masks expressive of malignant gaiety. They carried a goblet suspended round their waists, probably lest the slaves of their patrons should fill to them in too small cups; and also a vial of oil to be used at the bath, which was a necessary preparation before sitting down to table, for which the parasite required to be always ready at a moment’s warning(245). It was thus, too, that the character was represented on the Roman stage; and it would farther appear, that the parasites, in the days of Plautus, carried with them a sort of Joe Miller, as a manual of wit, with which they occasionally refreshed their vivacity. Thus the parasite, in the _Stichus_, says, “Ibo intro ad libros, et discam de dictis melioribus;” and again— “Libros inspexi, tam confido, quam potest, Me meum obtenturum ridiculis meis.” The parasite naturally became a leading character of the Roman stage. In spite of the pride and boasted national independence of its citizens, the whole system of manners at Rome was parasitical. The connection between patron and client, which was originally the cordial intercourse of reciprocal services, soon became that of haughty superiority on the one side, and sordid adulation on the other. Every client was in fact the parasite of some patrician, whose litter he often followed like a slave, conforming to all his caprices, and submitting to all his insults, for the privilege of being placed at the lowest seat of the patron’s table, and there repaying this indelicate hospitality by the most servile flattery. On the stage, the principal use of the parasite was to bring out the other characters from the canvass. Without Gnatho, the Thraso of Terence would have possessed less confidence; and without his flatterer, Pyrgopolinices would never have recollected breaking an elephant’s thigh by a blow of his fist. The parasite, in the _Captivi_, may be considered as a fair enough representative of his brethren in the other plays of Plautus. He submits patiently to all manner of ignominious treatment(246)—his spirits rise and sink according as his prospects of a feast become bright or clouded—he speaks a great deal in soliloquies, in which he talks much of the jests by which he attempted to recommend himself as a guest at the feasts of the Great, but we are not favoured with any of these jests. In such soliloquies, too, he rather expresses what would justly be thought of him by others, than what even a parasite was likely to say of himself.