63 Colloquial and Li.. - Ganino.com

122 paolo poccetti
This utterance insists on two terms identifying a greeting exchange: credere
‘give, commit’ and reddere ‘give back, return’. This use of reddere is well
paralleled elsewhere; in addition to example (51) above, note:
(78) salute accepta redditaque (Liv. 7.5.4)
when greetings had been given and returned.
The verb accipere, which here occurs with reddere, may also replace it,
indicating that acceptance of a greeting is shown by an adequate reply:
(79) dicta acceptaque salute (Ov. Met. 14.11, 271)
when greetings had been given and accepted.
8 patterns of symmetry and reciprocity in replies
The need for symmetry and reciprocity in Roman greetings 12 could be met
in a variety of ways. One was a simple repetition of the same words in the
same order, as:
(80) PE. salva sies . . . | PH. salvos sis.
PE.Gooddaytoyou...PH.Gooddaytoyou.
(Pl. Epid. 548–9)
Another was the return of the same greeting formula but with the order of
its elements inverted, either symmetrically (ABBA) as in these examples:
(81) CH. O Pistoclere, salve. PI. salve, Chrysale. (Pl. Bac. 183)
CH. What ho, sir! How are you? PI. And yourself, Chrysalus?
(82) LE. O pater, pater mi, salve. CH. salve multum, gnate mi.
(Pl. Trin. 1180)
LE. Oh father, father dear, God bless you! CH. And you, my dear boy,
and you!
or with slight variation:
(83) mi frater, salve! – o soror, salve, mea.
‘Greetings, my brother!’ ‘Greetings, my sister!’
(Pompon. com. 49 R.)
A third possibility was the use of terms different from but still closely
related to those of the original greeting, as for example salve versus salveto
or salvus sis:
12 This is not, of course, a feature specific to the Romans but is common in many cultures; see Braun
1988: 303.