Plautus Summary

Biography EssayTitus Maccius Plautus is the earliest Roman author whose works have survived. His plays, valued especially for their lively stock characters, their exuberant language and meter, and the... Read more

Titus Maccius Plautus is the earliest Roman author whose works have survived. His plays, valued especially for their lively stock characters, their exuberant language and meter, and the information th... Read more

In the following excerpt, Harsh provides a survey of Plautus's major plays. The twenty extant plays of Plautus constitute an astonishingly varied collection of good, bad, and indifferent com... Read more

In the excerpt below, Sandbach analyzes Plautus's use of language, observing: "Words were a source of delight" for the playwright. Plautus, the most original and vigorous write... Read more

Here, Konstan examines the theme of materialism and its corrosive effect on morality in the Asinaria. Four-fifths the way through the play, the plot of Plautus' Asinaria takes a sudden and s... Read more

In the following essay, Kent outlines what is often said to be the "typical" Plautine plot and identifies the ways in which Plautus's plays vary from this stereotype. The amusi... Read more

In the following essay, Hanson studies Plautus 's use and development of the stock character the miles gloriosus, or braggart soldier, maintaining that this character was used by Plautus as a c... Read more

In the following excerpt, Tatum explains that three of Plautus's comedies—Bacchides, Casina, and Truculentus—are less familiar today than his others because of their unconvential ... Read more

In the following essay, Lowe compares Plautus's Asinaria to its Greek model Onagos and identifies several aspects of Plautus's comedy which are perhaps Plautine innovations rather than f... Read more

In the following essay, Owens compares Plautus's Bacchides to the Greek play on which it was based (Menander's Dis Exapaton) and demonstrates that several aspects of the play's pl... Read more