50 The Rev. J. Hamilton on the Punic Passage in Plautus, 



Punic and Libyan Phraseology respecting the Residence of the Son of hi^ 



former Host explicated. 



Filium prcedicant esse hie Agorastocles. 



Uth byn im ysd' buth thym nucuth-ennu Agorastocles. 



Utena heanthi ym vosd duber {aono huth), 



nm 1Q^ ON ino'^n wDm 



And the son {report is) has established the residence here — Agoras- 

 tocles. 



Two leading ideas seem to occupy the mind of Hanno in his soliloquy : in 

 the first instance, the success of the journey he had taken to a strange city ; and 

 secondly, as auxiliary to that success the hospitable reception he anticipated from 

 there presentative of his deceased friend, and the favourable influence of the 

 patronage which the relations of hospitality among the ancients included. 



The benefit of Clientela, which he had not only prayed of the tutelary divi- 

 nities of the place, but intended claiming of his host by the exhibition of the 

 hereditary tessera, (in which, be it remembered, the Clientela was in so many 

 words generally specified,)* depended upon the heir of Antidamas being domi- 

 ciliated in the place. And as it is this leading idea that we observe breaking 

 out in the expression, "ifini tsn n*!^' I w^«* affmded an hospitium here by 

 Antidamas ; (including both hospitable accommodation and federal fellowship ;) 

 so the same train of thought accounts for his enlarging on the wealth which 

 Antidamas had accumulated, and bequeathed to his adopted son, as placing him 

 in circumstances to be the representative of his hospitality as of his riches. And 

 the same train of calculation again, we may anticipate, should lead him to ascer- 

 tain not merely whether Agorastocles were m the town, but whether he had a 

 domicile, and kept up an establishment there, of which, as his guest, he miglit 

 have the benefit. 



On this supposition, the purport of the seventh verse, we might surmise, 



* See Thomasin on the Tessera. 



