Laudator Temporis Acti

Plautus, Braggart Soldier 627-630 (Periplectomenus speaking; tr. Paul Nixon):

How is this? You take me for a regular old Death's-head, eh?
So I seem to be such coffin contents, eh, to be living such a very long life, do I?
See here, my lad, I'm not over fifty-four,
and I'm still keen-sighted, quick-handed, and nimble-footed.

quid ais tu? itane tibi ego videor oppido Accherunticus?
tam capularis? tamne tibi diu videor vitam vivere?
nam equidem hau sum annos natus praeter quinquaginta et quattuor,
clare oculis video, pernix sum pedibus, manibus mobilis.        630

Id. 640-641:

Now I, I still have some fervour and freshness in my carcass,
I'm not yet dried up for all that charms and ravishes.

et ego amoris aliquantum habeo umorisque etiam in corpore        640
necdum exarui ex amoenis rebus et voluptariis.

Georg Luck (1926-2013), "The Role of Periplecomenus in the Miles Gloriosus:A Case of «Plautinisches im Plautus»?" Euphrosyne 20 (1992) 295-298 (at 296, with a few misprints corrected by me):

The whole passage (616-766) is quite remarkable. It has been called, among other things, a «full-scale Clubman's manifesto»⁵, and attempts have been made to connect it with a «gross type of Epicureanism»⁶. At the beginning of Act III, Palaestrio, Periplecomenus and Pleusicles are on the stage, but it is definitely Periplecomenus who dominates the scene, and the audience finds out a good deal about him. He is fifty-four, and his hair is white, but he is still full of vigour, and he understands the younger generation, because he remembers the time when he was young and in love. In fact, there is still some «love and juice» in him,

et ego amoris aliquantum habeo umorisque etiam in corpore (639-40).

Clearly, here is a man who enjoys the pleasures of life, an agreeable table-companion, good-natured, well-behaved, amusing. After all, he is an Ephesian, not an Apulian. He has gracious manners, dances well, is, above all, a loyal friend, hospitable and generous. He is also quite happy to live as a bachelor.

Without my going into more details, it has become clear, I think, that we have here the portrait of an accomplished Hellenistic bonvivant, the very opposite of the uncouth Soldier. In a way, this is a compendium of certain type of urbanitas. Leo (quoted in the commentary of Brix-Niemeyer-Köhler, Teubner, 1916, p. 88) called it appropriately «ein Stück neuattischen Lebens, innerlich einheitlich und aus einem Gusse». We might even go further and label the whole passage an outline of a Hellenistic «Gesellschaftsideal», valid in Athens as well as in Ephesus or Rome.

It would be tempting to interpret this text line by line and show its roots in a popularizing blend of Peripatetic and Epicurean ethics. But this is not the point of my paper⁷.

5 In her [Elaine Fantham's] review of Lothar Schaaf's book (see below), Gnomon 53, 1981, 195.

6 See below.

7 The reader who wishes to pursue this will find more material in the publications listed below: The commentary of A.O.F. Lorenz, Berlin, 1869, esp. on vv. 636-7; 638-41; 675; F. Ranke, Periplecomenus, Diss. Phil. Marburg, 1900, 65-88. (This is a useful compilation of material. The author had studied with Leo and Wilamowitz, but his main adviser was Theodor Birt); P.R. Coleman-Norton, «Philosophical Aspects of Early Roman Drama», Classical Philology 31, 1936, 331 and n. 28; C.F. Saylor, «Periplectomenus and the Organisation of the Miles Gloriosus», Eranos 75, 1977, 1-13; Elaine Fantham, «Philemon's Thesauros as a Dramatisation of Peripatetic Ethics», Hermes 105, 1977, 406-21.