plautine addition, not as replacing Palinurus, for the passages of that scene in
which the cook plays a part are probably all Plautine additions. His active
speaking role occurs entirely in the first half of the scene, 280-326, in which
the action is held up for the sake of comic effects and there are many signs of
Plautine expansion.125 In the dramatically essential nucleus of the scene, 327
65, in which Curculio reports to Phaedromus on his mission to Caria, the cook
plays no part. His presence is referred to again only in 369; but 366-69, giving
expression to the parasite's greed, with references to Roman ham and other
meat (366 f.), are probably a Plautine addition.
In brief, Plautus' procedure probably amounted to this: in 251-79 he intro
duced the cook to take over the role of the slave Palinurus as dream-interpreter,
and in 280-370 he kept him on stage for a scene which in the Greek play had no
corresponding character. As in the Miles Gloriosus, the slave cook is a Plautine
doublet of a slave who already existed in the Greek play. Plautus' motive for the
introduction seems clear. The cook was closely connected with the preparations
for a meal, to await Curculio's return, which Plautus invented, and the purpose
of both is to exaggerate the motif of the parasite's greed. The novelty of a cook
interpreting dreams had some comic value, but the cook's main function lay in
the preparations for a meal that motivate his entrance (251-53a) and exit (369)
125. Lines 280-300, the entrance monologue of Curculio in the manner of a servus currens,
largely Roman in content (Leo [supra n.80] 146) and Phaedromus' comment on it; 301-8, extended
meeting (cf. D. Bain in Creative Imitation and Latin Literature, ed. D. West and T. Woodman
[Cambridge 1979] 28); 309-13, charade of Curculio fainting from hunger, preparing for 314-16,
pun on ventum; 323 f., ham and other pig-meat (cf. G. Jachmann, Plautinisches und Attisches,
Berlin 1931. 63 n.1).
and the comic fooling that emphasize t

no need to resort to Conrad's speculat
that the cook was introduced in order to
who had played Palinurus; we know not
actors.
CASINA 720-48
At 503 the slave Olympio is sent to ma
Lysidamus. He returns at 720, bringing
his assistants (cf. 719-22, 744-47, 764
however Plautus may have spelt it, is p
"pot," is clearly conceived as a hired m
the manner in which the cooks are brou
hardly to be attributed to Diphilus, the
Casina (31-34). We should expect Diphi
traditional comedy in his first appearan
significant part in the scene, which con
mus and Olympio. Only in 720-23 doe
question and an interjection; otherwise,
some twenty lines "stumm und nutzlos
are entirely Plautine invention; in these
the form of a typically Plautine riddle,
brambles.127 Dohm supposes that in 720-
of no consequence with which Diphilus i
however, account for the underemploym
scene. A better explanation, considered
lus' version of this scene contained no c
This is supported by the fact that when
said nothing in his instructions (490-50
that Citrio is indispensable to the plot a
play. It is true that the cooking of a
important part of the plot; at the instig
cooks employ go-slow tactics in order t
66, 772-75). Although the meal is necess
require a mageiros; it could very well h
who would indeed have been more unde
then, that once again Plautus has ad
starting point was the slave Olympio, s
meal, and Citrio is in a sense a double
whether Plautus regarded him as a sla
126. (Supra n.2) 266-68.

127. Fraenkel, Plautinisches (supra n.11) 49=E
apart from the joke about thieving, probably the visual effect of the pompa
(719).
BACCHIDES 109-69
At 109 Pistoclerus returns from the market with provisions for a meal, and
in 130 f. he expresses the hope that the cook will do justice to the quality of the
provisions. There is no mention of a cook anywhere else in the play and it is
unlikely that a mageiros had any part in Menander's Dis Exapaton. Plautus
could have had in mind merely a Roman slave coquus behind the scenes, as at
Capt. 917, but the phrase tanta pompa in 114 suggests that he envisaged Pistoc
lerus as returning from the market with a hired cook and assistants.128 Pompa
could refer to a party of household slaves (cf. Curc. 2, Truc. 549), but there is
no explanation of how Pistoclerus acquired such a party and the use of the
word pompa in the Casina cook scene supports the other interpretation. The
starting point of Plautus' party of cooks was perhaps a single slave, who is
likely in the Dis Exapaton to have accompanied Moschos (=Pistoclerus) on his
trip to market to carry the provisions. The motive for the change would be, as
in the Casina, the visual effect of the pompa.
CONCLUSIONS
Seven scenes of Plautus have been examined in which a speaking character

can be identified as a cook with certainty or probability, and one in which a
cook probably appears as a mute extra. The examination has led to the follow
ing conclusions, individually probable and collectively as nearly certain as is
possible in such questions. In three of the scenes, in the Mercator, Aulularia,
and Pseudolus, Plautus follows scenes of his Greek models which depicted a
mageiros. Whereas in the Mercator, however, he probably took over the origi
nal mageiros scene largely unchanged, in the Aulularia and Pseudolus he ex
panded the original scenes by the addition of some 50 lines of extra comic
material. In the Aulularia he assimilated free mageiroi to Roman slave coqui
and coarsened the tone of the original, in particular by emphasizing the thiev
ing propensities of the cooks; in the Pseudolus too his additions included
several instances of the thieving motif. In the Menaechmi and Truculentus,
Plautus turned a household slave of his Greek model into a coquus, thus to
some extent assimilating him to mageiroi. Similarly, in the Miles Gloriosus and
Curculio, Plautus created coqui as additional characters by duplicating house
hold slaves of his Greek models; in neither case does the cook's dramatic
function have much, if anything, to do with cooking. Finally, in the Casina and
probably the Bacchides Plautus introduced hired cooks, modeled on Greek
mageiroi, into brief scenes depicting the return of a character from the market,
128. So Lorenz (supra n.88) Pseudolus 13 n.13.
for the sake of the extra spectacle provid

cook says little, in the Bacchides nothing
a predilection for cooks, since he both
over from his Greek models and created
The changes here attributed to Plautu
not affect the structure of the plays con
sion of scenes of the Greek play by the
insertion being 30 lines in length. Such in
change the effect of a scene. In addition
speaking characters, Cario in the Miles G
nameless cook of the Curculio. This is of
not be overestimated; Cario speaks eight
the Curculio about twenty. In each cas
slave of the Greek play, either a speakin
It is not difficult to guess some of the
The boastful mageiros of Greek comed
Greek culture (pergraecari), would con
laughter. A Roman audience, however,
any subtle satire of the mageiros' art. To
and endow him with some of the charact
exaggerate the comic elements of the or
would be likely to win the approval of
Plautus took in the Aulularia and Pseud
ordinary household slaves into cooks also
The entourage of a mageiros gave scope
ploited in the Casina and probably the
gave scope for comic business, which Pla
Miles Gloriosus. The theme of food wa
comedy and had probably played a signif
in the Curculio, and to a lesser extent th
cook emphasized this theme and underlin
Finally, the importance of the blendin
Plautus' cooks needs to be stressed. The
Casina certainly, and probably the Bacch
ket. To this extent the majority of Pl
belong to the Greek world ostensibly dep
case (Cas.) where the character was not t
was invented by Plautus. On the other
thought of all his cooks as slaves. In the
riosus, and Curculio the cooks are clearly
cook mentioned in Capt. 917. In the Aulu
129. W. Beare, The Roman Stage (London 19643
of as a slave, although Plautus elsewhere preserves traces of his free status in

the Greek play; and although the status of the hired cooks in the Mercator,
Pseudolus, Casina, and probably Bacchides is left unclear, nothing in Plautus'
text marks them as free and there are slight indications that Plautus thought of
them also as slaves. Plautus' cooks therefore differ from mageiroi, at least as
normally depicted in Greek comedy, in being slaves and to this extent resemble
real-life coqui of Plautus' Rome. Yet Plautus uses motifs traditionally asso
ciated with the mageiroi of Greek comedy in transforming household slaves of
his models into coqui. The Plautine cook is a literary creation and does not
correspond exactly either to Greek or to Roman life. In fact the combination
of Greek and Roman elements in Plautus' cooks, as in other aspects of his
plays, contributes to the unreal, fantastic character of Plautine comedy. As has
been emphasized by E. Segal,'30 there is a sense in which the world of Plautus
turns reality upside down. The Plautine slave can behave outrageously pre
cisely because the palliata does not depict Roman life.131 Plautus' slave cooks
are minor characters, not in the same class as dominant slaves such as Pseudo
lus or Tranio, but they too tend to exhibit behavior that is the antithesis of
what a Roman master would demand of his slaves: thieving, scurrilous abuse,
and physical violence. A new comic stereotype has replaced that of the magei
ros of Greek comedy.
Institute of Classical Studies, London

University of California, Berkeley
130. Roman Laughter (Cambridge, Mass. 1968).

131. Donatus ad Ter. Eun. 57.

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Cooks in Plautus

) 1985 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

mageiroi of his Greek models which

ATHENIAN FOOD AND THE MAGEIROS

MEALS AND THE MAGEIROS IN ATTIC COMEDY

tions in and out of season (Men. Sam.

18. Handley on Men. Dysc. 393.

MEAT AND BUTCHERS IN ROME

26. W. G. Arnott, PapLivLatSem 2 (1979) 348-51.

earlier period, when small holdings w

34. Cf. evidence from tombs cited by Pasquin

altaria). In the latter case the animal

COOKS IN ROMAN LIFE

It is already clear that there did no

44. On the Plautine origin of this passage see

datable one postdates the end of Plaut

60. Mommsen, Romisches Staatsrecht (Leipzig

would have a hard job70 and a low st

70. Cf. Ter. Ad. 845-47.

The clearest reference to a hired cook is in Porphyrion on Hor. Sat. 1.1.101,

any case we may take it as certain

81. Dohm (supra n.2) 260-62.

clio's daughter. At 280 Strobilus return

82. The speaker of 363-70 is clearly still Megad

of the thieving motif works in the sam

91. Plautus again grossly exaggerated the motif

MENAECHMI 219-25, 273-332

Cylindrus was not a mageiros but an or

99. (Supra n.2) 264-66.

In 425-33 Diniarchus, on taking leave of Phronesium, promises to send his

102. E.g., Men. Dysc. 611-19 Daos, Mis. 259-69 Getas.

(561) and by Diniarchus' rival Stratoph

MILES GLORIOSUS 1394-1427

110. Cf. P. J. Enk, Mnemosyne 1 (1948) 134.

scene-headings have no ultimate aut

114. Dohm (supra n.2) 71f.

(253b-54); Palinurus acknowledges his master (255-57) and must be supposed

118. CP, 13 (1918) 389-400.

indication that a third person is prese

124. Hermes 86 (1958) 103-5; cf. Dohm (sup

cut out a much longer dream-interpretation, perhaps by a professional inter

and the comic fooling that emphasize t

126. (Supra n.2) 266-68.

Seven scenes of Plautus have been examined in which a speaking character

128. So Lorenz (supra n.88) Pseudolus 13 n.13.

for the sake of the extra spectacle provid

129. W. Beare, The Roman Stage (London 19643

of as a slave, although Plautus elsewhere preserves traces of his free status in

Institute of Classical Studies, London

130. Roman Laughter (Cambridge, Mass. 1968).

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