Laughter in Ancient Rome (60 page)

108.
Met.
10.16.

109.
J. R. Heath 1982 discusses the role of human nutrition in Apuleius (though not focusing on this passage in particular); for the presentation of the ass as a (human) friend, see
Met.
10.16, 10.17.

110.
R. May 1998; 2006, 300–302.

111.
Met.
10.16;
Onos
47 (τοσοῦτον γελῶσιν, πολὺν γέλωτα, etc.).

112.
Apuleius could not possibly have read the work of the third-century Diogenes Laertius, though Valerius Maximus was writing at least a century earlier. But my claim does not depend on whether Apuleius was familiar with these precise texts (and indeed there are no verbal echoes between the Latin versions of Valerius and Apuleius, and Apuleius in any case offers a different account of Philemon’s death, in
Florida
16). The implication of what I have shown so far is that the “dining donkey” story was a well-known popular joke in the Roman world—and that common knowledge underpins my discussion of Apuleius’ use of it here.

113.
I do not see other significant differences between the two accounts that are relevant to my arguments on the culture of laughter. Zimmerman 2000, 229–30, contrasts the donkey’s reaction in each text to being laughed at when first caught eating: pleasure in Apuleius (10.16), shame and embarrassment in ps.-Lucian (47). But pleasure very soon returns in the Lucianic account, as Zimmerman allows.

114.
Onos
47.

115.
Met.
10.16.

116.
Bakhtin (1981 [1937–38]) underlined the polyphonic aspects of the novel in an essay first published half a century earlier.

117.
Onos
10 (before transformation), 15 (braying), 55 (for the implication of laughter after his return to human shape).

118.
Met.
2.31–3.13.

119.
Met
2.31.

120.
Met
3.2 (“nemo prorsum qui non risu dirumperetur aderat”).

121.
The story of the “murder” and the revelation of what “really” happened is, of course, more complicated than I am making it seem; for its literary precedents and the confrontation between reality and illusion staged here, see Milanezi 1992; Bajoni 1998; R. May 2006, 195–98.

122.
Met.
3.13.

123.
He is in fact called “victim” (
victimam
) at
Met.
3.2.

124.
D. S. Robertson 1919 casts around for real-life ancient ritual parallels (involving the leading of a scapegoat around town); partly followed by James 1987, 87–90. Habinek 1990, 53–55, stresses the (structural) role of Lucius as scapegoat. Kirichenko 2010, 36–39, 45–58, identifies mimic elements (comparing the
risus mimicus
of Petronius). R. May 2006, 182–207, the best introduction to the episode and previous scholarship on it, points to its theatricality and metaliterary aspects.

125.
R. May 2006, 190–92; Zimmerman 2000, 25–26, 225–26 (for verbal echoes in the description of laughter between the two episodes).

126.
Cachinnus: Met.
3.7 (with Van der Paardt 1971, 67; Krabbe 1989, 162–63).

127.
Met.
3.11: “Iste deus auctorem et actorem suum propitius ubique comitabitur amanter, nec umquam patietur ut ex animo doleas, sed frontem tuam serena venustate laetabit assidue.” Or so it reads if we accept an early twentieth-century emendation of the manuscript tradition.
Auctorem et actorem
is Vollgraff’s conjecture (1904, 253) for the unsatisfactory or incomprehensible manuscript reading: whether
auctorem
with the meaningless
et torem
written into the interlinear space above, or the alternative and feeble
auctorem et tutorem.
It is generally now accepted that
auctorem et actorem
is correct, but given the phrase’s celebrity status, it is worth remembering that this is (only) a conjecture. Tatum 2006 discusses Vollgraff’s conjecture, plus the background of the phrase in earlier Latin, at length, leading to (in my view) difficult conclusions on Apuleius’ links with Cicero, though La Bua 2013 takes a similarly Ciceronian direction in the discussion of Lucius’ mock trial.

128.
Winkler 1985, 13.

129.
Kirichenko 2010, 58, also stressing the contrast between the
actor
as “passive” (“Lucius improvises in accordance with a pre-ordained storyline”) and the
auctor
as auctorial/authorial (he “creatively co-authors the entire performance”); see above, pp. 119–20, 167, on the role of actors as “only mouthpieces of the scripts of others.”

130.
Schlam 1992 picks up the ambiguity here, with a slightly different emphasis from mine: “In an ironic sense the promise offered by the magistrates turns out to be true. Laughter does accompany the Ass, but he is the wretched object at which others laugh, often maliciously” (43).

8. THE LAUGHTER LOVER

1.
Σχολαστικὸς καὶ φαλακρὸς καὶ κουρεὺς συνοδεύοντες καὶ ἔν τινι ἐρημίᾳ μείναντες συνέθεντο πρὸς τέσσαρας ὥρας ἀγρυπνῆσαι καὶ τὰ σκεύη ἕκαστος τηρῆσαι. ὡς δὲ ἔλαχε τῷ κουρεῖ πρώτῳ φυλάξαι, μετεωρισθῆναι θέλων τὸν σχολαστικὸν καθεύδοντα ἔξυρεν καὶ τῶν ὡρῶν πληρωθεισῶν διύπνισεν. ὁ δὲ σχολαστικὸς ψήχων ὡς ἀπὸ ὕπνου τὴν κεφαλὴν καὶ εὑρὼν ἑαυτὸν ψιλόν· Μέγα κάθαρμα, φησίν, ὁ κουρεύς· πλανηθεὶς γὰρ ἀντ’ ἐμοῦ τὸν φαλακρὸν ἐξύπνισεν. Different manuscripts of the text (see pp. 186–87) include a shorter and slightly differently worded version of this joke, with the same point.

2.
I cite the jokes from the edition of A. Thierfelder (1968), which is in general to be preferred to the more recent Teubner edition of R. D. Dawe (2000), on which see the important and wide-ranging review Jennings 2001. The
Philogelos
has been the subject of several recent studies (on both its textual tradition and—rather less often—its cultural significance). Note especially Thierfelder 1968; Baldwin 1983 (though the translations are sometimes misleading); Andreassi 2004 (the best modern introduction)—all these underlie what follows and are cited only to draw attention to particularly significant discussion or to indicate disagreement. Brief cultural explorations include Winkler 1985, 160–65; Bremmer 1997, 16–18; Hansen 1998, 272–75; Schulten 2002. In addition, there are several more or less popular modern translations, along the lines of “the world’s oldest jokebook”: for example, Cataudella 1971, 89–154 (with a useful scholarly introduction); Löwe 1981; Zucker 2008; Crompton 2010.

3.
These three examples are based on 104, 231, and 173 (I confess that my paraphrases here have adjusted the ancient jokes to familiar modern comic idioms).

4.
This is not, in other words, a case of creative translation from the Greek into modern comic clichés. Note, however, this is the only joke in the collection to start in this way; the trio of characters was not in general the cliché of ancient joking that it is of modern.

5.
Johnson 1741, 479. His translation runs: “The Sage fell to scratching his Head, and finding no Hair, abused the Barber for not calling the Philosopher in his Turn, for do not you know, says he, that I, who am the bald Man, was to have been called up last.” It is a useful example of the varied responses that jokes get as they travel through time.

6.
Wilson 1996, 212.

7.
Thierfelder 1968, 129–46, is the clearest account of the whole manuscript tradition; note also Perry 1943. Rochefort 1950 discusses the full contents of the main manuscript (A = Par. Sup. Gr. 690). The first joke (now 265) in the earliest manuscript (G = Cryptoferratensis A 33) has a point similar to that of two others in the full collection but is significantly different in language and detail. “A
scholastikos
was asked how many pints the jar held and answered: ‘Do you mean of wine or water?’” Compare number 92, which has a
scholastikos
ask his father how much a three-pint (πεντακότυλος) vessel holds, and 136, which has a teacher from Sidon ask a pupil (though the text is uncertain) how much a three-pint vessel holds—“Do you mean wine or oil?” he replies.

8.
Tzetzes,
Chil.
8.969–73 (Leone).

9.
It may be significant that Tzetzes elsewhere tells a very similar joke, which he ascribes to a “story” or “fable”; see
Epistulae
50 (Leone).

10.
These possibilities and more are explored by Baldwin 1986; Andreassi 2004, 63–65. We should bear in mind that book titles and their authors can, and do, blur;
Mrs. Beeton
refers to both book and author, as in many cases does
Livy
(and there was likewise confusion in the medieval world over whether
Suda
was the title of an encyclopedia or the name of its compiler).

11.
On the Alexandrian Hierokles and other homonyms, see Andreassi 2004, 28–29. The dual authorship between Hierokles and Philagrios given by the longer manuscript selections, in contrast to the shorter selections ascribed to Hierokles alone, has predictably launched theories about originally separate works of Hierokles and Philagrios that were at some point combined—a combination that might (or might not) explain some of the complexity of the manuscript tradition (intricately discussed by Thierfelder 1968, 129–202, with diagram on 202).

12.
Suda
Φ 364 (Adler); the text as printed there runs οὗτός [Philistion] ἐστιν ὁ γράψας τὸν Φιλόγελων, ἤγουν τὸ βιβλίον τὸ φερόμενον εἰς τὸν Κουρέα (but a minor textual emendation, or even just the substitution of a lowercase for an uppercase Κ, would produce very different senses). For further possible links with Philistion, see Cataudella 1971, xxv; Reich 1903, 454–75 (which trusts the
Suda
’s attribution).

13.
New Pauly,
s.v. “Philogelos”; Bremmer 1997, 16, with 25n32. On the culture of barbershops, see S. Lewis 1995 (a survey of Greek material); Polybius 3.20; Plutarch,
Mor.
508f–509c (=
De garr.
13).

14.
Abdera: 110–27; Kyme: 154–82; Sidon: 128–39; Rome: 62; Rhine: 83; Sicily: 192.

15.
Drakontides: 170; Demeas: 102; Scribonia: 73; Lollianus: 162.

16.
Denarii: 86, 124, 198, 213, 224, 225; anniversary: 62. Other Latinizing forms in the Greek (in, e.g., 135, 138) may also point to the cultural background, as well as reflect early Byzantine Greek usage.

17.
62. Other hints of a possibly third-century CE context have been squeezed from the text: the use of
myriads
as a unit of currency in 80 and 97, and in 76 the possible reference to the temple of Serapis in Alexandria (the destruction of that Serapeum in 391 would give a terminus ante quem for the origin of the joke—but Alexandria is not actually mentioned!); see Thierfelder 1968, 224 (noting that the joke implies “going up” [ἀνελθόντι] to the temple—for the Alexandrian Serapeum was on a hill).