Plautus is interesting, not only as giving us an insight into the Greek mode of life before his time, and preserving many of the works of Philemon, Diphilus, and others, but as being the only Latin writer of his date whose productions have survived.  He wrote one hundred and thirty plays, of which thirty are extant, and show an orthography very different from that of the Augustan age.  His style was forcible, and like that of all the Latin comic writers, highly complex.  He sometimes coins words, (such as Trifurcifur, gugga,[18] parenticida,) and he is constantly giving new metaphorical senses to those already in use—­as when he speaks of a man being a “hell of elms,” i.e., severely flogged with elm-rods—­calls cooks “briars,” because they take fast hold of everything they touch, and threatens a slave with “memorials of oxen,” i.e., a thrashing that will make him remember the thong.

We may possibly trace the Greek original in a few references to conversations of animals—­although no plays are now called after them—­and the names, places, and money he introduces are generally Greek.  Still, we cannot regard him as a mere servile imitator—­much of his own genius is doubtless preserved in the plays.  In some, we can clearly recognise his hand, as where he alludes to Roman customs, or indulges in puns.  For instance, where a man speaks of the blessing of having children, (liberi,) another observes he would rather be free (liber).  In “The Churl,” we read that it is better to fight with minae than with menaces, and a lover says that Phronesium has expelled her own name (wisdom) from his breast.

An old man says he has begun to go to school again, and learn his letters.  “I know three already,” he continues, “What three?” is asked, “A M O.”

While we are glad to mark an advancement in less pleasures being derived from personal threats and conflicts on the stage, we are pained to find such an entire want of sympathy with the sufferings of those in a servile condition.  The severity with which slaves were treated in previous times was not mitigated under the Roman rule, and at the present day it is difficult to realise the moral state of those who could derive amusement from hearing men threatened with bull-hidings, and flogged on the stage.  Such terms as “whip-knave” became stale from repetition, and so many jokes were made even about crucifixion, that we might suppose it to be a very trifling punishment.  Chrysalus, a slave, facetiously observes, that when his master discovers he has spent his gold, he will make him “cruscisalus” i.e. “cross jumper.”  In “The Haunted House,” Tranio, who, certainly seems to have been a great scamp, soliloquises as follows on hearing of his master’s return:—­

“Is there any one, who would like to gain a little money, who could endure this day to take my place in being tortured?  Who are those fellows hardened to a flogging, who wear out iron chains, or those who for three didrachmas[19] would get beneath besieging towers, where they might have their bodies pierced with fifteen spears?  I’ll give a talent to that man who shall be the first to run to the cross for me, but on condition that his feet and arms are doubly fastened there.  When that is done, then ask the money of me.”