Slaves, in Greece, were treated with great indulgence, and never chained but for some heinous fault, or when they were brought into the slave-market, (_vide Plautus’s Captives_, A. 1. S. 2,) and then they were only worn for a short time. As Simo here commands that Davus should be put into chains, we are to suppose him to be exasperated to the utmost, which naturally leads _ad finem epitaseos_, to the end of the epitasis. The anger of _Simo_, the distress of _Pamphilus_ and _Glycera_, the imprisonment of _Davus_, and the anxious suspense of _Charinus_, are what Scaliger (_Poet_, B. 1. C. 9.) calls the _negotia exagitata_, or the confused and disturbed state of affairs, which the _catastrophe_ is to reduce _in tranquillitatem non expectatam_, into a sudden and unexpected tranquillity. NOTE 196. _Simo.――I’ll not hear a single word. I’ll ruffle you now, rascal, I will._ _Davus.――For all that, what I say is true._ _Simo.――For all that, Dromo, take care to keep him bound._ _S._ Nihil audio. Ego jam te COMMOTUM REDDAM. _D._ Tamen etsi hoc verum est. _S._ Tamen. Cura adservandum vinctum. The word _commotum_ seems to have been imperfectly understood by Donatus and some other commentators, who have interpreted it as signifying motion; and would translate the line thus, “I’ll make you caper! I’ll make you dance to some tune, sirrah!” which is extremely foreign to its true meaning. Simo uses the phrase _commotum_ reddam instead of _commovebo_, for the sake of a pun which Terence makes with the word _reddam_: which cannot be perfectly preserved in English. In the seventh scene of the second act, Davus jests upon the empty larder, and says, _Indeed, Sir, I think you are too frugal: it is not well timed._ Simo is quite nettled at this severe joke, which leads him to think his stratagem discovered, and he cries out _Tace: hold your tongue_; upon which, Davus, delighted with his success in tormenting his master, says to himself Commovi, _I’ve ruffled him now._ Simo accidentally overhears this, and most severely retorts on him his own expression, Ego jam te commotum reddam: _I will ruffle you now, rascal; I will pay you back your ruffling._ The wit of the sentence depends on the word _reddam_; which allows of a double construction, as _reddo_ taken separately, signifies _to pay back_, _to requite_, and _to retaliate_. Simo may, therefore, be understood to say, that he pays him back the ruffling he received. But, for this conceit, Simo would have said, Commovebo, which is Davus’s own word: the sense would then have been clearer, though Terence has the same expression in another scene in this play, Quos me ludos redderet, where _reddo_ has the same meaning with facio: which is frequently used by Plautus, as “_ludos facere_.” NOTE 197.