Female Speech Patterns in Latin Comedy

Female Speech in Latin Comedy
I INTRODUCTION
Evidence has been accumulating from many languages for the existence
of distinctive forms of female speech. A consistently observed
characteristic of women is that they are more likely than men of the same
social class and age to favour usages which belong to an accepted
standard or are of high prestige.1 Women seem to be more conservative
than men.2 They are also widely believed to be more given to polite
linguistic forms.3 It has, for example, been suggested that men use plain
imperatives more often than women; women favour modifiers to soften
the impact of an order.4 Numerous other female traits have been found in
different languages.3 In English certain intonation patterns are said to be
typical of women.6 Other pronunciation differences have been noted in
various languages, such as the omission or substitution by one sex of a
sound used by the other sex.7 Women have also been shown to differ
from men in their use of such words as particles, personal pronouns, titles
and kinship terms.8
Attempts to describe women's speech may be undermined by a failure
to distinguish between objectively observed characteristics, and popular
beliefs about the way women speak. In Latin most of the evidence for
female speech comes from the pen of men writing female parts in drama;
it is likely that to some extent they composed their speeches according to
popular stereotypes of female behaviour rather than from objective
observations. Any discussion of female speech in a dead language is
bound to be inadequate (note the reservations stated by Bain, pp. 24f.).
It is important to distinguish not only between what women are
believed to say and what they do say, but also between what they are
supposed to say and what they do say. Prescriptive rules are often laid
See P. Trudgill, 'Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban British English
of Norwich', in Barrie Thorne and Nancy Henley, Language and Sex: Difference and
Dominance (Rowley, Mass. 1975), 89; id. Sociolinguistics, an Introduction (Harm-
ondsworth 1974), 90 ff.; R A . Hudson, Sociolinguistics (Cambridge 1980), 120 f.
2
Trudgill, Sociolinguistics, loc. cit.
3
Robin Lakoff, Language and Woman's Place (New York 1975), 18, 52 f., 64 ff.;
Thorne and Henley, 'Difference and dominance: an overview of language, gender and
society', in Thorne and Henley (cited above, n. 1), 17 f.; see also Ruth M. Brend, 'Male-
female intonation patterns in American English', in Thorne and Henley, 85.
See Faye Crosby and Linda Nyquist, 'The female register: an empirical study of
Lakoffs hypotheses', Lang. Soc. 6 (1977), 314 f.
' See Ann Bodine, 'Sex differentiation in language', in Thorne and Henley, 134 f. for a
summary.
° See Brend, in Thome and Henley, 84 ff.
7
See Bodine, in Thorne and Henley, 133, 137.
8
See the summary by Bodine, in Thorne and Henley, 134 f. For some alleged female
words in English, see Lakoff (cited above, n. 3), 12.
43
44 /. N. Adams
down for females: it is 'unladylike' for a woman to say this or that.
Prescriptive rules are attested for Latin, but they are of limited value in
determining how females really spoke. For every individual or group
which is subservient to such a rule, there is another which is either
unaware of or indifferent to it.
Various factors, such as context, the age and social class ofthe speaker
and addressee, and the sex of the addressee, may interact with the sex of
the speaker in determining a person's choice of language.9 It is often
difficult to isolate the main determinant of a linguistic form chosen by a
female on a particular occasion. We shall see below the interaction of
context and sex in some female speeches in comedy.
An important distinction elaborated by Bodine10 is that between' sex-
exclusive' and 'sex-preferential' differentiation. It is rare for a linguistic
form to be confined to male or female speech; often a form will be
employed by both sexes, but more frequently by one sex or the other.
Nevertheless a few sex-exclusive usages, motivated by religious taboos,
are attested in Latin.
LATIN: SOME GENERAL REMARKS
A good deal of the testimonia concerning female speech in Greek and
Latin has been collected in a useful article by Michael E. Gilleland.111
begin with some general remarks about female speech in Latin, and
about prescriptive rules and popular stereotypes. I shall then move on to
the evidence provided by comedy.
The tendency for women to favour prestige or conservative forms of a
language is confirmed for Latin by a remark of Crassus' in Cicero's De
Oratore (3.45). Women, he says, 'facilius... incorruptam antiquitatem
conseruant', and he adds that the speech of his mother-in-law Laelia is
reminiscent of Plautus or Naevius: 'earn sic audio, ut Plautum mihi aut
Naeuium uidear audire, sono ipso uocis ita recto et simplici est, ut nihil
ostentationis aut imitationis adferre uideatur' (cf. Brut. 211, and for
Greek, Bain, pp. 28f.). To this passage can be added Juv. 6. 449ff. The
woman who reads grammar books, always observes correct usage, is an
antiquana, and who corrects those who make grammatical errors, is not
unlike the American middle-class wife who is critical of her husband's
speech.12 Juvenal ends the section with a plea that husbands may be
allowed to make slips of syntax: 456 'soloecismum liceat fecisse marito'.
He is not talking in general terms of a female taste for correctness, but is
castigating a particular female type, the educated bore. But the picture
may be partly based on observation of the behaviour of upper-class
women.
There are three pieces of evidence, one in Ovid and two in Jerome, for
a female peculiarity of pronunciation. According to Ovid, there was a
9
See Thome and Henley, in Thome and Henley, 12 f.
10
In Thome and Henley, 131.
n
'Female speech in Greek and Latin', AJP 101 (1980), 180 ff.
12
See N. Dittmar, Sociolinguistics, a critical survey oftheory and application, translated
by P. Sand et al. (London 1976), 237.
Female Speech in Latin Comedy 45
certain charm in a woman's truncating of words by leaving out a 'letter'
and speaking with a lisp: Ars 3. 293 if. 'quid, cum legitima fraudatur
littera uoce / blaesaque fit iusso lingua coacta sono? / in uitio decor est'.
This passage is remarkably similar to those in Jerome, who is speaking of
an affectation of fashionable matronae. At Epist. 107. 4. 6 he warns
against a girl's learning to use dimidiata uerba, truncated words, in the
foolish style of female endearments: 'unde et tibi est prouidendum, ne
ineptis blanditiis feminarum dimidiata dicere filiam uerba consuescas'.
This manner of speaking, whatever it was, was a characteristic of
blanditiae; so in Ovid the truncating of words is presented as an aspect of
female charm. In the second passage Jerome gives some phonetic
details, though they are not particularly revealing: Epist. 22. 29. 6 'non
delumbem matronarum saliuam delicata secteris, quae nunc strictis
dentibus, nunc labiis dissolutis balbutientem linguam in dimidiata uerba
moderantur rusticum putantes omne, quod nascitur'. Matronae utter
dimidiata uerba in a stammering manner, now with their teeth
constricted,*3 now with their lips relaxed.'4 Words do not reach full term;
their second half is obscure because of some sort of constricted
pronunciation. Elsewhere dimidiata uerba is used of the imperfectly
formed words of children (Min. Fel. Oct. 2.1), and it is possible that the
affected style of female pronunciation was akin to babytalk. A similar
type of indistinct pronunciation seems to be alluded to at Apul. Met. 5.
18: 'tertiata uerba semihianti uoce substrepens sic ad illas ait...' (of
Psyche). Her mouth is hardly open, and the words are cut by a third.
Brandt (on Ovid Ars 3. 293)15 draws attention to Quint. 11.3. 52, on
excessive speed of delivery causing a lack of distinctiveness and the loss
by words of part of their sound: 'nee uolubilitate nimia confundenda quae
dicimus, qua et distinctio perit et adfectus et nonnumquam etiam uerba
aliqua sui parte fraudantur'. One of the the stereotypes of female speech
is that women speak too fast; for the commonplace in Latin, see Juv. 6.
440 ff. 'uerborum tanta cadit uis, / tot pariter pelues ac tintinnabula dicas
/ pulsari'.
With the above passages should be compared Sen. Contr. 1 praef. 8 (on
homosexual speech): 'ad muliebres blanditias extenuare uocem'.
Homosexuals were thought to speak like women (see p. 53).
Attempts were made to impose restrictions on women's use and
hearing of obscenities. A decent freeborn lady should not be exposed to
such words.16 Even the inoffensive v/ordscortum is treated by a speaker
at Ter. Heaut. 1041 f. as unsuitable for use in the presence of a woman.
There were no doubt many Roman ladies at all periods who were
intolerant of obscenity. But prescriptive rules, we have suggested, tell us
13
Cf. Jerome Epist. 20. 5. 1: 'sicuti nos in lingua Latina habemus et interiectiones
quasdam, ut in exultando dicamus "ua" et in admirando "papae" et in dolendo "heu" et,
quando silentium uolumus imperare, strictis dentibus spiritum coartamus et cogimus in
sonandum "st" ...'.
14
Dissolutus = laxus (cf. Pelagon. 409).
15
P. Brandt, P. Ovidi Nasonis De Arte Amatoria Libri Tres (Leipzig 1902).
16
See J.N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (London 1982), 217.
46 /. N. Adams
little about the practice of the persons to whom they are applied. A
comparison of Mart 3. 68 and 3. 86 shows that sophisticated Roman
women in Martial's day would not have been expected to treat
obscenities as taboo words.17 And moralistic vetoes did not cover all
circumstances. The use of obscenities was expected of women in the
private amatory language (see Ovid Ars 3. 796, Plaut. fr. 68 Lindsay).
And on certain ritual occasions women uttered obscenities (see Ovid
Fast. 3.675 f.).18 Moreover language which is regarded as unacceptable
in a woman of status might be considered normal in a prostitute (see Juv.
11. 172 f., Sacerdos, GL 6. 461).19
An observation by Varro on sexual vocabulary is more revealing
because it is not prescriptive: 'nam et nostrae mulieres, maxime nutrices,
naturam qua feminae sunt, in uirginibus appellant porcum' (Rust. 2. 4.
10). Women, particularly nurses, usedporcus of the pudenda of girls. All
languages have a register appropriate to the nursery, and this may be
heard mainly from the mouths of women. Thus,for example, at Plaut.
Aul. 153 ('heia, hoc face quod te iubet soror') a sister addressing her
brother employs the sort of language that a woman might have uttered to
a child. The use of the third person instead of the first may be a universal
characteristic of women speaking to small children. Cf.Asin. 505:'anita
tu es animata ut qui expers matris imperio sies', where a mother uses
matris of herself instead of a first-person pronoun when addressing her
daughter. At CIL 6. 15471 ('mamma fegit Claudiae Hyciae Iunone')
mamma fegit looks like an authentic phrase of the nursery ('mummy
made it'). In a tomb inscription of this type one might have expected the
name of the mother in juxtaposition with mater or mamma (cf. CIL 9.
2302). Cf. CIL 6.25808 = CE 1570 'reliquisti mammam tuam [= me]
gementem . . . destituisti, uitilla mea, miseram mammam tuam'.
I move on to some further stereotyped views of the way in which
women spoke. These may not always accurately reflect reality, but they
are worth mentioning and are not necessarily unconnected with genuine
usage.
According to a speaker in Plautus, women are bold in their use of
oaths:Amph. 836 'ueradico, sed nequiquam, quoniamnonuis credere. /
AM. mulier es, audacter iuras' (cf. 831 f., where there is an oath by
Juno). This allegation is relevant to the high incidence of oaths put into
the mouths of women by Terence (see pp. 48ff.).
Women are universally regarded as loquacious: see Plaut. Aul. 124 ff.
'nam multum loquaces merito omnes habemur, / nee mutam profecto
repertam nullam esse / < aut> hodie dicunt mulierem < aut> ullo in
saeclo'. Donatus found 'female long-windedness' at Ter. Hec. 741:
'imitatur hie et senile et femineum tardiloquium'.
17
See Adams loc. cit.
18
See Adams, 5.
19
See Gilleland (note 11 above), 182. For the use of obscenities by prostitutes, see also
Adams (note 16 above), 120, and for Greek words in brothel-slang, see Adams, 216.
Even Roman women affected Greek words in the bedroom, if Juvenal (6. 184-99) and
Martial (10. 68) are to be believed.
There are various characterizations of female speech in Donatus'
commentary on Terence.20 His most common assertion is that endear-
ments are typical of women: e.g. Phorm. 1005: 'nam feminarum oratio,
etsi non blanditur, blanda est', Ad. 289: '"mea tu" blandimentum est,
sine quo non progreditur colloquium feminarum etmaxime trepidantium',
Eun. 656: '"mea" et "mea tu" et "amabo" et alia huiuscemodi
mulieribus apta sunt blandimenta', Ad. 291: 'proprium est mulierum,
cum loquuntur, aut aliis blandiri... aut se commiserari... nam haec
omnia muliebria sunt... enumerantur nullius momenti querelae', Andr.
685: 'anime mi: mollis oratio et feminea multis implicata blandimentis'
(cf.Andr. 7S8,Eun. 95,834,/fec. 585,824,4rf. 353). In some of these
passages the m/-form of address is mentioned (see below, pp. 68ff. and
cf. Andr. 788, Ad. 353, Hec. 824). Apuleius also refers to the
endearments by which women lead men on or testify to their affection:
Met. 10.21: 'cetera quis mulieres et alios inducunt aut suas testantur
affectationes'.
Another of Donatus' views is that women are prone to complaints and
self-pity (see Ad. 291, quoted above). Terence too held this view, to
judge by his use ofmiser/misera (see p. 73). Donatus was aware of this
Terentian usage (see Hec. 87: 'misera: muliebris interpositio TO
"misera"' [cf. Ad. 291]).
Twice Donatus states that threats of physical assault with the finger
nails are typical of women: Eun. 859: 'minae istae proprie feminarum
sunt et in se et in alios unguibus saeuientium' (cf. Eun. 740, where the
threat is to gouge out someone's eyes). This stereotype is to be related to
the commonplace that women use their nails in anger.21 There is some
truth in the observation as applied to Terence, but elsewhere in Latin
men make threats against the eyes of enemies (e.g. Plaut. Aul. 53).
COMEDY
Terence and to a lesser extent Plautus undoubtedly set out to
differentiate female speech from male. And it was not only in thefabula
palliata that women spoke in a distinctive way. Some of the fragments of
Titinius and Afranius (writers of togatae) contain female words typical
of Plautus and Terence (see pp. 52,76). Fronto tells us thatT. Quintius
Atta, another author of togatae, was 'elegant in female words': EpisL p.
62 Naber (= p. 57 van den Hout): 'nam praeter hos partim scriptorum
animaduertas particulatim elegantis, Nouium et Pomponium et id genus
in uerbis rusticanis et iocularibus ac ridiculariis, Attam in muliebribus,
Sisennam in lasciuiis, Lucilium in cuiusque artis ac negotii propriis'.
OATHS AND EXCLAMATIONS
The use of certain oaths in Latin comedy was determined by the sex of
These are collected by V. Reich, 'Sprachliche Charakteristik bei Terenz', WS 51

(1933) 91 ff.; cf. Gilleland, 181 n. 8.
See R.G.M. Nisbet and Margaret Hubbard, A Commentary on Horace: Odes Book 1
(Oxford 1970), 89.
48 /. N. Adams
the speaker. One may over-simplify and say that to swear by Hercules
(hercle, mehercule) was a practice of males,22 whereas to swear by
Castor (ecastor, mecastor) or Pollux (pol, edepol) tended to be a
practice of females.23 The sexual restriction of the various oaths must be
due to a religious taboo deriving originally from the nature of the cult of
Hercules (note Gell. 11.6.2 below) and of the Dioscuri at Rome.
The locus classicus on male and female oaths is Gellius 11.6 (cf. Don.
Ter. Andr. 486, Charis. GL 1.198.17 ff.), which I cite in full:
In ueteribus scriptis neque mulieres Romanae per Herculem
deiurant neque uiri per Castorem. sed cur illae non iurauerint
Herculem, non obscurum est, nam Herculaneo sacrificio
abstinent cur autem uiri Castorem iurantes non appellauerint, non
facile dictu est. nusquam igitur scriptum inuenire est apud idoneos
quidem scriptores aut 'mehercule' feminam dicere aut 'mecastor'
uirum; 'edepol' autem, quod iusiurandum per Pollucem est, et uiro
et feminae commune est sed M. Varro adseuerat antiquissimos
uiros neque per Castorem neque per Pollucem deiurare solitos, sed
id iusiurandum fuisse tantum feminarum ex initiis Eleusinis
acceptum; paulatim tamen inscitia antiquitatis uiros dicere
'edepol' coepisse factumque esse ita dicendi morem, sed
'mecastor' a uiro dici in nullo uetere scripto inueniri.
I shall return below to Gellius' citation of Varro to the effect that men
gradually began to use edepol (whereas mecastor continued to be an
exclusively female word).
The incidence of oaths in Terence is considerably higher in female
speech than in male.24
males females
pol 10 45
edepol 13 10
ecastor — 6
mecastor — 1
hercle 101 —
mehercle 2 —
Females use 62 oaths in a total of about 670 lines, an incidence of one
There is a possible exception at Plaut. Cist. 52 (and E. Woytek, T. Maccius Plautus,

Persa, Einleitung, Text und Kommentar [Vienna 1982], 247 would introduce another
at Pers. 237 by re-assigning parts). Occasionally in later Latin the oath is put into the
mouths of women, as at Sen. Apoc. 3, where mehercules uttered by the goddess Clotho
may have been deliberately incongruous. Similarly mediusfidius, said to be a male oath
(see J.B. Hofmann, Lateinische Umgangssprache* [Heidelberg 1951], 30), is assigned
to the emancipated Quartilla at Petron. 17. 4, and perhaps to Circe at Petron. 129. 6.
The oath by Hercules is also uttered by females in Apuleius (Met. 5. 9,9. 16). Apuleius
elsewhere shows himself indifferent to the sex of his characters in his employment of
certain sex-exclusive usages: see below, p. 52 on pol, and n. 41 on heus. On the oath by
Hercules see also Gilleland, 182 n. 12.
The topic has been discussed by Frank W. Nicolson, 'The use of hercle (mehercule),
edepol (pol), ecastor (mecastor) by Plautus and Terence', HSCP 4 (1893), 99 ff., and
B.L. Ullman, 'By Castor and Pollux', CJT(1943-4), 87 ff.
A table can be found in Ullman, 88; I have made only minor alterations.
example per 10.8 lines. Males use 126 oaths in 5405 lines, an incidence
of one example per 42.9 lines.25 Ullman (p. 88), noting the high
incidence of oaths in female speech, asks: 'Does this mean that women
had been emancipated and hastened to assert their rights, or that they had
become more proficient in the art of swearing, or that the difference is
without significance?'. Women may have been regarded as more given to
exclamations andoaths(seePlaut.^m/»A. 836, cited above,p. 46).Butit
is also possible that Terence seized on one or two distinctively female
words and liberally sprinkled them throughout female speech (perhaps
exaggerating their incidence) to set it off from male. On this view female
speech in Terence would be marked for sexual characteristics, male
unmarked. The use of pol in particular as a marker of the speech of
women can be seen in various passages containing accumulations of
examples of the word, often in the presence of other female idioms (these
I list here without comment; details will be found below). At Andr. 770-
95 Mysis utters about 5 lines, which contain 4 examples oipol (770,
778,788,790), as well as au at 781, obsecro at 781 and the mi-form, of
address at 788. AtEun. 840-909 the 37 lines given to Thais and Pythias
have 4 examples ofpol (876, 879, 883, 903), along with examples of
edepol (867), obsecro (896, 899) and au (899). At Phorm. 784-819
Nausistrata speaks about 9 lines, containingpo/ at 787, 788 and 814,
and au and obsecro at 803. The short monologue of Sostrata at Hec.
274-80 h&spol twice in three lines (278, 280), and also an example of
edepol at 274. At Hec. 727-67 the 13 lines (approximately) spoken by
Bacchis have 3 instances of pol (728, 734, 756), and ecastor at 741.
Finally, in a short dialogue atAd. 288-98 Sostrata and Canthara usepol
twice (293,298) aadedepol once (289), as well as obsecro (288), the mi-
form of address (288), and the expression mea tu (289). Pol (or edepol)
sometimes comes at the beginning of a scene in which a woman is the first
speaker (Heaut. 381, 723, Eun. 1002, Hec. 58).
The distribution of the oaths in Plautus is as follows:26
males females
pol 159 84
edepol 338 26
ecastor — 99
mecastor — 19
hercle 638 1
mehercle 4 —
1139 229
Females use 229 oaths in 2620 lines, an incidence of one example per
11.4 lines. Males use 1139 oaths in 18,594 lines, an incidence of one
example per 16.3 lines.27 There is again a greater frequency of oaths in
female speech, but the distinction between male and female practice is
not as marked in Plautus as in Terence.
The line-counts are mine; I do not claim absolute accuracy for them.
See Ullman (note 23 above), 88.
Again the line-counts are mine.
50 /. N. Adams
ecastor, mecastor
These oaths belonged exclusively to women in Old Latin, as Gellius
observed. Of the 118 examples of the pair in Plautus, all can be regarded
as used by women.28 But they are far more common in female speech in
Plautus than they are in that of Terence. In Terence there is one example
of (ede)pol per 12.2 lines of female speech (for the purposes of
comparison I lump togetherpo/ andedepol here, though they must in due
course be separated), compared with only one example of(m)ecastor per
95.7 lines. In Plautus, however, females use {ede)pol once every 23.8
lines, but (m)ecastor once every 22.2 lines. In Plautus (m)ecastor
provides some 51.5% of the oaths put into the mouths of women,
whereas in Terence it provides only 11.3%.29 The decline in (m)ecastor
from Plautus to Terence may reflect a development in the language of the
time. Ullman(p. 88)pointsoutthat5 examples of the oath in Terence are
in the Hecyra, Terence's second play (if one assumes that the play was
not revised later). It is scarcely used after that. In comic fragments
ecastor occurs at Titin. 59, 157, Laber. 86, mecastor at Titin. 74.
Neither is found in tragic fragments. The combination at Titin. 59: 'eu
ecastor, si sitis moratae ambae ibus pro ut ego moribus' is Plautine (Mil.
1066, Poen. 283, Stich. 243), but not Terentian. The combining of eu
with edepol and hercle as well as ecastor in Plautus30 suggests that eu
(eu) was not a learned borrowing.
pol, edepol
Pol and edepol must be treated separately: the use of the two forms was
not uniform. Pol was a female oath, particularly as used by Terence.
There are 45 examples of the word in female speech in Terence, and 10
in male speech.31 Women use pol on average once every 14.9 lines,
whereas men use it once every 540.5 lines. I have noted earlier the
tendency for pol to occur in clusters in the mouths of females. Seven of
the 10 examples in male speech are uttered by senes.32 There is possibly
a significance in this distribution, but the figures do not permit
certainty.33 In Plautus pol is not disproportionately common in the
mouths of old men.34
1
See Nicolson (note 23 above), 101 on the text sXAsin. 899, 930.
'See further Nicolson, 101 f., Ullman, 88.
'See G. Lodge, Lexicon Plautinum (Leipzig 1924-33), 1.545 for examples; cf.
Hofmann, Lateinische Umgangssprache, 26 f.
P. McGlynn, Lexicon Terentianum (London-Glasgow 1963-67), 2. 28 mistakenly
includes examples put into the mouth of the ancilla Dorias in the Eunuch in a list of
instances spoken by men. Substantially correct statistics can be found in Nicolson and
Ullman, though Nicolson does not make enough of the distinction between pol and
edepol.
Andr. 808, 866, Phorm. 574, Hec. 543, 747, 772, Ad. 450.
Old men are given some distinctive linguistic traits by Terence: see R. Maltby,
'Linguistic characterization of old men in Terence', CP 74 (1979), 136 ff.
Statistics can be found in Nicolson. »
In Plautus men usej?o/159 times in 18,594 lines, an incidence of one
example per 116.9 lines. Women use the word 84 times in 2620 lines, an
incidence of one example per 31.2 lines. Pol had a feminine character,
but there is not such a sharp contrast between male and female speech as
there is in Terence.
The contrast between Plautus and Terence is more marked in their use
of edepol. The form is infrequent in Terence, but preferred by Plautus to
pol.3S In Terence men are given 13 examples of edepol, women 10. The
incidence of the word in female speech is one example per 67 lines, that
in male speech one per 415.8 lines. The figures are of little value, but it is
clear enough that edepol in the eyes of Terence also had something of a
feminine character.
Women in Plautus use edepol 26 times, or once every 100.8 lines,
while men have it 338 times, or once every 55 lines. The word
predominates in male speech in the proportion of 1.8:1. Indeed edepol
has an important role as a male oath in Plautus. It is outnumbered by
638:338 by hercle (a proportion of 1.9:1), whereas in Terence edepol in
male speech is outnumbered by 101:13 (1.8:1).Edepol provides 29.7%
of male oaths in Plautus (hercle 56%), but only 10.3% in Terence
(hercle 80.2%). One must attempt some explanation of the curious fact
that edepol is predominantly a male usage in Plautus, but a female in
Terence.
Varro, cited by Gellius (see above), claimed that men gradually began
to use edepol 'because of their ignorance of ancient practice' (inscitia
antiquitatis). But why should the word still have had a female character
in Terence, if men were already using it freely in Plautus' day? One
possibility is that Terence's practice is artificial. Plautus, we have seen,
uses the form edepol more often thanpol, whereas Terence haspol more
frequently. It is likely therefore that edepol was obsolescent by the time
of Terence. If so, his manner of using it might have been determined not
by current usage, but by his own, or someone else's, historical
deductions. A person of Terence's time, aware that pol was a female
usage, and aware too that it was related to edepol, might have assumed
that the now obsolescent edepol ought, if it was to be used 'correctly', to
be put mainly into the mouths of women. But it does not seem likely that
Terence would have used an obsolescent word merely because it was
found in earlier comedy. As a variation on this view I am attracted by the
possibility that edepol was indeed obsolescent by the time of Terence,36
and used, if at all, mainly by women, in keeping with their linguistic
conservatism. The only other possible explanation is that Plautus and
Terence interpreted much the same linguistic data differently. During a
transitional period in which edepol, while retaining something of a
female character, had penetrated male speech, a careful linguistic
35
By 364:243, according to Ullman's statistics.
36
Of the 13 instances ofedepol spoken by men in Terence, 7 are in the Hecyra (83, 88,
499,623,732,786, 799), a play in which women use the word 4 times (160,274,520,
568). Half the examples in Terence are in this one (early) play. On another unusual
feature of the Hecyra, see above, p. 50 (on (m)ecastor).
52 /. N. Adams
observer like Terence might have noticed that it was still slightly more of
a woman's word than a man's. The less fastidious Plautus, having heard
the word often enough in the mouths of men, might have been indifferent
to its relative incidence in the speech of the two sexes.
However one explains the difference in this respect between Plautus
and Terence, Varro's observation must be substantially correct. Men
may have started to use edepol as its connexion v/ithPollux ceased to be
felt. Pol, with its lack of a prefix, probably continued to be associated
with the proper name.
Pol andedepol seem to have become obsolete after the early Republic.
By the late Republic and early Empire they are absent from both
colloquial and literary genres, with the exception of two examples of pol
in Horace's Epistles (1.7. 92, 2. 2. 138), neither of them in female
speech (see below on Cic. De Oral. 2. 277). The two examples in
Apuleius (Met. 1.8,1.24), both in male speech,37 were probably used as
archaisms. Gellius' remark: '"edepol" . . . et uiro et feminae commune
est' (11.6.4) was not offered as a description of contemporary practice,
but relates to early Latin. Seneca never uses the word in the tragedies:
here is an indication of the change that the language had undergone.
In comic fragments (where there are 13 examples of edepol and 11 of
pol), the sex of the speaker is not always evident from the context, but the
following examples were spoken by women: Titin. 109-110: 'Paulamea,
amabo, pol tuam ad laudem addito "praefiscini"', Turpil. 37: 'ego
edepol docta dico: quae mulier uolet / sibi suum amicum esse
indulgentem et diutinum', Caecil. 164: 'soletne mulier decimo mense
parere? — pol non quoque, / etiam septimo atque octauo', Afran. 103:
'au, mi homo! immo edepol uos supremum meum concelebretis diem'. In
the first and last of these passages there are accumulations of female
expressions identical to those in Terence. Another noteworthy passage
is Titin. I l l ('an quia "pol edepol" fabulare, "edi medi" meministi')38
on which we have the testimony of Charisius that the words were
ascribed to an effeminate youth, with the implication that he spoke in the
manner of a woman: GL 1.198.17 ff. ' . . . quae iuratio propria uirorum
est, ut feminarum edepol ecastor eiuno. denique Titinius in Setina,
molliculum adulescentulum effeminate loquentem cum reprehendere
magis uellet,...'. One thinks of the joke reported at Cic. De Orat. 2.
277: 'ut, cum. Q. Opimius consularis, qui adulescentulus male audisset,
festiuo homini Egilio, qui uideretur mollior nee esset, dixisset, "quid tu,
Egilia mea? quando ad me uenis cum tua colu et lana?". "non pol" inquit
" audeo, nam me ad famosas uetuit mater accedere'''. Egilius, accused of
being effeminate (note the feminine Egilia, and also mea, which might
have been especially appropriate addressed to a woman: see p. 72),
See above, n. 22, on Apuleius' indifference to the sex of the speaker in his use ofthe oath
by Hercules.
Edi medi was apparently a male oath: see A. Walde and J.B. Hofmann, Lateinisches
etymologisches Wbrterbuch3 (Heidelberg 1938-54), 1. 389 (cf. mediusjidius, above,
n. 22).
humorously uses a female word in his reply (pol).39 Characterization by
the attributing of a sexually restricted word to a member of the wrong sex
is not without parallel in comedy. Heus, usually a male word,40 is put into
the mouth of a woman at Ter. Eun. 594: 'uenit una, "heus tu" inquit
"Dore, cape hoc flabellum'".41 Chaerea, playing the part of a eunuch, is
addressed imperiously by an ancilla. Heus was inappropriate in the
mouth of a member of the weaker sex, but here the ancilla is addressing
someone of no distinct sex. The addressee is so sexually inferior that she
can adopt a masculine role towards him. There are two apparent
examples of heus in Plautus spoken by women (Cas. 165-6, Rud. 413).
In neither passage is it likely that Plautus was attempting a form of
characterization.42
Categorizations of the speech of homosexuals as 'effeminate' contain
an indirect recognition that there exists a distinctive female manner of
speech. Indirect evidence of this type should not be passed over in a
discussion of female speech in a dead language (cf. Bain, p. 29). The
passage of Titinius is particularly interesting because Titinius apparently
made an attempt to stigmatize the speech of an effeminate by the
vocabulary that he gave him, or had another character attribute to him.
There is a good deal of comment in ancient writers on the 'soft' or
'broken' intonation of homosexuals (e.g. Anon. Physiogn. 78, p. I l l
Andre: 'qui acutam et mollem habent uocem, effeminati sunt'),43 but
little attempt to imitate or characterize their vocabulary (but note the
joke in Cicero, above). There is perhaps such an attempt at Apul. Met 8.
26, where the homosexual priests use the endearmentpalumbulus of
themselves. That palumbulus was considered by Apuleius to be a
woman's endearment is suggested by Met. 10.22, where a woman uses it
(along with passer) during intercourse. The priests also use two other
diminutives,pulchellus andpullulus (another endearment), which were
no doubt intended to be feminine in tone. Homosexuals may have used
pullus of their passive lovers: see Paul. Fest. p. 284: 'antiqui autem
puerum, quem quis amabat, pullum eius dicebant' (cf. felespullaria at
Auson. Epigr. 77. 5, p. 341 P.).44 The use of licet (= 'may F) by an
effeminate soldier at Phaedr. app. 10. 20 asking to fight the enemy must
The dramatic date of theUe Oratore was before the time of Cicero's literary career (91
B.C.); hence this passage does not establish thatpol still had a feminine tone by the late
Republic.
See TLL 6. 3. 2675. 9; P. Richter, 'De usuparticularum exclamatiuarum apud priscos
scriptores latinos', p. 576, in W. Studemund,Studien aufdem Gebietedesarchaischen
Lateins 1 (Berlin 1873); Hofmann, Lateinische Umgangssprache, 16.
Apuleius, in keeping with his disregard for such niceties, assigns heus to women at Met.
1. 13, 1. 22, 2. 18, 8. 10. But perhaps the use of the word had changed.
For another possible case of a male word assigned with no apparent motive to a woman
by Plautus, see above, n. 22 (cf. Nicolson, 100).
Cf. the rich collection of passages in H. Herter, 'Effeminatus', RAC 4.636. E.
Courtney, A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal (London 1980), 142 on Juv. 2.111
cites also Tac. Ann. 14. 20. 5, Plin. Epist. 2. 14. 12.
Onpullarius see H. Ronsch, Semasiologische Beitrage zum lateinischen Wbrterbuch
(Leipzig 1887-9), 1. 60.
54 /. N. Adams
be meant to catch (in an inappropriate situation) the deferential tone
which women are believed to favour.
eiuno
The oath eiuno, which Charisius, GL 1. 198. 17 f., cited above, p. 52,
describes as proper to women, is not otherwise attested.45 But women
would have sworn by their Iuno, as men swore by their genius: note
Petron. 25. 4 (Quartilla loq.): 'Iunonem meam iratam habeam, si
umquam...' (contrast the male expression at 74.14: 'ita genium meum
propitium habeam . . . ' ) .
SOME EXCLAMATIONS
au
A female exclamation: see Don. Ter. Eun. 899: 'au interiectio est
perturbatae mulieris' (cf. Don. Ter. Andr. 751, Eun. 680).46 There are
perhaps ten examples in Terence,47 all spoken by women. Six are in the
combination au obsecro,4* obviously a female phrase (on obsecro, see
below,p. 56). Hence at Afran. 97 the punctuation 'au quid me censes? —
obsecro, non audisti?', adopted by Ribbeck in the first edition of his
comic fragments49 is unsatisfactory (better 'au, quid me censes, obsecro?';
for the separation, see Ter. Eun. 899). The duplication auau atTer.Ad.
336 ('au au, mi homo') has a parallel at Petron. 67. 13 (uttered by
Fortunata). For the juxtaposition of au with mi homo, see also Afran.
103: 'au, mi homo! immo edepol uos supremum meum concelebretis
diem'. Au occurs in Plautus at Stick. 259, in the mouth of a woman.50
There is an example of aw used by a man at CIL 8.152 = CE 516.4:
'au miseram Carthago mihi eripuit sociam', but this is probably a mistake
for a miseram.
ei
Another distinction between male and female speech in comedy is to be
seen in the use of ei and some of its synonyms. In this case male speech
has a positive characteristic, whereas female usage has to be defined
negatively. In Plautus ei is used 3 3 times, always by men; uae is used 37
times, 8 times by women.51 Vae was not a female word, but ei was
45
The formation looks authentic: cf. ecastor,edepol, equirine (Paul. Fest. p. 7 \),edi, and
Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Wdrterbuch 1. 389.
"A discussion can be found in Richter (cited above, n. 40), 415 ff. and Hofmann,
Lateinische Umgangssprache, 14.
47
Textual problems are discussed by Richter.
4S
Andr. l%\,Heaut. 1015, Eun. 656, 899, Phorm. 754,803.
O. Ribbeck, Comicorum LatinorumpraeterPlautum et Terentium Reliquiae (Leipzig
1855). Ribbeck later corrected the punctuation: see Comicorum Romanorum praeter
Plautum et Syri quae feruntur Sententias Fragmentar (Leipzig 1898).
50
On the text at Cure. 512, see Richter (note 40 above), 418.
5l
Amph. 741, 1057, 1080, Cas. 634, Merc. 681, 708, Mil. 1078, Rud 375.
exclusively male, and women had to use uae (or (e)heu: see below) to
express the same emotion. While the syntagm ei misero mihi occurs 6
times and ei miserae mihi never, uae miserae mihi is used 3 times
(Amph. 1057, Merc. 681, 708), compared with 2 examples of uae
misero mihi. Men had a choice, but women did not.
Similarly in Terence all 22 examples of ei are in the mouths of men,
but 3 of the 9 instances of uae are uttered by women (Andr. 143, Eun.
709, Ad. 327). Vae miserae mihi is found at Andr. 743 and Ad. 327,
contrasting with ei misero mihi aXHeaut. 234. Men also use uae misero
mihi in Terence (6 times).52
Another synonym of ei and uae was heu (eheu). Heu miserae mihi
occurs twice in Plautus (Merc. 701,770), heu misero mihi once (Merc.
661). The dative construction does not occur in Terence, but heu me
miseram is found atHec. 271 and eheu me miseram dXHec. 74 (cf. heu
me miseram at Enn. Scaen. frg. 202); contrast heu me miserum at Andr.
646. There are 2 instances of heu me miserum in Plautus (Aul. 721,
Merc. 624).
To summarize: ei + miser is exclusive to men in Plautus and Terence
(7 times), whereas uae and (e)heu + miser predominate in male speech
by 22:9 (less than the predominance expected on an even distribution).
Ei seems to be used by a female at Afran. 394 (ei miserae mihi), if the
text is not corrupt.53 By the late Republic it must have fallen out of use:
by then it is almost always found in poetry. When it degenerated into a
poeticism, it lost its exclusively male character (see e.g. Prop. 1. 3. 38,
Ovid, Her. 2. 106, Sen. HercOet. 1784 ei miserae mihi).
2 POLITE MODIFIERS
It was mentioned earlier that women reputedly favour polite forms of a
language. One of the clearest manifestations of female Latinity in
comedy is found in the use of what I term 'polite modifiers'. Certain verbs
were used absolutely in Latin to tone down or modify an imperative or
question. Not only are such modifiers considerably more common in
female speech than in male in comedy, but the modifier chosen varied
with the sex of the speaker. In Terence female speech is more sharply
distinguished in this respect from male than it is in Plautus. Nevertheless
there are some subtle correspondences between Terence and Plautus
which suggest that both were imitating the real language. By the late
Republic the language had changed. After describing Plautine and
Terentian practice, I append some information about later develop-
ments, which are not completely irrelevant to comedy.
Obsecro
In Plautus there axe 11 absolute examples of obsecro (with neither an
object such as te nor a dependent verbal construction) accompanying a
5
For uae ascribed to a female in later Latin, see e.g. Catull. 64. 196 (cf. ps.-Acron on
Hor.Serm. 1. 2. 129:'"ue"interiectiositfeminaetimentisacperturbatae').Butthereis
no tendency for itto be restricted to females (see e.g. Catull. 8. 15,Ovidv4m. 3.6. 101).
53
See Richter, 469.
56 /. N. Adams
question, of which 45 are spoken by females (58.4% of all cases). Given
that only about 12.4% of lines in Plautus are uttered by females, it is
obvious that the incidence of the usage in female speech is high. To these
examples could be added examples of obsecro te with questions at Cist
54 and Rud. 342, both in the mouths of women. Of the total of 47
examples in female speech, 22 are addressed to other women. This
incidence seems high but I do not have figures for the proportion of
female lines addressed to women. Men display no particular tendency to
use obsecro (+ question) in the presence of women (3 examples of 32 are
addressed to women).
As a modifier of imperatives obsecro also had a female character, but
not as strikingly so. It occurs 87 times in Plautus (I include in this figure
examples both of obsecro and obsecro te), 25 times in the speech of
women (a proportion of 28.7%). The proportion is higher than expected.
If one counts only those examples oiobsecro without te, women utter 24
of the 69 instances, a proportion of 34.8%. Therefore only one of the 18
examples of obsecro te + imperative is spoken by a woman (= 5.6%).
This idiom, in which the imperative usually (14 times in male speech)
comes after obsecro te, could not have been considered normal in the
mouths of females by Plautus. Again there seems to be a tendency for
women to use obsecro in the presence of other women (11 times out of
25).
Overall 72 of the 166 absolute examples ofobsecro (te) in Plautus are
spoken by women, a proportion of 43.4%. Women use the idiom once
every 36.4 lines, but men only once every 197.8 lines. The feminine
quality of the usage is made clear by the following contrasting statistic.
Of the 19 examples of obsecro with an uf-clause in Plautus, only 3 are
given to women. The proportion (15.8%) is roughly that expected.
In male speech the absolute use of obsecro (te) is not peculiar to any
character-type (but see below on Terence).
The incidence of obsecro in female speech in Terence is even higher.
Terence uses obsecro (without te) 31 times in combination with a direct
question. 21 of these examples are in the speech of women (a proportion
of 67.7%). Only about 11% of lines in Terence are given to women.
Furthermore 2 of the 3 examples of obsecro te + question are also
spoken by women. The 23 female instances of obsecro (te) with a
question (out of a total of 34 instances) represent a proportion of 67.6%.
In male speech 9 of the 10 examples of the absolute use ofobsecro with
a question are assigned to adulescentes (in four cases Aeschinus in the
Adelphoe).S4 If obsecro had a tone of coaxing politeness, it is not difficult
to see why Terence might have regarded it as appropriate only to
adulescentes among males. In their role as hopeful lovers adulescentes
often seek to curry favour with masterful slaves and others. Old men and
slaves are rarely coaxing or polite. Obsecro is used by slaves in Terence
only at Andr. 785, 861 (+ imperative).
622, 655, 661, 697; he also uses obsecro + imperative at 679; cf. Heaut 267, 684,
Eun. 356, Phorm. 197,209.
Obsecro (without te) occurs 25 times with an imperative in Terence,
12 times in the speech of women (48% of cases). 9 of the other 13
examples are uttered by adulescentes.*5
A feature of Terence's use of obsecro is that the word is often
accompanied by other markers of female speech. The combination au
obsecro occurs 6 times (see above, p. 54, n. 48). Obsecro is used with the
m/-formof address at Andr. 721, Eun. 656, 756, Hec. 318,602,825,
Ad. 288. Twice it is the female expression mi homo (Andr. 721, Eun.
756) which accompanies the verb, and at Eun. 656 obsecro is also
juxtaposed with au. Of particular note is Hec. 825 ('"mi Pamphile"
inquam "amabo, / quid exanimatu's obsecro?'"), where obsecro is
reinforced by amabo (on which see below, p. 61). Ihaveearliernoted(on
pol) that Terence tended to scatter accumulations of female usages
throughout female speech.
As in Plautus, the female character of obsecro + question in Terence
is slightly more marked than that of obsecro + imperative, but Terence
gives to women a higher proportion of cases of obsecro (unaccompanied
by te) with both types of construction (overall 58.9%) than does Plautus.
In male speech 18 of the 23 examples of obsecro + question or
imperative are spoken by adulescentes, a remarkable proportion of
78.2% of the male examples.
Terence, like Plautus, largely restricts obsecro te + imperative to
males.56 Here is confirmation that the use of obsecro in comedy was
influenced by the patterns of real speech. It is not likely that Terence,
setting out artificially to imitate a Plautine mannerism, would have
observed the difference of distribution between obsecro + imperative,
and obsecro te + imperative. The latter must have had a more imperious
tone.
In total women in Terence use obsecro (te) absolutely 36 times (on
average once every 18.6 lines), men 27 times (once every 200.2 lines).
In Terence the sex of the addressee played no part in prompting a
speaker to choose obsecro. The incidence of female addressees is not
unexpectedly high. All 13 instances of obsecro + imperative used by
men, for example, are addressed to other men.
The absolute use of obsecro is found a few times in early comic and
tragic fragments, but the sex of the speaker is not always clear. At Afran.
97 ('au, quid me censes, obsecro? /non audisti?') and Accius 299 ('quid
istuc, gnata unica, est, Demonassa, obsecro / quod me [hac uoce]
expetens timidam e tecto excies?') the speakers are obviously women (on
au obsecro see above). At Turpil. 171 ('eho die mihi, an oblita,obsecro,
es eius crebras mansiones / ad amicam, sumpti largitatem?') the
addressee at least is female. But at Caecil. 90 and Turpil. 32 the speakers
are male.
I close with a few remarks on the tone of obsecro in comedy. The word
occurs in a variety of contexts, polite, pleading and urgent57 The polite
$5
Andr. 955, Heaut. 339, Eun. 362, 1049, Phorm. 473, 486, 553, Ad. 550, 679.
56
Andr. 351, Heaut. 302, Ad 281; cf. Ad. 325, where the speaker is a woman.
57
For some comments on its use, see Hofmann, Lateinische Umgangssprache, 130 f.
58 /. N. Adams
use is recognized in Donatus' comment at Ter. Eun. 685: 'bene aditum
"obsecro", ne "tace" ipsum uideretur iniuria'. At Plaut. True. 329-32
obsecro is dropped by a man in the repetition of an order, as he changes
from a polite to a peremptory tone. At Cas. 739 it is used in a degrading
appeal by a senex to a slave. A speaker at Rud. 867 makes an urgent
appeal for help, whereas at Cist 554 the appeal is for elucidation. At
True. 513-14 the use of obsecro is a mark of agitation, and at Cist. 54 of
anxiety.
Obsecro (originally ob...sacro) had its origin in the sacral language in
appeals to the gods (Fest. p. 206: 'ob uos sacro, in quibusdam
precationibus est, pro uos obsecro, ut sub uos placo, pro supplico'; cf.
Paul. Fest. p. 207: 'obsecrare est opem a sacris petere'). This would
suggest that it had a humble rather than a peremptory tone. It is still used
in appeals to the gods in comedy and elsewhere.58 But even in such
contexts it had a female character in Terence. Only at Eun. 1049 in the
passages of Terence cited is the speaker a man. In two of the other places
(Andr. 413,Ad. 487) females appeal to the goddess ofchildbirth, and the
context at Andr. 232 is similar. Plautus, on the other hand, preserves
various old religious formulae which are not restricted to women: note
Poen. 1387: 'per ego te tua genua obsecro', with its ancient word order
(cf. True. 827), and the expression di, obsecro uostram Jidem.59
Terence uses only the elliptical di uostram Jidem.60
On the later use of obsecro, see below.
Quaeso
While obsecro is spoken predominantly by women, quaeso, which is
also used absolutely with both questions and imperatives, is used
predominantly by males. With questions quaeso is used 42 times in
Plautus, 41 times by males. In conjunction with imperatives quaeso
occurs 69 times, only 4 times in the mouths of females. Only 4.5% of the
examples of quaeso used in these ways are assigned to women.61 The
figures for Terence are even more striking. There are 40 examples of
quaeso used with imperatives, in questions, or with implied imperatives
or questions,62 all spoken by men. In comic fragments (palliata, togata)
the absolute use of quaeso is common (Caecil. 158,267, Turpil. 6,50,
160, Titin. 93, Afran. 68, 95, 136), but it is usually not possible to
determine the sex of the speaker. Nowhere is the speaker definitely a
woman.
There was nothing inherently offensive in quaeso as used in comedy,
though it probably had a less coaxing tone than obsecro (see below). A
short speech at Ter. Phorm. 348 ff., which ends with the expression
adeste quaeso, prompts the next speaker to comment, iratus est.
58
E.g. Plaut. Cist. 573, Ter. Andr. 232, 473, Eun. 1049, Phorm. 740, Ad. 487.
59
See Lodge (cited above, n. 30), 2. 230 b.
60
McGlynn (cited above, n. 31), 1. 206b.
Note that quotations of Aul. 170 have the reading si audes, whereas the manuscripts
have quaeso, in the mouth of a matrona. It is likely that si audes is right.
62
See McGlynn, s.v., sects. I, II. 1, V.
Elsewhere quaeso is found in expressions of concern (e.g. Plaut. Amph.
500), in urgent or anxious requests (Amph. 1097, Asin. 750, Mil. 496,
568), and in polite and respectful address (e.g. Rud. 1053).
The later use of obsecro and quaeso
Cicero's use of obsecro and quaeso throws some light on their tone. The
absolute use of obsecro (with or without te or uos) is found only 5 times in
the speeches, in all cases those from the end of Cicero's career.63 In the
correspondence ad Familiares, which contains many more formal
letters than that ad Atticum, the usage occurs only 3 times, twice in
letters to Cicero's wife, where it is used along with the mi-form of
address: Fam. 14. 1. 5: 'quod ad me, mea Terentia, scribis te uicum
uendituram, quid, obsecro te, me miserum! quid futurum est?', 14. 2. 3:
'obsecro te, mea uita . . . ' (+ imperative). In the more intimate
correspondence to Atticus it is found 16 times, for the most part in letters
of the period 49-44 B.C.64 In 3 places in the letters to Atticus obsecro (te)
is accompanied by the mi-form of address: 3. 9. 2: 'obsecro, mi
Pomponi' + question, 9.6. 5: 'obsecro te, mi Tite' + imperative, 12.19.
4: 'obsecro te, mi Attice' + imperative. The verb is not of course
addressed to women in this correspondence, but in 3 places it is used in
expressions of concern about a female member of Atticus' family, twice
in conjunction with the familiar mea I nostra: 12. 17: 'Atticam saluere
iube et earn cura, obsecro, diligenter', 13. 13.-14. 3: 'Attica mea,
obsecro te, quid agit?', 13. 14-15. 2: 'quid agit, obsecro te, Attica
nostra?'.
The distribution and use of obsecro show that it had an intimate tone.
Two other examples in the letters, not cited above (Fam. 10.19.2,Brut.
1.10.4), also belong to the end of Cicero's career (43 B.C.). Cicero was
prepared to allow himself this familiar idiom in his later years (in non-
familiar contexts).
Usually obsecro has the objects (in 12 of 20 cases in the letters).65 In
7 of these cases obsecro te is accompanied by an imperative,66 as it is also
in letters of Balbus(,4ft 8.15a. l)andHirtius(^«. 15.6.3). Clearly the
idiom seen earlier as characteristic of male spech in comedy continued to
be used by men into the late Republic,67 but one is not in a position to say
whether it was still restricted to males.
'Without an object atLig. 31,Deiot. 20,withte aiPhil 11. 20,andwith«osatAf/£ 103,

Phil. 13. 10; at Q. Rose. 20 the more formal expression oro atque obsecro uos is
accompanied by an imperative rather than a dependent construction.
l
9. .6. 5, 9. 11a. 3, 11..2. 2, 1 1 . 7 . 6 , 1 2 . 4 . 2 , 12.17, 1 2 . 1 9 . 4 , 1 2 . 4 2 . 2 , 13.13-
14. 3,13. 14-15. 2,13. 31. 3,15. 1. 5,15. 29. 3,16. 7. 8; cf. 3. 9. 2(58 B.C.), 3. 18. 2
(58).
Fam. 14. 1. 5,14. 2. 3,Att 3. 1 8 . 2 , 9 . 6 . 5 , 1 1 . 2 . 2 , 1 1 . 7 . 6 , 1 2 . 19.4,13. 13-14.3,
13. 14-15. 2, 15. 1. 5, 15. 29. 3, 16. 7. 8.
Fam. 1 4 . 2 . 3 , Att. 3 . 1 8 . 2 , 9 . 6 . 5 , 1 1 . 2 . 2 , 1 1 . 7 . 6 , 1 2 . 1 9 . 4 , 15.1. 5. In the last
passage the imperative is implied rather than expressed.
In the letter of Antonius.^H. 14. 13a. 3 ('patere, obsecro, te . . . ' ) , it is possible that an
example of te (object of obsecro) has fallen out of the text
60 /. N. Adams
Of the 8 examples of obsecro without an expressed object, that at AtL
3. 9. 2 accompanies a question, those sXFam. 10. 19. 2,Att. 9.1 la. 3,
12. 4. 2., 12. \l,Brut 1. 10. 4 an imperative. The remaining instances
(AtL 12. 42. 2,13. 31. 3) are with ajussive subjunctive. Given that 3 of
the 5 examples with an imperative are in a formulaic expression (cura +
obsecro dXAtt. 9. 11a. 3, 12. 4. 2, 12. 17), and that there is only one
instance with a question, it is clear that Cicero placed severe restrictions
on his use of obsecro without an object. It is possible that the idiom was
still favoured by, if not exclusive to, women. Another possibility is that
the elliptical expression was falling out of use.68
Cicero's use of quaeso presents a contrast with that of obsecro.
Whereas obsecro is more frequent in the letters than the speeches (20:5),
quaeso (in the uses in question) is slightly more common in the speeches
(72:61). Quaeso, unlike obsecro, was at home in formal oratory. Quaeso
outnumbers obsecro in the proportion 14.4:1 (72:5) in the speeches, but
by only 3:1 in the letters (61:20). While 25 % of the examples of obsecro
in the letters (5/20) have the intimate /nz-form of address juxtaposed, and
another two are alongside a third-person use oimea I nostra, no example
of quaeso in the letters accompanies a mi-vocative. There can be no
doubt that quaeso was the less emotive, more formal modifier. If women
are genuinely given to polite forms of language, it is understandable that
they would have preferred obsecro to quaeso. In the letters to Atticus
quaeso is used repeatedly in business-like contexts, in requests for
information, advice and action of one kind or another: e.g. AtL 12.29.2:
'de hortis, quaeso, explica' ('about the property question, do pray find a
solution': Shackleton Bailey). This is a polite but insistent business
request, empty of any emotive content.
In other late Republican and Augustan writers there is some additional
evidence that obsecro and quaeso (in the applications in question) were
still in use, but no sign of the earlier sexual differentiation. A female in
Catullus (10.25) employs quaeso + imperative, along with the mi-form
of address. At 103.3 Catullus in his own persona uses quaeso with an
imperative. Livy has both verbs a few times (obsecro at 4. 3. 9, 5. 6. 3,
6.40.10, quaeso at 3.48. 4, 25. 6. 6), and there are occasional
examples of quaeso in Sallust(/t#. 85. lO,HisL 1. 77. 13,4. 69.16).
During the first century A.D. the language underwent a further change.
Obsecro (with imperatives and questions) seems to have fallen out of use,
and quaeso became infrequent. Petronius does not use obsecro, and
quaeso occurs only occasionally, usually in particularly solemn appeals
(24. 1,91. 8,128. 2,133. 3,line l0).Rogo had taken over the functions
of the two verbs.69 Sexual differentiation is no longer in evidence. The
68
Note that the rarer absolute use of oro seems to have given way to oro te in the late
Republic: see Hofmann, Lateinische Umgangssprache, 129. See also below, p. 62, on
amabo te, which all but replaced amabo.
69
For rogo with questions, see Petron. 7. 1, 39. 3,48. 7,55. 5,58. 2,86. 7,90. 3,95. 2,
126. 8, and with imperatives, 20. 1,132. 10. 137. 4. Many of these examples (but not
all) are in speeches by freedmen. On the colloquial character of rogo under the Empire,
see also Hofmann, Lateinische Umgangssprache, 129 f.
currency of rogo in the spoken language is confirmed by the usage of
Martial. He does not have obsecro or quaeso, but uses rogo often both
with questions and imperatives.70 For rogo (+ uos) employed with a
question in the senate house by Claudius, see Suet. Claud. 40. 1.
Apuleius, on the other hand, preferred oro,11 no doubt because it had a
recherche flavour by this period.
Amabo
Amabo is another female modifier in comedy. In Plautus there are 39
examples of amabo used by women in conjunction with a question, but
only 3 so used by men (Asin. 711, Cas. 917-18, Pers. 765). With
imperatives women use the word 42 or 43 times, men 5 or 6 times (Men.
678, Most. 324?,72 467, Pers. 245, Poen. 370, 380). In almost every
case men who use the term are addressing women.73 Men who address
amabo to women tend to do so in affectionate, amatory or special
contexts of one kind or another.74 As used by women amabo may be in
affectionate or emotional passages (note Cas. 634-41), but it is not
necessarily so. In a neutral context at True. 128 f., for example ('amabo,
/ sine me ire era quo iussit'), mancilla asks permission of anadulescens
to go.
In Plautus amabo te occurs only 3 times (Bacch. 44, Men. 678, True.
588). These are the only instances of the full expression in comedy (but
see below on Titin. 80).
In Terence amabo is exclusively a female word: it occurs 5 times with
questions, 6 times with imperatives. The addressee is in 3 places another
woman (Heaut. 404, Eun. 838, Hec. 70), and is elsewhere an
adulescens. In two places in comic fragments the sex of the speaker and
'With questions at (e.g.) 2. 80.2,3. 52. 3,3. 73. 3,3. 76. 3,4. 84.4,5. 25. 7,5. 44. 1,
5. 82. 3, and with imperatives at 2.14.18, 2. 25. 2, 6. 20. 4, 12. 63. 6.
With questions at (e.g.) Met 2. 29, 4. 12, and with imperatives at Met 1. 21, 2. 23,
3.13,3.22,5.6,5.31,8.3.
The division of speakers adopted by editors here (CA. 'lepida es. / duce me amabo. DE.
caue [ne] cadas, asta') is probably wrong. Amabo can be given to Delphium, in
association with caue, as in the very similar passage Naev. com.fr. 82, quoted below.
See also H. Blase, 'Amabo', ALL 9 (1896), 488.
Exceptions are at Asin. 711 and Most. 467; in the second passage amabo should be
changed to ambo with Scaliger. Note too Asin. 707, where the speaker and addressee
are the same as at 711 (though the verb does not accompany either a question or
imperative). O. Seyffert, Studia Plautina (Berlin 1874), 1 correctly observed that
amabo was a term of women or of men addressing women, but his list of examples was
not completely accurate. There is a detailed discussion by Blase, ALL 9 (1896), 485 ff.
W.T. MacCary and M.M. Willcock, .P/auftw Casina (Cambridge 1976), 917-18 n. set
out to give complete statistics for the use of amabo in Plautus (whereas I have restricted
myself here to the use of the word with questions and imperatives): women are said to
have it 84 times out of 91 instances, with 6 of the other 7 instances spoken by men
addressing women. These figures are not quite accurate. The claim that Asin. 707 is the
only place where a male uses amabo in speaking to another male disregards /ism. 711.
MacCary and Willcock point out that Asin. 707 has homosexual undertones.
NoteCaj. 917-18,Pers. 765, Poen. 380; the example atPers. 245 is a joking repetition
of a woman's words.
62 /. N. Adams
addressee is uncertain: Naev. com. frg. 82:' attattatae! caue < ne> cadas
amabo' (for such a remark addressed by a meretrix to an adulescens who
is drunk, see Plaut. Most. 324: 'amabo caue [ne] cadas, asta': see n. 72
on the text here), Titin. 80: 'sed te amabo: quid desubito tarn repente ad
me uenisti?'.75
There is one other example of amabo in early Latin, at Lucil. 890:
'perge amabo, ac, si pote, fac dignam me ut uobis putem'. It is spoken by
a woman, is without an object, and has the enclitic position after the
imperative. This is the position that amabo constantly has in Plautus.76
These three characteristics of the Lucilian example could be described
as typical of the old Latin use of the expression.
By the end of the Republic the use of the idiom had changed. It had lost
its special connexion with women, it was no longer predominantly used
without an object, and it was no longer so frequent in the enclitic position.
At least two features of the old Latin usage, its elliptical use without an
object and its tendency to attach itself to an emphatic word, show it to
have been in colloquial use. The later (and most notably Ciceronian)
taste for an expressed object could be an educated rationalization of the
colloquial elhptical use of the earlier period (see below). Both obsecro
and oro also tended to acquire an object (see above, p. 60, with n. 68). It
is of course possible that women continued to favour amabo (without an
object), but evidence is lacking.
The distribution of amabo (te) in Cicero, which is much the same as
that of obsecro, suggests that it still had a familiar tone. It is used 12 times
in the letters to Atticus(and also atAtt. 16. 16c. 1, to Capita), 3 times by
Cicero in the letters ad Fam. (and at Fam. 8. 6. 5 and 8. 9. 3, by
Caelius), and 3 times in the correspondence ad Quintum fratrem.
There are no examples in the speeches (but one dXDe Oral 2. 278 in a
joke which is quoted in direct speech). Cicero employs the elliptical
amabo only 3 times (Fam. 7. 32. 2,Att. 10. 10. 3, Q.Fr. 3. 7. 4), but
amabo te 16 times. This is also the form of the expression at.De Oral
2. 278. Caelius uses only amabo te. Gellius has amabo teat 5. 21. 6, in
a quotation, and amabo at 4. 1. 4, also in a quotation. The example at
Mart. 8.76.1 ('die uerum mihi, Marce, die amabo'; note the juxtaposition
of the familiar praenomen) might suggest that the old elliptical-enclitic
use had lived on in colloquial/vulgar speech, albeit that of males (see
below); cf. Catull. 32. 1: 'amabo, mea dulcis Ipsitilla...' (note mea),
Varro ap. Gell. 13. 4. 1: 'amabo / . . . mi fili' (note mifili).
There are 16 examples of amabo (te) in the corpus of Cicero's works
accompanied by an imperative. In only 4 places does the idiom
immediately follow the imperative (Att. 2.2.1,1. 1. 4,10. 10. 3, Q.Fr.
3. 7. 4). In 11 places it precedes the imperative, usually in juxtaposition
with it (9 times),77 but at Att. 16. 2. 2 and Fam. 8. 6. 5 (Caelius)
Te is an emendation, printed by Ribbeck in the third edition of the comic fragments. In

the first edition he preferred iam.
76
See Hofmann, Lateinische Umgangssprache, 127; Lodge (note 30 above) 1.115.
11
Fam. 2. 7. 2, 8. 9. 3 (Caelius), Att 2. 4. 1, 5. 12. 3, 5. 17. 4, 15. 29. 3, 16. 16c. 1,
Q.Fr. 2. 9. 4, De Oral. 2. 278.
separated from it. In one other place amabo te comes after the
imperative, but detached from it (Att. 2. 7. 3).
It is an interesting fact that two of the three examples ofamabo without
an object occupy the enclitic position (Att. 10. 10. 3, Q.Fr. 3. 7. 4).
This, along with the example from Martial quoted above, leads one to
suggest that there lingered into the late Republic and early Empire a
genuine old colloquial use of elliptical amabo, which had been almost
fossilized in the enclitic position, alongside a rationalized use of amabo
te in the educated language, which had some mobihty. Amabo te seems
to have been no longer in use by the first century A.D. Amabo must have
been obsolescent by the late Republic, to judge by its rarity.78
Something of the tone of amabo (te) can be deduced fromAtt. 16. 2. 2:
'sed amabo te, mi Attice (uidesne quam blande?), omnia nostra .. . ita
gerito'. It is presumably to both mi Attice and amabo te that blande
refers. At Att 1. 1. 4 ('"Die, M.Tulli". quid dicam? "expecta, amabo te,
dum Atticum conueniam"?') amabo te is meant to be incongruous in an
imaginary senatorial context. The example at Att 13. 52. 3 is in an
imaginary invitation to dinner. Amabo te is not always used by Cicero in
contexts with a marked emotional content: note Att. 5. 12. 3: 'nostra
autem negotia, quoniam Romae commoraris, amabo te, explica' (a
business request).
Obsecro, quaeso and amabo in similar contexts

Obsecro, quaeso and amabo frequently occur in similar contexts in
comedy, with quaeso used by men, and obsecro or amabo by women.
The influence of a speaker's sex on the choice of modifier is illustrated by
Plaut. Asin. 683 f., 691 f., where the same request is put by two different
characters, one male, the other female. The first uses quaeso ('quaeso
hercle, Libane,... / da mi istas uiginti minas'), the second amabo ('mi
Libane, ocellus aureus, donum decusque amoris, / amabo, faciam quod
uoles, da istuc argentum nobis'). Earlier the woman had used obsecro
(688: 'ergo, opsecro, et tu utrumque nostrum serua'). In the passage
quoted the female also has the m/-form of address. In this context the
greater emotive content of amabo cannot be missed.
The following groups of passages illustrate the contrasting use of the
three modifiers:
Plaut. Rud. 1005: 'quaeso, sanun es?' (man)
Cas. 232: 'opsecro, sanun es?' (woman)
True. 364: 'amabo, sanun es?' (woman)
Cf. Merc. 682: 'satin tu Sana's, opsecro' (woman)
Indeed it is already infrequent in Terence. Blase (above, note 72) 491 suggested that
Cicero may have taken over amabo(te) in his letters from old Latin without noticing the
precise details of its earlier use. Hence the deviation from earlier usage. But Cicero is not
likely to have used an artificial archaism so often in his letters.
64 J. N. Adams
Poen. 1191:'tace, quaeso'(man)
True. 194: 'opsecro, tace' (woman; cf. Ter. Eun. 685, 834, 899,
Hec. 318)
Most 385: 'tace, amabo' (woman)
Poen. 1040: 'quaeso, die' (man; cf. Ter. Andr. 323)
Cas. 187 f.: 'die . . . opsecro' (woman)
True. 588: 'die, amabo te' (woman; cf. Asin. 894, Pers. 245)
Asin. 417: 'quaeso . . . noli' (man)
Cist 58: 'noli, opsecro' (woman)
Cure. 197: 'noli, amabo' (woman)
Men. 1066: 'quaeso . . . <e>loquere' (man)

Merc. 503: 'amabo . . . eloquere' (woman)
Rud. 1298: 'di, quaeso, subuenite' (man)

Rud. 231: 'Spes bona, opsecro, / subuenta mini' (woman)
Men. 498: 'responde . . . quaeso' (man; cf. Rud. 1053)
Poen. 401: 'responde, amabo' (woman)
Mil. 1305: 'quaeso . . . propera' (man)
Bacch. 100: 'propera, amabo' (woman)
Pseud. 547: 'da . . . operam,... quaeso' (man; cf. Poen. 785)
True. 722: 'opsecro, da . . . operam' (woman)
Aul. 142 f.: 'da . . . / operam amabo' (woman)
Asin. 41: 'age quaesso' (man)

Asin. 672: 'age . . . opsecro' (woman)
Pers. 116: 'quaeso, animum aduorte' (man)
Mil. 382: 'amabo, aduortite animum' (woman)
Asin. 596: 'mitte quaeso' (man)

Poen. 336:' mitte, amabo' (woman; cf. Mil. 1067)
Pers. 688: 'sine, quaeso' (man)
Ter. Hec. 600: 'sine me, obsecro . . . ' (woman)
Cas. 137: 'sine, amabo . . . ' (woman)
In some of these formulae, and in a few others, obsecro, in keeping with

its more ambiguous status, is used by men as well as women. It stands
half-way between quaeso at one extreme and amabo at the other. For da
operam, obsecro, for instance, used by a man, see Poen. 543; for tace
obsecro, see Pers. All; and for responde obsecro, Pseud. 1191. This list
could be extended.
The incidence of modifiers in Plautus and Terence
The incidence of the three modifiers quaeso, obsecro and amabo
considered as a group is worth comparing in male and female speech.
PLAUTUS
males females
quaeso 106 5
obsecro 94 72
amabo 9 81
209 158
(18,594 lines) (2,620)
In male speech there is one example of a modifier per 89 lines, in female
speech one per 16.6 Unes.
TERENCE
quaeso 40 0
obsecro 27 36
amabo 0 11
67 47
(5,405 lines) (670 lines)
In male speech there is one example of a modifier per 80.7 Unes, in

female speech one per 14.3 lines. The distinction between male and
female speech is much the same in Plautus and Terence.
A more restricted survey yields similar results. In male speech in
Plautus there is one example per 139.8 lines of the three modifiers with
imperatives {obsecro 62, quaeso 65, amabo 6), in female speech one
example per 36.9 lines (obsecro 25, quaeso 4, amabo 42). Terence has
one example per 193 lines in male speech (obsecro 16, quaeso 12,
amabo —), but one per 35.2 lines in female (obsecro 13, quaeso —,
amabo 6). Modified imperatives in male speech are even more thinly
spread in Terence than they are in Plautus.
A more interesting question is the extent to which male and female
speakers in Plautus and Terence modify (as distinct from leave
unmodified) imperatives. It would be difficult to compile complete
statistics, given the size of the corpus. I have therefore taken a selection
of plays. In many places too it is hard to decide whether an imperative is
modified or unmodified. Sometimes a series of imperatives closely
connected would require just one modifier if the speaker wished to tone
down his command. I have usually counted series as just one unit. But it
is not always possible to determine where a series ends and another unit
begins. The statistics given below are therefore somewhat subjective. I
have not included salue or uale, which, though imperative in form, are
not genuine commands. Only the modifiers obsecro, quaeso and amabo
are considered. Obsecro te is included.
66 J. N. Adams
PLAUTUS
Imperatives with a modifier
male speech female speech
Asin. 11 5
Cas. 1 11
Cist. 0 10
Poen. 10 6
Rud 10 4
True. 1 11
33 47
Imperatives without a modifier
(figuresi approximate)
Asin. 108 20
Cas. 92 31
Cist. 17 23
Poen. 126 21
Rud 162 9
True. 66 44
571 148
In female speech about 24.1% of imperatives are modified (47 of
195), in male speech only about 5.5% (33 of 604). Unmodified
imperatives outnumber modified by only about 3.1:1 in female speech,
but by 17.3:1 in male.
In Terence's Eunuch there are 9 imperatives with a modifier used by
women, 4 by men. About 32 unmodified imperatives are uttered by
females, and 81 by males. About 22% of imperatives in female speech
are modified, compared with only 4.7% in male speech. Unmodified
imperatives outnumber modified in female speech in the ratio of 3.6:1,
but by 20.3:1 in male speech. Thesefiguresare much the same as those
for Plautus, though the sample is not as large. I have complete statistics
for female speech in Terence, but not for male; these tend to confirm the
conclusions stated above. Imperatives unmodified (I include only
'imperatives' which have the imperative form of the verb) in female
speech in the whole corpus of Terence's work outnumber modified
imperatives by 72:19 (i.e. 3.8:1). Some 20.9% of imperatives are
modified. The proportion of imperatives which are modified in female
speech is much the same as it is in the Eunuch.
It is not only the sex of the speaker that motivates the use of a modifier
with an imperative. The context and relative status of the speakers are
also important factors. But in similar contexts women are rather more
likely to be given a modifier than men. In Terence when the addressee is a
freeman, women use modified imperatives almost as often as unmodified
(10:13), if one omits a few special cases of unaccompanied imperatives.79
79
That at Heaut 1052 accompanies a mi-form of address, which obviously softens the
imperative, that at Hec. 826 follows obsecro and amabo, 3 examples at Hec. 557 f.
follow obsecro, another example at Hec. 605 isjuxtaposed with the mi-form of address,
and examples atEun. 151 and 534 are in the vicinity of obsecro and amabo.
When a woman addresses a slave, the imperative is almost always on its
own (17:1). Women too usually receive a plain imperative (27:3). There
seems to be a difference between the way women issue orders to freemen,
and the way they issue them to women and slaves. It should be
emphasized that most of the women to whom imperatives are addressed
are also slaves.
Imperatival intensifies
I have not discussed sis (< si uis) or age above, because whereas
obsecro, quaeso and amabo usually tone down a remark, sis and age can
be described as 'intensifiers'.
Si's80 is urgent rather than polite in Plautus. It must once have been
intended to soften an order (the unreduced form si uis at Afran. 179
seems to have a polite tone: 'mea nutrix, surge si uis, profer purpuram'),
but it took on the tone of the orders with which it was commonly
associated. It is often used to give intensity to offensive remarks, curses,
threats or orders. A typical context is that at Plaut. Most 569 ('abi sis,
belua'), where an order is followed by a term of abuse.81 For its use in a
threat/warning, see Pers. 816: 'caue sis me attigas, ne tibi hoc scipione /
malum magnum dem'.82 The tone of the word comes across at Pseud.
1230 ('di te perdant! sequere sis me ergo hac ad forum'), where the
juxtaposed curse shows the speaker's irritation; cf. Pers. 574: 'i sis [in]
malum cruciatum'. For sis indicating urgency without hostility, see
Poen. 1292: 'tene sis me arte, mea uoluptas', Pers. 764: 'accede ad me
atque amplectere sis . . . oh, nil hoc magis dulcest'.
Since sis usually did not have a polite tone, one would expect to find it
mainly in male speech. Of 126 examples in Plautus, 12 (9.5%) are given
to women. But in Terence all 8 examples are given to men.
Age + imperative is used 11 times by women out of a total of 90
examples in Plautus (omitting agedum and agite), an expected pro-
portion of 12.2%. Terence restricts it to male speech, both with
questions (10 times)83 and with imperatives (10 times).8M#e was urgent
in tone (note Plaut. Cure. 121, with cito andpropere, and Stick. 353,
with ocius) or hortatory (see Serv. on Virg. Aen. 2. 707: '"age" autem
non est modo uerbum imperantis, sed hortantis aduerbium'). It is not so
common as sis in hostile contexts (but see Plaut. Poen. 784); see, for
example, Stich. 755 (affectionate), Mil. 1206,1342 (hortatory), Most
1134, Pers. 38, Stick. 723 (fairly neutral). Women in Plautus tend to use
it in conjunction with a modifier (Asin 672 obsecro, Cist 554 quaeso,
Cas. 214 amabo; cf. Asin. 750 age quaeso in male speech, and note too
For which see Hoftnann, Lateinische Umgangssprache, 132 f.

Cf. Cas. 203, Most. I, Pers. 412, 422, Ter. Phorm. 59.
Cf. Amph. 286, 360, Pers. 835, Pseud. 1143, Ter. Eun. 799.
McGlynn, s.v. XIX (2).
McGlynn, s.v. XIX (4).
68 J. N. Adams
CapL 570 quaeso... agedum). Age is sometimes also pleonastically
combined with sis, usually in the speech of men.85
Sodes is rare in Plautus, where it is used by both men (Bacch. 837,
Pers. 318, Trin. 562) and women (Men. 545). Terence admits it 15
times, always in the mouths of men (who are addessing women atHeaut.
738, Phorm. 741, 793, Hec. 358, 753). To Terence the word seems to
have had a polite, matter-of-fact tone (see e.g. Andr. 85, Phorm. 103,
Hec. 358, 841, Ad. 643).
It is striking that Terence (unlike Plautus) completely restricts quaeso,
sis, age and sodes to the speech of males. By reserving just two modifiers
for female speech he was making the distinction between male and
female speech as sharp as possible.
3 THE INTIMATE FORM OF ADDRESS
The' intimate' form of address, consisting of a name or descriptive noun,
title or endearment in the vocative accompanied by mi (or mea), has a
higher incidence in female than male speech in both Plautus and
Terence.86
In 11 plays of Plautus (Ampk.,Asin.,Cas., Cist., Men., Mil., Pers.,
Poen., Rud., Stick., True.) men use 95 examples of the mi-form of
address, of which only 11 comprise mi + name.87 In the same plays men
employ names in the vocative without mi some 25 2 times. Mi (or mea) is
thus attached to the name in only 4.2% of cases by men. Women use
vocatives with mi 91 times. Since the 11 plays contain about 2176
female lines and 9768 male, the incidence ofthe intimate form of address
is about one example per 23.9 lines in female speech, compared with one
example per 102.8 lines in male. Of the 91 female examples of the usage,
23 accompany names.88 Names without mi occur 53 times in female
speech; women thus use the intimate address in 30.3% of cases when
they address someone by name. The incidence of mi + the vocative of a
name is much lower in male than female speech.
Men rarely address other men by means of a name in the vocative +
mi. The examples at Cas. 739 and Poen. 421 are particularly emotive;
the speaker uses the Greek diminutive form as well as mi. There remain
'SeePlautAwn. 93, 679, Cap. 179,Epid. 475,Pers. 691. Poen. 113; cf. Amph. 778
(spoken by a woman). In these passages age is of course an imperatival intensifier, and
not a full verb.
' It was seen above, p. 47 that Donatus recognized this form of address as typical of
females.
Cas. 739: Olympisce mi, Poen. 421: mi Milphidisce, Rud. 352, 364, 374-5: mea
Ampelisca, 568: mi Charmides, 878: mea Palaestra et Ampelisca, 1265: mi
Trachalio, Stick 736: mea... Stephanium, True. 362, 529: mea Phronesium.
Âsin. 672: mi Leonida, 691: mi Libane, Cas. 134: mi Olympio, Cist. 2: mea
Gymnasium, 22: mea Selenium, 53: mea Selenium, 59: mea Gymnasium, 71: mea
Gymnasium, 78: mea Selenium, 95: mea Selenium, 107: Gymnasium mea, 112:
Gymnasium mea, 631: mea Selenium, Men. 382: mi Menaechme, 541: mi
Menaechme, 676: mi Menaechme, Mil. 1248: mea Milphidippa, 1266: mea
Milphidippa, Pers. 763: Toxile mi, Rud. 354: mi Trachalio, True. 499: mea
Phronesium, 664-5: mi Strabax, 949: mi Strabax.
onlyRud. 568:miCharmides andRud. 1265:miTrachalio. In7 places
a female is addressed by name + mea. Women on the other hand address
men 10 times by name + mi, women 13 times.
It is usually to women that men direct the intimate address. Of the 95
examples of the mi-form, 60 are spoken to women, 35 to men. One
expects the context to be special when a man addresses another male in
this way. The example at Cas. 453 is in a homosexual context. Those at
Cas, 739 (3 times), 801,Rud. 1265-6 (5 times), 1280, Stick 583-4 (3
times), are pleading, ingratiating, affectionate or grateful in tone. In the
Asinaria a father uses mignate 4 times (829, 830, 836, 882).
In Terence the mi-address is a more distinctive marker of female
speech than it is in Plautus. The incidence of the usage is higher in female
speech than it is in Plautus, and lower in male.
In male speech vocatives without mi outnumber those with mi by
556:31, whereas in female speech vocatives with mi are almost as
common as those without (50:58). Men employ the intimate address
about once every 174.3 lines, women about once per 13.4 lines. The
incidence of the usage in the mouths of females is similar to that of oaths
and polite modifiers.
Men in Terence use mi with names 13 times,89 but the plain vocative
470 times. Mi is'thus attached to the name in only 2.7% of cases.
Women use mi with names 25 times,90 but the plain vocative 54 times.
Mi is used in 31.6% of cases, afiguremuch the same as that for female
speech in Plautus.
Men do not show the same reluctance to use mi with a name when
speaking to other men in Terence as they do in Plautus. Of the 13
examples with a name, 8 are addressed to other men.91 Men do not
reserve the intimate address so markedly for women in Terence as they
do in Plautus. Of the 31 examples, 11 are directed to women.92 But since
men address women comparatively rarely, the 11 examples spoken to
women probably represent a proportion higher than would have been
expected on an even distribution throughout male and female speech.
Women in Terence often use titles (or descriptive nouns) in the
vocative with mi (some 22 times).931 have noted only about 4 examples
of such words in the vocative in female speech without mi. Men on the
other hand frequently use titles (e.g. mater, pater, frater, leno, uxor,
adulescens, ere,gnate,patrue) without mi(about 86 times). I have noted
S9
Andr. lH,Heaut. 291, 398,684,692,.Ez/n. 351,455, \0i4,Phorm. 478,Hec. 325,
841, 856, Ad 268.
Ândr. 286,Heaut. 381, 406, 631, 644, 731, l052,Eun. 86, 95, 144, 190, 455, 535,
656, 743, Hec. 206, 232, 382, 389, 585, 602, 824, Ad. 323, 343, 353.
91
HeauL 291,684, 692,Eun. 351, 1034, PAorm. 478,/fee. 841,Ad. 268.
92
Andr. 134, Heaut. 398, 406, 622, Eun. 455, 456, Hec. 325, 353, 358, 856 (twice).
93
Andr. 721: mi homo, 788: misenex,Heaut 617: meanutrix, 622,1005,1015,1048:
miuir, 1028,1062:mignate,Eun. 156:mihomo,834:eramea,Phorm. 991,1002:mi
uir, 1005: mi homo,Hec. 235:miuir, 318: meagnata, 352, 577, 605, 606: mignate,
Ad. 288: mea nutrix, 336: mi homo.
70 /. N. Adams
about 15 examples in male speech of such words with mi 94 Women thus
markedly prefer the mi-form, men the unmodified title.
The distribution of the mi-form of address in male speech in Terence is
similar to that of obsecro. Most examples are uttered by adulescentes
(25 of 31), usually when addressing a slave (7 times),95 a woman (8
times)96 or asenex, who is normally the youth's father (9 times).97 Senes
and slaves rarely employ this method of address (exceptions atHec. 456
(senex to son), Heaut. 622 (senex to wife)). Whereas sons not
infrequently direct the intimate address to their fathers,they rarely
receive it in return (see n. 94, and below, p.71). It should be stressed
that sons do not invariably use mi when speaking to their fathers.
Mi pater occurs 9 times, but pater (voc.) about 38 times. On the other
hand of 5 examples of mater (voc.), 2 have mea (Hec. 353, 358). It is
possible that youths of Terence's day more often addressed mea to their
mothers than mi to their fathers, but the statistics are no more than
suggestive.
A few examples will illustrate the possible influence of a speaker's sex
on his choice of vocative expressions.
A case of non-reciprocal address between husband and wife can be
found in the Heaut There are 7 vocatives spoken by a wife (Sostrata) to
her husband (Chremes) in the play, of which 6 are accompanied by mi
(622, 631, 644, 1005, 1048, 1052; cf. 665 Chreme). But of the 5
vocatives spoken by the husband to his wife, all but one (622) are without
mi (647, 663, 879,1007). But here as elsewhere the lack of reciprocity
cannot exclusively be put down to the sex of the speakers. Senes are often
prickly characters who are in the habit of rebuking their wives, whereas
matronae are more conciliatory. Different forms of address may partly
reflect the types of roles which women and old men play in New
Comedy. AtHeaut. 622 ff. Sostrata is asking forgiveness, and Chremes
is in the position of dominance. One cannot separate the determinants —
context, roles and sex — which have influenced the methods of address.
In the Hecyra a wife uses a vocative in 4 places when addressing her
husband, and in 3 of these mi definitely accompanies the name.98 Senes
do not use mea in return. Five times they employ a name without mea
(111, 229, 271, 523, 541), twice mulier (214,525), and once uxor
(607).
It is also worth comparing the use of (mi) uir by wives and (mea) uxor
by husbands. Wives regularly qualify uir by mi (7 times; there is a
possible exception atHec. 523). Uxor occurs without qualification at
Heaut. 879 and Hec. 607, and with mea only at Heaut. 622. (Mea)
mulier is not relevant here, because it tends to have a hostile tone (Don.
94
Andr. 889: mi pater, Heaut 622: mea uxor,Phorm. 254: mipatrue,Hec. 353, 358:
mea mater, 455: mi pater, 456: gnate mi, Ad. 269: mi germane, 674, 681, 901, 922,
935, 956, 983: mi pater.
9i
Heaut 291,684, 692, Eun. 351, 1034, Phorm. 478, Hec. 841.
96
Andr. 134, Heaut. 398, 406, Hec. 325, 353, 358, 856 (twice).
91
Phorm. 254, Hec. 455, Ad 674, 681, 901, 922, 935, 956, 983.
98
The text is doubtful at 523; cf. 206, 232, 235.
onHec. 525: 'acerbe "mulier", ut supra'), and hence is usually without
mea," and it is not normally a husband's appellation for his wife (despite
Hec. 214, 525). 10°
A clear case of sexually determined differentiation is to be seen in the
ways in which mothers and Jenes address their sons. Mothers 6 times use
mignate (Heaut 1028, 1060, Hec. 352, 577, 605, 606; cf. 318 mea
gnata), but nevergnate on its own. They also use mi with the vocative of
the youth's name (Hec. 585,602). A father uses mignate only once in
Terence (Hec. 456). Gnate occurs atHeaut. 843 and 1065,butitismore
common for the father to use the name of the adulescens without mi
(Andr. 254,416, Heaut 105,209,562,575,960,967,1037). 101 For a
woman's use of a name without mi to her son, see Heaut. 1057.
I mention finally a few female expressions containing mi I mea. Mi
homo is found 4 times in Plautus (I omit the plural mei homines at Cist.
678) and 4 times in Terence, always in the mouths of women.102 The
expression is also used by a female at Afran. 103 (juxtaposed withaw). It
is worth quoting Donatus' note on Phorm. 1005: 'quaerit Probus, an
matrona tarn familiariter recte dicat alieno, sed frustra: nam feminarum
oratio, etsi non blanditur, blanda est'. Donatus recognizes that
blandishments may be debased into banalities with no special force.
Mea tu, found at Ter. Eun. 664, Ad. 289, is a female expression. Note
Don. on Ad. 289: 'et rursum "mea tu" blandimentum est, sine quo non
progreditur colloquium feminarum et maxime trepidantium'.
Mi anime is a female endearment in comedy (see Don. on Ter. Andr.
685, quoted above, p. 47). It occurs 9 times in Plautus, 7 times in the
mouths of women.103 Both instances of the diminutive mi animule are
also given to women (Cas. 134, Men. 361). And in Terence 2 of the 3
cases of mi anime are spoken by women (Andr. 685, Eun. 95; cf. Heaut.
406). Not all endearments (of the type pet name + mi / mea) are
specifically feminine. Mea uoluptas, for example, is used 15 times by
men in Plautus, and 9 times by women,104 and mea uita is used 3 times
by men and once by a woman. Endearments of this kind are very rare in
Terence, whether in the mouths of men or women. Apart from mi anime
above, there is only meum sauium at Eun. 456 (spoken by a man to
woman). Plautus makes frequent use of them in the speech of both men
and women addressing members of the other sex. In the Asin., Cas.,
Cist., Stick., True, and Rud. I have noted some 21 endearments
addressed by women to men, and 20 addressed by men to women. At
Even with mea, mulier might have a tone of indifference: note Caecil. 267: 'quaeso
igitur, quisquis es, mea mulier". Contrast Plaut. Cist. 723: 'mi homo et mea mulier, uos
saluto', a passage which shows the difficulty of classifying the usage.
0
See J. K6hm, Altlateinische Forschungen (Leipzig 1905), 90.
1
In Plautus, on the other hand, fathers normally say mignate or mea gnata (16 times).
Gnate is found only at Trin. 362. See Lodge (n. 30 above) 2.120.
2
Examples are listed by K6hm, 89 n. 7. Contrast mea (mulier), which, though usually a
male idiom, is put into the mouth of a woman at Plaut Cist. 723.
J
See Lodge 1.130 a. The male examples are at Most 336 and Rud. 1265.
4
Examples are in Lodge 2. 913 a.
72 J. N. Adams
Cist. 53 (meus oculus) andRud. 247 (spes mea) women are speaking to
members of their own sex.105 Even men occasionally address each other
in such terms for one reason or another: e.g. Cas. 453: uoluptas mea
(note the reaction of the next speaker), Stick. 584: o mea uita, o mea
uoluptas, Rud 1265: mi anime.
In conclusion I return to a point made earlier. While women are more
likely to use mi-expressions than men, they do not necessarily do so
mechanically, as a mere reflex of their sex. The circumstances, the
relationship of the speaker to the addressee, and the relative social status
of the two might also be influential. These factors are particularly clear in
Terence's-EaHucA. Thais addresses her lover Phaedria 4 times by means
of mi + his name (86, 95, 144, 190), and once with the endearment
anime mi (95),106 but she usually addresses the adulescentes Chremes
(751, 765) and Chaerea (864, 871, 880, 893) with the plain vocative
(but note 743 o mi Chreme, and mi homo at 756, spoken to Chremes).
The use of mi is partly determined by her relationship with the addressee,
and is not an indiscriminate feature of her speech (Don. on Eun. 95 is
misleading: 'uide quam familiariter hoc idem repetat blandimentum [mi];
uult enim Terentius uelut peculiare uerbum hoc esse Thaidis'.).
Thais does not use the mea-form of address to her ancilla Pythias, but
she has the plain vocative at 500, 753, 909; another ancilla, Dorias,
however, addresses Pythias as mea Pythias at 656. And Pythias
addresses her mistress as era mea at 834. It is possible that relative
social status is a factor in these exchanges, but it is not generally true in
Terence that the mi-address is withheld from lower-class characters.107
Nevertheless in this play there is a consistency about Thais's practice.
She does not use mi to the slave Parmeno (99, 462) or the parasite
Gnatho(1054).
In later Latin the m/-form of address was not exclusively or
predominantly used by women. It is common in Cicero's letters108 and
also in the letters of Seneca (48 times) when the addressee is a male.
Augustus used it in his letters when addressing both men (Suet. Aug.
51. 3,71. 2,71. 3,76. 2,Tib. 21. 5) and women (Suet. Cai 8. A,Claud.
4. 1,4. 4,4. 6). There are signs, however, that it was especially likely to
be used in the presence of women, if not necessarily by them. In the
Metamorphoses of Apuleius vocatives withm// mea are used 9timesby
males, 6timeswhen addressing females.109 Females themselves employ
the idiom 10 times.110 Similarly in Catullus 2 of the 11 examples are
assigned to female speakers (10. 25,45. 13), and in 7 of the other 9 cases
05
For an endearment passing between (imaginary) females at a later date, see Jerome
EpisL 22. 29. 5: 'mi catella, rebus tuis utere et uiue dum uiuis'.
106
Notice the lack of reciprocity at 190: 'in hoc biduum, Thais, uale. TH. mi Phaedria, et
tu'.
1
Note .Eun. 351, 1034, where the slave Parmeno is accorded the m;-address by an
adulescens.
108
See J.N. Adams, CQ 28 (1978), 162 f.
109
With a female addressee at 2. 7, 2.10, 2.18, 3. 22, 5.6, 8. 8; cf. 1. 6, 1.11, 1. 24.
110
2. 20, 4. 26, 4. 27, 5. 6 (twice), 5. 13, 5. 16, 6.16, 8. 10, 9.16.
the addressee is a woman.111 At Julius Valerius p. 25. 17 the vocative
mater is qualified by mi, whereas a few lines later (p. 25. 24) the vocative
of pater is unqualified. And it was suggested earlier (p. 52) that in the
joke at Cic. De Orat. 2. 277 the vocative Egilia mea addressed by Q.
Opimius to Egilius must have been intended as appropriate in the mouth
of a man speaking to a woman.
4 SOME USES OF MISER

Women in Terence are more prone to expressions of self pity than men,
as Donatus recognized (on Hec. 87: see above, p. 47). There are a few
uses of miser which are more characteristic of women than men, though
not completely excluded from male speech. It is likely that Terence's
exploitation of miser in the mouths of females is based on a popular
stereotype of female behaviour, rather than on genuine female speech.
Some of the expressions in question have an artificial appearance.
I take first the attributive use of miser (misera) in apposition to the
subject of a first-person verb, as in the sentence-dndV. 264: 'misera timeo
"incertum" hoc quorsus accidat'.112 Women employ the idiom 18 times,
or on average once every 37.2 lines, men too 18 times, or once every
300.3 lines.
Another first-person use of the word is more distinctively feminine.
Women use the exclamation me miseram 13 times, but men use me
miserum only 4 times. Together the two first-person idioms occur 31
times in female speech (once every 21.6 lines), 22 times in male (once
evey 245.7 lines). They are about 11.4 times more common in female
speech.
I add details of the distribution of some miscellaneous uses oi miser.
Various dative expressions of distress (uae misero mihi, ei misero mihi,
uae miserae mihi) occur 7 times in the mouths of males, twice in the
mouths of females. Me miserum as object of a verb or in the accusative +
infinitive construction occurs 7 times, me miseram in the same contexts
twice. The predicative use of miser (nom., masc.) with the verb 'to be' or
the like occurs 5 times, miser once. Generalizations containing the
comparative (of the type 'who is more wretched than I?') are uttered 3
times by males, once by a female. Finally, certain plural uses occur once
in male speech (Andr. 689), 3 times in female (Andr. 803,Phorm. 141,
Heaut. 649 [text doubtful]).
In total the various uses of miser listed above are found 40 times in 670
lines of female speech (once every 16.7 lines), 45 times in 5404 lines of
male speech (once every 120 lines).
In Plautus miser is very common. It is not especially characteristic of
females. I consider here only first-person expressions of self pity in
which miser or misera in the nominative is in apposition to the subject of
a first-person verb (other than the verb 'to be' and a few other
111
5. 1, 32. 1, 32. 2 (twice), 45. 2, 75. 1, 109. 1; cf. 13.1, 28. 3 (mi Fabulle).
112
1 exclude for the moment predicative examples which are subject of the verb 'to be' and
the like: see McGlynn (n. 31 above) 1. 363,1. (1) (b).
74 J. N. Adams
'substantival' verbs). There are 59 examples in male speech (one every
315.1 lines), and 22 in female (one every 119 lines).113 Despite its
slightly higher incidence in female speech, the idiom can hardly be said to
have been used by Plautus as a marker of the language of women.
In fragments of early comedy {palliata and togata) and tragedy first-
person uses of miser (those referring to the state of mind of the speaker)
seem to be common in the mouths of women, though the figures are too
small to justify firm conclusions. In comedy there are 7 examples spoken
by women, and 3 by men,114 and in tragedy 5 or 6 spoken by women, and
5 by men.115
I throw in some figures from Seneca's tragedies and from the Octavia
for comparison. Miser does not seem to congregate in speeches by
women. In the nominative, for example, in apposition to the subject of
verbs it is found 4 times in male speech, 6 times in female. And in the
vocative it occurs 7 times in the mouths of men, 6 times in the mouths of
women.
But miserandus (-a) is a different case. The attributive use (in
apposition to the subject of a first-person verb) is employed 4 times by
women,116 but not at all by men. And women use the vocative miseranda
(or miserande) 9 times,117 men 6 times.118 Overall women use
miserandus 19 times, men 8.
5 AUSEOFÂfO
There is a use of amo expressing not heterosexual love but an emotion
closer to gratitude,119 as for example at Cic. Att 1. 1. 5: 'multum te
amamus' ('many thanks'). In Terence the idiom takes the form merito te
amo (e.g. Heaut 360) or amo te (uos) (e.g. Phorm. 54). It is not
confined to the speech of females.
The practice of Plautus is different Men sometimes use amo to
express love for a woman (e.g. Cas. 232, Most 305; cf. Pers. 227), and
women occasionally speak in the same terms to men (Most. 303). On the
other hand women a number of times say amo te (uos) not to their lovers
or prospective lovers, but to friends (usually female) as an expression of
gratitude or affection: Cist. 7: 'eo ego uos amo et eo a me magnam iniistis
gratiam', 21: 'merito uostro amo uos', Cas. 184: 'amo te, atque istuc
expeto scire quid sit', Poen. 252: 'quiesco. ADE. ergo amo te', True.
879: 'multum amo te ob istam rem mecastor' (for the combination
multum amo, see Cic. Att 1.1.5 above). In every passage but the last
the addressee is female. This is not a male idiom in Plautus; Pseud. 944
5
Examples can be found in Lodge (n. 30 above) 2. 69 col. 2-70 col. 1 (3. b).
4
Women:Naeviusl34,Turpil. 113,179,196, Afran. 127,312,394; men: Aquilius3,
Turpil. 147, Afran. 409.
5
Women: Ennius 202,257 Vahlen, Pac. 10,134, Accius 36,111 (?); men: Erinius 308
Vahlen, Pac. 264, Accius 229, 346, 561.
6
Oct 907, 910, 960, Here. Oet. 1552.
7
Tro. 942, Here. Oet 442, 704, 715, 1214, Oct 25, 78, 138, 661.
8
Here. Fur. 439, Oed. 112, Here. Oet 764, Oct 302, 341, Hipp. 1255.
9
See Oxford Latin Dictionary, s.v., 10 a.
('ut ego ob tuam, Simia, perfldiam te amo et metuo et magni facio') is
ironical.
6 TEMULENTUS
120
G.P. Shipp has pointed out that temulentus 'seems to be used in early
Latin only of women'. In comedy and comic fragments (including those
of Atellane farce) it occurs 5 times, 4 times in reference to women (Ter.
Andr. 229, Eun. 655, Afran. 35, Novius 85; cf. Novius 36). That is not
necessarily to say that it was a woman's word; languages may have
'polite' terms to describe drunkenness in women (Fr. pompette, Eng.
tipsy). Nevertheless in 3 places the word either is, or might be, used by a
female {Andr. 229, Afran. 35, Novius 85).
CONCLUSION
There is a range of idioms in Terence which occur on average once every
10-20 lines in the mouths of women. Therefore in any extended passage
of female speech there is bound to be an accumulation of female
expressions. In the eleven lines Ad. 288-98, for example, where two
women are conversing, seven such expressions can be found. To a native
speaker the dialogue would surely have had a distinctive female sound,
regardless of the import of its content. I quote the passage with the
relevant words italicised:
SO. Obsecro, mea nutrix, quid nuncfiet?CA. quidfiet,rogas?
recte edepol spero. modo dolores, mea tu, occipiunt primulum:
iam nunc times, quasi numquam adfueris, numquam tute pepereris?
SO. miseram me, neminem habeo(solae sumu'; Geta autem hie non adest)
nee quern ad obstetricem mittam, nee qui accersat Aeschinum.
CA. pol is quidem iam hie aderit; nam numquam unum intermittit diem
quin semper ueniat. SO. solu' mearum miseriarumst remedium.
CA. e re nata meliu'fierihaud potuit quam factumst, era,
quando uitium oblatumst, quod ad ilium attinet potissimum,
talem, tali genere atque animo, natum ex tanta familia.
SO. ita pol est ut dici': saluo' nobis deos quaeso ut siet.
Most of the female words come at the start of utterances. There is an
accumulation at the start of the scene.
The following table shows the incidence in both male and female
speech in Terence of the most important idioms with a female character.
In each case the figure represents the number of lines which might be
expected to contain one example of the usage. There is always a clear
distinction between the figure for female speech and that for male, though
the gap varies:
P. Terenti Afri Andria2 (Melbourne 1960), on 229.

76 J. N. Adams
male speech female speech
oaths in general 42.9 10.8
pol 540.5 14.9
modifiers 80.7 14.3
obsecro 200.2 18.6
vocatives + mi 174.3 13.4
uses of miser 120 16.7
rresponding figures for Plautus are as follows:
oaths in general 16.3 11.4
pol 116.9 31.2
modifiers 89 16.6
obsecro 197.8 36.4
vocatives + mi 102.8 23.9
Again there is a difference between male and female practice, but the
incidence of almost every idiom is lower in female speech in Plautus than
it is in Terence. The gap between male and female speech is usually not
as clear-cut in Plautus. The female words that have been discussed were
sex-preferential rather than sex-exclusive, with the exception of
(m)ecastor.
The main general features of the way women speak in comedy are (a)
that they tend to be more polite or deferential (note the incidence of polite
modifiers and of vocatives + mi), and (b) that they are more prone to
idioms expressing affection or emotion (vocatives + mi, various uses of
amo and miser).
Sexual humour is not common enough in comedy to allow one to judge
whether women were considered at the time to be more euphemistic or
prudish in their speech than men. Sexual jokes based on metaphorical
double entendre are put into the mouths of women by Plautus as As in.
873-4 (a matrona is speaking), Cas. 911 (ancilla), and True. 149-50
(ancilla).
The question to what extent Plautus and Terence were drawing on real
speech cannot be answered satisfactorily. But if there were not an
element of authentic female language in their portrayal of women's
speech, audiences would not have recognized their purpose in giving
females certain expressions. It is possible that they exaggerated the
frequency of certain female usages to create a recognizable stage
language for women. Female idioms tend to come in clusters, not only in
Plautus and Terence (see above on Ad. 288-98, and also pp. 49,57), but
also in the fragments of the fabula togata: note Titin. 109-10: 'Paula
mea, amabo, pol...', Afran. 97: ' a u . . . obsecro', 103: 'au, mi homo
One suspects that in response to a stage convention dramatists inserted
sporadic accumulations of female expressions, of a type perhaps rarely
heard in the real language.
But mere stage convention could not wholly account for the
relationship between Plautus' and Terence's representation of female
speech. We have seen that both assign obsecro te + imperative to men,
but obsecro without te + imperative mainly to women. This subtle
distinction is more likely to derive from the spoken language than from an
artificial convention. And there are differences between Plautine and

Terentian practice which are best explained as due to changes which had
taken place in the real language (notably the decline of (m)ecastor, and
also of amabo, the use to which edepol was put, and the increase oiau).
Such differences would be difficult to account for if both writers were
drawing on a fossilized stage language.
There are signs that most of the female idioms seen earlier either fell
out of use by the late Republic, or ceased to be so markedly feminine {au
is a possible exception). But sometimes later Latin can be invoked to
elucidate the tone of a word in comedy.
The types of female idiom found in Latin comedy can usually be
paralleled in other languages. But I know of no parallel for the distinction
between the male and female methods of saying 'please'.
A final question which must be raised is that of the extent to which the
use of female expressions in Latin comedy was inspired by the Greek
originals. It must be stressed that a Latin playwright would have been
most unlikely simply to caique a female expression found in a Greek
original; his audience could not be expected to identify its female
character unless Latin possessed an exactly equivalent female idiom. A
Latin writer setting out to give his female speakers a feminine tone would
have to use either authentic Latin female expressions, or expressions
popularly believed to be feminine (see above, p. 43). It is not surprising
then that none of the Greek idioms discussed by Bain appears to have an
exact equivalent in Latin comedy, with the possible exception of the use
of raXav / zaXas to express self-pity. It was suggested earlier that
Terence's attribution of certain uses of miser to female speech does not
seem to have an authentic female character; he may have had vaXocv /
r&Aas in mind. There are also similarities of a less specific type between
Greek and Latin comedy. Bain notes (p. 32) an accumulation of female
idioms in the entrance monologue of Habrotonon in the third act of
Epitrepontes. The accumulations which I have pointed out in Terence
were perhaps motivated by his observation of what may have been a
technique of Greek New Comedy. Finally, there is possibly a loose
connexion between the use of sexually differentiated oaths in Greek and
in Latin comedy. Plautus and Terence may have employed oaths as sex-
markers in response to the presence of comparable expressions in Greek
comedy, though both were of course drawing on genuine Latin idiom.
University of Manchester J. N. ADAMS

Female Speech Patterns in Latin Comedy

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Female Speech in Latin Comedy

These are collected by V. Reich, 'Sprachliche Charakteristik bei Terenz', WS 51

There is a possible exception at Plaut. Cist. 52 (and E. Woytek, T. Maccius Plautus,

'Without an object atLig. 31,Deiot. 20,withte aiPhil 11. 20,andwith«osatAf/£ 103,

Te is an emendation, printed by Ribbeck in the third edition of the comic fragments. In

Obsecro, quaeso and amabo in similar contexts

Men. 1066: 'quaeso . . . <e>loquere' (man)

Rud. 1298: 'di, quaeso, subuenite' (man)

Asin. 41: 'age quaesso' (man)

Asin. 596: 'mitte quaeso' (man)

In some of these formulae, and in a few others, obsecro, in keeping with

In male speech there is one example of a modifier per 80.7 Unes, in

For which see Hoftnann, Lateinische Umgangssprache, 132 f.

4 SOME USES OF MISER

P. Terenti Afri Andria2 (Melbourne 1960), on 229.

artificial convention. And there are differences between Plautine and

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