Laudator Temporis Acti

Plautus, Trinummus 199-211 (tr. Paul Nixon):

There's certainly nothing more silly and stupid, more subdolous and voluble, more brassymouthed and perjured than these city busybodies called men about town. Yes, and I put myself in the very same category with 'em, swallowing as I did the falsehoods of fellows that affect to know everything and don't know anything. Why, what each man has in mind, or will have, they know; know what the king whispers to the queen; know what Juno chats about with Jove. Things that don't exist and never will—still they know 'em all. Not a straw do they care whether their praise or blame, scattered where they please, is fair or unfair, so long as they know what they like to know.

nihil est profecto stultius neque stolidius
neque mendaciloquius neque argutum magis,        200
neque confidentiloquius neque peiurius,
quam urbani assidui cives, quos scurras vocant.
atque egomet me adeo cum illis una ibidem traho,
qui illorum verbis falsis acceptor fui,
qui omnia se simulant scire neque quicquam sciunt.        205
quod quisque in animo habet aut habiturust sciunt,
sciunt id quod in aurem rex reginae dixerit,
sciunt quod Iuno fabulatast cum Iove;
quae neque futura neque sunt, tamen illi sciunt.
falson an vero laudent, culpent quem velint,        210
non flocci faciunt, dum illud quod lubeat sciant.

Id. 217-222:

Ah, if we only went to the root of everything they hear and tell about, and demanded their authority, and then fined and punished our tittletattlers if they didn't produce it—if we did this, we'd be doing a public service, and I warrant there'd be few people knowing what they don't know, and quite a lull in their blitherblather.

quod si exquiratur usque ab stirpe auctoritas,
unde quidquid auditum dicant, nisi id appareat,
famigeratori res sit cum damno et malo,
hoc ita si fiat, publico fiat bono,        220
pauci sint faxim qui sciant quod nesciunt,
occlusioremque habeant stultiloquentiam.

Eduard Fraenkel, Plautine Elements in Plautus, tr. Tomas Drevikovsky and Francis Muecke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 126-128 (notes omitted):

I would like to believe that the farcical torrent of words with its heaping up of similar concepts is a Plautine addition, especially as it occurs in similar form in the openings already discussed, such as Bacch. 1087: quicumque ubi ubi sunt, qui fuerunt quique futuri sunt posthac stulti, stolidi, fatui, fungi, bardi, blenni buccones ('whoever, wherever they are, who have been and will be hereafter foolish, doltish, silly, soft-headed, slow, simple, babblers'); however, we must take account of the possibility that Philemon, too, had fun with lists of such attributes, as did Aristophanes, in whose Clouds 627 we find: μὰ τὴν Ἀναπνοὴν μὰ τὸ Χάος μὰ τὸν Ἀέρα οὐκ εἶδον οὕτως ἄνδρ᾽ ἄγροικον οὐδένα οὐδ᾽ ἄπορον οὐδὲ σκαιὸν οὐδ᾽ ἐπιλήσμονα ('By Respiration, by Chaos, by Air I have never seen a country bumpkin so helpless, absurd, and forgetful')—significantly it occurs at the beginning of a genuine monologue, though it is rather less extravagant. In the characterization of the famigeratores ('scandalmongers') which follows Megaronides' opening words, we can attribute one phrase to Plautus with certainty. Those people claim to know everything, 205: omnia se simulant scire neque quicquam sciunt, quod quisque in animo habet aut habiturust sciunt, sciunt id quod in aurem rex reginae dixerit, sciunt quod Iuno fabulatast cum Iove ('they pretend they know everything but know nothing, they know what each person has in mind or will have in mind, they know what the king said in the queen's ear, they know what Juno spoke of with Jupiter'). This last part could be Roman just as easily as Greek; the commentators quote as a comparison Theocritus 15.64: πάντα γυναῖκες ἴσαντι, καὶ ὡς Ζεὺς ἠγάγεθ᾽ ῞Ηρην ('women know everything, even how Zeus married Hera'). On the other hand, what Philemon might have been referring to in the pair rex-regina ('king-queen') is a question that has defeated scholars. The idea of the Attic βασιλεύς ('king') and the βασίλιννα ('queen') has no connection with it, and the attempt to see in it an allusion to Demetrios Poliorketes is unfortunate—this completely misses the connections of the ideas. The scurrae know what each person's inner intentions are, even what they will be in the future; they know what Juno and Jupiter said to each other. Anything mentioned in conjunction with these things must be absolutely marvellous (these people 'hear the grass growing', after all), and a conversation of the lord of Athens of the time, no matter how private, would not be sufficient to put it in this category. What is almost worse, however, is that any explanation referring to historic persons ignores the tone of this passage where the plain reality of a political allusion would not be tolerable in conjunction with the expression from the world of popular fairy tale. In actual fact we are dealing here with a kind of fairy-tale motif: the king and queen are as remote from human understanding as the divine couple are. Rex-regina is actually a doublet of Iuppiter-Iuno, and this fact alone is evidence for an addition by Plautus who loves heaping-up, particularly in material from fable. It can also be shown objectively that we are dealing here with a Plautine, indeed a generally Roman concept. Even in a state that has become a republic, the king remains for the people the image of might and magnificence; in this way he lives on in proverbs and children's games: pueri ludentes 'rex eris' aiunt 'si recte facies' ('children say in their game "You will be king, if you do the right thing"') (Hor. Epist. 1.1.59; Porphyrio quotes at greater length the rhyme which is a trochaic septenarius like other lines with related content). The boys in Athens knew this same ball game, where the winner was called βασιλεύς; Plato (Tht. 146a) alludes to it. Another game, actually involving a king, existed in Athens: βασιλίνδα μὲν οὖν ἐστὶν ὅταν διακληρωθέντες ὁ μὲν βασιλεὺς τις ὢν τάττῃ τὸ (τί?) πρακτέον, ὁ δ' ὑπηρέτης εἶναι λαχὼν πᾶν τὸ ταχθὲν ὑπεκπονῇ ("Therefore it is "king of the castle" whenever after lots have been drawn the king lays down what is to be done, but he who gets to be servant performs all that he is ordered') (Pollux 9.110). But in the Athenian adults' game, comedy, we can hardly imagine a paradigmatic use for a king who resides outside time and space (quod in aurem rex regime dixerit, 'what the king said in the queen's ear').