Pseudolus: The Social Conflict Between Slave and Master in the Roman World.
The play Pseudolus clearly demonstrates the social conflict that existed during the time it was written. The relationship between a master and his slave is clearly depicted. We can see this through the relationship between Pseudolus and his masters and Ballio and his slaves. We can also see the social conflict between the different age groups by examining the relationship between Simo and his son. This essay will discuss all these different kinds of disputes and why the audience might have found them humorous.
When looking at social conflict within Plautu’s Pseudolus
the character Ballio should definitely be looked at seeing as he bears the
classic image of the abusive slave owner. The author of the play goes out of
its way to make the audience disgusted by Ballio. He makes Ballo seem greedy
and arrogant. He cares nothing for his fellow man except for the profit he can
make out of him. He is greedy to the extent that he says that he would neglect
the gods to make a profit: “Why even if I was busy at the altar
sacrificing to Jove above, I’d put the innards on the back burner if someone
mentioned profit”. Religion was a very important aspect of Roman culture and
they would have found this statement particularly revolting. The fact that Ballio
is so despised by the audience adds to the hummer at the end of the play when
they see how Ballio’s greed had caused Pseudolus to make a fool out of him. Ballio
also depicts the social conflict that could be brought about as a result of greed
and money. People with more money (and status) tend to extort those with less.
In Ballio’s case, he is in control of an entire group of women who serve him as
prostitutes. They are entirely at his whim and all the money they make goes
directly to him. The character of Ballio shows us just what inequality in both
wealth and power can do to people. We can also see that Ballio is quite a
hypocrite. He seems to expect honesty from others but never considers the fact
that he is not honest as being a bad thing. When Pseudolus and
Calidorus are insulting him, he not only shrugs them off but also seems to have
some pride in how horrible a person he is. We can take for example the reaction
Ballio has when Calidorus confronts him about the breaking of his oath:
Answer me! You most wicked man that ever walked the earth! Didn’t you solemnly swear you wouldn’t sell her to anyone but me?
Exactly.
Calidorus:
Indeed. And in legally binding terms. That’s right. Bound and gagged.
Calidorus:
Ballio:
Here we can clearly see how Ballio takes pride in what
he has done. He does not only admit that he is being untrue to his word he also
insults Calidorus for having good moral values. We can see in his encounter
with Harpax later on that he expects an entirely different set of ethics from
his fellow man:
Now hold on here, by Hercules. Seriously just answer me one little question for me. The price? What’s Pseudolus paying you for this?
Harpax:
Who’s Pseudolus?
Ballio:
Why, the author of this mischief of course! The one who’s couched you to con me out of the concubine.
Harpax:
Here we can clearly see Ballio having double
standards. Ballio accuses Harpax (Although he does not know that it is Harpax)
of conspiring with Pseudolus to get Phoenicium. He therefore is accusing Pseudolus
of being untrustworthy, while he only a little earlier in the play openly boasts
about how clever he is for swindling Calordus and in doing so being completely
untrue to his word. The audience of course knows that Pseudolus at this point
has already gotten Phoenicium. Ballio therefore is blaming a completely innocent
man for doing something he is doing. Ballio’s hypocrisy has a downfall.
The audience would find this very funny because at this point in the play, they
would completely despise Ballio and they would laugh at his misfortune seeing
as especially since he only realises that that he has made a mistake when it is
much too late. He even increases his misfortune by making a bet with Simo arrogantly boasting about how victorious he is and insulting Harpax.
The master-slave relationship is depicted rather
interestingly in this play. We can see this through the conversations Pseudolus
has with his master Caldorus and his father Simo. The conversation Caldorus has
with Pseudolus at the start of the play is particularly interesting. Caldorus
tells Pseudolus about his love problem as if it is the biggest problem the
world has ever seen. He does not take into consideration that Pseudolus is a
slave and would consider a love problem as being a trivial matter seeing as
Pseudolus is a slave and does not even own himself, let alone a lover.
Cloudorus even goes as far as to ask Pseudolus for money. This is incredibly
ironic since we know that a slave owns nothing. The fact that Cloudorus should
ask Pseudolus to help him is just as ironic. Cloudorus effectively asks someone
worse off than he is to help him. We can see the same sort of thing happening
in a twentieth-century writer called P.G. Wodehouse's works. A lot of his
books are about young people who want to marry people from a lower class but
can’t do so because they are dependent on a wealthy family member who won’t
allow it and is then helped by a clever servant to get them out of their
trouble. Plautus's plays also usually have more or less the same outline. According
to David Konstan (1983), Plautus’s plays usually are about someone who is in
love with a girl but cannot get her because someone already owns her or is
preparing to perch her. This character then usually relies on a friend to
resolve this problem for him. There also usually is an overbearing paterfamilias in the way of this
character getting the girl. Although P.G. Wodehouse’s books were written more
than 2000 years after Plautus’s works the basic concept still stays the same.
Now why would the same kind of hummer still be funny after such a long period of
time? The answer is incredibly simple. Both writers have taken something
universally recognisable something incredibly simple and every day, so every
day that most people don’t recognise it even more, and made it seem
fantastical. The servant-master relationship in conjunction with the ever so comen love problem. This still proved to
be recognisable thousands of years later. That is why Plautus’s works are so
attractive and why they still exist. They never lost their relevance within the
Roman culture. The conversation Pseudolus has with Simo and Callipho is just as
interesting. Simo undergoes a bet with Pseudolus. If Pseudolus should lose the
bet he would be flogged and if he should win he will never be flogged again. Simo
agrees to this bet for nothing more than the amusement of it, but Pseudolus on
the other hand could win quite a bit out of this bet. The conditions of the bet
were that if Simo gave Pseudolus twenty minae
by the end of the day Peumnomenon won and if he failed in this Simo would
win. I think that anyone would agree that the only thing Simon has to do to win is not to give Pseudolus the money. Pseudolus practically has no
chance of winning the bet. This shows us just to which extent Pseudolus would
go in order to win the assurance that he will not ever be flogged again. The
fact that Pseudolus decides to go through with this bet suggests that Simo
does flog him occasionally if not very often. This suggests to us that the
relationship between a master in his slave is that of violence. Of course,
there is a completely different interpretation of the situation. Simo may only
have said that he would do all those nasty things to Peusdulos because his
friend was present and that is what is expected of him from his society that he
should be able to control his slaves behaviour. He might only want to make it
clear in front of others that he can control his slave. One can deduce this
because of the kindness Simo bestows on Pseudolus. Simo gives him the money
even though he does not have to do so.
The relationship between Simo and his son is quite
good at portraying the difference between the different age groups. Simo
resents his Calordus for doing things similar to that which he had done at his
age. What is interesting is that Simo does not want Calordus to buy Peunomenon,
but according to Simo’s friend, Callipho, he has done the same sort of thing
when he was Calordus’s age. We are never given a reason why Simo does on want
his son to be the girl. The fact remains that Simo is depicted as being more
stern and serious while Calordus is depicted as being irresponsible and without
any idea about how horrible life could be. The fact that Simo once was as
Calordus is now may indicate to us that Calordus might one day end up being
just like his father. Both Simo and Calordus are quite stupid: Calolrdus tells
Ballio that he will give him the money, but Calordus clearly has no idea how he
will do this. He asks his slave to lend him money, but he never considers
asking his friend Charinus for money. This is very odd seeing as Charinus has
some money and he seems quite eager to lend it out to Pseudolus and therefore
Calordus as well. We can see Simo’s stupidity in the scene where he mocks
Harpax along with Ballio. Simo’s stupidity is not as clear as Calordus’s. We
can of course assume that because of the fact that he has lived longer than
Calordus and therefore would be worldly wise. Both Simo and Calordus have a
friend who has a completely different personality than they themselves have.
Calordus’s friend is responsible whereas Calordus has no sense of
responsibility and Simo is depicted as being rather grumpy and stubborn. While
his friend on the other hand seems to be kind and understanding. This shows us
that there does not necessarily have to be a set stereotype for a specific
class group or occupation. There can be stereotypes. The play, for example,
also has a number of different stereotypes of slaves. This difference in the
personality between these characters and their friends could also possibly
generate humor.
Although the Pseudolus play likely was intended to be
nothing, but humorous it still does highlight a very important part of Roman
and Greek culture. It also teaches us ancient texts are not as farfetched nor
as primitive as we might think. They are every bit as complex as any work of
literature that has been produced in modern times.
Reference List
Konstan, D. 1983. “Roman
Comedy” London: University Press
Beacham, R. “Plautus”
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