Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Author's note on terminology, transliteration, translation, and texts
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I PRE-TRIAL PLAYS
- PART II RECONCILIATION AND ITS RHETORIC
- PART III PLAYING ON THE BOUNDARIES OF THE LAW
- APPENDICES
- 1 Official arbitration in the Attic orators
- 2 Private arbitrations and reconciliations in Athens
- 3 Remedies for enslavement, kidnapping, and slave stealing in Athens and Rome
- 4 Controversial summonses in Rudens and Persa
- 5 Threats of lawsuits and self-help remedies in Graeco-Roman New Comedy
- 6 Ambiguous arbitri in Roman Comedy
- 7 Moikhos and moikheia
- Works cited
- General index
- Index locorum
6 - Ambiguous arbitri in Roman Comedy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Author's note on terminology, transliteration, translation, and texts
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I PRE-TRIAL PLAYS
- PART II RECONCILIATION AND ITS RHETORIC
- PART III PLAYING ON THE BOUNDARIES OF THE LAW
- APPENDICES
- 1 Official arbitration in the Attic orators
- 2 Private arbitrations and reconciliations in Athens
- 3 Remedies for enslavement, kidnapping, and slave stealing in Athens and Rome
- 4 Controversial summonses in Rudens and Persa
- 5 Threats of lawsuits and self-help remedies in Graeco-Roman New Comedy
- 6 Ambiguous arbitri in Roman Comedy
- 7 Moikhos and moikheia
- Works cited
- General index
- Index locorum
Summary
Lady Caroline. John, the grass is too damp for you. You had better go and put on your overshoes at once.
Sir John. I am quite comfortable, Caroline, I assure you.
Lady Caroline. You must allow me to be the best judge of that, John. Pray, do as I tell you.
(Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance, Act I)The purpose of this appendix is to provide a brief survey of the use of the terms arbiter and iudex in Plautus and Terence, and to assess the frequency with which those terms are used in a technical sense. By a technical arbiter or iudex, I mean either a judge who belongs to the judicial system (iudex unus or an arbiter, e.g. in an actio finium regundorum or in a bonae fidei iudicium) or a private arbitrator who resolves a legal dispute outside the court system. By a non-technical arbiter or iudex, I mean an individual who is depicted as having a judging capacity, but not in areas usually associated with judicial or arbitral practice, e.g. a judge of a good piece of cake – or of the effect of dampness on a husband's feet. Usage of the terms often is metaphorical or verges on the metaphorical (“You be the judge of my complaint!”).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Forensic StageSettling Disputes in Graeco-Roman New Comedy, pp. 467 - 474Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997