Laughter in Ancient Rome

by Mary Beard

  8. THE LAUGHTER LOVER

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

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

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

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

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

  6. Wilson 1996, 212.

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

  8. Tzetzes, Chil. 8.969–73 (Leone).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  18. “It is generally thought” sidesteps many divergent views. Robert 1968, 289, is unusual in using the reference to the millennial celebrations to pinpoint (more or less) the principal date of composition; Rapp 1950–51, 318, by contrast, considers many of the jokes to be at least in the dress of the ninth or tenth century.

  19. 148; Plutarch, Mor. 177a (= Regum et Imperatorum Apophth., Archelaus, 2); Mor. 509a (= De garr. 13).

  20. 150; Plutarch, Mor. 534b (= De Vitioso Pudore 14). For other parallels, see 206 (with Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 8.350b; Diogenes Laertius, Vitae 1.104); 264 (with Plutarch, Mor. 178f [= Regum et Imperatorum Apophth., Philip, 24]); Valerius Maximus, 6.2 ext. 1; Stobaeus, Anthologium 3.13.49 (attributing the story to “Serenus”).

  21. 73. On the possible identification, see Thierfelder 1968, 224. The funny idea of people objecting to the unhealthy siting of tombs (which could not harm those already dead) is also the theme of 26.

  22. 78: Σχολαστικὸς εἰκόνας ἀρχαῖα ζωγραφήματα ἐχούσας ἀπὸ Κορίνθου λαβὼν καὶ εἰς ναῦς ἐμβαλὼν τοῖς ναυκλήροις εἶπεν· Ἐὰν ταύτας ἀπολέσητε, καινὰς ὑμᾶς ἀπαιτήσω. Andreassi 2004, 71–80, is a good discussion of the processes of anonymization of these jokes: “Dallo ‘storico’ al ‘tipico’ (e viceversa . . . )” (71).

  23. Velleius Paterculus 1.13.4 (ending with the punch line “. . . iuberet praedici conducentibus, si eas perdidissent, novas eos reddituros”). We should add to this pair 193, which reprises a joke told by Cicero (De or. 2.276) about the poet Ennius and Scipio Nasica (discussed on p. 200).

  24. This is why some of the final few jokes return to the theme of the scholastikos, otherwise found in the first half of the book, and the first joke in the earliest manuscript, unattested elsewhere, is relegated to the final entry in the modern text, number 265.

  25. The best discussion of the scholastikos, stressing the connections with comic performance, is Winkler 1985, 160–65, with Andreassi 2004
, 43–51 (including a review of modern translations), and Kirichenko 2010, 11–16. The character is a leitmotiv of Conte 1997 (though not specifically as he appears in the Philogelos). I have borrowed egghead from Baldwin 1983.

  26. 3: Σχολαστικῷ τις ἰατρῷ προσελθὼν εἶπεν· Ἰατρέ, ὅταν ἀναστῶ ἐκ τοῦ ὕπνου, ἡμιώριον ἐσκότωμαι καὶ εἶθ’ οὕτως ἀποκαθίσταμαι. καὶ ὁ ἰατρός· Μετὰ τὸ ἡμιώριον ἐγείρου.

  27. 40; some manuscript versions do not include the detail of the father’s status, so making only the humorous contrast between the small boy and the large crowd.

  28. 6; with 253, a briefer version. 174 (“A man from Kyme”) is on a similar theme, and 27 inverts the point.

  29. 164: Κυμαῖος ἐν τῷ κολυμβᾶν βροχῆς γενομένης διὰ τὸ μὴ βραχῆναι εἰς τὸ βάθος κατέδυ; 115: Ἀβδηρίτης εὐνοῦχον ἰδὼν γυναικὶ ὁμιλοῦντα ἠρώτα ἄλλον, εἰ ἄρα γυνὴ αὐτοῦ ἐστι. τοῦ δὲ εἰπόντος εὐνοῦχον γυναῖκα ἔχειν μὴ δύνασθαι ἔφη· Οὐκοῦν θυγάτηρ αὐτοῦ ἐστιν. The first of these jokes points nicely to the different status of water when in a pool or when falling from the sky: we don’t, after all, think of swimming as “getting wet.”

  30. The origins of these modern traditions of joking in national(ist) geopolitics set them clearly apart from the ancient traditions, despite superficial similarities often noted (by, for example, Toner 2009, 98). The cities of the Philogelos are more internal than foreign objects of jocularity. And the jokes are probably closer to the English “disgusted-of-Tunbridge Wells” style of quip, where Tunbridge Wells stands for a town whose inhabitants are caricatured as elderly, conservative, and out of touch with modernity (and always writing to newspapers to express their “disgust”).

  31. Strabo, Geographica 13.3.6; briefly discussed by Purcell 2005, 207–8 (which appears to find the passage, in detail, as puzzling as I do). This similar anecdote definitely referring to the city in Asia Minor makes it virtually certain that the jokes on Kyme in the Philogelos are not referring to either of the other ancient towns that could be spelled in the same way (in Euboea or our Cumae, in South Italy).

  32. Martial, Epigram. 10.25 (see also Juvenal 10.50); Cicero, Att. 4.17.3 (SB 91), with 7.7.4 (SB 130). See also Machon, frag. 11, 119–33 (Gow); Lucian, Hist. conscr. 1.

  33. 35; 158.

  34. See above, n. 7. Occasionally too the type characters might be combined, as in 131, which concerns a Sidonian scholastikos.

  35. 137 (essentially the same joke as 99).

  36. 162: Κυμαίων <τὴν> πόλιν τειχιζόντων εἷς τῶν πολιτῶν Λολλιανὸς καλούμενος δύο κορτίνας ἰδίοις ἐτείχισεν ἀναλώμασι. πολεμίων δὲ ἐπιστάντων ὀργισθέντες οἱ Κυμαῖοι συνεφώνησαν, ἵνα τὸ Λολλιανοῦ τεῖχος μηδεὶς φυλάξῃ ἀλλ’ ἐκεῖνος μόνος.

  37. Parts of the Philogelos show signs of an internal logic or significant ordering within the division into type characters: 25, 26, and 27, for example, are a trio concerning death; 52 is a neat inversion of the preceding joke. It is, of course, impossible to be sure whether such patterns are to be put down to the compilers or to whatever source text they might have been using.

  38. There is a trace of another standard joke line in the scholastikos group: on three occasions (15, 43, 52), just before the punch line (and as if to signal it), the egghead says words to the effect of “What an idiot I am,” “No wonder they call us idiots” (μωροὶ καλούμεθα, μωροὶ νομιζόμεθα, μωρός εἰμι).

  39. West (1992, 268) comes close to suggesting an academic function for the book when she writes, “But it seems worth raising the question whether it was really intended as a joke book, or whether it embodies an attempt at a motif-index, compiled, perhaps, to assist an analysis of various forms of wit and humour.”

  40. Andreassi 2004, 37–43, reviews the various connections with other genres. Jokes with a probable link to fable include 142 and 180 (see also Andreassi 2006, on the “greedy man” [λιμόξηρος] in the Philogelos and the Life of Aesop). Kirichenko 2010, 11–16, discusses mimic themes in the scholastikos jokes. Floridi 2012 discusses links between the Philogelos and scoptic epigram; for specific points of comparison, see, e.g., 97 and AP 11.170; 235 and AP 11.241. The few sexual jokes in the collection include 45 (see above, p. 198), 244, 245, 251. Whether this reflects the character of the Philogelos from its earliest phases or is the result of medieval bowdlerization, we do not know.

  41. E.g., 4, 135, 184, 189.

  42. 14; the vocabulary and metaphors suggest the influence of comic performance and/or mime (see Aristophanes, Thesm. 797; Herodas, Mimiambi 2.15).

  43. 239: “Οἴμοι, τί δράσω; δυσὶ κακοῖς μερίζομαι” (“Alas, what shall I do? I am torn between two evils”).

  44. 121: οὐκέτι τρέχει, ἀλλὰ πέτεται. There are links with AP 11.208; see Floridi 2012, 652–53. But the epigram is simpler, resting only on a play between running (to dinner) and flying.

  45. 8: Σχολαστικὸς θέλων πιάσαι μῦν συνεχῶς τὰ βιβλία αὐτοῦ τρώγοντα κρέας δακὼν ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ ἐκάθισεν . . . “Sententiam non completam esse monuit Dawe” is the comment in his Teubner edition. Others have not been so despondent. Perhaps the joke is that the scholastikos was pretending to be a cat (so Thierfelder 1968, 205).

  46. Σχολαστικὸς ἀργυροκόπῳ ἐπέταξε λύχνον ποιῆσαι. τοῦ δὲ ἐξετάσαντος, πηλίκον ποιήσει, ἀπεκρίνατο· Ὡς πρὸς ὀκτὼ ἀνθρώπους.

  47. Felice 2013.

  48. To be honest, I find this interpretation slightly puzzling. For—to think it through in finer detail than the joke probably deserves—the scholastikos can hardly have mistaken the silversmith for a fish seller in the first place. Are we to imagine that he is the clever exploiter of the pun by replying to the silversmith’s question with an answer that exposes the double meaning? Nor am I convinced that the “very occasional” usage is enough to give ποιέω a clear resonance of food preparation; so far as I can see, we are dealing with one passage from the Septuagint (Genesis 18:7).

  49. Different kinds of ingenuity are on display in Thiel 1972 (emendation of the text of 237, accepted and elaborated in Dawe’s Teubner text); Morgan 1981 (attempting to restore sense to 216 by translating κυβερνήτης as “governor” rather than “steersman”); Rougé 1987 (elucidating some of the nautical and navigational terminology); Lucaszewicz 1989 (emending the text of 76 to produce a joke about the scholastikos’ slave relations).

  50. 200: Ἀφυὴς μαθητὴς ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐπιστάτου κελευσθεὶς ὀνυχίσαι οἰκοδεσπότην ἐδάκρυσε. τοῦ δὲ τὴν αἰτίαν ἐρωτήσαντος ἔφη· Φοβοῦμαι καὶ κλαίω· μέλλω γὰρ τραυματίσαι σε, καὶ παρωνυχίδας ποιήσεις, καὶ τύψει με ὁ ἐπιστάτης. Thierfelder (1968, 261–62) does his best, pointing to links with the previous joke and to the logical confusion of the simpleton’s complaint; Baldwin’s mistranslation (1983, 38) does not help. The joke does, however, serve to remind us of the difficulties (and pain) of nail trimming in antiquity.

  51. 214: Φθονερὸς εἰς γναφεῖον εἰσελθὼν καὶ μὴ θέλων οὐρῆσαι ἀπέθανεν.

  52. For an up-to-date (and rather less lurid than usual) view of the use of urine in the fulling industry, see Flohr and Wilson 2011, 150–54; Flohr 2013, 103–4, 170–71 (though without reference to this joke). I have been helped with this jo
ke by some careful comments by Istvan Bodnar on an earlier podcast version of these ideas. Even so, some problems remain—including my translation meanie, implying niggardly (so not wanting to give his urine away for free). That is not the most obvious sense of the Greek φθονερὸς, which more usually (as in the other jokes in this category) suggests spitefulness.

  53. These include jokes on parricides: 13, 152; the death of a slave: 18; misunderstanding about or disputed death: 22, 29, 70; inheritance: 24, 104, 139, 229; tombs: 26, 73; funerals: 38, 40, 123, 154, 247; coffins: 50, 97; infanticide, 57; the death of a son: 69, 77; suicide: 112, 231; crucifixion: 121; condemnation to death: 168; sudden death: 214; the death of a wife: 227.

  54. Critchley 2002, 65–66, partly drawing on Mary Douglas’s famous essay on jokes (1968) and crisply encapsulating approaches that underlie other, more specific contributions to joke studies (see, for example, Kerman 1980, discussing “light-bulb” gags in broadly similar terms). It is striking that some jokes in the Philogelos explicitly make issues of relativism (or the failure to understand the nature of a different perspective) the topic of joking: see, for example, 49, in which a scholastikos, looking at the moon, asks his father if other cities have moons like theirs.

  55. 5: Σχολαστικῷ τις ἀπαντήσας ἔφη· Κύριε σχολαστικέ, καθ’ ὕπνους σε εἶδον. ὁ δέ· Μὰ τοὺς θεούς, εἶπεν, ἀσχολῶν οὐ προσέσχον; the alternative version is 102.

  56. 15: Σχολαστικὸς καθ’ ὕπνους ἧλον πεπατηκέναι δόξας τὸν πόδα περιέδησεν. ἑταῖρος δὲ αὐτοῦ πυθόμενος τὴν αἰτίαν καὶ γνούς· Δικαίως, ἔφη, μωροὶ καλούμεθα. διὰ τί γὰρ ἀνυπόδητος κοιμᾶσαι; 207 (see also 124, 243). The theme of dreaming versus reality is also found in scoptic epigrams; see Floridi 2012, 643.