Allie Pohler (University of Cincinnati)
The ancilla Pythias of Terence’s Eunuchus offers a nuanced assessment of guilt and accountability in the aftermath of rape. In her keen assessment of the play’s violence, Pythias identifies both the assailant adulescens, Chaerea, and his servus, Parmeno, as bearing responsibility for the rape of Pamphila. This paper investigates how Pythias’s response provides an additional lens through which the audience might critique the play’s central characters.
My approach diverges from the dominant reading, which views Chaerea as a surrogate servus callidus and Parmeno a “bungling slave” (Saylor 1975; Barsby 1990; Sharrock 2009). This prevailing interpretation requires that we accept Parmeno’s claim that his plan was a joke and minimizes Pythias’s resolve to punish Parmeno. Scholars have acknowledged Pythias’s ability to sympathize with Pamphila (Martin 1995; Rosavich 1998), and Smith 1994 demonstrates that Terence includes legal and sociocultural reasons to critique the rape, but a focused study of Pythias’s contribution to discussions of culpability is still lacking. By foregrounding Pythias’ perspective (as both witness and accuser) that accessories to crimes are as culpable as perpetrators, and declining to excuse Parmeno for his involvement in the crime, I offer a new, dynamic reading of both these enslaved characters.
I begin by reassigning intentionality to Parmeno, establishing that he recognizes his responsibility as servus callidus to aid the adulescens through his resourcefulness (Chaerea, aliquid inveni modo quod ames; in ea re utilitatem ego faciam ut cognoscas meam, 308-10). I then present the lexical evidence (ignored or minimized by scholars who excuse Parmeno) that frames him repeatedly as a knowing accomplice (693-4; 718; 965-6; te auctore quod fecisset adulescens, 1013-4; o Parmeno mi, o mearum voluptatum omnium inventor inceptor perfector, 1034-5). Parmeno knew Pamphila’s civil status, I argue, and his objections to the enactment of the plan (378-89) are cursory and self-serving. Recognizing Parmeno as the mastermind behind the rape forces us to reckon with a servus callidus who intentionally sets the adulescens upon an innocent virgo, a disturbing notion, but not inappropriate in a play which brings the comic commonplace of sexual violence to center stage.
I then turn to Pythias, arguing that her primary function is to highlight the culpability of both accomplices and perpetrators of violence. I examine Pythias’s onstage investigation in the aftermath of the assault, foregrounding the power of her speech as a tool for active intervention. After she has deduced Parmeno’s guilt (Parmenonis tam scio esse hanc techinam quam me vivere, 718), she confronts him with the claim that “they [all] believe whatever was done originated from you” (putant quidquid factumst ex te esse ortum, 966). She then enacts intense psychological punishment—a fantasy of Chaerea’s castration—on Parmeno (957-8), despite her marginalized status and limited means of retribution. Pythias’s final triumphant line confirms her purpose: hic pro illo munere tibi honos est habitus: abeo (1023). Pythias’s intervention, I conclude, reveals the flimsiness of Parmeno’s excuses, and her behavior in the aftermath of rape models a determination to hold both perpetrators and perpetuators of violence accountable.