The Braggart Soldier

“It’s only for my stomach that I stomach him. While ears are suffering, at least my teeth are suppering.” 

In the annotated version of the play edited by Henry Thomas Riley, which is posted online in the Perseus Catalog, he discusses the phrase “dentes dentire” in the original text, which literally refers to teething or growing teeth. Artotrogus performs his parasitic duties to avoid letting his teeth grow while he is unemployed. This play on words is typical of Plautus’s language. As Pyrgopolynices’s parasite and social inferior, Artotrogus makes the soldier look particularly ridiculous. He acknowledges that Pyrgopolynices’s supposed feats are all lies, but the soldier is stupid enough to believe them. Since the protagonist of the play is a slave, this depiction fits with Plautus’s upending of hierarchical society.

“Make her hurry— – that’s unless she’d rather see her faithful slaves, just for her affair become fraternal brothers— – on the cross!” 

The Henry Thomas Riley version notes that Palaestrio’s use of the phrase “faithful slaves” is adapted from Plautus’s use of the word “contubernales,” which implies that they are her fellow slaves or equals. Since Philocomasium was kidnapped by Pyrgopolynices, she has essentially existed as a slave in his house. If the soldier discovers that Philocomasium has been sneaking over to see Pleusicles in secret, Palaestrio and any other slave who helped her risks execution by crucifixion.