CHAPTER VI.

ROMAN COMEDY. PLAUTUS. ABOUT 254 TO 184 B.C.

The era in which Roman epic and tragic poetry arose was also the

flourishing era of Roman comedy. A later generation looked back on the

age of Ennius and Plautus as an age of great poets, who had passed

away:--

Ea tempestate flos poetarum fuit

Qui nunc abierunt hinc in communem locum.[172]

And among these poets the writers of comedy were both most numerous and

apparently the most popular in their own time[173]. Besides the names

of Naevius, Plautus, Caecilius, and Terence, we know the names of other

comic poets of less fame[174], and from allusions in the extant plays

of Plautus[175] and in the prologues of Terence we infer that there

were other competitors for public favour whose names were unknown to a

later generation. In the Ciceronian age the works of these forgotten

playwrights were for the most part attributed to Plautus, probably with

the view of gaining some temporary popularity for them. In the time of

Gellius no fewer than 130 plays passed under his name; among these,

twenty-one were regarded as undoubtedly his, nineteen more as probably

genuine, and the rest as spurious. They were however all of the class

of _palliatae_; and as the _fabulae togatae_ seem, after the time

of Terence, to have been composed in much greater number than those

founded on Greek originals, most of them must have belonged to the

first half of the second century B.C. Plays of a later date would have

clearly shown by their diction that they were not the work of Plautus.

Although this form of literature has little in common with the higher

Roman mood, and exercised comparatively slight influence on the style

and sentiment of later Roman poetry[176], yet no review of the creative

literature of the Republican period would be complete without some

attempt to estimate the value of the comedy of Plautus and Terence.

The difficulty of doing so adequately arises from an opposite cause

to that which makes our judgment on the art and genius of the Roman

tragic poets so incomplete. In the latter case we know what was the

character of their Greek models; but we can only conjecture from a

number of unconnected fragments, how far the copy deviated in tone and

spirit from the original. On the other hand, while we have between

twenty and thirty specimens of Latin comedy, we have no finished work

of Greek art in the same style, with which to compare them. It makes

a great difference in our opinion, not only of the genius of the

Roman poets, but of the productive force of the Roman mind, whether

we regard Plautus and Terence as facile translators, or as writers of

creative originality who filled up the outlines which they took from

the new comedy of Athens with matter drawn from their own observation

and invention. It makes a great difference in the literary interest

of these works, whether we regard them as blurred copies of pictures

from later Greek life, or, like so much else in Roman literature, as

compositions which, while Greek in form, are yet in no slight degree

Roman or Italian in substance, character, life, and sentiment. How far

can we answer these questions, either by general considerations, or by

a special attention to the actual products of Latin comedy which we

possess?

We have seen that there was a certain aptitude in the graver Roman

spirit for tragedy:--

Nam spirat tragicum satis et feliciter audet.

The rhetorical character of Roman education and the rhetorical

tendencies of the Roman mind secured favour for this kind of

composition till the age of Quintilian. His dictum 'in comoedia maxime

claudicamus,' on the other hand, implies that the educated taste of

Romans under the Empire did not find much that was congenial in the

works of Plautus, Caecilius, or Terence. The tone of Horace is more

contemptuous towards Plautus than towards Ennius and the tragic poets.

While tragedy continued to be cultivated by eminent writers in the

Augustan age and early Empire, few original comedies seem to have

been written after the beginning of the first century B.C. The higher

efforts of the comic muse were almost, if not entirely, superseded by

the Mimus. These considerations show that comedy was not congenial to

the educated or the uneducated taste of Romans in the last years of

the Republic, and in the early Empire. But, on the other hand, the

popularity enjoyed by the old comedy between the time of Naevius and of

Terence, and even down to the earlier half of the Ciceronian age, when

some of the great parts in Plautus continued to be performed by the

'accomplished Roscius,' and the admiration expressed for its authors by

grammarians and critics, from Aelius Stilo down to Varro and Cicero,

shows its adaptation to an earlier and not less vigorous, if less

refined stage of intellectual development; while the actual survival of

many Roman comedies can only be accounted for by a more real adaptation

to human nature, both in style and substance, than was attained by

Roman tragedy in its straining after a higher ideal of sentiment and

expression.

The task undertaken by Naevius and Plautus was indeed a much easier

one than that accomplished by the early writers of tragedy. They

were not called upon to create a new taste, or to gratify a taste

recently acquired in Sicily and the towns of Magna Graecia. They had

only to give ampler and more defined form, fuller and more coherent

substance, to a kind of entertainment which was indigenous in Italy.

The improvised 'Saturae'--'dramatic medleys or farces with musical

accompaniment'--had been represented on Roman holidays for more than

a century before the first performance of a regular play by Livius

Andronicus. And these 'Saturae' had been themselves developed partly

out of the older Fescennine dialogues--the rustic raillery of the

vintage and the harvest-home,--partly out of mimetic dances imported

from Etruria. Another kind of dramatic entertainment, the 'Oscum

ludicrum,' which was developed into the literary form of the 'fabulae

Atellanae,' with its standing characters of Maccus, Pappus, Bucco,

and Dossennus, had been transferred to the city from the provinces of

southern Italy, and ultimately became so popular as to be performed,

not by professional actors, but by the free-born youth of Rome. The

extant comedies of Plautus show considerable traces of both of these

kinds of entertainment, both in the large place assigned to the

'Cantica,' which were accompanied by music and gesticulation[177], and

in the farcical exaggeration of some of his characters, which provoked

the criticism of Horace,--

Quantus sit Dossennus edacibus in parasitis.

The mass of Roman citizens, both rural and urban, was thus prepared

by their festive traditions and habits to welcome the introduction of

comedy, just as they were prepared by their political traditions and

aptitudes to welcome the appearance of a popular orator.

Naevius and Plautus might thus be poets of the people more truly than

any later Roman poet could be. The career of Naevius, and the public

and personal elements which he introduced into his plays, afford

evidence of his desire to use his position as a popular poet for

political ends. His imprisonment and subsequent banishment equally

attest the determination of the governing class to allow no criticism

on public men or affairs, nor anything derogatory to the majesty of

the State and the dignified forms of Roman life, to be heard on the

stage. Plautus, though prevented either by his own temperament or the

vigilance of state-censorship from directly acting on the political

sympathies of the commons, maintained the thoroughly popular character

of Roman comedy, and poured a strongly national spirit into the forms

which he adopted from Greece. Between the death of Plautus and that of

Terence there was no cessation in the productiveness of Roman comedy;

but the little that is known of Caecilius, and the evidence afforded

by the plays of Terence, show that Roman comedy had now begun to

appeal to a different class of sympathies. The ascendency of Ennius in

Roman literature immensely widened the gulf which always separates an

educated from an uneducated class. One of the great sources of interest

in Plautus is that he flourished before this separation became marked,

while the upper classes were yet comparatively rude and simple in their

requirements, and the mass of the people were yet hearty and vigorous

in their enjoyments. The popularity of his plays revived again after

the death of Terence, and maintained itself till nearly the end of the

Republic, a proof that his genius was not only in harmony with his own

age, but satisfied a permanent vein of sentiment in his countrymen, so

long as they retained anything of their native vigour and republican

spirit. The fact that Roman comedy was not congenial to the educated

taste of the early Empire is no proof of its want of originality. It

was in harmony with an earlier stage in the development of the Roman

people. Had that been all, it might have been completely lost, or

preserved only in fragments like those of the Satire of Lucilius. But

as being the heir of an older popular kind of composition it enjoyed

the advantage, possessed by none of the more artificial forms of

poetry introduced at this period, of a fresh, copious, popular, and

idiomatic diction. The comic poets of Rome alone inherited, like the

epic poets of Greece, a vehicle of expression formed by the improvised

utterance of several generations. The greater fluency of style and the

greater ease of rhythmical movement, thus enjoyed by the early comedy,

is the most obvious explanation of its permanent hold on the world.

But the mere merits of language would scarcely have secured permanence

to these compositions apart from the cosmopolitan human interest

derived from the Greek originals on which they were founded, and from

the strong vitality which the earlier Roman poet drew from the great

time into which he was born, and the refined art for which the younger

poet was partly indebted to the circle of high-born, aspiring, and

accomplished youths into which he was admitted.

Our chief authorities for the life of Plautus are a short statement

of Jerome, one or two slight notices in Cicero, and a somewhat longer

passage in Aulus Gellius (iii. 3. 14). As he died at an advanced age,

in the year 184 B.C.[178] (during the censorship of Cato), he must

have been born about the middle of the third century B.C. He was thus

a younger contemporary of Naevius, and somewhat older than Ennius.

His birthplace was Sarsina in Umbria. That this district must have

been thoroughly Latinised in the time of Plautus, is attested by the

idiomatic force and purity of his style, a gift which no foreigner

seems ever to have acquired[179]. He probably came early to Rome,

and was at first engaged 'in operis artificum scenicorum,'--in some

kind of employment connected with the stage. He saved money in this

service, and lost it all in foreign trade,--what he himself calls

'marituma negotia[180].' Returning to Rome in absolute poverty, he

was reduced to work as a hired servant in a mill; and while thus

employed he first began to write comedies. The names of two of these

early works, _Saturio_ and _Addictus_, have been preserved by Gellius.

From this time till his death he seems to have been a most rapid and

productive writer. We have no means of determining at what date he

began to write. A passage quoted from Cicero has been thought to imply

that he was writing for the stage during the life-time of P. and Cn.

Scipio, i.e. before 212 B.C. But the earliest allusion to contemporary

events that we find in any of his extant plays, is that in the Miles

Gloriosus, to the imprisonment of Naevius, about 207 B.C. We have no

certainty that any of the extant plays were written before this date,

although the mention of Hiero in the Menaechmi, and the use of some

more than usually archaic inflexions in that play, have been supposed

to indicate an earlier date for it. Of the other plays, the Cistellaria

and Stichus were written within a year or two of the end of the Second

Punic War[181]. The larger number of the extant comedies belong to the

last ten years of the poet's life. His plays do not seem to have been

published as literary works during his life-time, but to have been left

in possession of the acting companies, by whom passages may have been

interpolated and others omitted, before they were finally reduced into

a literary shape. Most of the prologues to his plays belong to a later

time, probably that of the generation after his death[182]. Of the

twenty-one plays which Varro accepted, on the ground of their intrinsic

merits, as certainly genuine, we possess twenty, and fragments of the

remaining one, the _Vidularia_. The names of some other genuine plays,

such as the _Saturio_, _Addictus_, and _Commorientes_, are also known

to us.

How far are we able to fill up this meagre outline by personal

indications of the poet left on his works? In the case of any dramatist

this is always difficult; and Plautus is not in form only, but in

spirit, essentially dramatic. Nothing marks the difference between the

popular and the aristocratic tendencies of Roman thought and literature

more than the entire absence of any didactic tendency in his plays. He

does not think of making his hearers better by his representations,

nor does he believe that it is possible to do so[183]. He identifies

himself as heartily for the time being with his rogues of both sexes as

with his rarer specimens of honest men and virtuous women. He seldom

indulges in reflexions on life. When he does so it is by the mouth

of a slave, who winds up the unfamiliar process in some such way as

Pseudolus, 'sed iam satis est philosophatum[184],' or in the lyrical

self-reproaches of some prodigal, whose good resolutions vanish on

the re-appearance of his mistress. Among the innumerable terms of

reproach which one slave addresses to another, none is expressive of

more withering contempt than the term 'philosophe[185].' But even if we

could trace any predominant sympathies in Plautus, or any special vein

of reflexion which might seem to throw light on his own experience,

some doubt would always remain as to whether he was not in these

passages reproducing his original. The loss of many of his prologues

deprives us of the kind of knowledge of his circumstances and position

which Terence affords us in his prologues. Even the 'asides' to the

spectators, which often occur in Plautus, may in many cases be due to

the comedians of a later time.

Yet perhaps it is not impossible to enlarge our notion of his personal

circumstances and characteristics by tracing some hints of them in his

extant works.

We find one reference to his birthplace, in the form of a bad pun

altogether devoid of any trace of sentiment or affection[186].

He mentions other districts or towns in Italy in the tone of

half-humorous, half-contemptuous indifference, which a Londoner

of last, or a Parisian of the present century, might adopt to the

provinces[187]. More than one allusion indicates that the citizens of

Praeneste were especially regarded as butts by the wits of Rome[188].

The contempt of the town for the country also appears unmistakeably in

the dialogue between Grumio and Tranio in the 'Mostellaria[189],' and

in the boorish manners of the country lover in the 'Truculentus.' In

the eyes of a town-bred wit the chief use of the country is to supply

elm-rods for the punishment of pert or refractory slaves. A large

number of his illustrations are taken from the handicrafts of the city,

but very few are indicative of familiarity with rustic occupations.

There is no breath of the poetry of rural nature in Plautus. If he

betrays any poetical sensibility to natural influences at all, it is

to be found in passages in which the aspects of the sea, in calm or

storm, are recalled. Mommsen speaks of 'a most remarkable analogy in

many external points between Plautus and Shakespeare[190].' Yet there

is contrast rather than analogy in the impression left upon their

respective works by the associations of their early homes.

On the other hand we find, in many of his plays, traces of intimate

familiarity with the adventures of a mercantile life. It is most

probable that some of the passages in which these appear would have

been found in his originals had they been preserved to us. Yet the

emotions of thankfulness for a safe return to harbour, or of curiosity

and pleasure in landing at a strange town[191], are expressed so

frequently and with such liveliness as to seem like the reminiscence

of personal experience. We get, somehow, the impression of one who

had travelled widely, had 'seen the cities of many men and learned

their minds,' had marked with humorous observation many varieties

of character, had taken note, but without any special aesthetic

sensibility, of the works of art which were scattered throughout the

Hellenic cities, had shared in the pleasures which these cities held

out freely to their visitors, and had encountered the dangers of the

sea not without some sense of their sublimity and picturesqueness[192].

The God most frequently appealed to in prayer or thanksgiving is

Neptune[193]. The colloquial use of Greek phrases in many of his

plays seems to imply a familiar habit of employing them, in active

intercourse with Greeks on his maritime adventures. The day-dream of

Gripus, after finding his treasure, might almost be taken as a humorous

comment on the various motives of curiosity and mercantile enterprise

by which he himself was prompted to become engaged in maritime

speculation:--

Navibus magnis mercaturam faciam: aput reges rex perhibebor.

Post animi causa mihi navem faciam atque imitabor Stratonicum,

Oppida circumvectitabor, ubi nobilitas mea erit clara,

Oppidum magnum conmoenibo: ei ego urbi Gripo indam nomen.[194]

He shows much greater familiarity with the life of the lower and

middle classes than with that of those above them in station. He is

not always happy in his embodiment of the character of a gentleman.

Nothing, for instance, can be meaner than the conduct of the second

Menaechmus, who is intended to interest us, in his relations to

Erotion. And this failure is equally conspicuous in another of his

favourite characters, Periplecomenus, the 'lepidus senex' of the

Gloriosus. His indecorous geniality is scarcely compatible with the

respectability, not to say the dignity, of age. We recognise in his

characters and illustrations a vigorous and many-sided contact with

life, but no influence derived from association with members of the

governing class. In this respect he stood in marked contrast to Ennius

and Terence, and probably to Caecilius. The two latter, being freedmen,

were naturally brought into closer association with, and dependence on,

their social superiors. Plautus writes in the spirit of an 'ingenuus,'

in good-humoured sympathy with the mass of the citizens, and with

no feeling of bitterness towards the aristocracy, or indeed to any

human being whatsoever. He is at home with all kinds of men, except

the highest in rank. He takes a good-natured ironical delight in his

slaves, courtesans, parasites, and sycophants. He is not shocked by

anything they can do or say. He feels the enjoyment of a man of strong

animal spirits in laughing at and with them. Even the 'leno,' the least

estimable character in the repertory of ancient comedy, he treats

rather as a butt than as an object of detestation. He does not by a

single phrase show any sign of having been soured or depressed by the

misfortunes and vicissitudes of his life. We feel, in his dialogues,

the presence of irrepressible animal spirits, and a sense of boundless

resource and lively intelligence in his characters, especially in his

slaves. From no scrape does it seem hopeless for them to find some

means of extrication. Like them, he himself has the buoyancy of one,

'fortunae immersabilis undis.'

From the zest with which he writes of them, we might infer that he had

a keen personal enjoyment in eating and drinking, and in the coarser

forms of conviviality. His favourite dishes,--

Pernam callum glandium sumen etc.[195]

find no place in the more fastidious gastronomy of our own times,

but they were capable of giving great satisfaction to the larger and

robuster appetites of the ancient Italians,--of a people who had

been, till the sudden influx of luxury in his own time, described

as 'barbarous porridge-eaters[196].' Horace has criticised the

extravagant gusto with which he makes his parasites dilate on their

peculiar pleasures[197]; and the important part which the preparation

for the 'prandium' or the 'cena' plays in several of his dramas is

perhaps significant of the attention which he himself bestowed on

them in the days of his prosperity. The early revels of Philolaches

and Callidamates in the Mostellaria, the manner in which Pseudolus

celebrates his triumph over Ballio[198], and Sagarinus and Stichus

the return of their masters from abroad[199], the tastes which the

poet attributes to the old women in his pieces, as to Staphyla in the

Aulularia,--show that the Romans had not learned, in his time, the more

cultivated enjoyment of wine, which they brought to perfection in the

days of Horace. The experience to which Plautus bears witness, like

that attributed to his contemporaries in the lines

Ennius ipse pater numquam nisi potus ad arma

Prosiluit dicenda,

and

Narratur et prisci Catonis

Saepe mero caluisse virtus,

is indicative rather of the convivial 'abandon' of men of vigorous

constitutions, than of the more deliberate and fastidious epicureanism

of the poets of a later age.

Another criticism of Horace upon Plautus--

Gestit enim nummum in loculos demittere--

may very probably be true, and is by no means to his discredit. The

same charge has been brought against some of the most facile and

productive creators in modern times, such as Scott, Dickens, and

Balzac, and, to a certain extent, even Shakespeare. To the poets

of Nature, or of the higher thought and emotions of men, the pure

enjoyment of their art may afford sufficient happiness. In so far

as they are true to their higher genius, they are, or ought to be,

more independent than any other class of men of the pleasures which

money can give. But artists whose power consists in vividly realising

and representing the various activities, passions, and enjoyments

of life, may feel, in their own experience, some of the craving and

of the satisfaction which they are called on to describe. Nor is it

unnatural that they should take any legitimate means of securing for

themselves some share in the objects of desire, which are the moving

forces of their imaginary world. In the large place which the details

of good living fill in his plays, Plautus exaggerates a tendency which

is discernible in the more decorous fictions of Scott and Dickens. In

the important part which he assigns to money in many of his dramas,

in his business-like mention of specific sums, in the frequency of

his illustrations from the practice of keeping accounts, he shows a

resemblance to Balzac. The experience of his life must have impressed

upon him the value of money. The fact that he saved enough in his

early employment in connexion with the stage to embark on mercantile

speculations is a proof of early thrift and prudence and of a wish

to raise himself in the world. In all this he was merely exhibiting

one of the most common characteristics of the middle class among his

countrymen.

Horace adds the further criticism, that so long as he could make money

he was indifferent to the artistic merits of his pieces,--

Securus cadat an recto stet fabula talo;--

and this criticism is to a great extent true. His object was to

give the largest amount of immediate amusement[200]. He was not a

careful artist like Terence, studying either finish of style, perfect

consistency in the development of his characters, or the working out of

his plots to a harmonious conclusion. It was owing to the irrepressible

vitality and strong human nature which he could not help imparting

to his careless execution, that his plays have survived many more

elaborate compositions. Yet he shows a rude kind of consciousness of

his art in such passages as that in which he makes Pseudolus compare

himself to the poet who creates out of nothing--

Set quasi poeta, tabulas quom cepit sibi,

Quaerit quod nusquamst gentium, reperit tamen;[201]

and he speaks of the pleasure which he took in his play

'Epidicus[202].' Cicero also testifies to the joy which he derived

from two of the works of his old age, the Pseudolus and the

Truculentus[203]. But his delight was that of a vigorous creator, not

of a painstaking artist.

Many allusions in his plays attest his acquaintance with works of art,

with the stories of Greek mythology or the subjects of Greek tragedies,

and with the names, at least, of Greek philosophers. His extraordinary

productiveness in adapting works from the new comedy shows that he

had a complete command of the Greek language. He not only uses Greek

phrases, but has endeavoured to enrich the native vocabulary with

a considerable number of Greek words in a Latin form[204]. Yet the

knowledge he betrays is that which a man of versatile intelligence,

lively curiosity, and retentive memory, would pick up in his varied

intercourse with his contemporaries, without any special study of

books, except such as were needed for his immediate purpose. The more

recondite learning of Ennius was probably as strange to him as that of

Ben Jonson was to Shakspeare.

The great movement of his age acted on the mind of Plautus in a manner

different from that in which it affected Ennius. To the younger poet

the triumphant close of the Second Punic War brought the sense of a

mighty future awaiting the Roman Republic. He appealed to the higher

national aspirations stirring the hearts of the governing class.

Plautus felt the strong rebound of spirits from a long-continued state

of tension, from a time of anxiety and self-sacrifice, in a less noble

manner. He appealed to the craving which the mass of the citizens felt

for a more unrestrained enjoyment of the pleasures of life. In the

spirit which moved him we seem to recognise the same kind of impulse

which prompted the repeal of the Oppian law, and which led to the

great increase of public amusements of every kind. The newly-acquired

peace and ease awoke in him a sense of the immense capacities of the

individual for enjoyment. In a passage of one of his later plays he

seems to claim this indulgence as the natural concomitant of victory:--

Postremo in magno populo, in multis hominibus,

Re placida atque otiosa, victis hostibus.

Amare oportet omnes, qui quod dent habent.[205]

With this new sense of freedom and of fullness of life, the old

restraints of religion and of the morality bound up with it were

relaxed. The commons began to exercise less and less influence in the

state. Their political indifference finds an echo in the slighting

allusions which Plautus makes to the duties of public life[206]. The

increased contact with the mind and life of the Greeks powerfully

stimulated intellectual curiosity, but at the same time was a great

solvent of faith, manners, and morals. The frequent use of the words

_congraecari_, _pergraecari_, etc., in Plautus, shows that while the

highest Roman minds were learning new lessons of wisdom and humanity

from the great Greek writers of the past, the ordinary Roman was

learning lessons of idleness and dissoluteness from the living Greeks

of the time. The armies which returned from the Macedonian wars, and

still more from that with Antiochus, brought with them new fashions

and new appliances of luxury. Plautus shows a large indulgence, not

unmixed with a vein of saturnine humour, for these new ways on which

both young and old were eagerly entering. We see in him the unchecked

exuberance of animal life, but no sign of the recklessness or the

satiety of exhausted passions. Though there is more decorum, more

refined sentiment, in the life of pleasure as presented by Terence,

there is more often in Plautus an expression of a struggle between the

new temptations and the old Roman ideas of thrift, active duty, and

self-restraint. The conscience, though easily lulled to sleep, is still

capable of feeling the sting of the thought contained in the Lucretian

line--

Desidiose agere aetatem lustrisque perire.

If we turn now to the extant plays we find that all belong to the class

of _palliatae_. We find that they are adaptations or combinations

from the works of Menander, Diphilus, Philemon, and other writers

of the new comedy. The action is generally supposed to take place

in Athens, sometimes in other Greek towns, in Epidamnus, Ephesus,

Cyrene, etc. The plays of Plautus, unlike those of Terence and most of

those of Caecilius, have generally Latin titles, but nearly all his

personages have Greek names. One or two of his parasites (Peniculus,

Saturio, Curculio) are exceptions to this rule: but the absence of all

_gentile_ designations among his richer personages would alone prove

that he had no intention of presenting to his audience the outward

conditions of Roman or Italian life. The social circumstances implied

in all his plays are those of well-to-do citizens engaged in foreign

commerce, or retired from business after having made their fortunes.

The only differences in station among his personages are those of

rich and poor, free and slave. There is no recognition of those great

distinctions of birth, privilege, and political status, which were so

pervading a characteristic of Roman life. Old men are indeed spoken of

as 'senati columen'; and it is made a ground of reproach to a young

man that he is not already a candidate for public office, or making

a name for himself by defending cases in the law-courts. But such

passages are probably to be classed among the frequent Roman allusions

to be found in Plautus, which had no equivalent in his original. The

new comedy of Menander was based on the philosophy of Epicurus, which

taught the lesson of abstention from all public duties[207]. The

life of the young men is almost entirely a life of pleasure, varied

perhaps by some participation in their father's foreign business, or

occasional service in the army. But the dislike of a military life

among the 'easy livers' of Athens in the beginning of the third century

B.C. is shown as much by the indifference of these young men to their

honour as soldiers[208], as by the ridicule which is heaped upon the

'Captain Bobadils' who served as mercenaries in the military monarchies

of the successors of Alexander. Even a slave regards enlisting as a

soldier as the last refuge of a ruined man. The other characters are

of Greek origin, though some of them became naturalised in Rome. The

ordinary Roman client on the one hand--such as the Volteius Mena of

Horace,--and the scurra of Roman satire on the other (Volanerius or

Maenius), had a certain likeness to the Greek parasite; though the

position of the first was more respectable[209], and the last was a

more formidable element in society than a Gelasimus or an Artotrogus.

The 'fallax servus' of comedy, though a wonderful conception of a

humorous imagination, is a character hardly compatible with any social

conditions; but it is undoubtedly an exaggeration of Greek mendacity

and intelligence, the very antithesis of Italian rusticity. The

commanding part they play in the affairs of their masters seems like

a grotesque anticipation of the part played under the empire by Greek

freedmen,--

Viscera magnarum domuum dominique futuri.

The 'meretrix blanda' of Menander was probably more refined, but not

essentially different from the 'libertina' of Rome. Among the rare

glimpses into social life which Livy affords behind the stately but

somewhat monotonous pageant of consuls and imperators, armies in the

field, senators in council, and political assemblies of the people,

none is more interesting than that given in the enquiries into the

horrors of the Bacchanalia at Rome[210]. The relations between P.

Aebutius and the freedwoman Hispala Fecenia bring to mind those

existing between the Philematiums, the Phileniums, or Planesiums of

comedy and their lovers. The 'leno insidiosus' and the 'improba lena'

are probably much the same in all times and countries; but there is

a vigorous brutality and inhuman hardness about Ballio and Cleaereta

which seem more true to Roman than to Greek life. The kind of life

which comedy represents must have had great attractions for a race of

vigorous organisation like the Romans, after continued success and

prosperity had broken down the old restraints on conduct and desire,

and the accumulated wealth of the world had become the prize of their

energy. Yet their inherited instincts for industry and frugality must

have made it difficult for them to realise gracefully the hollow

life of light-hearted enjoyment which came easily to a Greek in the

third century B.C. They learned to exaggerate the profligacy without

acquiring the more refined and humane qualities of their teachers.

It might perhaps have been expected that a writer of such prodigal

invention and so popular and national a fibre as Plautus would have

chosen rather to set before his countrymen a humorous image of

themselves, than to transport them in imagination to Athens and to

exhibit to them these well-used conventional types of Greek life and

manners. But, in the first place, the mere fact that it was more easy

for him to adapt than to create would have been a sufficient motive

to so careless and unconscious an artist. Again, the state-censorship

exercised by the magistrates who exhibited the games would naturally

deter a poet, who did not wish to encounter the fate of Naevius,

from any direct dealing with the delicate subject of Roman social

and family life. The later writers of the _fabulae togatae_ seem

for the most part to have reproduced the life and personages of the

provincial towns in Italy. The position not only of the magistrate

but even of the citizen at Rome was invested with a kind of dignity

and even sanctity, which it would have been dangerous to violate in a

public spectacle. Further, the very novelty and unfamiliarity of the

ways of Greek life would be more stimulating to the rude imagination

of that age than a reproduction of the everyday life of Rome. It

requires a more cultivated fancy to recognise incidents, situations and

characters suited for art in actual experience, than to appreciate the

conventional types of older dramatists. It is a noticeable fact that

Shakespeare places the scene of only one of his comedies in England,

and that he too introduces the English names and characteristics of

Bottom, Snug, Peter Quince, etc., as Plautus does those of Saturio

or Curculio into an imaginary representation of Athenian life. But

whatever were his motives for doing so, Plautus professes to introduce

his hearers to a representation of Greek manners and morals. His

frequent use of the word _barbarus_ in reference to Italian or Roman

ways, his use of Latinised Greek words and actual Greek phrases, the

Greek names of his personages, the dress in which they appeared, the

invariable reference to Greek money, perhaps the actual scene presented

to the eye, the frequent mention of ships unexpectedly arriving in

harbour, the names of the foreign towns visited, etc., would all tend

to remind the audience that they were listening to an action and

witnessing a spectacle of Greek life.

But while the outward conditions of his dramas are professedly taken

from Greek originals, much of the manner and spirit of his personages

is certainly Roman. The language in which they express themselves in

the first place is thoroughly their own. This is shown by the large

number of his puns and plays on words. These by their spontaneity,

sometimes by their grotesqueness, sometimes by a Latin play on a Greek

word--such as Archidemides[211] or Epidamnus,--show their native

origin. No writer, again, abounds so much in alliterations, assonances,

asyndeta[212], which are characteristic of all early Roman poetry

down even to Lucretius, and which have no parallel in the more refined

and natural diction of the Greek dramatists. Further, we constantly

meet with Roman formulae[213], Roman proverbs[214], expressions of

courtesy[215], and the like. The very fluency, copiousness, and verve

of his language are impossible to a translator, at least in the early

stages of a literature. Nothing can be more spontaneous and natural

than the dialogue in Plautus. There is, on the other hand, considerable

appearance of effort in the reflective passages of the 'cantica'; and

this is exactly what we should expect in a Roman writer of originality.

Reflexion on life was altogether strange to a Roman in the age of

Plautus; to a Greek it was easy and hackneyed. In the prolixity and

slow beating out of the thought in some of the 'cantica' we note the

beginning of a process unfamiliar to the Roman mind, for which the

forms of the Latin language were not yet adapted. The facility of

expressing reflexion appears much more developed in Terence. If Plautus

were reproducing a Greek original in such passages as Mostell. 85-145,

Trinummus 186-273, the thought and the illustration would have lost

much in freshness and naiveté, but they would have been expressed with

much more point and conciseness.

But it is not only in his language and manner that Plautus shows his

independence of his originals. The poems taken from Greek life are

in a large measure filled up with matter taken from the life around

him. The Greek personages of his play, without apparently any sense

of artistic incongruity, speak as Romans would do of the places

familiar to Romans--towns in Italy[216], streets, markets, gates,

in Rome[217]; of Roman magistrates and other officials, Quaestors,

Aediles, Praetors, Tresviri, Publicani; they allude to the public

business of the senate, comitia, and law-courts,--to colonies[218],

praefecturae, and the provincia of a magistrate,--to public games in

honour of the dead,--to the distinctive dress worn by matrons,--to

the forms of bargaining and purchasing, of summoning an antagonist

into court, of pleading a case at law,--to the times of vacation from

business[219],--to the emancipation of slaves,--peculiar to the Romans.

The special characteristics of Roman religion appear in the number of

abstract deities referred to, such as Salus, Opportunitas, Libentia,

etc. A new divinity is invented in the interests of lovers, under

the name of Suavisuaviatio[220]. Other better-known objects of Roman

worship, such as Jupiter Capitolinus, Laverna, the Lar Familiaris are

also introduced. We find also references to recent events in Roman

history--such as the subjugation of the Boii[221], the treatment

inflicted on the Campanians after the second Punic War, the importation

of Syrian slaves after the war with Antiochus[222], the introduction

of foreign luxuries at the same time[223], the extreme frequency with

which triumphs were granted in the first twenty years of the second

century B.C.[224] Allusion is made to particular Roman laws, such as

the lex alearia[225], probably passed about this time to resist the

progress of Greek demoralisation. The state of feeling aroused, on

both sides, by the repeal of the Oppian law, and the state of society

which led to the original enactment of that law, are reflected in many

passages of the plays of Plautus. A remark of one of the better class

of matrons--

Non matronarum officium est, sed meretricium,

Viris alienis, mi vir, subblandirier[226]--

may serve as a comment on the arguments with which Cato opposed the

repeal of the law: 'Qui hic mos est in publicum procurrendi, et

obsidendi vias, et viros alienos appellandi?... An blandiores in

publico quam in privato, et alienis quam vestris estis[227]?' The

imperiousness of a 'dotata uxor,' and the spirit of rebellion thereby

aroused in the mind of her husband, are themes treated with grim humour

in many of the dramas. The stale jokes against the happiness of married

life were as applicable to Greek as to Roman life; and Greek husbands

may have stood in as much dread of their wives' extravagance in dress,

and in as great awe of their surveillance, as were experienced by the

elderly husbands of Latin comedy. But the fact that similar criticisms

appear in the satirical and oratorical fragments of the second century

B.C. indicate that such jokes, whether or not originally due to the

Greek writer, came equally home to a Roman audience.

Again, the great fertility of Plautus and his many-sided contact

with life are apparent in the number and variety of his metaphors

and illustrations from, and other references to, many varieties of

human occupation. These have, for the most part, both a national and

a popular origin. The number of those taken from military operations,

and from legal and business transactions, is a clear indication that

they were of fresh Roman coinage. There is no character which a slave,

who has to conduct some intrigue to a successful issue, is so fond

of assuming as that of the general of an army. In one passage one of

his confederates addresses him as 'Imperator.' He takes the auspices,

he brings his engines to bear on the citadel of the enemy, he brings

up his supports, he lays his ambush and avoids that laid for him,

he leads his army round by some unknown pass, cuts off the enemy's

communications, keeps open his own, invests and takes the hostile

position, and divides the booty among his allies. The following passage

for instance is freshly coloured with all the recent experience of the

Hannibalian war:--

Viden hostis tibi adesse, tuoque tergo obsidium? Consule,

Arripe opem auxiliumque ad hanc rem, propere hoc non placide decet,

Anteveni aliqua aut aliquo saltu circumduce exercitum,

Coge in obsidium perduellis, nostris praesidium para.

Interclude conmeatum inimicis, tibi moeni viam,

Qua cibatus conmeatusque ad te et legionis tuas

Tuto possit pervenire. Hanc rem age: res subitariast.[228]

The illustrations from the practice of keeping accounts, from banking

and business operations, and the references to law forms, such as

the mode of pleading a case by sponsio[229], would come home to the

experience and habits which were fostered more in Rome than in any

other ancient community[230]. Though the Romans never were a mercantile

community, like the Carthaginians or the Greek States in their later

days, yet from the earliest times they understood the uses of the

accumulation and skilful application of capital. Another large class of

metaphors, generally expressive of some form of roguery, and taken from

the trade of various artisans--such as the smith, carpenter, butcher,

weaver, etc.[231]--speaks to the popular as well as the national

characteristics of his dramas. If these metaphorical phrases had been

mere translations, they would, as thus applied, have had no meaning to

a Roman audience. They must have been more or less of slang phrases,

formed by and for the people, and suggested by an intimate familiarity

with many varieties of trickery and swindling on the one hand, and with

the skill and trade of various classes of artisans on the other.

The exuberant use of terms of endearment and of abuse in Plautus may be

also mentioned as an original and Roman characteristic of his genius.

His lovers' phrases[232], though used by him with a saturnine humour,

remind us of the passionate use of similar phrases in Catullus. The

slave or cook of Greek comedy may probably have indulged freely in the

vituperation of his fellows; but there is an idiomatic heartiness in

the interchange of curses and verbal sword-thrusts among the slaves,

panders, and cooks of Plautus, which seems congenial to the race who

enjoyed the spectacles of the amphitheatre. The inexhaustible fund of

merriment supplied by references to or practical exemplifications of

the various modes of punishing and torturing slaves, tells of a people

not especially cruel, but practically callous either to the infliction

or the suffering of pain. The Greek nature was, when roused to passion,

capable of fiercer and more cowardly cruelty than the Roman, but was

too sensitively organised to enjoy the spectacle or the imagination of

inflictions which form the subject of the stalest jokes in Plautus.

The spirit of the new comedy as it existed in Greece, was not, on

the whole, calculated to elevate, but it certainly was capable of

humanising the Roman character.

We are less able to speak of his originality in the selection of

incidents and dramatic situations, in the general management of his

plots, and his conception of characters. Though more varied than

Terence in the subjects which he chooses for dramatic treatment, yet

there is great sameness, both of incident, development, and character,

in many of them. His favourite subject is a scheme by which a slave,

in the interests of his young master, and his mistress, cheats a

father, a mercenary captain, or a 'leno,' who are treated, though in

different degrees, as enemies of the human race and legitimate objects

of spoliation. Some of the best of his plays--the Pseudolus, Bacchides,

the Mostellaria, and the Miles Gloriosus--turn entirely upon incidents

of this kind,--'frustrationes in comoediis' as they are called. There

is nothing on which the chief agent in such plots prides himself so

much as on his success 'in shearing,' 'planing away,' or 'wiping the

nose' of, his antagonist in the game: there is no indignity about which

the sense of honour is so sensitive as that of having had 'words palmed

off upon one,' and having thus been made an object of ridicule. The

invariable enlisting of sympathy in favour of the cheat and against the

dupe is a trait more illustrative of the countrymen of Ulysses than

of Fabricius: but the 'Tusci turba impia vici' at Rome had, no doubt,

their own native aptitude for cheating and lying.

The 'Pseudolus' is perhaps the best and the most typical specimen of

a play the interest of which turns on this kind of intrigue. In it

the plot is skilfully worked out, the characters are conceived with

the greatest liveliness, and admirably sustained and contrasted,

and the incidents and motives on which the personages act are never

strained beyond the limits of probability. A more fastidious age might

have objected to the celebration by Pseudolus of his triumph, as a

grotesque excrescence: but it serves to bring out the sensual geniality

underlying the audacity and roguery of his character, in contrast to

the sensual brutality underlying the audacity and villainy of Ballio.

When we consider the vigorous life and even the art with which the

whole piece is worked out, we understand why Plautus, with good reason,

took, in his old age, especial pleasure in this play. There is not

much to offend a robust morality in the piece; for though the result

accomplished cannot be called the triumph of virtue over vice, it is

at least the triumph of a more amiable over a more detestable form of

depravity.

In the 'Bacchides' the slave Chrysalus plays a part similar to that of

Pseudolus, with perhaps more subtlety but less vigour and liveliness.

The mode in which both the 'pater attentus' and the 'senex lepidus'

of the piece (Nicobulus and Philoxenus) succumb to the blandishments

of the two sisters, and in the end become the rivals of their sons,

is still less edifying than the winding up of the Pseudolus: but the

dénouement is brought about not unskilfully or extravagantly. It is

difficult to say whether Plautus, like the author of Gil Blas, felt a

moral indifference to the characters he brought on the stage, so long

as he could make them amusing; or whether, like Balzac, but with more

humour and less cynicism, he had a peculiar delight in following human

corruption into its last retreats. The moral with which the piece winds

up--

Hi senes nisi fuissent nihili jam inde ab adulescentia,

Non hodie hoc tantum flagitium facerent canis capitibus,

implies that he recognised the difference between right and wrong, or

at least between good and bad taste in such matters, but that he did

not, perhaps, attach much importance to it. The 'Asinaria,' which also

turns on a scheme by which a slave defrauds his mistress in behalf of

his young master, winds up with a scene in which a father is enjoying

himself as the rival of his complaisant son, till he is summoned

away by the apparition of his wife, and the wrathful and scornful

reiteration of 'Surge, amator, i domum.' The moral expressed there by

the 'Caterva' implies less sympathy with outraged virtue than with the

disappointed delinquent--

Hic senex siquid clam uxorem suo animo fecit volup

Neque novom neque mirum fecit nec secus quam alii solent.

There are two or three other plays in which a father appears as

the rival of his son. None of the characters in Plautus, not even

Ballio, or Labrax, or Cleaereta,--the worst of his 'lenones' and

'lenae,'--excite more unmitigated disgust than Stalino in the 'Casina.'

The 'Miles Gloriosus' and the 'Mostellaria' are much less objectionable

in point of morality, or at least good taste, than either the

'Bacchides' or the 'Asinaria.' They are among the most popular of the

plays of Plautus. There is a great variety of humorous situations in

the 'Miles': and, although the principal character transcends all

natural limits in his self-glorification, his stupid insensibility,

and his pusillanimity, the intrigue is carried out with the greatest

vivacity by Palaestrio and his army of accomplices; and the humour with

which the fidelity and veracity of the slave Sceledrus are played upon

almost merges into pathos in the despairing tenacity with which he

cannot bring himself to disbelieve the evidence of his eyes--

Noli minitari: scio crucem futuram mihi sepulchrum:

Ibi mei sunt maiores siti, pater, avos, proavos, abavos,

Non possunt tuis minaciis hisce oculi mi ecfodiri.[233]

Tranio in the 'Mostellaria' is, in readiness of resource and resolute

mendacity, a not unworthy member of the fraternity to which Pseudolus,

Chrysalus, and Palaestrio belong. He is, besides something of a fop and

a fine gentleman, and all his relations with his young and old master,

with Simo and the Banker, are conducted with perfect urbanity. Yet the

'Mostellaria' is certainly one of those plays to which the criticism of

Horace--

Securus cadat an recto stet fabula talo,--

is peculiarly applicable. No less suitable 'Deus ex machina' than

the crapulous Callidamates can well be imagined for the purpose of

reconciling a justly incensed father and master of a household to the

profligate extravagance of his son, and the audacious mystification of

his slave.

Several other plays turn upon similar 'frustrationes.' Two of the

best of these are the 'Curculio' and the 'Epidicus.' Though there are

lively and humorous scenes in nearly all his plays, and the language

is generally sparkling and vigorous, yet the sameness of situation

and character, and the unrelieved tone of light-hearted merriment and

mendacity with which this class of play is pervaded soon pall upon the

taste. A few, the 'Cistellaria' and the 'Poenulus,' for instance, turn

upon the incident of a free-born child being stolen in infancy, and

recognised by her parents before she has fatally committed herself to

the occupation for which she has been destined. But these are not among

the best executed of the Plautine plays. In the 'Stichus' we enjoy the

unwonted satisfaction of making acquaintance with two wives who really

care for their husbands: and the parasite Gelasimus in that play is as

amusing as the characters of the same kind in the Captivi, Curculio,

Menaechmi, Persa, etc. But the absence of incident, coherent plot, and

adequate dénouement, must prevent this play from being ranked among the

more important compositions of Plautus. A few however still remain to

be noticed as among the most serious or the most imaginative efforts

of his genius. The 'Aulularia,' Trinummus,' 'Menaechmi,' 'Rudens,'

'Captivi,' and 'Amphitryo,' are much more varied in their interest

than most of those already mentioned, and each of them has its own

characteristic excellence.

The interest of the 'Aulularia' turns entirely on the character of

Euclio. Whether or not this embodiment of the miser owes much to the

original creation of Plautus, it is certainly realised by him with

the greatest truth and vivacity. The whole conception is thoroughly

human and original; and though nothing can be more complete than the

hypochondriacal possession which his one idea has over his imagination,

the character is not presented in an odious or despicable light. In

this respect it differs from the frequent presentment of the miserly

character in Roman satire, and in most modern works of fiction.

Perhaps, except Silas Marner and Père Goriot, there is no other case

of a miser being conceived with any human-hearted sympathy. His

exaggerated sense of the value of the smallest sum of money is like

a hallucination, arising out of the unexpected discovery of a great

treasure after a life of poverty has made pinching and sparing a

second nature to him. But this hallucination has left him shrewdness,

honesty, pluck, a certain dignity, shown in his relation to Megadorus,

and abundance of a grim humour; and it seems to have cleared away,

in the dénouement of the piece, under the influence of fatherly

affection[234]. There are none of the baser or more brutal characters

of the Plautine comedies introduced into this play. Eunomia is a rare

specimen of a virtuous woman; Megadorus of a worthy and kindly old

man, with a didactic tendency which makes him a little wearisome; the

'young lover' shows an honourable loyalty in the reparation of his

fault. Though none of these subsidiary characters are conceived with

anything like the force and vivacity of Euclio, yet after reading the

humours of ancient life, as exhibited in the 'Asinaria,' 'Casina,' and

'Truculentus,' we feel a sense of relief in finding ourselves in such

respectable company. The genius with which the chief character of the

play is conceived and executed is sufficiently attested by the fact

that it served as a model to the greatest of purely comic dramatists of

modern times.

The 'Trinummus,' if less amusing than most of the other plays of

Plautus, is one of the most unexceptionable in moral tendency; and one

at least of the personages in it, Philto, in his union of shrewd sense

and old-fashioned severity with a sarcastic humour and real humanity

of nature is quite a new type, distinguishable from the hard fathers,

the disreputably genial old men, and the mere worthy citizens, who are

among the stock characters of the Plautine comedy. There is no play

in which the struggle between the stricter morals of an older time

and the new temptations is more clearly exhibited: and though vice is

finally condoned, or at least visited only with the mild penalty of

an unsolicited marriage, the sympathies of the audience are entirely

enlisted on the side of virtue. Lesbonicus is a prodigal of the type

of Charles Surface, whose folly and extravagance are redeemed by

good feeling and a latent sense of honour: and if it is not easy to

acquit Lysiteles of a too conscious virtue, one must remember how

difficult it always is for a comic dramatist to make the character

of a thoroughly respectable young man lively and entertaining. But

the whole piece, from the prologue, which indicates the way which all

prodigals go, to the end,--the good sense, worth of character, and

friendly confidence exhibited in the relations of Megaronides and

Callicles,--the honourable love of Lysiteles for the dowerless sister

of his friend,--the pious humanity and humility of such sentiments as

these in the mouth of Philto--

Di divites sunt, deos decent opuleutiae

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

Noscamus, ut quemque adjuvet opulentia.[238]

The affinity of piety to mercy is exhibited in the part played by the

priestess of Venus--

Manus mihi date, exurgite a pedibus ambae,

Misericordior nulla mest feminarum;[239]

and the natural trust of innocence and good faith in divine protection

is exemplified by the confidence with which the shipwrecked women take

refuge at the altar of Venus.

Tibi auscultamus et, Venus alma, ambae te opsecramus

Aram amplexantes hanc tuam lacrumantes, genibus nixae,

In custodelam nos tuam ut recipias et tutere, etc.[240]

Even the moral sentiment expressed is of a finer quality than the

maxims of rough good sense and probity which we find, for instance, in

the Trinummus. When Gripus tells his master that he is poor owing to

his scrupulous piety--

Isto tu's pauper, quom nimis sancte piu's--

the answer is in a higher strain than that familiar to ancient comedy.

O Gripe Gripe, in aetate hominum plurimae

Fiunt transennae, [illi] ubi decipiuntur dolis.

Atque edepol in eas plerumque esca inponitur,

Quam siquis avidus poscit escam avariter,

Decipitur in transenna avaritia sua.

Ille qui consulte, docte atque astute cavet,

Diutine uti ei bene licet partum bene.

Mi istaec videtur praeda praedatum irier,

Majore ut cum dote abeat hinc quam advenerit.

Egone ut quod ad me adlatum esse alienum sciam

Celem? minume istuc faciet noster Daemones.

Semper cavere hoc sapientes aequissumum'st,

Ne conscii sint ipsi maleficii suis.

Ego nisi quom lusim nil morer ullum lucrum.[241]

The 'Captivi' was pronounced by the greatest critic of last century to

be the best constructed drama in existence. Though probably few will

now be found to assign to it so high a place, yet, if not the best, it

certainly is among the very best plays of Plautus, in respect both

of plot and the dramatic irony of its situations. But it possesses a

still higher claim to our admiration in the presentment of at least

one character of true nobleness. And the originality of the conception

is all the greater from the fact that this heroism is embodied in the

person of one who has been brought up from childhood as a slave. There

are not many of the plays of Plautus calculated to raise our ideas of

human nature; but the loyal affection of Tyndarus for his young master,

his self-sacrifice, the buoyancy, courage, and ready resource with

which he first meets his dangers, and the manly fortitude with which he

accepts his doom--

Dum ne ob malefacta, peream: parvi id aestimo.

Si ego hic peribo, ast ille, ut dixit, non redit,

At erit mi hoc factum mortuo memorabile,

Me meum erum captum ex servitute atque hostibus

Reducem fecisse liberum in patriam ad patrem,

Meumque potius me caput periculo

Hic praeoptavisse quam is periret ponere[242]--

enable us to feel that some of the glory of the older and nobler

Greek tragedy still lingered in the Athens of Menander, and has been

reproduced by Plautus with imaginative sympathy. Yet perhaps even to

this play the criticism of Horace,

Quam non adstricto percurrat pulpita socco,

in part applies. The old slave-tricks of mendacity and unseasonable

joking, which are a legitimate source of amusement in the Pseudolus

and similar plays, jar on our feelings as inconsistent with the simple

dignity of the character of Tyndarus and the heroic part which he has

to play.

There are none of the plays of Plautus which it is so difficult to

criticise from a modern point of view as the 'Amphitruo.' On the

one hand the humour of the scenes between Mercury and Sosia is not

surpassed in any of the other comedies. There is no passage in any

other play in which such power of imagination is exhibited, as that in

which Bromia tells the tale of the birth of Alcmena's twins--

Ita erae meae hodie contigit: nam ubi partuis deos sibi invocat,

Strepitus, crepitus, sonitus, tonitrus: subito ut propere, ut

valide tonuit.

Ubi quisque institerat, concidit crepitu: ibi nescio quis maxuma

Voce exclamat: 'Alcumena, adest auxilium, ne time:

Et tibi et tuis propitius caeli cultor advenit.

Exurgite' inquit 'qui terrore meo occidistis prae metu.'

Ut iacui, exurgo: ardere censui aedis: ita tum confulgebant.[243]

Nor is there, perhaps, anywhere in ancient literature a nobler

realisation of the virtue of womanhood than in the indignant

vindication of herself by Alcmena,--

Non ego illam mihi dotem esse duco, quae dos dicitur,

Set pudicitiam et pudorem et sedatum cupidinem,

Deum metum et parentum amorem et cognatum concordiam,

Tibi morigera atque ut munifica sim bonis, prosim probis.[244]

On the other hand, it is difficult to understand how the part played by

Jupiter, and the comments of Mercury upon that part, should not have

shocked the religious and moral sense even of the Athenians of the age

of Epicurus and of the Romans in the age when they were first made

familiar with the Sacred Chronicle of Euhemerus. Perhaps the Romans

made a distinction between the Jupiter of Greek mythology and their own

Jupiter Optimus Maximus, and may have thought that what was derogatory

to the first did not apply to the second. Or, perhaps, some clue to

the origin of the Greek play may be found in a phrase of the Rudens,

Non ventus fuit, verum Alcumena Euripidi.[245]

Was the Greek writer partly parodying, in accordance with the tradition

of the old comedy, partly reproducing a tragedy of Euripides? and

was the representation first accepted as a recognised burlesque of a

familiar piece? In any case its production both at Athens and Rome

must be regarded partly as a symptom, partly as a cause, of the rapid

dissolution of religious beliefs among both Greeks and Romans.

As in the case of other productive writers there is no absolute

agreement as to which are the best of the Plautine plays. Without

assigning precedence to any one over the other, a preference may be

indicated for these five, as combining the most varied elements of

interest with the best execution--_Aulularia_, _Captivi_, _Menaechmi_,

_Pseudolus_, _Rudens_; and for these, as second to the former in

interest owing to some inferiority in comic power, artistic execution,

or natural _vraisemblance_, or owing to some element in them which

offends the taste or moral sentiment--_Trinummus_, _Mostellaria_,

_Miles Gloriosus_, _Bacchides_, _Amphitruo_. These ten plays alone,

without taking the others into account, show both in their incidents,

scenes, and characters, how much wider Plautus' range of observation

was than that of Terence. Even within the narrow limits of the

characters most familiar to ancient comedy--the 'amans ephebus,' the

'meretrix blanda,' the 'fallax servus,' the 'bragging captain,' the

'parasite,' the 'leno,' the 'old men'--good, kindly, severe, genial,

sensual and disreputable,--we find great individual differences. More

than Terence, Plautus maintains a dramatic and ironical superiority

over his characters. This is especially shown in his treatment of his

young lovers and the objects of their despairing affection. The former

exhibit various shades of weakness, from the mere ineffectual struggle

between the grain of conscience left them and the attractions of

pleasure, to the sentimental impulse to end their woes by suicide. The

latter show varying degrees of attraction, from a grace and vivacity

that reminds German critics of the Mariana and the Philina in 'Wilhelm

Meister,' to the hardness and astuteness of the heroines of the

'Truculentus' and the 'Miles Gloriosus.' Plautus cannot be said to care

much about any of them except as objects of amusement and of the study

of human nature. Nor, on the other hand, has he any hatred of his worst

characters. He has the true dramatist's sympathy with the vigorous

conception of Ballio--the same kind of sympathy which made that part a

favourite one of the actor Roscius. His characters are interesting and

amusing in themselves; they are never used as the mere mouthpieces of

the writer's reflexion, wit, or sentiment. It is, of course, impossible

to determine definitely how far he was an original creator, how far

a merely vigorous imitator. But he is so perfectly at home with his

characters, he makes them speak and act so naturally, he is so careless

about those minutiae of artistic treatment of which a mere translator

would be scrupulously regardful, that it seems most probable that the

life with which he animates his conventional type is derived from his

own exuberant vitality and his many-sided contact with humanity.

In what relation do the plays of Plautus stand to the more serious

interests of life? Is he to be ranked among philosophic humourists

who had felt deeply the speculative perplexities of this world, whose

imagination vividly realised the incongruity between the outward mask

that men wear and the reality behind it, and the wide divergence of

the actual aims of society from the purified ideal towards which it

tends? Is there in him any vein of ironical comment or satirical

rebuke? any latent sympathy with any of the objects which move the

serious passions of moral and social reformers? Or is he merely a great

humourist, revelling in the mirth, the absurdities, the ridiculous

phases of character, which show themselves on the surface of life? It

must be admitted that it is difficult to find in him any traces of the

speculative questioning, of the repressed or baffled enthusiasm, of

the rebellion against the common round of the world which tempers or

inspires some of the greatest humourists of ancient and modern times.

His indifference to the problems of speculative philosophy is expressed

in such phrases as the

Salva res est: philosophatur quoque jam, non mendax modo'st

of Tyndarus in the Captivi[246], and in the

Sed jam satis est philosophatum

of Pseudolus[247]. Yet to Tyndarus he attributes a sense of religious

trust befitting both his character and situation--

Est profecto deus, qui quae nos gerimus auditque et videt, etc.,[248]

while Pseudolus easily finds an opposite doctrine to suit his ready,

self-reliant, and unscrupulous nature--

Centum doctum hominum consilia sola haec devincit dea,

Fortuna, etc.[249]

Probably the truth is that living in an age of active enjoyment

and energy, he troubled himself very little about the 'problem of

existence'; but that he had thought enough and doubted enough to

enable him to animate his more elevated characters with sentiments

of natural piety, and to conceive of the ordinary round of pleasure

and intrigue as quite able to dispense with them. There is rather an

indifference to religious influences or beliefs, than such expressions

of scepticism or antagonism to existing superstitions as we find in the

tragic poets. The political indifference of his plays has been already

noticed. Yet the sentiments attributed to some of his best characters,

such as Philto in the Trinummus, Megadorus in the Aulularia[250],

imply that he recognised in the growing ascendency of wealth an

element of estrangement between the different classes of the community.

His frequent reference to the extravagance and imperiousness of the

'dotatae uxores' seems to imply further his conviction that the curse

of money was a dissolving force, not only of the social and political

but also of the family life of Rome.

The first aspect of many of his plays certainly produces the impression

of their demoralising tendency. But it is perhaps necessary to be on

our guard against judging this tendency too severely from a merely

modern point of view. These plays were addressed to the people in their

holiday mood, and a certain amount of license was claimed for such a

mood (as we may see by the Fescennine songs in marriage ceremonies and

in triumphal processions), which perhaps was not intended to have more

relation to the ordinary life of work and serious business than the

lies and tricks of slaves in comedy to their ordinary relations with

their masters.

Public festivity in ancient times, which was originally an outlet of

religious emotion, became ultimately a rebound from the severer duties

and routine of daily life. There are frequent reminders in Plautus

that this life of pleasure and intrigue was not altogether worthy or

satisfactory. There are no false hues of sentiment thrown around it,

as there are in Terence, and still more in the poets of a later age.

Nor must we expect in an ancient poet any sense of moral degradation

attaching to a life of pleasure. So far as that life is condemned it

is on the ground of sloth, weakness, and incompatibility with more

serious aims. The maxims which Palinurus addresses to Phaedromus in the

Curculio would probably not have shocked an ancient moralist:

Nemo hinc prohibet nec vetat

Quin quod palamst venale, si argentumst, emas.

Nemo ire quemquam puplica prohibet via,

Dum ne per fundum saeptum faciat semitam:

Dum ted apstineas nupta vidua virgine

Luventute et pueris liberis, ama quod lubet.[251]

Something of the same kind is implied in the warning addressed by his

father to the young Horace. Any breach of the sanctities of family life

is invariably reprobated. On the rare occasions where such breaches

occur--as in the Aulularia--they are repaired by marriage. Any one

aspiring to play the part of a Lothario--as in the Miles Gloriosus--is

made an object both of punishment and ridicule. In this respect the

comedy of Plautus contrasts favourably with our own comic drama of the

Restoration. There are no scenes in these plays intended or calculated

to stimulate the passions; and although there are coarse expressions

and allusions in almost all of them, yet the coarseness of Plautus

is not to be compared with that of Lucilius, Catullus, Martial, or

Juvenal. It is rather in the absence of any virtuous ideal, than in

positive incitements to vice, that the Plautine comedy might be called

immoral. Although family honour is treated as secure from violation,

there is no pure feeling about family life. Sons are afraid of their

fathers, run into debt without their knowledge, deceive them in every

possible way, occasionally express a wish that their death might

enable them to treat their mistresses more generously. Husbands fear

their wives and speak on all occasions bitterly against them. Plautus

was evidently more familiar with the ways of the 'libertinae' than

of Roman matrons of the better sort; and thus while we see little of

the latter, what we hear of them is not to their advantage. The only

obligation which young men seem to acknowledge is that of honour and

friendly service to one another. So too slaves, while they hold it as

their first duty to lie and swindle in behalf of their young masters,

feel the duty of absolute devotion and sacrifice of themselves to their

interests. Plautus shows scarcely any of the Roman feeling of dignity

or seriousness, or any regard for patriotism or public duty. There is

everywhere abundance of good humour and good sense, but, except in the

Captivi and Rudens, we find scarcely any pathos or elevated feeling.

The ideal of character which satisfies most of his personages might

almost be expressed in the words of Stalagmus in the Captivi--

Fui ego bellus, lepidus,--bonus vir nunquam neque frugi bonae

Neque ero unquam.[252]

But the life of careless freedom and strong animal spirits which

Plautus shaped with prodigal power into humorous scenes and

representations for the holiday amusements of the mass of his

fellow-citizens, does not admit of being tried by any moral or social

standard of usefulness. It would be equally unprofitable to search

for any consistent vein of irony in him, or any deep intuition into

the paradoxes of life. He is to be judged and valued on the grounds

put forward in the epitaph, which was in ancient times attributed to

himself,--

Postquam est mortem aptus Plautus, comoedia luget,

Scaena est deserta, dein risus, ludu' iocusque

Et numeri innumeri simul omnes conlacrumarunt.

And this leads us to the last question concerning him--What is his

value as a poetic artist? The very fact that his imagination plays

so habitually on the surface of life, that he has, as compared with

the greatest humourists of modern times, so little poetry, elevation,

or depth, prevents his being ranked in the very highest class of

humorous creators. In the absence of serious meaning or feeling from

his writings he reminds us of Le Sage or Smollett rather than of

Cervantes or Molière. Nor does he compensate for these defects by

careful artistic treatment. The criticisms of Horace on this subject

are perfectly true. If the line--

Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi

refers to the rapidity with which he hurries on to the dénouement

of his plot, it must be admitted that in some cases this quality

degenerates into haste and impatience[253]. But, on the other hand, the

careless ease and prodigal productiveness of his genius entitle him

to take certainly a high rank in the second class of humourists. If

he shows little of the idealising or contemplative faculty of poetic

genius, he has at least the facile power and spontaneous exuberance

which distinguish the great creators of human character.

The power of high and true dramatic invention which he occasionally

puts forth, and the stray gleams of beauty which light up the coarser

and commoner texture of his fancies, suggest the inference that it

was owing more to the demands of his audiences than to the original

limitation of his own powers, that he did not raise both himself

and his countrymen to the enjoyment of nobler productions. A people

accustomed to the buffoonery of the indigenous mimic dances required

strong and broad effects. Their popular poet, in conforming to the

conditions of Greek art, could not altogether forget the Dossennus

native to Italy.

But the largest endowment of Plautus, the truest note of his

creativeness, is his power of expression by means of action, rhythm,

and language. The phrase 'properare' may more probably be explained by

the extreme vivacity and rapidity of gesture, dialogue, declamation,

and recitative, by which his scenes were characterised, than be taken

as an equivalent to 'ad eventum festinare.' Their liveliness and

mobility of temperament made the Italians admirable mimics: and the

favour which the plays of Plautus continued to enjoy with the companies

of players, may be in part accounted for by the scope they afforded to

the talent of the actor. How far he was expected to bring out the

meaning of the poet may be gathered from the lively description given

by Periplecomenus of the outward manifestations which accompanied the

inward machinations of Palaestrio,--

Illuc sis vide

Quem ad modum astitit severo fronte curans, cogitans.

Pectus digitis pultat: cor credo evocaturust foras.

Ecce avortit: nisam laevo in femine habet laevam manum.

Dextera digitis rationem conputat: fervit femur

Dexterum, ita vehementer icit: quod agat, aegre suppetit.

Concrepuit digitis: laborat, crebro conmutat status.

Eccere autem capite nutat: non placet quod repperit.

Quidquid est, incoctum non expromet, bene coctum dabit.

Ecce autem aedificat: columnam mento suffigit suo.

Apage, non placet profecto mihi illaec aedificatio:

Nam os columnatum poetae esse indaudivi barbaro,

Quoi bini custodes semper totis horis occubant.

Euge, euscheme hercle astitit et dulice et comoedice.[254]

Many other scenes must have lent themselves to this representation of

feeling by lively gesture, accompanied sometimes by some kind of mimic

dance: of this kind, for instance, is the vigorous recitative of Ballio

on his first appearance on the stage, the scene in which Ergasilus

tells Hegio of the return of his son, the appearance of Pseudolus when

well drunken after celebrating his triumph over Ballio,--

Quid hoc? sicine hoc fit? pedes, statin an non?

An id voltis ut me hinc jacentem aliqui tollat? etc.[255]

His temptation was to exaggerate in this, as in other elements of

the dramatist's art; and this is what is probably meant by the word

_percurrat_ in the criticism of Horace, which has been already

quoted. But this tendency to exaggerate is merely the defect of his

superabundant share of the vigorous Italian qualities.

It is characteristic of the liveliness of Plautus' temperament,

that the lyrical and recitative parts of his plays occupy a place

altogether out of proportion to that occupied by the unimpassioned

monologue or dialogue expressed in senarian iambics. The 'Cantica,'

or purely lyrical monologues, are much more frequent and much longer

in his comedies than in those of Terence. They were sung to a musical

accompaniment, and were composed chiefly in bacchiac, anapaestic, or

cretic metres, rapidly interchanging with trochaic lines. The bacchiac

metre is employed in passages expressive of some sedate or laboured

thought, as, for instance, the opening part of the 'Canticum' of

Lysiteles in the Trinummus,--

Multas res simitu in meo corde vorso,

Multum in cogitando dolorem indipiscor.

Egomet me coquo et macero et defatigo.

The anapaestic metre was less suited to Latin, and is rarely met with

either in the comic poets, or in the fragments of the tragedians. On

the other hand, cretic and trochaic metres, from their affinity to

the old Saturnian, came most easily to the early dramatists, and are

largely employed by Plautus to express lively emotion. As an instance

of the first we may take the following song of a lover, addressed to

the bolts which barred his mistress's door,--

Pessuli, heus pessuli, vos saluto lubens,

Vos amo vos volo vos peto atque obsecro,

Gerite amanti mihi morem amoenissumi:

Fite caussa mea ludii barbari,

Sussulite, obsecro, et mittite istanc foras,

Quae mihi misero amanti exhibit sanguinem.

Hoc vide ut dormiunt pessuli pessumi

Nec mea gratia conmovent se ocius.[256]

These early efforts of the Italian lyrical muse do not approach the

smoothness and ease of the Glyconics and Phalaecians of Catullus,

nor the dignity of the Alcaics and Asclepiadeans of Horace: but

they do, in a rude kind of way, show facility and native power in

finding a rhythmical vehicle for the emotion or sentiment of the

moment. In the longer passages in which they occur, these metres are

generally combined with some form of trochaic verse, which again is

often exchanged for septenarian or octonarian iambics. Of the rapid

transitions with which Plautus passes from one metre to another in the

expression of strong excitement of feeling, we have a striking example

in the long recitative of Ballio[257], in which trochaics, septenarian,

octonarian, and dimeter, are continually varied by the introduction

now of one, now of several, octonarian or septenarian iambics. He thus

claims much greater freedom than Terence in the combination of his

metres. He exercises also greater licence, in substituting two short

for one long syllable (in his cretics and trochaics), and in deviating

from the laws of position and hiatus accepted by later poets. It is

impossible for a modern reader to reproduce the rhythmical flow of

passages which must have depended a good deal for their effect on the

musical accompaniment, and on the pronunciation of the actor. Yet even

though it requires some effort to recognise the legitimate beat of the

rhythm 'digito et aure,' it is equally impossible not to recognise the

vigour and vehemence of movement of such passages as these--

Haec, quom ego a foro revortar, facite ut offendam parata,

Vorsa sparsa tersa strata lauta structaque omnia ut sint.

Nam mi hodiest natalis dies: eum decet omnis vos concelebrare.

Magnifice volo me viros summos accipere, ut rem mi esse reantur.[258]

Terence has a more artistic mastery than Plautus of the ordinary metre

of comic dialogue: but the latter has the more original poetic gift of

adapting and varying his 'numeri innumeri' to the animated moods and

lively fancies of his characters.

But the gift for which Plautus is preeminent above all the earlier,

and in which he is not surpassed by any of the later poets, is the

exuberant vigour and spontaneous flow of his diction. No Roman poet

shows more rapidity of conception, or greater variety of illustration:

and words and phrases are never wanting to body forth and convey with

immediate force and freshness the intuitive discernment of his common

sense, the quick play of his wit, the riotous exaggerations of his

fancy, his vivid observation of facts and of the outward peculiarities

of men, his inexhaustible resources of genial vituperation and

execration, or bantering endearment. The mannerisms of his style,

already mentioned as indicative of the originality with which he

deviates from his Greek models, are not laboured efforts, but the

spontaneous products of a rich and comparatively neglected soil. His

burlesque invention of proper names, even in its wildest exaggeration,

as in the high-sounding title assumed by Sagaristio in the Persa--

Vaniloquidorus, Virginisvendonides,

Nugipalamloquides, Argentumexterebronides,

Tedigniloquides, Nummosexpalponides,

Quodsemelarripides, Nunquampostreddonides--

is a Rabelaisian ebullition, stimulated by the novel contact with

the Greek language, of the formative energy which he displays more

legitimately in the creation of new Latin words and phrases. In the

freedom with which he uses, without vulgarising, popular modes of

speech, in the idiomatic verve of his Latin, employed in an age when

inflexions still retained their original virtue, and had not been

limited by the labours of grammarians to a fixed standard, he has no

equal among Latin writers. It is one of the great charms of the Letters

to Atticus, and of the shorter poems of Catullus, that they give us

back the flavour of this homely native idiom. Where there is difficulty

in interpreting Plautus, this arises either from the uncertainty of

the reading, or from the wealth of his vocabulary. He saw clearly and

realised strongly what he meant to say, and his words and phrases

appeared in rapid, close, and orderly movement to his summons. He

describes his personages,--Pseudolus for instance,

Rufus quidam, ventriosus, crassis suris, subniger.

Magno capite, acutis oculis, ore rubicundo, ad modum

Magnis pedibus;[259]

Ballio,

Cum hirquina barba;

Plesidippus, in the Rudens,

Adulescentem strenua facie, rubicundum, fortem;

Harpax, in the same play,

Recalvom ac silonem senem, statutum, ventriosum

Tortis superciliis, contracta fronte, etc.--

in such a way as to show how real they were to his imagination in their

outward semblance as well as in the inward springs of their actions.

Or he brings before us some peculiarity in the dress or manner of his

personages by some graphic touch, as that of the disguised sycophant of

the Trinummus,--

Pol hic quidem fungino generest: capite se totum tegit.

Illurica facies videtur hominis: eo ornatu advenit;

and later--

Mira sunt

Ni illic homost aut dormitator aut sector zonarius.

Loca contemplat, circumspectat sese, atque aedis noscitat.[260]

He tells an imaginary story or adventure, such as that which Chrysalus

invents of the pursuit of his vessel by a piratical craft--

Ubi portu eximus, homines remigio sequi,

Neque aves neque venti citius, etc.[261],

or the account which Curculio gives of his encounter with the

soldier[262], tersely, rapidly, and vividly, as if he were recalling

some scene within his own recent experience. He imitates the style of

tragedy--as in the imaginary speech of the Ghost in the Mostellaria--in

such a manner as to show that he might have rivalled Ennius in the

art of tragic rhythm and expression, if his genius had allowed him

to pass beyond the province which was peculiarly his own. His plays

abound in pithy sayings which have anticipated popular proverbs, or

the happy hits of popular poets in modern times, such as the 'nudo

detrahere vestimenta,' in the Asinaria, and the 'virtute formae id

evenit te ut deceat quidquid habeas[263],' in the Mostellaria. He

writes letters with the forms of courtesy, and with the ease and

simplicity characteristic of the best epistles of a later age. His

resources of language are never wanting for any call which he may make

upon them. In a few descriptive passages he shows a command of the

language of forcible poetic imagination. But he does not often betray a

sense of beauty in action, character, or Nature: and thus if his style

altogether wants the peculiar charm of the later Latin poets, and the

tenderness and urbanity of Terence, the explanation of this defect is

perhaps to be sought rather in the limited play which he allowed to his

finer sensibilities, than in any inability to avail himself of the full

capabilities of his native language.

Whether the deficiency in the sense of beauty should deny to him the

name of a great poet, is to be answered only when agreement has been

attained as to the definition of a poet. He was certainly a true and

prodigally creative genius. He is also thoroughly representative of

his race--not of the gravity and dignity superinduced on the natural

Italian temperament by the strict discipline of Roman life, and by

the sense of superiority which arises among the governing men of an

imperial state--but of the strong and healthy vitality which enabled

the Italian to play his part in history, and of the quick observation

and ready resource, the lively emotional and social temperament, the

keen enjoyment of life, which are the accompaniment of that original

endowment.

[Footnote 172: Prologue to Casina, 18, 19.]

[Footnote 173: Prologue to Amphitryo, 52.]

[Footnote 174: Licinius and Atilius are placed before Terence in the

Canon of Volcatius Sedigitus.]

[Footnote 175: E. g. Pseudolus, 1081:

'Nugas theatri: verba quae in comoediis

Solent lenoni dici, quae pueri sciunt.'

Cf. also Captivi, 778.]

[Footnote 176: The influence of Plautus may be traced in the style of

Catullus, and perhaps in the sentiment of the passage in Lucretius, iv.

1121, etc.; and that of Terence also in Catullus, and in the Satires,

Epistles, and some of the Odes of Horace.]

[Footnote 177: E.g. the dance of Pseudolus. Pseud. 1246, etc.]

[Footnote 178: Cic. Brut. 15. 60; De Senec. 14. 50.]

[Footnote 179: Cf. Cicero's testimony to the purity of the style of

Naevius and Plautus with his criticism on the style of Caecilius and

Pacuvius. Terence, who was by birth a foreigner, was probably brought

to Rome as a child.]

[Footnote 180: 'Puplicisne adfinis fuit an maritumis

negotiis?'--Trinum. 331.]

[Footnote 181: Cf. the line at the end of the Prologue to the

Cistellaria (Act i. Sc. 3)--

'Vt vobis victi Poeni poenas sufferant.'

The 'Didascalia' to the Stichus is one of the few preserved. From it we

learn that the play was acted P. Sulpicio, C. Aurelio, Cos., i.e. 200

B.C.]

[Footnote 182: This is shown in some cases by reference to seats in the

theatre, which were not introduced till 155 B.C. In the Prologue to

the Casina it is said that only the older men present could remember

the first production of that play in the lifetime of the poet. The

Prologues to the Aulularia, Trinummus, and Rudens, are probably

genuine, and also the speech of _Auxilium_ in the Cistellaria.]

[Footnote 183: Cf. Rudens, 1249--

Spectavi ego pridem comicos ad istum modum

Sapienter dicta dicere atque is plaudier,

Quom illos sapientis mores monstrabant poplo.

Set quom inde suam quisque ibant divorsi domum

Nullus erat illo pacto ut illi iusserant.

]

[Footnote 184: Pseud. 687.]

[Footnote 185: E.g. Rudens, 986.]

[Footnote 186: 'Quid? Sarsinatis ecquast, si Umbram non habes.' Mostel.

757.]

[Footnote 187: 'Post Ephesi sum natus, noenum in Apulis, noenum

Aminulae.' Mil. Glor. 653.

'Quid tu per barbaricas urbes iuras? _Erg._ Quia enim item asperae

Sunt ut tuum victum autumabas esse.' Captiv. 884-5.

]

[Footnote 188: Capt. 879; Trinum. 609; Truc. iii. 2. 23; Bacch. 24.]

[Footnote 189:

'Quid tibi, malum, hic ante aedis clamitatiost?

An ruri censes te esse? apscede ab aedibus.' Most. 6. 7.

]

[Footnote 190: Vol. ii. p. 440; Eng. Trans.]

[Footnote 191: Cf. Trinum. 820, etc.; Menaechmi, 228, etc.; Stichus,

402, etc.]

[Footnote 192:

'Ita iam quasi canes, haud secus circumstabant navem turbine venti,

Imbres, fluctus, atque procellae infensae (fremere) frangere malum,

Ruere antennas, scindere vela, ni pax propitia foret praesto.'

Trinum. 835-7.

]

[Footnote 193: E.g. Rudens, 906; Trinum. 820.]

[Footnote 194: 'I shall trade in big ships: at the courts of princes

I shall be styled a prince. Afterwards for my amusement I shall build

a ship and imitate Stratonicus; I shall visit towns in my voyages:

when I shall have become famous, I'll build a big town, and call it

Gripus.'--Rudens, 931-5.]

[Footnote 195: Pseud. 166.]

[Footnote 196:

'Non enim haec pultifagus opufex opera fecit barbarus.'

Mostel. 815.

]

[Footnote 197:

'Quantus sit Dossennus edacibus in parasitis.'

]

[Footnote 198: Pseud. 1229, etc.]

[Footnote 199: Stichus, 682, etc.]

[Footnote 200: Cf. Pseud. 720:--

'Horum causa haec agitur spectatorum fabula,

Hi sciunt qui hic adfuerunt; vobis post narravero.'

]

[Footnote 201: Pseud. 401-2.]

[Footnote 202: Bacchid. 214.]

[Footnote 203: De Senec. 14.]

[Footnote 204: E.g. graphicus, doulice, euscheme, morus, logos,

techinae, prothyme, basilicus, etc., etc.]

[Footnote 205: Truculentus, 55-57. Weise condemns the passage as

spurious. But whether written by Plautus or not it is in the spirit

of the Plautine comedy. In a passage of the Poenulus (act iii. 1. 21)

another reference is made to the sense of security enjoyed since their

victory:--

'Praesertim in re populi placida, atque interfectis hostibus,

Non decet tumultuari.'

]

[Footnote 206: Cp. the remark of the parasite in the Persa, 75, 76--

'Set sumne ego stultus qui rem curo publicam

Ubi sint magistratus, quos curare oporteat?'

and that of the parasite in the Captivi, 'that only those who were

unable to procure invitations to luncheon should be expected to attend

public meetings and elections'; and such jokes as 'Plebiscitum non est

scitius.']

[Footnote 207: The Comedy of Terence, which represents that of

Menander, is completely non-political.]

[Footnote 208: Cf. Epidicus, 30, etc., and Captivi, 262.]

[Footnote 209: The advocati in the Poenulus, who are evidently clients,

show a certain spirit of independence. Cf. Act iii. 6. 13:--

'Et tu vale.

Iniuriam illic insignite postulat:

Nostro sibi servire nos censet cibo.

Verum ita sunt omnes isti nostri divites:

Si quid bene facias, levior pluma est gratia;

Si quid peccatum est, plumbeas iras gerunt.'

]

[Footnote 210: Livy, xxxix. 9, etc.]

[Footnote 211:

'Quom mi ipsum nomen eius Archidemides

Clamaret dempturum esse si quid crederem.' Bacchid. 285.

'Propterea huic urbi nomen Epidamno inditumst

Quia nemo ferme sine damno huc devortitur.' Menaech. 264.

Cf. also the play on Chrysalus and Crucisalus; and the following may

serve as a specimen of his perpetual puns:--

'Non enim es in senticeto, eo non sentis.' Captivi, 857.

]

[Footnote 212: Alliterations and assonances:--'Vi veneris vinctus.'

'Cottabi crebri crepent.' 'Laetus, lubens, laudes ago.' 'Collus collari

caret.'

'Atque mores hominum moros et morosos efficit,' etc., etc.

Asyndeta:--

'Laudem, lucrum, ludum, iocum, festivitatem, ferias.'

'Vorsa, sparsa, tersa, strata, lauta, structaque omnia ut sint.'

etc., etc.

These are not occasional, but constantly recurring characteristics

of his style. The thought and matter they express must, in a great

measure, be due to his own invention.]

[Footnote 213: Roman formulae:--'Quae res bene vortat.' 'Conceptis

verbis.' 'Quod bonum felix, faustum, fortunatumque sit.' 'Ut gesserit

rempublicam ductu, imperio, auspicio suo,' etc., etc.]

[Footnote 214: Proverbs:--'Sarta tecta.' 'Sine sacris haereditas.'

'Inter saxum et sacra.' 'Vae victis.' 'Ad incitas redactust,' etc.,

etc.]

[Footnote 215: Expressions of courtesy:--'Tam gratiast.' 'Benigne.'

'Num quid vis?' etc.]

[Footnote 216: E.g. Pistoria, Placentia, Praeneste, Sutrium, Sarsina,

etc.]

[Footnote 217: E.g. Vicus Tuscus, Velabrum, Macellum, Porta Trigemina,

Porta Metia; and compare the long passage in the Curculio (462), which

directly refers to Rome.]

[Footnote 218:

'Quid ego cesso Pseudolum

Facere ut det nomen ad Molas coloniam.' Pseud. 1082.

]

[Footnote 219: 'Mancupio dare,' 'stipulatio,' 'antestatio,' 'sponsio,'

'ubi res prolatae sunt.']

[Footnote 220: Bacchid. 120.]

[Footnote 221: Captivi, 888.]

[Footnote 222: Trinummus, 545-6.]

[Footnote 223:

'Non omnes possunt olere unguenta exotica.' Mostell. 42.

]

[Footnote 224: Cf. Bacch. 1072:

'Set, spectatores, vos nunc ne miremini

Quod non triumpho: peruolgatumst, nil moror.

Verum tamen accipientur mulso milites.'

]

[Footnote 225: Mil. Glor. 164, 6. Cf. Hor. 'Seu malis vetita legibus

alea.']

[Footnote 226: Casina, iii. 3. 22.]

[Footnote 227: Livy, xxxiv. 2.]

[Footnote 228: 'Do you see that the enemy is close upon you, and that

your back will soon be invested. Quick! seize some help and succour:

it must be done speedily, not peacefully. Get before them somehow;

lead round your forces by some pass or other. Invest the enemy; bring

relief to our own troops; cut off the enemy's supplies; make a road for

yourself, by which provisions or supplies may reach yourself or your

legions safely: give your whole heart to the business--it is a sudden

emergency.'--Mil. Glor. 219-225.

The end of many of the prologues also shows that they were addressed to

a people constantly engaged in war.]

[Footnote 229: Menaech. 590.]

[Footnote 230: Cf. such expressions and lines as:--'Salva sumes

indidem' (Mil. Glor. 234); 'locare argentum;' 'fenerato.'

'Mihi quod credideris, sumes ubi posiueris.' Trinum. 145.

'Nequaquam argenti ratio comparet tamen.' Ib. 418.

'Bene igitur ratio accepti atque expensi inter nos convenit.' Mostel.

292.]

[Footnote 231: For a list of these, cp. the edition of the Mostellaria

by the late Professor Ramsay.]

[Footnote 232: E.g. 'Mellitus, ocelle, mea anima, medullitus amare.']

[Footnote 233: 'Don't threaten me; I know that the cross will be my

tomb: there lie my ancestors, father, grandfather, great-grandfather,

great-great-grandfather: but your threats can't dig these eyes out of

my head.'--Mil. Glor. 372-5.]

[Footnote 234: The conclusion of the Aulularia is lost, but the play

seems to have ended with the old man's consigning his treasure into the

hands of his son-in-law and daughter.]

[Footnote 235: 'The Gods only are rich: great wealth and high

connexions are for the Gods; but we, poor creatures, are but a tiny

spark of life, and so soon as that is gone, the beggar and the richest

man, when dead, are rated alike by the shores of Acheron.'--Trin.

490-4.]

[Footnote 236: 'Non vidisse undas me maiores censeo.' Rudens, 167.

'Atque ut nunc valide fluctuat mare, nulla nobis spes est.' Ib. 303.]

[Footnote 237: Cf.

'Atque hoc scelesti [illi] in animum inducunt suum

Iovem se placare posse donis, hostiis:

Et operam et sumptum perdunt: id eo fit quia

Nihil ei accemptumst a periuris supplici,' etc.--22-5.

]

[Footnote 238: 9-12.]

[Footnote 239: 280, 1.]

[Footnote 240: 694, etc.]

[Footnote 241: 'O Gripus, Gripus! in the life of man are laid many

snares, by which they are trapped; and for the most part a bait is laid

on them, and whoso in his greed greedily craves for it, by reason of

his greed he is caught in the trap. But whoso warily, wisely, craftily

takes heed, to him it is given long to enjoy what has been well earned.

That prize of yours, I fancy, will be so made prize of, as to bring a

larger dower in going from us than when it came to us. To fancy that

I should be capable of keeping secret possession of what I know to be

another's property? Far will that be from our friend Daemones! It is

the absolute duty of a wise man to be on his guard against ever being

privy to any wrong done by his own people. I never would care for any

gain, except when I am in the game.'--Rudens, 1235-48.]

[Footnote 242: 'Provided it be not for wrong done, let me perish, I

care not. If I shall perish here, while he returns not, as he promised,

yet even after death this will be a memorable act, that I restored

my master from captivity and his enemies to his father and his home,

and chose rather to emperil my own life here than that he should

perish.'--Captivi, 682-8.]

[Footnote 243: 'So it befell my mistress this day: for when she calls

the powers of travail to her aid, lo! there ensues a rumbling, rattling

noise, loud uproar and a peal of thunder--all of a sudden how fast,

how mightily it thundered! At the crash each one fell on the spot

where he stood. Then some one, I know not who, exclaims in a loud

voice, "Alcmena, be not afraid; help is at hand: the dweller in the

skies draweth nigh with kindly intent to thee and thine. Arise ye who

from the dread inspired by me have fallen down in alarm." As I lay,

I rose up: methought the house was all on fire, so brightly did it

shine.'--Amphitruo, 1060-67.]

[Footnote 244: 'I call not that which is named my dower, my true

dower, but chastity and modesty, and passion subdued, fear of

the Gods, affection to my parents, amity with my kinsmen, a will

to yield to thee, to be bountiful to the good, of service to the

worthy.'--Amphitruo, 839-42.]

[Footnote 245: 86.]

[Footnote 246: Captivi, 280.]

[Footnote 247: Pseud. 666.]

[Footnote 248: Captivi, 310.]

[Footnote 249: Pseud. 677.]

[Footnote 250: Cf. Aul. iii. 5. 4-8:--

'Nam, meo quidem animo, si idem faciant ceteri,

Opulentiores pauperiorum filias

Ut indotatas ducant uxores domum,

Et multo fiat civitas concordior,

Et invidia nos minore utamur, quam utimur.'

]

[Footnote 251: Curculio, 33-8.]

[Footnote 252: 'I was a fine gentleman, a nice fellow--a good or

respectable man I never was nor will be.'--Capt. 956-7.]

[Footnote 253: Cp. the winding up of the Mostellaria, Casina,

Cistellaria.]

[Footnote 254: 'Look there, if you please, how he has taken up his

post, with serious brow pondering, meditating; now he taps his breast

with his fingers. I fancy he is going to summon his heart outside:

look, he turns away; now his left hand is leaning on his left thigh;

with his right hand he is making a calculation on his fingers; his

right thigh burns, such a violent blow he has struck it; his scheme

does not come easily to him:--he cracks his fingers: he is at a loss;

he often changes his position: look, there he nods his head: he does

not like this new idea. Whatever it is, he will not bring it out till

it is ready: he'll serve it up well done. Look again, he is busy

building: he props up his chin with a pillar. Away with it! I don't

like that kind of building: for I have heard that a foreign poet has

his face thus pillared, beside whom two sentinels are every hour on

watch. Bravo! by Hercules, now he is in a fine attitude, like a slave,

or a man in a play.'--Mil. Glor. 201-14.]

[Footnote 255: Pseud. 1246.]

[Footnote 256: 'Hear me, ye bolts, ye bolts, gladly I greet you, I

love you, I am fond of you; I beg you, I beseech you, most amiably now

comply with the desire of me a lover. For my sake become like foreign

dancers; spring up, I beseech you, and send her forth, who now is

drinking up the life-blood of me her lover. Mark how these vilest bolts

are still asleep, and do not stir one whit on my account.'--Curculio,

147-154.]

[Footnote 257: Pseud. 132-238.]

[Footnote 258: 'See that when I return from the Forum, I find

everything ready, the floor swept, sprinkled, polished, the couches

covered; the plate all clean and arranged: for this is my birthday:

this you must all join in keeping: I want to entertain some great

people sumptuously, that they may think I am well to do.'--Pseud.

159-62.]

[Footnote 259: 'A red-haired fellow, pot-bellied, with thick legs,

darkish, with a big head, keen eyes, a red face, and enormous feet.']

[Footnote 260: 'By Pollux he is of the mushroom sort: he hides himself

with his head: he looks like an Illyrian: he is got up like one;'--

'I should be surprised if he be not either some dreaming fellow (? al.

housebreaker) or a cut purse: he takes a good look of the ground, gazes

about him, takes note of the house.'--Trinum. 850-862.]

[Footnote 261: Bacchid. 289.]

[Footnote 262: Curculio, 337, etc.]

[Footnote 263: Cp. the proverbial 'taking the breeches off a

Highlander,' and the lines in one of Burns' earliest songs--

'And then there's something in her gait

Gars ony dress look weel.'

]