The rape-pregnancy plots of Roman comedy and their reception in nineteenth-century Greece: the case of The Pot of Basil by Antonios Matesis

Abstract

Abstract Plots in which a woman is raped and left pregnant are common in Roman comedy, but the cultural meaning of unwanted pregnancy and its relationship to women’s personal freedoms and bodily autonomy varies across reception contexts. Antonios Matesis (1794–1875) translated Terence’s Hecyra into vernacular Greek in the 1820s before going on to compose a comedy of his own, The Pot of Basil, which is influenced by Terence’s play. Nevertheless, Matesis refocuses the emotional dynamics of Terence’s plot in order to focus on Garoufalia, the pregnant woman, whose counterpart in Terence never appears onstage. This narrative trajectory situates the play within a local Zakynthian context, with contemporary literary works such as the Autobiography of Elisavet Moutzan-Martinengou (1801–32) also offering a critical examination of women’s life on the island. The influence of Terence places Matesis squarely in a European tradition of Roman comic reception, but reading his play alongside Moutzan-Martinengou’s work demonstrates how closely Matesis is entwined with debates concerning the status of women in the area which was the historical faultline between Venetian and Ottoman spheres of influence.