Plautus’s Captivi: Fides in Amicitia
(Cave Spoeleres!/Beware of Spoilers!)
Laudo, malum cum amici tuom ducis malum. Nunc habe bonum animum.”[1] - Hegiō
I commend you, in that you consider the affliction of your friend your own affliction. Now be of good heart.”[2] - Hegio
This is a line spoken by Hegio, the old man of the play Captivi, or Captives, written by Titus Maccius Plautus. Born in Northern Italy in 254 BC, Plautus became one of Rome’s most well-respected playwrights.[3] Captivi is centered around the theme Amicitia, with a special emphasis on fides, “faithfulness.” Fides is one of the strongest ways in which two people may show friendship towards one another. Beyond laughing and the other simple activities that go along with friendship, faithfulness is about trust; it is about knowing and believing without a doubt that your friend is a source of reliable support, and that you are for them. Whereas enjoying each other is the meat of Amictia, fides is the backbone.
The two main characters in Captivi, Tyndarus and Philcrates, demonstrate for us true fides in friendship. Tydarus is taken as a toddler from Hegio by the runaway slave Stalagmus and was sold as a slave to Philocrates’ father. Tyndarus and Philocrates grew up together amicably as slave and master respectfully, but when war breaks out between their native Elis and the neighboring state of Atolia, the home of Hegio, they are both taken as slaves by him, still without the knowledge that Tyndarus is his long lost son, so that he might ransom them for his own captive son, Philopolemus.
While waiting in captivity, Philocrates makes a plan for escape: he and Tyndarus will switch clothing and act like each other, in order that when Hegio sends Tyndarus (but really Philocrates) to go retrieve his son in exchange for their freedom, it will really be Philocrates who will be free. Philocrates, then, at least according to the plan, would conduct the exchange himself. Upon hearing the plan, we learn quite a lot about the relationship between our two protagonists; Tyndarus desperately reminds Philocrates of his loyalty, indicating that he secretly mistrusts that Philcrates will come back for him in the end:
English Translation
Tyndarus: Just as you desire me to be, I will be… For now you see that for your precious life I’m setting down my own, as dear to me.
Philocrates [I imagine quite dryly]: I know it
Tyndarus: … what they [people in general] wish for, until they obtain it, they are rightminded; but when they have now got it in their power, from being rightminded they bcome most deceitful, and most dishonest…[5]
Original Text:
Tyndarus: Ero ut me voles esse…Nam tu nunc vides pro tuo caro capite carum offerre (me) meum caput vilitati.
Philocrates: Scio.
Tyndarus:...quod sibi volunt, dum id impetrant, boni sunt; sed id ubi iam penes sese habent, ex bonis pessimi et frauulentissimi fiunt…[4]
Such blatant mistrust appears superficially to weaken the friendship between Philocrates and Tyndarus, but instead it strengthens it when Philocrates returns the fides that Tyndarus showed him in the end. Yet before then, the tension between our two protagonists escalates as Tyndarus gives a last warning to Philocrates, with a message to Phlocrates’ father:
Original Latin
Tyndarus: Me hic valere et—tute audacter dicito, Tyndare… beneque ero gessisse morem in tantis aerumnis tamen; neque med umquam deseruisse te neque factis neque fide, rebus in dubiis egenis.
Philocrates: Feci ego ista ut commemoras, et te meminisse id gratum est mihi. Merito tibi ea evenerunt a me; nam nunc, Phlocrates, si ego item memorem quae me erga multa fecisti bene, nox diem adimat; nam quasi servos meus esses, nihilo setius (tu) mihi obsequiosus semper fuisti.
Tyndarus: Istaec dicta te experiri et operis et factis volo...Ne tu me ignores, quom extemplo meo e conspectu abscesseris, quom me servom in servitute pro ted hic reliqueris, tuque te pro libero esse ducas, pignus deseras...Fac fidelis sis fideli, cave fidem fluxam geras...Haec per dexteram tuam te dextera retiens manu opsecro, infidelior mihi ne fuas quam ego sum tibi. Tu hoc age. Tu mihi erus nunc es, tu patronus, tu pater…[6]
English Translation
Tyndarus: Say that I am well here; and you do bloody tell him, Tyndarus… and that still, amid miseries so great, you have shown implicit obedience to your master, and that you have never abandoned me, either in deed or in fidelity, amid my wavering, unprosperous fortunes…
Philocrates: The things which you mention I have done, and I am pleased that you remember this. Deservedly have they been done for you by me; for now, Philocrates, if I, too, were to mention the things that you have kindly done for me, the night would cut short the day. For, had you been my slave even, no otherwise were you always obliging to me.
Tyndarus: I wish you to put these speeches to the test, both by your deeds and your actions… Do not you forget me the very moment that you have left my presence, since you will have left me here behind a captive in captivity for yourself, and don't consider yourself as free, and forsake your pledge… Take care to prove scrupulously faithful; take care that you show not a wavering fidelity… These things, by your right hand, holding you with my own right hand, do I beg of you; do not prove less true to me than I have proved to you. This matter do you attend to; you are now my master, you my patron, you my father…[7]
Plautus
Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Here, in Tyndarus’ first line, he aggressively points out to Philocrates how faithful and obedient he has always been. Then, as an audience, we begin to seriously worry that Phlocrates really won’t return for Tyndarus when he shrugs Tyndarus’ pleading off and tries to remind him that he, as a master, was kind to him. Finally, in a fit of concealed rage, Tyndarus demands that Philocrates comes back, then, as he realizes that he has lost all control in the matter, moves from demanding, to reasoning, and finally to begging for the fidelity of his friend.
The friendship of these two is left in a very careful balance from this point onwards. The kindness and civility that once characterized their relationship seems to be stripped out, leaving only fides. And even that, too, nearly dies as Tyndarus is forced to beg Philocrates to return it. Yet when Philocrates is finally gone, it is that fides that gives Tyndarus hope when eventually Aristophontes, a friend of Philocrates from Elis and fellow captive, accidentally reveals to Hegio that the two had switched personas, culminating in the rage of Hegio and Tyndarus being sent in chains to a stone quary. In the quarry, Hegio and Tyndarus have a conversation. Hegio, feeling that his faith has been betrayed, accuses Tydarus of being a “sower of villainies,” whereas Tyndarus declares that his lie was produced not viciously, but out of faith for Philocrates:
Original Latin
Tyndarus: Si ego hic peribo, ast ille ut dixit non redit, at erit mi hoc factum mortuo memorabile, (me) meum erum captum ex servitute atque hostibus reducem fecisse liberum in patriam ad patrem, meumque potius me caput periculo praeoptavisse, quam is periret, ponere...Optumest. At erum servavi, quem servatum gaudeo, cui me custodem addiderat erus maior meus. Sed malene id factum arbitrare?
Hegio: Pessume.
Tyndarus: At ego aio recte, qui abs te sorsum sentio. Nam coitato, si quis hoc gnato tuo tuos servos faxit, qualem haberes gratiam? Emitteresne necne eum servom manu? Essetne apud te is servos acceptissimus Responde.
Hegio: Opinor.
Tyndarus: Cur ergo iratus mihi es?
Hegio Quia illi fuisti quam mihi fidelior. ,
Tyndarus: Quid? Tu una nocte postulavisti et die recens catum hominem, nuperum novicium, te perdocere ut melius consulerem tibi, quam illi, quicum una (a) puero aetatem exgeram? [8]
English Translation
Tyndarus: If I do die here, then he returns not, as he said he would; but when I'm dead, this act will be remembered to my honor, that I caused my captive master to return from slavery and the foe, a free man, to his father in his native land; and that I preferred rather to expose my own life to peril, than that he should be undone… 'Tis very good. Still, I have saved my mater, whom I rejoice at being saved, to whom my elder master had assigned me as a protector. But do you think that this was wrongly done?
Hegio: Most wrongfully.
Tyndarus: But I, who disagree with you, say, rightly. For cosider, if any slave of yours had done this for your son, what thanks you would have given him. Would you have given that slave his freedom or not? Would not that slave have been in highest esteem with you? Answer me that.
Hegio: I think so.
Tyndarus: Why then, are you angry with me?
Hegio: Because you have proved more faithful to him than to myself.
Tyndarus: How now? Did you expect, in a single night and day, for yourself to teach me--a person just made captive, a recent slave, and in his novitiate--that I should rather consult your iterest than his, with whom from childhood I have passed my life? [9]
Here Tyndarus reaches the climax of his faith. Even without his master present, Tyndarus has faith in that he is more than a slave to Philocrates, and he shows it by being more faithful than a slave would be - he is a true friend. He is in shackles, possibly soon to be killed, yet he doesn’t back down, he doesn’t regret what he has done, but instead doubles down. At expense to himself, he holds true to his friend, and holds faith that his friend will return.
This emotional conversation is, as classicist Paul J. Burton puts it in his article, Amicitia in Plautus: A Study of Roman Friendship Processes, “an indication, surely, that Plautus intended his audience to pause and reflect seriously on the issue of fides.”[10] It raises for us a new question about Amictia: To whom should we be faithful? It’s a question that, when truly considered, doesn’t have a clear-cut answer.
In the end, I am glad to say, Tyndarus’ fides is returned, and Philocrates arrives with Hegio’s son, Philopolemus, and Stalagmus, the slave who took Tyndarus from Hegio as a child. Hegio feels awful for what he did to his long-lost son and releases them both. Stalagmus, on the other hand, as he puts himself in the chains that once held Tyndarus, says, “The Poets find but few Comedies of this kind, where good men might become better,”[11] indicating that even in Plautus’ time the remarkable strength of this play, as well as the strength of this faithful friendship, was recognized.
I end here, but not without leaving you a moment to consider fides in your own amicitiae. With whom do you share it? How does it manifest itself? And what does it teach you about what amicitia truly means?
Scene from Captivi
Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Notes
[1] Titus Maccius Plautus, Captivi (Latin Library, n.d.), http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/plautus/captivi.shtml.
[2] Titus Maccius Plautus, Captivi (perseus.tufts.edu, n.d.), Act 1, Scene 2, accessed July 31, 2018, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0096%3Aact%3Dintro%3Ascene%3Dsubject.
[3] Thinley Kalsang Bhutia et al., "Plautus," in Encyclopaedia Britannica (Encyclopaedia Britannica), last modified April 4, 2018, accessed July 31, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plautus.
[4] Plautus, Captivi, (Latin Library) Act 2, Scene 1
[5] Plautus, Captivi, (Perseus.Tufts) Act 2, Scene 1. Translation by Henry Thomas Riley
[6] Plautus, Captivi, (Latin Library) Act 2, Scene 3.
[7] Plautus, Captivi, (Perseus.Tufts) Act 2, Scene 3. Translation by Henry Thomas Riley
[8] Plautus, Captivi, (Latin Library) Act 3, Scene 5.
[9] Plautus, Captivi, (Perseus.Tufts) Act 3, Scene 5
[10] Paul J. Barton, Amicitia in Plautus: A Study of Roman Friendship Processes, 222.
[11] Maccius Plautus, Captivi, (Perseus.Tufts) Act 5, Scene 4.