Et factiones: verum nos homunculi
Scintillula animae, quam quom extemplo emisimus,
Aequo mendicus atque ille opulentissimus
Censetur censu ad Acheruntem mortuos,[235]—
the denunciation by Megaronides of the 'School for Scandal,' which seems to have flourished in Athens as similar institutions do in our modern cities,—enable us to believe that the citizen life of the Greek communities, after the loss of their independence, may not have been so utterly hollow and disreputable as some of the representations of ancient comedy would lead us to suppose.
There is much greater originality of plot, incident, and character, though, at the same time, a much less unexceptionable moral tendency in the 'Menaechmi,' the model after which Shakspeare's Comedy of Errors was composed. The plot turns upon the likeness of twins, who have been separated from each other from childhood: and granting this original supposition,—one perfectly conformable to experience,—the many lively and humorous situations arising out of their undistinguishable resemblance to one another, are natural and lifelike. We feel, in the incidents which Plautus brings before us, none of that sense of unreality which the complication of the two Dromios adds to the 'Comedy of Errors.' The play is enlivened also by the element of personal adventure, arising out of the experiences of the second Menaechmus in his search for his brother over all the coasts of the Mediterranean. The two brothers (whether or not this was intended by the poet) are like in character, as well as in outward appearance; and they are both, in their hardness and knowledge of the world, in the unscrupulousness with which they gratify their love of pleasure, and the superiority which they maintain over their dependents, entirely distinct from the weak and vacillating 'amantes ephebi' of most of the other plays. The character of the 'parasite' is not very different from that in some of the other plays, except that in his vindictiveness for the loss of his 'déjeuner,' and his love of mischief-making, he comes nearer to the type of the 'scurra' than of the faithful client of the house, who is best represented by the Ergasilus of the 'Captivi.' But in the fashionable physician who is called in by the wife and father-in-law of the first Menaechmus, to examine into and prescribe for his condition, we are introduced to a new type of character which certainly seems to be drawn from the life. After reading the scene in which this personage is introduced, one might be inclined to fancy that, notwithstanding the advance of medical science, certain characteristics of manner and procedure had become long ago stereotyped in the profession.
These three plays show Plautus at his best in regard to the delineation of character, to moral tendency, to the conduct of a story by means of humorous incidents and situations. The three which still remain to be considered assert his claim to some share of poetic feeling and genius, and to at least some sympathy with the more elevated motives and sentiments which dignify human life. The 'Rudens' is inferior to several of the other plays in purely dramatic interest; but it has all the charm and freshness of a sea-idyl. The outward picture imprinted on the imagination is that of a bright morning after a storm, of which the effects are still apparent in the unroofing of the villa of Daemones, in the wild commotion of the sea[236], in the desolation of the two shipwrecked women wandering about among the lonely rocks where they have been cast ashore, in the touching complaint of the poor fishermen deprived by the storm of their chance of earning their daily bread. The action, which consists in the rescue of innocence from villainy, and in the recognition of a lost daughter by her father, entirely enlists both the moral and the humane sympathies. There is imaginative as well as humorous originality in the soliloquies of Gripus, and in his altercation with Trachalio; and a sense of sardonic satisfaction is experienced in contemplating the plight of Labrax (a weaker and meaner ruffian than Ballio) and his confederate chattering with cold and bewailing the loss of their ill-gotten gains. But the peculiar charm of the play, as compared with any of those which has been already noticed, is the sentiment of natural piety—not unlike that expressed in the 'rustica Phidyle,' of Horace[237]—by which the drama is pervaded. This key-note is struck in the prologue uttered by Arcturus, whose function it is to shine in the sky during the night, and during the day to wander over the earth, and report to Jove on the good and evil deeds of men.
'Quist imperator divom atque hominum Iuppiter,
Is nos per gentis hic alium alia disparat,
Hominum qui facta, mores, pietatem et fidem