[NOTE 195.]
Simo.—Seize this rascal directly, and take him away.
——Sublimem hunc intrò rape quantum potes.
There is a sort of pun here upon the word sublimem. Terence alludes to the prisons where slaves were confined, which, in Athens, were usually in the loftiest part of the house: so that Simo says, take him up, and also take him up to the top of the house: this is the force of the word sublimem in this passage.
Slaves, in Greece, were treated with great indulgence, and never chained but for some heinous fault, or when they were brought into the slave-market, (vide Plautus’s Captives, A. 1. S. 2,) and then they were only worn for a short time. As Simo here commands that Davus should be put into chains, we are to suppose him to be exasperated to the utmost, which naturally leads ad finem epitaseos, to the end of the epitasis. The anger of Simo, the distress of Pamphilus and Glycera, the imprisonment of Davus, and the anxious suspense of Charinus, are what Scaliger (Poet, B. 1. C. 9.) calls the negotia exagitata, or the confused and disturbed state of affairs, which the catastrophe is to reduce in tranquillitatem non expectatam, into a sudden and unexpected tranquillity.
Simo.—I’ll not hear a single word. I’ll ruffle you now, rascal, I will.
Davus.—For all that, what I say is true.
Simo.—For all that, Dromo, take care to keep him bound.
S. Nihil audio. Ego jam te COMMOTUM REDDAM.
D. Tamen etsi hoc verum est.
S. Tamen. Cura adservandum vinctum.