The St. is an apt illustration of the probable workings of Plautus' mind. The virtue of the Penelope-like Pamphila and Panegyris proves too great a strain and unproductive of merriment. The topic gradually vanishes as the drolleries of the parasite Gelasimus usurp the boards. He in turn gives way to the hilarious buffoonery of the two slaves. The result is a succession of loose-jointed scenes[177]. The Aul. too is fragmentary and episodical. The Trin. is insufferably long-winded, with insufficient comic accompaniment. The Cis. is a wretched piece of vacuous inanity[178].
4. Roman admixture and topical allusions.
Plautus' frequent forgetfulness of his Greek environment and the interjection of Roman references--what De Quincey calls "anatopism"--is another item of careless composition too well known to need more than passing mention. The repeated appearance of the Velabrum,[179] or Capitolium,[180] or circus,[181] or senatus, or dictator,[182] or centuriata comitio,[183] or plebiscitum,[184] and a host of others in the Greek investiture, becomes after a while a matter of course to us. We see however no need to quarrel with forum; it was Plautus' natural translation for ἀγορά. But it all adds inevitably and relentlessly to our argument--Plautus was heedless of the petty demands of technique and realism. His attention was too much occupied in devising means of amusement.
The occasional topical allusions belong in the same category as above; for example, the allusion to the Punic war (Cis. 202),[185] the lex Platoria (Ps. 303, Rud. 1381-2), Naevius' imprisonment (Mil. 211-2), Attalus of Pergamum (Per. 339, Poen. 664), Antiochus the Great (Poen. 693-4). Again we have a modern parallel: the topics of the day are a favorite resort of the lower types of present-day stage production.
5. Jokes on the dramatic machinery.
But the most extreme stage of intimate jocularity is reached when the last sorry pretense of drama is discarded and the dramatic machinery itself becomes the subject of jest. So in the Cas. 1006 the cast is warned: Hanc ex longa longiorem ne faciamus fabulam. In Per. 159-60 Saturio wants to know where to get his daughter's projected disguise:
"SAT. πόθεν ornamenta?
TOX. Abs chorago sumito. Dare debet: praebenda aediles locaverunt." (Cf. Trin. 858.)
Even the Ps., heralded as dramatically one of the best of the plays, yields the following: Horum caussa haec agitur spectatorum fabula (720); hanc fabulam dum transigam (562) and following speech; verba quae in comoediis solent lenoni dici (1081-2); quam in aliis comoediis fit (1240); quin vocas spectatores simul? (1332). In St. 715 ff., the action of the play is interrupted while the boisterous slaves give the musician a drink. From the Poen. comes a gem that will bear quoting at length (550 ff.):
Omnia istaec scimus iam nos, si hi spectatores sciant.
Horunc hic nunc causa haec agitur spectatorum fabula:
Hos te satius est docere ut, quando agas, quid agas sciant.
Nos tu ne curassis: scimus rem omnem, quippe omnes simul.
Didicimus tecum una, ut respondere possimus tibi.[186]