Abstract
Plautus’ Roman comedy Menaechmi (The Two Menaechmuses) of c. 200 BC anticipates in fictional form the famous Rosenhan experiment of 1973, a landmark critique of psychiatric diagnosis. An analysis of the scenes of feigned madness and psychiatric examination suggests that the play (and the earlier Greek play from which it was adapted) offers two related ethical reflections, one on the validity of psychiatric diagnoses, the other on the validity of the entire medical model of insanity—that is, of the popular notion and political truth that mental illness is a (bodily) disease “like any other.” This essay is offered as a contribution to the interpretation of the play as well as to the history of psychiatry.
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Notes
Burzacchini (2007) reviews suggestions for Menaechmi’s model. Posidippus of Cassandreia (316 – c. 250 BC) is often thought to be its author. I return to the question in §7 below.
Readers can watch Rosenhan summarizing it himself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6bmZ8cVB4o (accessed September 11, 2013).
An earlier charge (198) is colloquial rather than clinical.
At v. 902 Menaechmus in frustration refers to his errand boy as meus Ulixes, suo qui regi tantum concivit mali (“That Ulysses of mine, who caused so much trouble for his king”). The “king” is of course Menaechmus himself (a parasite’s patron is commonly called rex). What legend is he alluding to? Perhaps to Odysseus’ legendary malingering. On the eve of the Trojan War Odysseus feigned insanity to avoid conscription, but was subsequently detected at the behest of Agamemnon. In the sequel Odysseus murdered Palamedes, whose father in turn convinced Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife, to take Aegisthus as her lover—who, in turn, murdered Agamemnon (Apollodorus Epitome 6.7–9).
According to Stok (1996), bare arms were medically associated with insomnia in antiquity (p. 2294).
Some editors reassign the lines and understand:
Psychiatrist (pinching Menaechmus’ arm) Do you feel anything?
Menaechmus Of course I do!
With this much-misunderstood question the doctor is probing two points derived from Hippocratic medical inquiry of the times:
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Explicitly he is inquiring about a sudden change in drinking habits. As Rankin (1972) has noticed, Hippocratic teaching held that a sudden change in dietary habits could produce malign effects on the body (p. 187). At the end of chapter 10 of On Regimen in Acute Diseases Hippocrates states, “White and dark wines (leukos te kai melas oinos) are both strong, but if a person makes an unaccustomed (para to ethos) switch to one from the other, they will alter many things in his body.” The repetition in Menaechmus’ reply of soleam (= Greek to ethos), “normally,” indicates that the doctor is inquiring whether Menaechmus customarily drinks “white” (Greek leukos ~ album) or “dark” wine (Greek melas ~ atrum) (HVA part 3 Kühn 15.626–30 = CMG 5.91 Helmreich). Had he gotten a chance to ask it, the doctor’s next question would have been, “Have you been drinking the other kind today?”
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Implicitly the doctor is afraid Menaechmus has been drinking dark wine, since according to Ps.-Aristotle (Problemata 30.1, 954a [cf. 953b]) it produces the same symptoms as does black bile in melancholic individuals.
These observations decisively refute an older suggestion that the doctor’s questions relate to the regularity of Menaechmus’ bowel movements (as cited in Gratwick 1993, ad loc.).
Incidentally, color is not really the sole issue. In his commentary on Hippocrates’ passage Galen (AD 129- c.200/c.216) points out that color implies taste, clarity or consistency (systasis), odor, and strength. For him, “dark” (melas) wine is usually muddy (pachys). Indeed we might well translate the two adjectives as “clear” and “muddy” respectively. This ambiguity explains why Menaechmus finds the question so bizarre. Latin album and atrum do mean “clear” and “muddy,” but very rarely—only one attestation apiece, and both very late (Apicius 1.6 and Palladius 11.14.9 respectively). Moreover, “dark” wine in Latin is usually nigrum, not atrum (Fantham 2007, 2011). Baffled, Menaechmus naturally takes the two words to mean literally “white” and “black”—like Crayola colors as it were. (Since the wordplay on melas works better in Greek than in Latin, I assume it derives thence and not, as so often elsewhere, from the wellspring of Plautus’ imagination.)
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Zanini (1984) nearly got this idea in identifying the two central themes of Plautus’ play as “simillimi” (identicals) and “insania,” but missed the epistemological point that unites them.
Sextus Empiricus Adv. Math. 7.408–410, Cicero Acad. 2.54–8 and 2.84–7. I am grateful to my colleague Charles Brittain for help on this point.
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Dedicated to the memories of David L. Rosenhan (1929–2012) and Thomas S. Szasz (1920–2012).
Note on text and translation Translations of Menaechmi in this paper are adapted at whim from those of Erich Segal (1996) and Paul Nixon (1917). The corresponding Latin text (which I have independently checked) is basically that of Friedrich Leo (1895).
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Fontaine, M. On Being Sane in an Insane Place – The Rosenhan Experiment in the Laboratory of Plautus’ Epidamnus. Curr Psychol 32, 348–365 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-013-9188-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-013-9188-z