"Make way for me, friends and strangers, while I carry out my duty here. Run, all of you, scatter and clear the road! I'm in a hurry and I don't want to butt into anybody with my head, or elbow, or chest, or knee.... And there's none so rich as can stand in my way, ... none so famous but down he goes off the sidewalk and stands on his head in the street," and so on for ten lines or more. After he has found his patron Phaedromus, he is apparently so exhausted that he cries: "Hold me up, please, hold me up! (Wobbles and falls panting into Phaedromus' arms.)
PH.... Get him a chair ... quick!"
When Leonida enters (As. 267 ff.) as the running slave, he is still out of breath at 326-7! Stasimus in Trin. 1008 ff., though his mission is also proclaimed as desperately urgent, pauses to declaim on public morals!
Considerable light has been thrown upon this subject recently by the dissertation of Weissman, De servi currentis persona apud comicos Romanes (Giessen, 1911), though his explanation of the modus operandi is inconclusive. Langen has commented on it at some length,[125] but offers no solution. Weise frankly admits:[126] "Wie sie gelaufen sind, ist ein Rätsel fur uns." LeGrand[127] follows Weise's conclusion that it is an imitation from the Greek and in support of this instances Curculio's use, while running, of the presumed translations from the Greek: agoranomus, demarchus, etc. He also cites as parallels some unconvincing phrases from fragments of New Comedy, while developing an ingenious theory that the device is a heritage from the Greek orchestra, where it could have been performed with a hippodrome effect. Terence berates the practice,[128] but makes use of it himself.[129]
Weissman's conclusions are worth a summary. He notes the following as the usual essential concomitants: 1. It is mentioned in the text that the slave is on the run. 2. He is the bearer of news of the moment; 3. He fails to recognize other characters on stage; 4. He is halted by the very man he is so violently seeking. He cites as the genuine occurrences of the servus or parasitus currens, besides the passages mentioned above, Cap. 781 ff., Ep. 1 ff., 192 ff., Mer. 111 ff., Per. 272 ff., St. 274 ff. Furthermore, he argues convincingly that this was an independent Roman development without a prototype on the Greek stage and neatly refutes Weise and LeGrand by proving that there are no extant Greek fragments sufficient to furnish a ground for any but the most tenuous argument. Above all, he correctly interprets the poet's aim with the dictum: "Praeterquam quod hac persona optime utitur ad actionem bene continuandam id maxime spectat ut per eam spectatorum risum captet." And this from a German youth of twenty-two!
It is in his attempt to explain the mechanism that we believe Weissman fails. He essays an exegesis of each passage, though the separate explanations are naturally similar. It will suffice to quote one, that to As. 267 ff.: "Hoc nullo modo aliter mihi declarari posse videtur nisi sic: Oratio Leonidae currentis maior est quam ut arbitrari possimus currentem semper eum habuisse eam. Ex versu 290 Leonidam de celeritate sua remisisse plane apparet. Quod semel solum eum fecisse cum non satis mihi esse videatur, saepius--bis vel ter--per breve tempus eum cursum suum interrupisse, circumspexisse, Libanum autem non spectavisse (hoc consilium poetae erat, licentia poetica est) et hoc modo per totam scaenam cursum suum direxisse arbitror."
It will be observed that for lack of any tangible evidence he very properly makes use of subjective reasoning. Now it has long been the opinion of the writer that the maximum of comic effect (and that this was the purpose of the servus currens there can surely be no doubt) could best be obtained by the actor's making a violent and frenzied pretense of running while scarcely moving from the spot. Consider the ludicrous spectacle of the rapidly moving legs and the flailing arms, with the actor's face turned toward the audience, as he declaims sonorously of his haste to perform his vital errand, while making but a snail's progress. Truly then his plea of exhaustion would not be without excuse! This is an explanation at once simpler, more potentially comic, more in accord with what we predicate as the spirit of Plautus, and furthermore we have seen roars of laughter created by the similar device of a low comedian in a modern extravaganza. Taking advantage of the same subjective license, we see nothing in Weissman's theory to offset our opinion. But, what is more, our subjective reconstruction is given color by a shred of tangible evidence. Suetonius (Tib. 38) refers to a popular quip on the emperor that compares him to an actor on the classic Greek stage: "Biennio continuo post ademptum imperium pedem porta non extulit; ... ut vulgo iam per iocum Callip(p)ides vocaretur, quem cursitare ac ne cubiti quidem mensuram progredi proverbio Graeco notatum est." That this Callipides was the ὑποϗριτής mentioned by Xenophon (Sym. III. 11), Plutarch (Ages. 21 and Apophth. Lacon.: s. v. Ages.), Cicyero (Ad. Att. XIII. 12) and possibly by Aristotle (Poet. 26.), seems highly plausible. Compare the saltus fullonius (Sen. Ep. 15.4).
Most amusing of all is Plautus' introduction of a parody on the parody, when Mercury rushes in post-haste crying (Amph. 984 ff.):
"Make way, give way, everybody, clear the way! I tell you all: don't you get so bold as to stand in my road. For, egad! I'd like to know why I, a god, shouldn't have as much right to threaten the rabble as a mere slave in the comedies!"
And perhaps St. 307 is a joke on the running slave: Sed spatium hoc occidit: brevest curriculo: quam me paenitet? That violent haste was considered a slavish trait is evidenced by Poen. 523-3.