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90-614: In later poets the cretic foot could be resolved into a paeonic (ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ – or – ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ) or sometimes even five short syllables (ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ ᴗ). In Latin, cretics were used for composition both in comedy and tragedy. They are fairly frequent in Plautus but rarer in Terence . (See Metres of Roman comedy .) Words which include a cretic (e.g. Latin cīvitās and its various inflections) cannot be used in works composed in dactylic hexameter or dactylic pentameter . For Romance language poetry,

180-409: A monumental brass the reverse blank side of which has been re-engraved. The word palimpsest derives from Latin palimpsestus , which derives from παλίμψηστος , palímpsēstos (from Ancient Greek πάλιν (pálin)  'again' and ψάω (psáō)  'scrape'), a compound word that describes the process: "The original writing was scraped and washed off,

270-624: A quarto volume of the original folio, with the overwritten text running perpendicular to the effaced text. Faint legible remains were read by eye before 20th-century techniques helped make lost texts readable. To read palimpsests, scholars of the 19th century used chemical means that were sometimes very destructive, using tincture of gall or, later, ammonium bisulfate . Modern methods of reading palimpsests using ultraviolet light and photography are less damaging. Innovative digitized images aid scholars in deciphering unreadable palimpsests. Superexposed photographs exposed in various light spectra,

360-532: A scroll or a book , from which the text has been scraped or washed off in preparation for reuse in the form of another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid skin and was expensive and not readily available, so, in the interest of economy, a page was often re-used by scraping off the previous writing. In colloquial usage, the term palimpsest is also used in architecture , archaeology and geomorphology to denote an object made or worked upon for one purpose and later reused for another; for example,

450-432: A different relationship between actors and the space in which they performed and also between them and their audiences". Actors were thrust into much closer audience interaction. Because of this, a certain acting style became required that is more familiar to modern audiences. Because they would have been in such close proximity to the actors, ancient Roman audiences would have wanted attention and direct acknowledgement from

540-506: A farce in comparison. He addresses them as a reflection of Menander with some of Plautus' own contributions. Anderson argues there is unevenness in the poetry of Plautus that results in "incredulity and refusal of sympathy of the audience." The poetry of Menander and Plautus is best juxtaposed in their prologues. Robert B. Lloyd makes the point that "albeit the two prologues introduce plays whose plots are of essentially different types, they are almost identical in form..." He goes on to address

630-617: A play." One of the best examples of this method is the Plautine slave, a form that plays a major role in quite a few of Plautus' works. The "clever slave" in particular is a very strong character; he not only provides exposition and humor, but also often drives the plot in Plautus' plays. C. Stace argues that Plautus took the stock slave character from New Comedy in Greece and altered it for his own purposes. In New Comedy, he writes, "the slave

720-416: A respectable limit. All of these characters have the same goal, to be with a younger woman, but all go about it in different ways, as Plautus could not be too redundant with his characters despite their already obvious similarities. What they have in common is the ridicule with which their attempts are viewed, the imagery that suggests that they are motivated largely by animal passion, the childish behavior, and

810-435: A single manuscript dating to perhaps the 4th or 5th century AD. At some stage the plays in the P family were divided into two halves, one containing Amphitruo to Epidicus (omitting Bacchides ), and the other containing Bacchides and Menaechmi to Truculentus . The first eight plays are found in B, and the first three and part of Captivi are found in D. The last twelve plays are found in B, C, and D. In addition there

900-633: A technique called "multispectral filming", can increase the contrast of faded ink on parchment that is too indistinct to be read by eye in normal light. For example, multispectral imaging undertaken by researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins University recovered much of the undertext (estimated to be more than 80%) from the Archimedes Palimpsest . At the Walters Art Museum where

990-409: A temporary stage would have been built during specific festivals. Roman drama, specifically Plautine comedy, was acted out on stage during the ludi or festival games. In his discussion of the importance of the ludi Megalenses in early Roman theater, John Arthur Hanson says that this particular festival "provided more days for dramatic representations than any of the other regular festivals, and it

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1080-523: Is a copycat of Greek New Comedy and that he makes no original contribution to playwriting. A single reading of the Miles Gloriosus leaves the reader with the notion that the names, place, and play are all Greek, but one must look beyond these superficial interpretations. W.S. Anderson would steer any reader away from the idea that Plautus' plays are somehow not his own or at least only his interpretation. Anderson says that, "Plautus homogenizes all

1170-608: Is currently using spectral imaging techniques developed for imaging the Archimedes Palimpsest to study more than one hundred palimpsests in the library of Saint Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt . A number of ancient works have survived only as palimpsests. Vellum manuscripts were over-written on purpose mostly due to the dearth or cost of the material. In the case of Greek manuscripts,

1260-530: Is evidence that antiwar feeling ran deep and persisted even after the war was approved." Owens contends that Plautus was attempting to match the complex mood of the Roman audience riding the victory of the Second Punic War but facing the beginning of a new conflict. For instance, the characters of the dutiful daughters and their father seem obsessed over the idea of officium , the duty one has to do what

1350-484: Is far more durable than paper or papyrus , most palimpsests known to modern scholars are parchment, which rose in popularity in Western Europe after the 6th century. Where papyrus was in common use, reuse of writing media was less common because papyrus was cheaper and more expendable than costly parchment. Some papyrus palimpsests do survive, and Romans referred to this custom of washing papyrus. The writing

1440-434: Is important to recognize is that of contaminatio , which refers to the mixing of elements of two or more source plays. Plautus, it seems, is quite open to this method of adaptation, and quite a few of his plots seem stitched together from different stories. One excellent example is his Bacchides and its supposed Greek predecessor, Menander's Dis Exapaton. The original Greek title translates as "The Man Deceiving Twice", yet

1530-502: Is in connection with these ludi that the most definite and secure literary evidence for the site of scenic games has come down to us". Because the ludi were religious in nature, it was appropriate for the Romans to set up this temporary stage close to the temple of the deity being celebrated. S.M. Goldberg notes that " ludi were generally held within the precinct of the particular god being honored." T. J. Moore notes that "seating in

1620-516: Is known about Titus Maccius Plautus's early life. It is believed that he was born in Sarsina , a small town in Emilia Romagna in northern Italy, around 254 BC. According to Morris Marples, Plautus worked as a stage-carpenter or scene-shifter in his early years. It is from this work, perhaps, that his love of the theater originated. His acting talent was eventually discovered; and he adopted

1710-440: Is often not much more than a comedic turn, with the added purpose, perhaps, of exposition". This shows that there was precedent for this slave archetype, and obviously some of its old role continues in Plautus (the expository monologues, for instance). However, because Plautus found humor in slaves tricking their masters or comparing themselves to great heroes, he took the character a step further and created something distinct. Of

1800-401: Is right. Their speech is littered with words such as pietas and aequus , and they struggle to make their father fulfill his proper role. The stock parasite in this play, Gelasimus, has a patron-client relationship with this family and offers to do any job in order to make ends meet; Owens puts forward that Plautus is portraying the economic hardship many Roman citizens were experiencing due to

1890-474: Is that New Comedy, in comparison to Old Comedy, is "devoid of a serious political, social or intellectual content" and "could be performed in any number of social and political settings without risk of giving offense". The risk-taking for which Aristophanes is known is noticeably lacking in the New Comedy plays of Menander . Instead, there is much more of a focus on the home and the family unit—something that

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1980-480: Is well known for his devotion to puns, especially when it comes to the names of his characters. In Miles Gloriosus , for instance, the female concubine's name, Philocomasium, translates to "lover of a good party"—which is quite apt when we learn about the tricks and wild ways of this prostitute. Plautus' characters—many of which seem to crop up in quite a few of his plays—also came from Greek stock, though they too received some Plautine innovations. Indeed, since Plautus

2070-515: The New Comedy of Menander —in his leisure. His studies allowed him to produce his plays, which were released between c.  205 and 184 BC. Plautus attained such popularity that his name alone became a hallmark of theatrical success. Plautus's comedies are mostly adapted from Greek models for a Roman audience, and are often based directly on the works of the Greek playwrights. He reworked

2160-542: The Second Macedonian War , there was considerable debate beforehand about the course Rome should take in this conflict. But starting this war would not be an easy task considering those recent struggles with Carthage—many Romans were too tired of conflict to think of embarking on another campaign. As W. M. Owens writes in his article "Plautus' Stichus and the Political Crisis of 200 B.C.", "There

2250-494: The nomen "Maccius" (from Maccus, a clownish stock character in Atellan Farce ) and agnomen "Plautus" ("trampled flat", usually in reference to "flat-footed" but sometimes intending "flat-eared" like the ears of a hound). Tradition holds that he made enough money to go into the nautical business, but that the venture collapsed. He is then said to have worked as a manual laborer and to have studied Greek drama—particularly

2340-604: The pimp . It is not uncommon, too, for a character to scorn the gods, as seen in Poenulus and Rudens . Tolliver argues that drama both reflects and foreshadows social change . It is likely that there was already much skepticism about the gods in Plautus' era. Plautus did not make up or encourage irreverence to the gods, but reflected ideas of his time. The state controlled stage productions, and Plautus' plays would have been banned, had they been too risqué. The Second Punic War occurred from 218 to 201 BC; its central event

2430-469: The 7th to the 9th centuries. It has been noticed that no entire work is generally found in any instance in the original text of a palimpsest, but that portions of many works have been taken to make up a single volume. An exception is the Archimedes Palimpsest (see below). On the whole, early medieval scribes were thus not indiscriminate in supplying themselves with material from any old volumes that happened to be at hand. About sixty palimpsest manuscripts of

2520-489: The Campus Martius. The lack of a permanent space was a key factor in Roman theater and Plautine stagecraft. In their introduction to the Miles Gloriosus, Hammond, Mack and Moskalew say that "the Romans were acquainted with the Greek stone theater, but, because they believed drama to be a demoralizing influence, they had a strong aversion to the erection of permanent theaters". This worry rings true when considering

2610-539: The Greek texts to give them a flavour that would appeal to the local Roman audiences. They are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. Plautus's epitaph read: postquam est mortem aptus Plautus, Comoedia luget, scaena deserta, dein risus, ludus iocusque et numeri innumeri simul omnes conlacrimarunt. Since Plautus is dead, Comedy mourns, The stage is deserted; then Laughter, Jest and Wit, And all Melody's countless numbers wept together. Only

2700-414: The Plautine version has three tricks. V. Castellani commented that: Plautus' attack on the genre whose material he pirated was, as already stated, fourfold. He deconstructed many of the Greek plays' finely constructed plots; he reduced some, exaggerated others of the nicely drawn characters of Menander and of Menander's contemporaries and followers into caricatures; he substituted for or superimposed upon

2790-466: The Romans, including Plautus, could easily understand and adopt for themselves later in history. One main theme of Greek New Comedy is the father–son relationship. For example, in Menander's Dis Exapaton there is a focus on the betrayal between age groups and friends. The father-son relationship is very strong and the son remains loyal to the father. The relationship is always a focus, even if it's not

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2880-425: The actors. Because there was no orchestra, there was no space separating the audience from the stage. The audience could stand directly in front of the elevated wooden platform. This gave them the opportunity to look at the actors from a much different perspective. They would have seen every detail of the actor and heard every word he said. The audience member would have wanted that actor to speak directly to them. It

2970-492: The approximate 270 proper names in the surviving plays of Plautus, about 250 names are Greek. William M. Seaman proposes that these Greek names would have delivered a comic punch to the audience because of its basic understanding of the Greek language. This previous understanding of Greek language, Seaman suggests, comes from the "experience of Roman soldiers during the first and second Punic wars. Not only did men billeted in Greek areas have opportunity to learn sufficient Greek for

3060-421: The audience and by its switch from senarii in the dialogue to iambic septenarii . The resulting shift of mood distracts and distorts our sense of passing time." The small stages had a significant effect on the stagecraft of ancient Roman theater. Because of this limited space, there was also limited movement. Greek theater allowed for grand gestures and extensive action to reach the audience members who were in

3150-611: The audience as well as the actor. The greatest playwrights of the day had quality facilities in which to present their work and, in a general sense, there was always enough public support to keep the theater running and successful. However, this was not the case in Rome during the time of the Republic, when Plautus wrote his plays. While there was public support for theater and people came to enjoy tragedy and comedy alike, no permanent theater existed in Rome until Pompey dedicated one in 55 BC in

3240-411: The audience". M. Leigh writes in his chapter on Plautus and Hannibal that "the Plautus who emerges from this investigation is one whose comedies persistently touch the rawest nerves in the audience for whom he writes". Later, coming off the heels of the conflict with Hannibal, Rome was preparing to embark on another military mission, this time in Greece. While they would eventually move on Philip V in

3330-486: The bosom of the family". Both authors, through their plays, reflect a patriarchal society in which the father-son relationship is essential to proper function and development of the household. It is no longer a political statement, as in Old Comedy, but a statement about household relations and proper behavior between a father and his son. But the attitudes on these relationships seem much different—a reflection of how

3420-471: The consumption of old codices for the sake of the material was so great that a synodal decree of the year 691 forbade the destruction of manuscripts of the Scriptures or the church fathers , except for imperfect or injured volumes. Such a decree put added pressure on retrieving the vellum on which secular manuscripts were written. The decline of the vellum trade with the introduction of paper exacerbated

3510-554: The cost of war. With the repetition of responsibility to the desperation of the lower class, Plautus establishes himself firmly on the side of the average Roman citizen. While he makes no specific reference to the possible war with Greece or the previous war (that might be too dangerous), he does seem to push the message that the government should take care of its own people before attempting any other military actions. Greek New Comedy greatly differs from those plays of Aristophanes. The most notable difference, according to Dana F. Sutton,

3600-605: The cretic has been a common form in folk poetry , whether in proverbs or tags. Additionally, some English poets have responded to the naturally iambic nature of English and the need for a trochaic initial substitution to employ a cretic foot. That is, it is commonplace for English poetry to employ a trochee in the first position of an otherwise iambic line, and some poets have consciously worked with cretic lines and fully cretic measures. English Renaissance songs employed cretic dimeter fairly frequently (e.g. "Shall I die? Shall I fly?" attributed to William Shakespeare ). Because

3690-435: The cretic, in stress-based prosody, is natural for a comparison or antithesis , it is well suited to advertising slogans and adages. — Ohio! the editor crowed in high treble from his uplifted scarlet face. My Ohio! — A perfect cretic! the professor said. Long, short and long. Ulysses (1922), James Joyce . Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus ( / ˈ p l ɔː t ə s / , PLAW -təs ; c. 254 – 184 BC)

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3780-445: The dialogue of Plautus' plays. These verbs of motion or phrases can be taken as Plautine stage directions since no overt stage directions are apparent. Often, though, in these interchanges of characters, there occurs the need to move on to the next act. Plautus then might use what is known as a "cover monologue". About this S.M. Goldberg notes that, "it marks the passage of time less by its length than by its direct and immediate address to

3870-495: The different spaces of the stage are thematically charged. She states: Plautus' Casina employs these conventional tragic correlations between male/outside and female/inside, but then inverts them in order to establish an even more complex relationship among genre, gender and dramatic space. In the Casina , the struggle for control between men and women... is articulated by characters' efforts to control stage movement into and out of

3960-476: The elegant humor of his models his own more vigorous, more simply ridiculous foolery in action, in statement, even in language. By exploring ideas about Roman loyalty, Greek deceit, and differences in ethnicity, "Plautus in a sense surpassed his model." He was not content to rest solely on a loyal adaptation that, while amusing, was not new or engaging for Rome. Plautus took what he found but again made sure to expand, subtract, and modify. He seems to have followed

4050-651: The errors of P. A second manuscript tradition is represented by manuscripts of the Palatine family, so called because two of its most important manuscripts were once kept in the library of the Elector Palatine in Heidelberg in Germany. The archetype of this family is now lost but it can be reconstructed from various later manuscripts, some of them containing either only the first half or the second half of

4140-500: The focus of every action taken by the main characters. In Plautus, on the other hand, the focus is still on the relationship between father and son, but we see betrayal between the two men that wasn't seen in Menander. There is a focus on the proper conduct between a father and son that, apparently, was so important to Roman society at the time of Plautus. This becomes the main difference and, also, similarity between Menander and Plautus. They both address "situations that tend to develop in

4230-771: The geography of the stage and more importantly the play matched the geography of the city so that the audience would be well oriented to the locale of the play. Moore says that, "references to Roman locales must have been stunning for they are not merely references to things Roman, but the most blatant possible reminders that the production occurs in the city of Rome". So, Plautus seems to have choreographed his plays somewhat true-to-life. To do this, he needed his characters to exit and enter to or from whatever area their social standing would befit. Two scholars, V. J. Rosivach and N. E. Andrews, have made interesting observations about stagecraft in Plautus: V. J. Rosivach writes about identifying

4320-416: The gods. These references to the gods include a character comparing a mortal woman to a god, or saying he would rather be loved by a woman than by the gods. Pyrgopolynices from Miles Gloriosus (vs. 1265), in bragging about his long life, says he was born one day later than Jupiter. In Curculio , Phaedrome says "I am a god" when he first meets with Planesium. In Pseudolus , Jupiter is compared to Ballio

4410-429: The house. Andrews makes note of the fact that power struggle in the Casina is evident in the verbal comings and goings. The words of action and the way that they are said are important to stagecraft. The words denoting direction or action such as abeo ("I go off"), transeo ("I go over"), fores crepuerunt ("the doors creak"), or intus ("inside"), which signal any character's departure or entrance, are standard in

4500-413: The last decade of the 3rd century BC. A. F. West believes that this is inserted commentary on the Second Punic War. In his article "On a Patriotic Passage in the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus", he states that the war "engrossed the Romans more than all other public interests combined". The passage seems intended to rile up the audience, beginning with hostis tibi adesse , or "the foe is near at hand". At

4590-561: The media was less wasteful than simply to burn the books. Vast destruction of the broad quartos of the early centuries took place in the period which followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire , but palimpsests were also created as new texts were required during the Carolingian Renaissance . The most valuable Latin palimpsests are found in the codices which were remade from the early large folios in

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4680-405: The most valuable palimpsests are those that were overwritten in the early Middle Ages. Medieval codices are constructed in "gathers" which are folded (compare folio , 'leaf, page' ablative case of Latin folium ), then stacked together like a newspaper and sewn together at the fold. Prepared parchment sheets retained their original central fold, so each was ordinarily cut in half, making

4770-462: The mouths of characters belonging to the lower social ranks, to whose language and position these varieties of humorous technique are most suitable," matched well with the stable of characters. In his article "The Intriguing Slave in Greek Comedy," Philip Harsh gives evidence to show that the clever slave is not an invention of Plautus. While previous critics such as A. W. Gomme believed that

4860-463: The palimpsest is now conserved, the project has focused on experimental techniques to retrieve the remaining text, some of which was obscured by overpainted icons. One of the most successful techniques for reading through the paint proved to be X-ray fluorescence imaging, through which the iron in the ink is revealed. A team of imaging scientists and scholars from the United States and Europe

4950-429: The plays as vehicles for his special exploitation. Against the spirit of the Greek original, he engineers events at the end... or alter[s] the situation to fit his expectations." Anderson's vehement reaction to the co-opting of Greek plays by Plautus seems to suggest that they are in no way like their originals were. It seems more likely that Plautus was just experimenting putting Roman ideas in Greek forms. One idea that

5040-502: The plays. The most important manuscript of this group is "B", of the 10th or early 11th century, now kept in the Vatican library. Manuscripts C and D also belong to this family. The lost original P, from which all these manuscripts were copied, is ascribed by Lindsay to the 8th or 9th century. Because of certain errors which both A and the P family have in common, it is thought that they are not completely independent, but are both copies of

5130-451: The purpose of everyday conversation, but they were also able to see plays in the foreign tongue." Having an audience with knowledge of the Greek language, whether limited or more expanded, allowed Plautus more freedom to use Greek references and words. Also, by using his many Greek references and showing that his plays were originally Greek, "It is possible that Plautus was in a way a teacher of Greek literature, myth, art and philosophy; so too

5220-479: The reversion to the love-language of their youth. In examining the female role designations of Plautus's plays, Z.M. Packman found that they are not as stable as their male counterparts: a senex will usually remain a senex for the duration of the play but designations like matrona , mulier , or uxor at times seem interchangeable. Most free adult women, married or widowed, appear in scene headings as mulier , simply translated as "woman". But in Plautus' Stichus

5310-502: The same path that Horace did, though Horace is much later, in that he is putting Roman ideas in Greek forms. He not only imitated the Greeks, but in fact distorted, cut up, and transformed the plays into something entirely Roman. In essence it is Greek theater colonized by Rome and its playwrights. In Ancient Greece during the time of New Comedy, from which Plautus drew so much of his inspiration, there were permanent theaters that catered to

5400-589: The scarcity, increasing pressure to reuse material. Texts most susceptible to being overwritten included obsolete legal and liturgical ones, sometimes of intense interest to the historian. Early Latin translations of Scripture were rendered obsolete by Jerome's Vulgate . Texts might be in foreign languages or written in unfamiliar scripts that had become illegible over time. The codices themselves might be already damaged or incomplete. Heretical texts were dangerous to harbor—there were compelling political and religious reasons to destroy texts viewed as heresy, and to reuse

5490-445: The side of the stage with both social status and geography. He says that, for example, "the house of the medicus lies offstage to the right. It would be in the forum or thereabouts that one would expect to find a medicus ." Moreover, he says that characters that oppose one another always have to exit in opposite directions. In a slightly different vein, N.E. Andrews discusses the spatial semantics of Plautus; she has observed that even

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5580-423: The slave was "[a] truly comic character, the devisor of ingenious schemes, the controller of events, the commanding officer of his young master and friends, is a creation of Latin comedy," and that Greek dramatists such as Menander did not use slaves in such a way that Plautus later did, Harsh refutes these beliefs by giving concrete examples of instances where a clever slave appeared in Greek comedy. For instance, in

5670-460: The society in the forefront. The wooden stages on which Plautus' plays appeared were shallow and long with three openings in respect to the scene-house. The stages were significantly smaller than any Greek structure familiar to modern scholars. Because theater was not a priority during Plautus' time, the structures were built and dismantled within a day. Even more practically, they were dismantled quickly due to their potential as fire-hazards. Often

5760-513: The specific style of Plautus that differs so greatly from Menander. He says that the "verbosity of the Plautine prologues has often been commented upon and generally excused by the necessity of the Roman playwright to win his audience." However, in both Menander and Plautus, word play is essential to their comedy. Plautus might seem more verbose, but where he lacks in physical comedy he makes up for it with words, alliteration and paronomasia (punning). See also "jokes and wordplay" below. Plautus

5850-511: The stock characters of the pompous soldier and the desperate parasite that appeared in Plautine comedies. In disposing of highly complex individuals, Plautus was supplying his audience with what it wanted, since "the audience to whose tastes Plautus catered was not interested in the character play," but instead wanted the broad and accessible humor offered by stock set-ups. The humor Plautus offered, such as "puns, word plays, distortions of meaning, or other forms of verbal humor he usually puts them in

5940-408: The subject matter of Plautus' plays. The unreal becomes reality on stage in his work. T. J. Moore notes that, "all distinction between the play, production, and 'real life' has been obliterated [Plautus' play Curculio ]". A place where social norms were upended was inherently suspect. The aristocracy was afraid of the power of the theater. It was merely by their good graces and unlimited resources that

6030-452: The surface resmoothed, and the new literary material written on the salvaged material." The Ancient Greeks used wax-coated tablets to write on with a stylus , and to erase the writing by smoothing the wax surface and writing again. This practice was adopted by Ancient Romans , who wrote on wax-coated tablets, which were reusable; Cicero 's use of the term palimpsest confirms such a practice. Because parchment prepared from animal hides

6120-424: The temporary theaters where Plautus' plays were first performed was often insufficient for all those who wished to see the play, that the primary criterion for determining who was to stand and who could sit was social status". This is not to say that the lower classes did not see the plays; but they probably had to stand while watching. Plays were performed in public, for the public, with the most prominent members of

6210-423: The text where there appears to have been in a hole or lacuna in the parchment) that the original P manuscript was copied from an earlier manuscript with 19, 20 or 21 lines to the page, in other words it was a book very similar to A, which has 19 lines to the page, and probably it was about the same age. However, the order of plays in A is slightly different from that in the P family of manuscripts. The headings at

6300-442: The time, the general Scipio Africanus wanted to confront Hannibal, a plan "strongly favored by the plebs". Plautus apparently pushes for the plan to be approved by the senate, working his audience up with the thought of an enemy in close proximity and a call to outmaneuver him. Therefore, it is reasonable to say that Plautus, according to P. B. Harvey, was "willing to insert [into his plays] highly specific allusions comprehensible to

6390-587: The titles and various fragments of these plays have survived. The oldest manuscript of Plautus is a palimpsest , known as the Ambrosian palimpsest (A), since it is kept in the Ambrosian Library in Milan . It is thought to date to the 5th century, but it was not discovered until 1815. This manuscript is only partly legible, since the parchment was cleaned and a copy of the books of Kings and Chronicles

6480-458: The top of the scenes in A, containing character names, which were written in red ink, have been totally washed away, and those in the P family seem to be based on guesswork and so were also probably missing in an ancestor of the lost P codex. For this reason the names of some of the minor characters are not known. The historical context within which Plautus wrote can be seen, to some extent, in his comments on contemporary events and persons. Plautus

6570-471: The two young women are referred to as sorores , later mulieres , and then matronae , all of which have different meanings and connotations. Although there are these discrepancies, Packman tries to give a pattern to the female role designations of Plautus. Mulier is typically given to a woman of citizen class and of marriageable age or who has already been married. Unmarried citizen-class girls, regardless of sexual experience, were designated virgo . Ancilla

6660-402: The very back of the theater. However the Romans would have had to depend more on their voices than large physicality. There was not an orchestra available as there was for the Greeks and this is reflected in the notable lack of a chorus in Roman drama. The replacement character that acts as the chorus would in Greek drama is often called the "prologue". Goldberg says that "these changes fostered

6750-405: The works of Athenaeus, Alciphron, and Lucian there are deceptions that involve the aid of a slave, and in Menander's Dis Exapaton there was an elaborate deception executed by a clever slave that Plautus mirrors in his Bacchides . Evidence of clever slaves also appears in Menander's Thalis , Hypobolimaios , and from the papyrus fragment of his Perinthia . Harsh acknowledges that Gomme's statement

6840-417: The worlds of Menander and Plautus differed. There are differences not just in how the father–son relationship is presented, but also in the way in which Menander and Plautus write their poetry. William S. Anderson discusses the believability of Menander versus the believability of Plautus and, in essence, says that Plautus' plays are much less believable than those plays of Menander because they seem to be such

6930-450: Was Hannibal's invasion of Italy. M. Leigh has devoted an extensive chapter about Plautus and Hannibal in his 2004 book, Comedy and the Rise of Rome . He says that "the plays themselves contain occasional references to the fact that the state is at arms...". One good example is a piece of verse from the Miles Gloriosus, the composition date of which is not clear but which is often placed in

7020-465: Was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia , the genre devised by Livius Andronicus , the innovator of Latin literature. The word Plautine / ˈ p l ɔː t aɪ n / ( PLAW -tyne ) refers to both Plautus's own works and works similar to or influenced by his. Not much

7110-550: Was a part of the thrill of the performance, as it is to this day. Plautus' range of characters was created through his use of various techniques, but probably the most important is his use of stock characters and situations in his various plays. He incorporates the same stock characters constantly, especially when the character type is amusing to the audience. As Walter Juniper wrote, "Everything, including artistic characterization and consistency of characterization, were sacrificed to humor, and character portrayal remained only where it

7200-478: Was a popular comedic playwright while Roman theatre was still in its infancy and still largely undeveloped. At the same time, the Roman Republic was expanding in power and influence. Plautus was sometimes accused of teaching the public indifference and mockery of the gods. Any character in his plays could be compared to a god. Whether to honour a character or to mock him, these references were demeaning to

7290-467: Was adapting these plays it would be difficult not to have the same kinds of characters—roles such as slaves, concubines, soldiers, and old men. By working with the characters that were already there but injecting his own creativity, as J. C. B. Lowe wrote in his article "Aspects of Plautus' Originality in the Asinaria", "Plautus could substantially modify the characterization, and thus the whole emphasis of

7380-415: Was he teaching something of the nature of Greek words to people, who, like himself, had recently come into closer contact with that foreign tongue and all its riches." At the time of Plautus, Rome was expanding, and having much success in Greece. W.S. Anderson has commented that Plautus "is using and abusing Greek comedy to imply the superiority of Rome, in all its crude vitality, over the Greek world, which

7470-558: Was necessary for the success of the plot and humor to have a persona who stayed in character, and where the persona by his portrayal contributed to humor." For example, in Miles Gloriosus , the titular "braggart soldier" Pyrgopolynices only shows his vain and immodest side in the first act, while the parasite Artotrogus exaggerates Pyrgopolynices' achievements, creating more and more ludicrous claims that Pyrgopolynices agrees to without question. These two are perfect examples of

7560-477: Was now the political dependent of Rome, whose effete comic plots helped explain why the Greeks proved inadequate in the real world of the third and second centuries, in which the Romans exercised mastery". Plautus was known for the use of Greek style in his plays, as part of the tradition of the variation on a theme. This has been a point of contention among modern scholars. One argument states that Plautus writes with originality and creativity—the other, that Plautus

7650-596: Was once a fragmentary manuscript called the Codex Turnebi (T), which was used by a French scholar called Turnèbe in the 16th century. Although this manuscript is now lost, some readings from it were preserved by Turnèbe himself, and others were recorded in the margins of a 16th-century edition discovered by Lindsay in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. There are certain indications (for example, small gaps in

7740-683: Was perfect for achieving a humorous response and the traits of the character worked well for driving the plot forward. Another important Plautine stock character, discussed by K.C. Ryder, is the senex amator . A senex amator is classified as an old man who contracts a passion for a young girl and who, in varying degrees, attempts to satisfy this passion. In Plautus these men are Demaenetus ( Asinaria ), Philoxenus and Nicobulus ( Bacchides ), Demipho ( Cistellaria ), Lysidamus ( Casina ), Demipho ( Mercator ), and Antipho ( Stichus ). Periplectomenos ( Miles Gloriosus ) and Daemones ( Rudens ) are regarded as senes lepidi because they usually keep their feelings within

7830-426: Was probably made before the discovery of many of the papyri that we now have. While it was not necessarily a Roman invention, Plautus did develop his own style of depicting the clever slave. With larger, more active roles, more verbal exaggeration and exuberance, the slave was moved by Plautus further into the front of the action. Because of the inversion of order created by a devious or witty slave, this stock character

7920-409: Was the term used for female household slaves, with Anus reserved for the elderly household slaves. A young woman who is unwed due to social status is usually referred to as meretrix or "courtesan". A lena , or adoptive mother, may be a woman who owns these girls. Palimpsest In textual studies , a palimpsest ( / ˈ p æ l ɪ m p s ɛ s t / ) is a manuscript page, either from

8010-405: Was washed from parchment or vellum using milk and oat bran . With the passing of time, the faint remains of the former writing would reappear enough so that scholars can discern the text (called the scriptio inferior , the 'underwriting') and decipher it. In the later Middle Ages the surface of the vellum was usually scraped away with powdered pumice , irretrievably losing the writing; hence

8100-399: Was written on top. Parts of the text are completely missing (for example, nothing survives of Amphitruo , Asinaria , Aulularia , or of the first 475 lines of Bacchides ), and other parts are barely legible. The most legible parts of A are found in the plays Persa , Poenulus , Pseudolus , and Stichus . Despite its fragmentary state, this palimpsest has proved very valuable in correcting

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