Frammenti e mosaici: la tavola e il vino nel primo atto delle Synarostosai di Menandro

This paper aims to compare two fragments of Menander’s Synaristosai (frr. 335–336) and some verses of Plautus’ Cistellaria (vv. 10–18) with the images of four mosaics, referring to the first act of this comedy and discovered in Pompei (2nd century BC), Zeugma (3rd century AD), Antioch (3rd century AD) and Mytilene (3rd–4th century AD), in order to suggest new hypotheses about the plot. First I will argue that the table represented at the center of the scene in three of these mosaics (Pompei, Zeugma, Mytilene) is a kind of deutera trapeza, which a slave set again after the women finished their lunch. Then I will show the possibility that the old Philainis blames the barbarian slave twice: on having removed the wine together with the table and on having spoiled the wine with too much water.