Plautus, Titus Maccius

Plautus, Titus Maccius [ Maccus] (c.254–184 BC), Roman dramatist, of whose life and background very little is known. He is believed to be the author of about 20 of the 150 plays attributed to him by the end of the 1st century BC. They are all free renderings of Greek New Comedy, with complicated plots, strongly marked characters, and scenes of love-making, trickery, and debauchery, interspersed with songs, jokes, puns, and topical allusions. Although Roman dramatists were warned against political and personal satire, there seems to have been no ban on indecency, and several of the plays are set in brothels. But though Plautus often carried farce to outrageous lengths, he knew where to draw the line when the honour of a respectable woman was in question. The variety of plot found in his works is considerable, and if he lacks the subtle effects of his contemporary Terence, he offers instead a flow of wit and a vigour of language which help to explain his success on the Roman stage—and in translation through the centuries. His Menaechmi was the source of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, the Aulularia of Molière's L'Avare. Even when they were no longer acted Plautus' plays were read and enjoyed, and their shafts of wit passed into common parlance—a process which still continues. The successful American musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962; London, 1963) owed its existence to several of Plautus' plays combined.