A History of Roman Literature

by Harold North Fowler

Titus Maccius Plautus (Flatfoot) was born at Sarsina, a town of Umbria, about 254 B. C. T. Maccius Plautus. He went to Rome while still a boy, and seems to have earned so much as a servant or assistant of actors, that he was able to leave the city and engage in trade at some other place. His business venture was a failure; he lost his money, and returned to Rome, where he hired himself out to a miller, in whose service he was when he wrote his first three plays. His first appearance with a play was probably about 224 B. C. Further details of his life are unknown. He died in 184 B. C., at the age of about seventy years. He was, therefore, a younger contemporary of Livius Andronicus and Nævius, but older than Ennius and Pacuvius.

Of the plays of Plautus twenty are extant, besides extensive fragments of another. His total production is said to have been one hundred and thirty plays, though some of these were probably wrongly ascribed to him. The plots of his plays, as of those of Terence, are usually founded upon a love affair between a young man of good family and a girl of low position and doubtful character. The plots and characters of Roman comedies. The young man is aided by his servant or a parasite, but his father is opposed to his having anything to do with the girl. The girl’s mother or mistress usually aids the lovers, but often has to be won over by money, which the young man and his servant have to get from his father. Sometimes the characters mentioned are duplicated, and we have two pairs of lovers, two irate fathers, two cunning slaves, etc. Other typical characters are the procurer, the parasite, the boastful soldier, and a few more, who help to bring about amusing situations, and serve as the butt of many jokes. In the end, the lovers are usually united, and the girl turns out to be of good birth, often the long-lost daughter of one of the older men in the play. Sometimes other plots are chosen, as in the Amphitruo, which is founded on the story that Jupiter, when he visited Alcmene, used to take the form of her husband Amphitryon, and the fun of the play is caused by the confusion between the real husband and the disguised god. In a few plays the plot is less decidedly a love plot, but, as a general rule, the Roman comedies had love stories for their foundation. There is, however, room for considerable variety, as may be seen by a brief sketch of the contents of the extant plays of Plautus.

The Amphitruo, bringing the “Father of gods and men” into comic confusion with a mortal, and under very suspicious circumstances at that, is a burlesque, full of rather broad fun and amusing situations, perhaps the most interesting of all Latin comedies. The extant plays of Plautus. In the Asinaria, the Casina, and the Mercator, father and son are rivals for the affection of the same girl. Of these three, the Casina is the worst in its indecency, while the other two lack interest. These plays, however, like all the comedies of Plautus, are full of animal spirits, plays on words, and clever dialogue. The Aulularia, or Pot of Gold, has a plot of little interest, but is famous for the brilliant and lifelike presentation of the chief character, the old miser Euclio. The Captivi, one of the best of the plays, has for its subject the friendship between a master and his slave. There are no female characters, and the piece is entirely free from the coarseness and immorality which disfigure most of the others. The Trinummus, or Three-penny Piece, has also friendship, not love, as its leading motive, though it ends with a betrothal. This play also is free from coarseness, and gives an attractive picture of the good old days when friend was true to friend. The Curculio is interesting chiefly through the cleverness of the parasite, who succeeds in making the rival of his employer furnish the money needed to obtain the girl. The Epidicus, the Mostellaria, and the Persa, also owe their interest to the tricks and rascalities of the parasite or the valet. The Cistellaria, only part of which is preserved, contains a love affair, but has for its chief interest the recognition between a father and his long-lost daughter. The Vidularia, too, which exists only in fragments, leads up to a recognition, this time between a father and his son. The Miles Gloriosus, a play of very ordinary plot, is distinguished for the somewhat exaggerated and farcical portrait of the braggart soldier. So the Pseudolus is a piece of character drawing, in which the perjured go-between, Ballio, is the one important figure. In the Bacchides the plot is more intricate and interesting, and the execution more brilliant, but the life depicted is that of loose women and immoral men. The Stichus has little plot, but several attractive scenes. Two women, whose husbands have disappeared, remain faithful to them, and are rewarded by having them return with great wealth. The Pœnulus is chiefly interesting on account of passages in the Carthaginian language, which have for centuries attracted the attention of linguists. In the Truculentus, a countryman comes to the city and changes his rustic manners for city polish. The scenes are witty and effective, but the plot is weak. In the Menæchmi, twin brothers come to the town of Epidamnum, and their likeness to each other causes most laughable confusion. This is the original of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors and many other modern plays of similar plot. The Rudens, or Cable, has for its subject the restoration of a long-lost daughter to her father and her union with her lover, but is distinguished from the other plays of Plautus by the evident love of nature and the fresh breath of the sea and open air that breathe through it, making it one of the most attractive of his comedies.

How much of the plots of these plays can be attributed to Plautus himself it is hard to tell. Degree of originality in Plautus. In some instances nearly all the details seem to be Greek, and probably the plays in which this is the case are simply free translations with just enough changes to make them easily understood at Rome. In other cases, as in the Stichus, the play as we have it seems to be made up of scenes only loosely strung together, arranged apparently rather for a Roman audience which cared chiefly for spectacular effect and stage by-play than for a Greek audience accustomed to weigh and criticize the excellence of the plot. In some instances, too, the Latin play is known to be made up of scenes taken from two Greek plays and put together in order to produce a single piece of more action than either of the originals. The importance of the work of the Latin playwright varies therefore considerably. There are, however, numerous passages containing references to details of Roman life, which must be in great measure original with the Roman writer; there are many plays on Latin words which could not be introduced in a mere translation from a foreign language; and in other respects also the comedies show Roman rather than Greek qualities. We must therefore attribute to Plautus a considerable share of originality, and the metrical form of his plays is naturally due to him alone.

The following passage, whatever it may owe to the Greek original, doubtless owes part of its unusual liveliness to Plautus:[7]

Sceparnio. But, O Palæmon, holy companion of Neptune, who art said to be a sharer in the labors of Hercules, what’s that I see? Two shipwrecked women. Dæmones.What do you see? Scep. I see two women folk sitting all alone in a boat. How the poor things are tossed about! Ah! ha! Bully for that! The current has turned the boat from the rock to the shore. No pilot could have done it better. I think I never saw bigger waves. They are safe, if they have escaped those billows. Now, now’s the danger! Oh! It has thrown one of them out. But she’s in shallow water; she’ll swim out easily. Whew! Do you see how the water threw that other one out? She’s come up again; she’s coming this way. She’s safe!

A second passage[8] will give an idea of the style of some of the dialogue of Plautus. The speakers are a boy, Pægnium, and a maid-servant, Sophoclidisca:

Sophoclidisca. Pægnium, darling boy, good day. How do you do? How’s your health? Pægnium. Bantering talk. Sophoclidisca, the gods bless me! Soph. How about me? Pæg. That’s as the gods choose; but if they do as you deserve, they’ll hate you and hurt you. Soph. Stop your bad talk. Pæg. When I talk as you deserve, my talk is good, not bad. Soph. What are you doing? Pæg. I’m standing opposite and looking at you, a bad woman. Soph. Surely I never knew a worse boy than you. Pæg. What do I do that’s bad, or to whom do I say anything bad? Soph. To whomever you get a chance. Pæg. No man ever thought so. Soph. But many know that it is so. Pæg. Ah! Soph. Bah! Pæg. You judge other people’s characters by your own nature. Soph. I confess I am as a pimp’s maid should be. Pæg. I’ve heard enough. Soph. What about you? Do you confess you’re as I say? Pæg. I’d confess if I were so. Soph. Go off now. You’re too much for me. Pæg. Then you go off now. Soph. Tell me this: where are you going? Pæg. Where are you going? Soph. You tell; I asked first. Pæg. But you’ll find out last. Soph. I’m not going far from here. Pæg. And I’m not going far, either. Soph. Where are you going, then, scamp? Pæg. Unless I hear first from you, you’ll never know what you ask. Soph. I declare you’ll never find out to-day, unless I hear first from you. Pæg. Is that so? Soph. Yes, it is. Pæg. You’re bad. Soph. You’re a scamp. Pæg. I’ve a right to be. Soph. And I’ve just as good a right. Pæg. What’s that you say? Have you made up your mind not to tell where you’re going, you wretch? Soph. How about you? Have you determined to conceal where you’re bound for, you scoundrel? Pæg. Hang it, you answer like with like. Go away now, since it’s settled so. I don’t care to know. Good-by.

Statius Cæcilius, an Insubrian by birth, probably came to Rome as a slave—that is, a captive—at some time not far from 200 B. C. Statius Cæcilius. Here he became a writer of comedies, was set free by his master, and lived in the same house with Ennius. He died about 165 B. C. The titles of some forty plays by Cæcilius are known; but the extant fragments are too short to afford much information as to his style, his ability, or the contents of his plays. As many of the titles of his pieces are known also as titles of plays by Menander, it is clear that Cæcilius presented plays of the Greek new comedy in Latin form. Other writers of comedies. He appears to have followed the Greek originals rather more closely than Plautus, and to have cultivated elegance of style rather than brilliant dialogue. Other comic writers of the same time were Trabea, Atilius, Aquilius, Licinius Imbrex, and Luscius Lanuvinus, of whose works few fragments exist, and who are mentioned here merely to show that there were writers of comedies at Rome between Plautus and Terence. No one of them, however, seems to have possessed the originality and exuberant wit of Plautus, or to have attained the elegance and polish of Terence.

Publius Terentius Afer, called Terence in English, was born at Carthage and brought to Rome as a slave. P. Terentius Afer. He can not have come as a captive to Rome, for his birth took place between the second and third Punic wars, at a time when the Romans were waging no war in Africa. He was the slave of the senator Terentius Lucanus, by whom he was carefully educated and soon set free. From him he derived his name Terentius, and he was called Afer on account of his African origin. He became intimate with Scipio Africanus the younger, his friend Lælius, and others of the most cultivated and prominent men of Rome. It was even said by some that the plays of Terence were really written by Scipio, while others thought Lælius was their author. This goes to prove that Terence was intimate with Scipio, Lælius, and the rest, and may be regarded as an indication of his age; for if he was much older than Scipio he would hardly have been charged with passing off Scipio’s work as his own. If he was of the same age as Scipio he was born in 185 B. C., and in that case was only nineteen years old when the Andria, his first play, was produced in 166. It is therefore likely that he was a few years older than Scipio, and was born about 190 B. C. After he had produced six comedies he went to Greece in 160 B. C. to study, and died in the next year either on his way back to Rome or in Greece. His popularity with the most cultivated men of Rome testifies to his good breeding and agreeable manners. Suetonius tells us that he was of moderate height, slender figure, and dark complexion, that he had a daughter who was afterwards married to a Roman knight, and that he left property amounting to twenty acres. The six plays of Terence are all preserved to us, together with the dates of the first performance of each.