63 Colloquial and Li.. - Ganino.com

112 paolo poccetti
In Plautus’ dialogue between the Roman Milphio and the Carthaginian
Hanno, the Roman does not give the impression of knowing much Punic
beyond the greeting formula. The passage is a good example of use and
translation of the greeting expression in an oral context by a person who
pretends to know Punic: 5
(34) MI. vin appellem hunc Punice?
AG. an scis? MI. nullus me est hodie Poenus Poenior.
AG. adei atque appella quid velit, quid venerit,
qui sit, quoiatis, unde sit: ne parseris.
990
MI. avo. quoiates estis aut quo ex oppido? . . . 994
HA. avo. MI. salutat. HA. donni. MI. doni volt tibi
dare hic nescioquid. audin pollicitarier?
998
AG. saluta hunc rursus Punice verbis meis. 1000
MI. avo donnim inquit tibi verbis suis. (Pl. Poen. 990–1001)
MI. Want me to speak to him in Punic? AG. You know it? MI. I? There’s
not a Punicker Punic living. AG. Step up and speak to him, find out
what he wants, what he’s come for, who he is, his origin, his city: spare
noquestions.MI.Avo!Whereareyoupeoplefrom,whattown?...HA.
Avo! MI. Good-day, he says. HA. Donni. MI. A donation – he wants
to give you something or other. Hear him promise? AG. Return him his
good-day in Punic for me. MI. Avo donni says he to you for himself.
In fact in his reply Milphio is unable to do anything other than repeating
his interlocutor’s greeting and providing an approximate translation with
the Latin generic term salutare.
From the first century bc (h)ave becomes common with a greeting
function equivalent to that of salve and salvus sis. In this sense it is attested
in imperial Latin as an opposite of vale:
(35) subit igitur alia classis et illi quidem exclamavere ‘vale Gai’, hi autem ‘ave,
Gai’. (Petr. 74.7)
So another group came up and the first ones cried ‘Gaius, farewell!’,
while the new ones said ‘Gaius, hail!’
This usage is also indirectly attested in a letter from Caelius to Cicero:
(36) simul atque ‘have’ mihi dixit, statim quid de te audisset exposuit
(Caelius apud Cic. Fam. 8.16.4)
and as soon as he said ‘hello’ to me, he at once told me what he had
heard about you.
5 On the Punic passages in the Poenulus see the essays in Baier 2004.