We must touch finally, but very lightly, on the commonplaces of stock
plots and characters. The whole array of puppets is familiar to us all:
the cunning slave, the fond or licentious papa, the spendthrift son and
their inevitable confrA"res appear in play after play with relentless
regularity. The close correspondence of many plots is also too familiar to
need discussion.[187] The glimmering of originality in the plot of the
_Cap._ called for special advertisement.[188] In the light of the
foregoing evidence, the pertinence of these facts for us, we reiterate, is
that Plautus merely adopted the New Comedy form as his comic medium, and,
while leaving his originals in the main untouched, took what liberties he
desired with them, with the single-minded purpose of making his public
laugh.[189]