Jeux de pari (alea) et bonne chance dans la culture romaine. Une relecture de l’invocation à Hercule dans le Curculio de Plaute

Abstract

One of the most famous scenes of gambling, alea, from Roman antiquity is found in archaic Latin theater, notably in a passage from Plautus’ Curculio (“The Weevil”) in which the eponymous character of the comedy, a parasite, invokes the god Hercules before throwing knucklebones in a betting game. Several commentators of the passage had interpreted the invocation to Hercules as the expression of the parasite’s wish to succeed in obtaining the throw of the god Hercules, which would have been of sufficient value to enable him to win against his opponent, a Phrygian soldier. This interpretation is no longer accepted today and it is preferred to consider that such an invocation plays rather with the comic cliché of Hercules represented as a glutton god and that the parasite Curculio invokes the god as the protector of parasites in search of survival. On the basis of a new analysis involving written sources, iconography and the topography of the city of Rome, this article proposes to interpret the scene according to a third scenario linking the invocation to Hercules to a request for intercession for good fortune.

Keywords

• good luck
• gambling
• knucklebones
• Hercules
• Plautus
• roll names