63 Colloquial and Li.. - Ganino.com

92 wolfgang david cirilo de melo
In the first sentence, the speaker uses the indicative in the relative clause to
show that this is not part of the indirect speech; but the reflexive sibi, which
refers back to the main clause subject, would only have been appropriate
in indirect speech. The second sentence is similar. The old man who is the
subject of the accusative and infinitive is said to have done what everybody
has to do sooner or later: he died. The relative clause is in the indicative
to mark that it is not part of what people say. Since the relative clause is
therefore not closely connected with the accusative and infinitive, we would
expect non-reflexive ei; but Plautus uses the reflexive sibi as if the relative
clause were still part of what people are talking about. The third sentence
shows the opposite kind of confusion. The subject of memoravit is a soldier
who hired a prostitute; part of the money for her was paid by the speaker
of the sentence, who thought he was giving it for a different purpose. The
first accusative and infinitive contains sibi, as one might expect, because sibi
refers back to the subject of the main clause. This is followed by a second
accusative and infinitive, on an element of which the subsequent relative
clause depends. The subjunctive in the relative clause makes it clear that
it is still part of the indirect speech. The dative pronoun in it refers back
to the main clause subject, which is why we would expect sibi; but Plautus
uses ei as if the relative clause were no longer part of the indirect speech.
Does Plautus confuse possessive suus and eius in the same way? Let us
begin with the latter. 31 Plautus has 131 tokens of possessive eius. 32 Of these,
129 follow the classical rules. Only two tokens are exceptional:
(39) ...sividulum
hunc redegissem in potestatem eius, iuratust dare
mihi talentum magnum argenti. (Pl. Rud. 1378–80)
He swore that if I had returned this trunk into his power, he would give
me an Attic silver talent.
(40) itan tandem hanc maiiores famam tradiderunt tibi tui,
ut virtute eorum anteperta per flagitium perderes? (Pl. Trin. 642–3)
Did your ancestors really hand down this good reputation to you so
you could squander in a shameful way all they had won through their
excellence?
31 I leave out cases where eius is a genitive in object function because possessive pronouns and adjectives
are rare in object function (but they do exist: meo . . . prae metu in Am. 1066 means‘outoffearofme’,
and erilis . . . metus in Am. 1069 means ‘fear of the mistress’). The decision between object function
and other functions is not always straightforward: potestatem eius in Per. 602 has an objective genitive
(‘power over her’), but in Rud. 1379 the same phrase has a possessive genitive (‘his power’).
32 I exclude earum in Truc. 532, which is merely a conjecture.