Balatro
Balatro a professional jester, buffoon, or parasite (Hor. Sat. 1.2, 2); in Sat. 2.8, 21 the word isused as a proper name--Servilius Balatro). In spite of the difference of quantity, bălătro is probably connected with bala-re (to bleat like a sheep, and hence) to speak sillily. It is doubtless akin to blatero, a chatterer (Gel. 1.15). Balatrones were paid for their jests, and the tables of the wealthy were generally open to them for the sake of the amusement they afforded.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.