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PLAUTUS, TITUS MACCIUS (originally pe...

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 830 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PLAUTUS, See also:TITUS MACCIUS (originally perhaps MACCUS; cf. Asin. Prol. 11) , the See also:great comic dramatist of See also:ancient See also:Rome, was See also:born at Sarsina in See also:Umbria according to the testimony of See also:Festus, who calls him See also:Umber Sarsinas, and See also:Jerome. The date of his See also:death was 184 B.C. (See also:Cicero, See also:Brutus, xv. 6o). The date of his See also:birth depends upon an inference based on the statement of Cicero (De senectute, xiv. 50) that he was an old See also:man when he wrote his Truculentus and Pseudolus. The latter See also:play was ' Some doubt has been expressed as to whether the eggs are extruded or hatched within the See also:body. At a scientific See also:meeting of the Zoological Society of See also:London, on the 17th of See also:December 1901, Mr See also:Oldfield See also:Thomas read a See also:letter from Mr G. See also:Metcalfe, who had lived many years in a region inhabited by these animals.

He had made See also:

special inquiries of the authorities of the See also:Sydney, See also:Melbourne, See also:Brisbane and See also:Hobart museums, and published questions in the See also:newspapers, but no See also:evidence has reached him that the eggs of Ornithorhyncus have ever been obtained except by the See also:dissection of the See also:mother. Mr Thomas laid stress on what had been advanced on the other See also:side by Mr Caldwell (Philosophical Transactions, clxxviii. 463), See also:Professor See also:Spencer (Nature, xxxi. 132) and Mr J. See also:Douglas See also:Ogilby (See also:Catalogue of Australian Mammals, p. 1, Sydney, 1902), but expressed the See also:hope " that further inquiries might be made by naturalists in See also:Australia as to the actual finding of such eggs in the burrows, so that this most interesting point might be finally settled." produced in 191 B.C.; hence we get 254–251 B.C. as the approximate date of his birth. The only See also:record that we possess as to his See also:life is that contained in Aulus See also:Gellius iii. 3, 14 (based on See also:Varro), the See also:historical See also:character of which is doubted by See also:Leo (Plautinische Forschungen, p. 6o, sqq.). According to this statement he See also:left his native See also:town at an See also:early See also:age and settled at Rome, where he got employment in a See also:theatre, though it is not clear in what capacity. The words of Gellius in operis artificum rcaenicorum, are interpreted by F. See also:Marx as indicating that Plautus was a member of the theatrical See also:staff of Livius Andronicus.

At Rome he saved a little See also:

money, and embarked on some See also:mercantile enterprise, probably abroad. Having lost his money he returned to Rome penniless, and was driven to support himself by See also:manual labour in a See also:mill (cum ...ad circumagendas molas quae trusatiles appellantur operam pistori locasset) ; and in this pistrinum he wrote three of -his plays (the Saturio, the Addictus and another). The See also:main body of his See also:works belongs, so far as can be ascertained from the scanty evidence which we have, to the latter See also:half of his life; 206 B.C. is the approximate date of the See also:Miles gloriosus; cf. See also:line 211 seq., quoi bini custodes occubant (See also:present tense), which alludes to the imprisonment of See also:Naevius, an event which cannot be proved to be earlier than 206 B.C. The defects of construction and the See also:absence of " cantica " in the Miles also point to this as one of his early plays. On the other See also:hand it is hardly likely that all his comedies (which greatly exceeded in number the extant twenty) were produced during the last twenty years of his life. Radermacher assigns the Asinaria to a date as early as 212 B.C. Of the extant plays the Cistellaria and the Stichus must be associated with the Miles as comparatively early works; for the former was clearly produced before (though not See also:long before) the conclusion of the Second Punic See also:War, see 1. 201 seq.; and the Stichus is proved by its didascalia to have been produced in zoo B.C. The Pseudolus and the Truculentus fall within the last seven years of his life. The See also:dates of the See also:rest of the extant plays, here given in alphabetical See also:order, are quite uncertain, namely, Amphitruo, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi, Casina, Curculio, Epidicus, Menaechmi, See also:Mercator (probably later than the Rudens, as shown by F. Marx), Mostellaria, Persa, Poenulus, Rudens, Trinummus (later than 194 B.C.; cf. novi aediles in 1. 990).

Of the Vidularia we possess only the fragments contained in the Codex Ambrosianus. The plays of Plautus are all based on See also:

Greek originals.' To what extent he is dependent on these originals, and how far he departed from them, we shall perhaps never know exactly. But such evidence as we have points to a See also:pretty See also:close See also:imitation on the See also:part of the See also:Roman poet: there are passages in which he does not hesitate to take over from his originals allusions which can hardly have been intelligible to a Roman See also:audience, e.g. the reference to Stratonicus, a musician of the See also:time of See also:Alexander the Great (Rudens, 932); and in the delineation of character we have no See also:reason to suppose that he improved on his See also:models (cf. Aul. See also:Gell. ii. 23). Even the prologues, which later researches have shown to be in the main by the hand of Plautus himself, though certain passages were clearly added at a later date, e.g. Cas. prol. 5–20, may in most cases have formed part of the Greek See also:original. Plautus must therefore be regarded as primarily a translator or adapter, so far as our present knowledge goes. Where he varies his See also:plot on lines of his own by amalgamating the plots of two distinct Greek comedies (e.g. in the Miles and the Poenulus) the result is generally not happy; and the romanization of the plays by way of allusions to towns in See also:Italy, to the streets, See also:gates and markets of Rome, to Roman magistrates and their duties, to Roman See also:laws and the business of Roman See also:law-courts, See also:banks, See also:comitia and See also:senate, &c., involves the poet in all the difficulties of attempting to blend two different civilizations. The inconsistency of his attitude is shown by his use, side by side, of the.contemptuous expressions barbarus (applied to the See also:Romans) and pergraecari (applied to the Greeks).

In some passages the poet seems to take delight in casting dramatic illusion to the winds (e.g. Pseudolus, 720; Poenulus, 550). 'See further i . E. Legrand, Daos: tableau de la comedie grecque See also:

pendant la piriode elite nouvelle (zoto). But as a translator Plautus is nothing less than masterly. His command of the See also:art is such that his plays read like original works, and it may be at least said that some of his characters stand out so vividly from his See also:canvas that they have ever since served as representatives of certain types of humanity, e.g. Euclio in the Aulularia, the See also:model of See also:Moliere's See also:miser. See also:Alliteration, assonance, plays upon words and happy coinages of new terms, give his plays a See also:charm of their own. " To read Plautus is to be once for all disabused of the impression that Latin is a dry and uninteresting See also:language " (Skutsch, in See also:Die Cultur der Gegenwart; 1905). It is a See also:mistake to regard the Latin of Plautus as " vulgar " Latin. It is essentially a See also:literary See also:idiom, based in the main upon the language of intercourse of the cultivated Roman society of the See also:day (cf.

Cic. De oratore, iii. 12, 45); though from the lips of slaves and other See also:

low persons in the plays we no doubt hear expressions which, while they are quite in keeping with the characters to whom they are allotted, would have shocked the ears of polite society in the znd See also:century B.C. The characters in his plays are the stock characters of the new See also:comedy of See also:Athens, and they remind us also of the See also:standing figures of the Fabulae atellanae (Maccus, Bucco, Dossennus, &c.). We may See also:miss the finer insight into human nature and the delicate See also:touch in See also:drawing character which See also:Terence presents to us in his reproductions of See also:Menander, but there is wonderful life and vigour and considerable variety in the Plautine embodiments of these different types. And the careful reader will take See also:note of occasional touches of serious thought, as in the enumeration of the ten deadly See also:political sins (Persa, 555 seq.) and allusions to ethical See also:philosophy (Pseud. 972 seq.; Stich. 124; Trin. 305 sqq., 320 sqq., 363 seq., 447; Rud. 767, 1235–1248, &c.). Virtue is often held up for admiration, and See also:vice painted in revolting See also:colours or derided. The plots of Plautus also are more varied than those of Terence.

We have from him one mythological See also:

burlesque, the Amphitruo, and several plays dealing with domestic subjects like the Captivi, Cistellaria, Rudens, Stichus and Trinummus; but most of his plays depend for their main See also:interest on intrigue, such as the Pseudolus, Bacchides, Mostellaria. In the Menaechmi and, as a subordinate incident, in the Amphitruo we have a " comedy of errors." In one respect Plautus must be regarded as distinctly original, viz. in his development of the lyrical See also:element in his plays. The new comedy of See also:Greece was probably limited for the most part to scenes written in the metres of See also:dialogue; it remained for Plautus, as Leo has shown, to enliven his plays with cantica modelled on the contemporary lyric See also:verse of Greece or Magna Graecia, which was in its turn a development of the dramatic lyrics of See also:Euripides. A new See also:light has been thrown on the rapaxAavoLOvpov of the Curculio (147–155) by the See also:discovery of the Alexandrian erotic fragment published by Grenfell and See also:Hunt (See also:Oxford, 1896). The lyrical metres of Plautus are wonder-fully varied, and the textual critic does well not to See also:attempt to limit the possibilities of original metrical combinations and developments in the Roman comedian. See also:Recent investigation has considerably extended the See also:list of his numeei innumeri. Plautus was a See also:general favourite in the days of republican Rome. Cicero, though he found See also:fault with the iambics of the Latin comedians generally as abiecti, " prosaic " (Orator, lv. 184), admired Plautus as elegans, urbanus, ingeniosus, facetus (De offic. i. 29, 104). To the fastidious critics of the Augustan age, such as See also:Horace, he seemed See also:rude (cf. Ars Poetica, 270-274), just as See also:Addison declared See also:Spenser to be no longer fitted to please " a cultivated age." In another passage (Epist. ii.

1, 17o–176) Horace accuses him of clumsiness in the construction of his plays and the drawing of his characters, and indifference to everything excepting immediate success: gestit enim nummum in loculos demittere, See also:

post hoc securus cadat an recto stet fabula talo. That there are many inconsistencies and signs of carelessness in his See also:work has been proved in detail by See also:Langen. But that he found many admirers, even in the Augustan age, Horace himself bears See also:witness (ibid. 1. 58), where he says that Plautus was regarded as a second See also:Epicharmus: Plautus ad exemplar See also:Skull properare Epicharmi—a passage which is important as suggesting that Plautus was under some See also:obligation to the Sicilian representatives of the old Dorian comedy; cf. Varro's statement (in See also:Priscian ix. 32), deinde ad Siculos se applicavit. It is possible that Plautus may have been working on the lines of the old comedy in the tell-See also:tale names which he is so fond of inventing for his characters, such as Polymachaeroplagides (Pseud. 988), Pyrgopolinices (Mil. 56), Thensaurochrysonicochrysides (Capt. 285) —names which stand in remarkable contrast to the more See also:commonplace Greek names employed by Terence. In the See also:middle ages Plautus was little regarded, and twelve of his plays (Bacchides-Truculentus) disappeared from view until they were discovered (in the MS. called D) by See also:Nicholas of Treves in the See also:year 1429.

Apparently some early archetype had been divided into two volumes, of which only the first (containing eight plays, Amphitruo-Epidicus) had escaped oblivion or destruction. After the revival of learning Plautus was reinstated, and took See also:

rank as one of the great dramatists of antiquity; cf. See also:Shakespeare, See also:Hamlet, ii. 420, where Polonius says, " The best actors in the See also:world . . .

End of Article: PLAUTUS, TITUS MACCIUS (originally perhaps MACCUS; cf. Asin. Prol. 11)

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