Pseudolus—is one of those plays of Plautus which hinge on the contrivance of a slave in behalf of his young master, who is represented at the commencement of the play, as in despair at not having money sufficient to redeem his mistress, just then sold by Ballio, a slave-dealer, to a Macedonian captain for twenty minæ. Fifteen of these had been paid, and the girl was to be delivered up to him as soon as he sent the remaining five, along with an impression of a seal-ring, which the captain had left behind as a pledge. Pseudolus, the slave, having encountered the captain’s messenger, on his way to deliver a letter containing the token and the balance of the stipulated price, personates the pander’s servant, and is in consequence intrusted with the letter. While the messenger is refreshing himself at a tavern, Pseudolus persuades one of his fellow-slaves to assume the character of the captain’s emissary, and to present the credentials (which Pseudolus places in his possession) to the pander, who immediately acknowledges their authenticity, and, without hesitation, delivers up the girl in return. When the real messenger afterwards arrives, the slave-merchant treats him as an impostor hired by Pseudolus.
Next to the slave, the principal character in this comedy is that of the pander, which is sketched with the strong pencil [pg 149]of a master, and is an admirable representation of that last stage of human depravity and wretchedness, in which even appearances cease to be preserved with the world, and there exists no longer any feeling or anxiety concerning the opinion of others. Calidorus, the lover of the girl, upbraids him for his breach of faith—
“Juravistine te illam nulli venditurum nisi mihi?
Ballio. Fateor. Cal. Nempe conceptis verbis. Bal. Etiam consultis quoque.
Cal. Perjuravisti, sceleste. Bal. At argentum intro condidi:
Ego scelestus nunc argentum promere possum domo.”
M. Dacier, however, is of a different opinion with regard to the merit of this character. He thinks that the Pseudolus, though mentioned by Cato in Cicero’s Dialogue De Senectute, as a finished piece which greatly delighted its author[259], and though called, by one of his commentators, Ocellus Fabularum Plauti[260] was chiefly in Horace’s view when he spoke, in his Epistles, of Plautus’ want of success in the characters of a young passionate lover, a parsimonious father, and a cunning pimp,—
—— “Aspice, Plautus
Quo pacto partes tutetur amantis ephebi,
Ut patris attenti, lenonis ut insidiosi.”