Titus Maccius Plautus Biography
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Plautus, Titus Maccius
PLAUTUS, TITUS MACCIUS (originally perhaps Maccus; cf. 11), the great comic dramatist of ancient Rome, was born at Sarsina in Umbria according to the testimony of Festus, who calls him Umber Sarsinas, and Jerome. Titus Maccius Plautus (Sarsinae in Umbria, hodie in Aemilia-Romania, natus anno ignoto) Romae floruit et mortuus est anno 184 a.C.n., fuit histrio et auctor fabularum scaenicarum Latinarum generis comoediae palliatae. Not much is known about Titus Maccius Plautus' early life. It is believed that he was born in Sarsina, a small town in Emilia Romagna in northern Italy, around 254 BC. 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.
PLAUTUS, TITUS MACCIUS (originally perhaps Maccus;cf. Asin. Prol. 11), the great comic dramatist of ancient Rome, was born at Sarsina in Umbria according to the testimony of Festus, who calls him Umber Sarsinas, and Jerome. The date of his death was 184 B.C. (Cicero, Brutus, xv. 60). The date of his birth depends upon an inference based on the statement of Cicero (De senectute, xiv. 50) that he was an old man when he wrote his Truculentus and Pseudolus. The latter play was produced in 191 B.C.; hence we get 254–251 B.C. as the approximate date of his birth. The only record that we possess as to his life is that contained in Aulus Gellius iii. 3, 14 (based on Varro), the historical character of which is doubted by Leo (Plautinische Forschungen, p. 60, sqq.). According to this statement he left his native town at an early age and settled at Rome, where he got employment in a theatre, though it is not clear in what capacity. The words of Gellius in operis artficum scaenicorum, are interpreted by F. Marx as indicating that Plautus was a member of the theatrical staff of Livius Andronicus. At Rome he saved a little money, and embarked on some mercantile enterprise, probably abroad. Having lost his money he returned to Rome penniless, and was driven to support himself by manual labour in a mill (cum . . . ad circumagendas molas quae trusatiles appellantur operam pistori locasset); and in this pistrinum he wrote three of his plays (the Saturio, the Addictus and another). The main body of his works belongs, so far as can be ascertained from the scanty evidence which we have, to the latter half of his life; 206 B.C. is the approximate date of the Miles gloriosus; cf. line 211 seq., quoi bini custodes . . . occubant (present tense), which alludes to the imprisonment of Naevius, an event which cannot be proved to be earlier than 206 B.C. The defects of construction and the absence of “cantica” in the Miles also point to this as one of his early plays. On the other hand it is hardly likely that all his comedies (which greatly exceeded in number the extant twenty) were produced during the last twenty years of his life. Radermacher assigns the Asinaria to a date as early as 212 B.C. Of the extant plays the Cistellaria and the Stichus must be associated with the Miles as comparatively early works; for the former was clearly produced before (though not long before) the conclusion of the Second Punic War, see l. 201 seq.; and the Stichus is proved by its didascalia to have been produced in 200 B.C. The Pseudolus and the Truculentus fall within the last seven years of his life. The dates of the rest of the extant plays, here given in alphabetical order, are quite uncertain, namely, Amphitruo, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi, Casina, Curculio, Epidicus, Menaechmi, Mercator (probably later than the Rudens, as shown by F. Marx), Mostellaria, Persa, Poenulus, Rudens, Trinummus (later than 194 B.C.; cf. novi aediles in l. 990). Of the Vidularia we possess only the fragments contained in the Codex Ambrosianus.
The plays of Plautus are all based on Greek originals.[1] To what extent he is dependent on these originals, and how far he departed from them, we shall perhaps never know exactly. But such evidence as we have points to a pretty close imitation on the part of the Roman poet: there are passages in which he does not hesitate to take over from his originals allusions which can hardly have been intelligible to a Roman audience, e.g. the reference to Stratonicus, a musician of the time of Alexander the Great (Rudens, 932); and in the delineation of character we have no reason to suppose that he improved on his models (cf. Aul. Gell. ii. 23). Even the prologues, which later researches have shown to be in the main by the hand of Plautus himself, though certain passages were clearly added at a later date, e.g. Cas. prol. 5–20, may in most cases have formed part of the Greek original. Plautus must therefore be regarded as primarily a translator or adapter, so far as our present knowledge goes. Where he varies his plot on lines of his own by amalgamating the plots of two distinct Greek comedies (e.g. in the Miles and the Poenulus) the result is generally not happy; and the romanization of the plays by way of allusions to towns in Italy, to the streets, gates and markets of Rome, to Roman magistrates and their duties, to Roman laws and the business of Roman law-courts, banks, comitia and senate, &c., involves the poet in all the difficulties of attempting to blend two different civilizations. The inconsistency of his attitude is shown by his use, side by side, of the contemptuous expressions barbarus (applied to the Romans) and pergraecari (applied to the Greeks). In some passages the poet seems to take delight in casting dramatic illusion to the winds (e.g. Pseudolus, 720; Poenulus, 550).
But as a translator Plautus is nothing less than masterly.His command of the art is such that his plays read like originalworks, and it may be at least said that some of his charactersstand out so vividly from his canvas that they have ever sinceserved as representatives of certain types of humanity, e.g. Euclioin the Aulularia, the model of Moliere's miser. Alliteration, assonance,plays upon words and happy coinages of new terms, givehis plays a charm of their own. “ To read Plautus is to be oncefor all disabused of the impression that Latin is a dry and uninterestinglanguage ” (Skutsch, in Die Cultur der Gegenwart;I 1905). It is a mistake to regard the Latin of Plautus as“ vulgar ” Latin. It is essentially a literary idiom, based inthe main upon the language of intercourse of the cultivatedRoman society of the day (cf. Cic. De oratore, iii. 12, 4 5);though from the lips of slaves and other low persons in theplays we no doubt hear expressions which, while they are quitein keeping with the characters to whom they are allotted, wouldhave shocked the ears of polite society in the 2nd century B.c.The characters in his plays are the stock characters of the newcomedy of Athens, and they remind us also of the standing figuresof the Fabulae atellanae (Maccus, Bucco, Dossennus, &c.).We may miss the finer insight into human nature and the delicatetouch in drawing character which Terence presents to us in hisreproductions of Menander, but there is wonderful life and vigourand considerable variety in the Plautine embodiments of thesedifferent types. And the careful reader will take note ofoccasional touches of serious thought, as in the enumeration ofthe ten deadly political sins (Persa, 5 55 seq.) and allusions toethical philosophy (Pseud. 972 seq.; Stich. 124; Trin. 305 sqq.,320 sqq., 363 seq., 447; Rad. 767, 1235-1248, &c.). Virtue isoften held up for admiration, and vice painted in revoltingcolours or derided. The plots of Plautus also are more variedthan those of Terence. We have from him one mythologicalburlesque, the Amphitruo, and several plays dealing withdomestic subjects like the Captivi, Cistellaria, Rudens, Stichusand T rinummus; but most of his plays depend for their maininterest on intrigue, such as the Pseudolus, Baeehides, M ostellaria.In the M ertaechmi and, as a subordinate incident, in theAmphitruo we have a “ comedy of errors.”
In one respect Plautus must be regarded as distinctly original,viz. in his development of the lyrical element in his plays. Thenew comedy of Greece was probably limited for the most partto scenes written in the metres of dialogue; it remained forPlautus, as Leo has shown, to enliven his plays with cantieamodelled on the contemporary lyric verse of Greece or MagnaGraecia, which was in its turn a development of the dramaticlyrics of Euripides. A new light has been thrown on the1ra.pa c7av¢1£0upov of the Cureulio (147-1 5 5) by the discovery ofthe Alexandrian erotic fragment published by Grenfell andHunt (Oxford, 1896). The lyrical metres of Plautus are wonderfullyvaried, and the textual critic does well not to attempt tolimit the possibilities of original metrical combinations anddevelopments in the Roman comedian. Recent investigationhas considerably extended the list of his numeri inrlumeri.Plautus was a general favourite in the days of republicanRome. Cicero, though he found fault with the iambics of theLatin comedians generally as abiecti, “prosaic ” (Orator, lv.184), admired Plautus as elegans, urbanus, ingenious, facetus(De ojic. i. 29, 104). To the fastidious critics of the Augustanage, such as Horace, he seemed rude (cf. Ars Poetica, 27O'274),just as Addison declared Spenser to be no longer fitted to please“ a cultivated age.” In another passage (Epist. ii. 1, I7O-176)A Horace accuses him of clumsiness in the construction of his playsand the drawing of his characters, and indifference to everythingexcepting immediate success: gestit ertim nummum in loculosdemitterf, post hoc securus cadat an recto stet fabula talo. Thatthere are many inconsistencies and signs of carelessness in hiswork has been proved in detail by Langen. But that he foundmany admirers, even in the Augustan age, Horace himself bearswitness (ibid. l. 58), where he says that Plautus was regarded asa second Epicharmus: Plautus ad exemplar Simli proper areEpicharmi-a passage which is important as suggesting that Plautus was under some obligation to the Sicilian representativesof the old Dorian comedy; cf. Varr0's statement (in Priscianix. 32), deinde ad Siculos se applicavit. It is possible thatPlautus may have been working on the lines of the old comedyin the tell-tale names which he is so fond of inventing for hischaracters, such as Polymachaeroplagides (Pseud. 988), Pyrgopolinices(Mil. 56), Thensaurochrysonicochrysides (Capt. 285)-names which stand in remarkable contrast to the morecommonplace Greek names employed by Terence.
In the middle ages Plautus was little regarded, and twelveof his plays (Bacchides-Truculentus) disappeared from viewuntil they were discovered (in the MS. called D) by Nicholasof Treves in the year 1429. Apparently some early archetypehad been divided into two volumes, of which only the first(containing eight plays, Amphitruo-Epidicus) had escapedoblivion or destruction. After the revival of learning Plautuswas reinstated, and took rank as one of the great dramatistsof antiquity; cf. Shakespeare, H amlet, 1. ii. 420, where Poloniussays, “The best actors in the world . Seneca cannot betoo heavy nor Plautus too light.'
Titus Maccius Plautus Biography Death
MANUscR11>rs.-The chief MSS. of Plautus belong to two families,which are proved by the errors which theyqhave in common to bedescended from a single source (Sicker, “ ovae quaestiones plautinae,' in Philologus suppl. xi. 2; 1908): (i.) that represented by thefragmentary palimpsest of the Ambrosian Library at Milan (A,4th century A.D.), discovered in 181gby Cardinal Mai and now accessiblein the A po raph of Studemun, edited by Seylfert (1889); (ii.)that represented by the Palatine MSS (P, 10th-12th centuiay)viz B, now in the Vatican, containing all the twenty plays prece edby the s urious Querolus; C, now at Heidelberg, containing the lasttwelve plays, i.e. Bacchuies-Truculentus; D, now in the Vatican,containing the Amphitruo, Asinaria, Aulularia half of the Captwzand the last twelve plays: to the same family belong the followingless important MSS.: E (at Milan), V (at Leiden), J (in the BritisMuseum), 0 (in the Vatican).
EDITIONS -The editio princeps, based mainly on a transcript ofD, was printed at Venice, 1472: the first scientific text, based onB, C and D, was that of Camerarius, completed 1552, in whosesteps followed Lambinus (with a commentary which is still useful),1576; Taubmann, 1605-1621; Pareus (a meritorious edition), 1619and 1623; Guyet, e ited by Marolles, 1658; Gronovius (the“ Vulgate '21, 1664-1684; then, after the lapse of more than a century,came the e itions of Bothe, 1809-1811- Naudet, 1830; and Weise,1837-1848. A new era began with the great critical edition ofcertain plays by Ritschl, 1848-1854, in which a collation of A wasused, a revised and completed form of this work was commencedby Ritschl himself and continued by his disciples Goetz, Loewe andSchoell, 1871-1894: and of this an entirely rewritten editio minorby Goetz and Schoell appeared in 1893-1896 (continued by a 2nded. of Fasciculus ii. in 1904), which is still the most useful of moderneditions for a critical study of the text, exhibiting, as it does, the MS.tradition with only such emendations as are securely establishedb the results of modern investigation. The other modern editions0? the text are those of Fleckeisen (containing ten plays, excellentfor his time), 1859; Ussing (with a commentary), 1875-1887, 2nd ed.of vol. iii. 1888; Leo (a very important work), 1895-1896; Lindsay,1904-1905. Among modern editions of separate plays with commentariesthe following are probably the most usefu 1 Amphitruo byPalmer, 1890, and Havet, 1895; Asinaria by Gray, 18194; Aululariab Wagner, 1866 and 1876; Captivi by Brix, 6th e ., revised bybliemeyer, 1910; an English edition of this work by Sonnenschein(with introduction on prosody), 1880; same play by Lindsay (withmetrical introduction), 1900; Eptdicus by Gray, 1893; Menaechmiby Brix, 4th ed., revised by Niemeyer, 1891; Miles glorious byLorenz, 2nd ed., 1886; by Brix, 3rd ed., revised by Niemeyer, 1901;by Tyrrell, 3rd ed., 1894; Mostellaria by Lorenz, 2nd ed., 1883; bySonnenschein, 2nd ed., 1907; Pseudolus by Lorenz, 1876; Rudensby Sonnenschein, 1891, edztio minor (with a metrical appendix),1901; T rinummus (with a metrical introduction) by Brix, 5th ed.,revised by Niemeyer, 1907; by Gray, 1897; Truculentus by Spengeland Studemund, 1898.
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CRI'I'IClSM.*GO0Cl characterizations of Plautus, from the literarypoint of view, are given by Sellar in his Roman Poets of the Republic,and Wight Duff, in his Literary History of Rome (1 09). A summaryof recent critical works bearing on the text and) interpretation ISgilven by Seyffert in his admirable reports (in Bursian's Jahresrachteuber die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft),1883-1885, 1886-1889, 1890-1894, continued by Lindsay, 1895-1906.Important contributions to textual criticism are containedin Ritschl Parerga (1845), Neue plauttnische Excurse (1869), and hiscollected Opuscula philologtca; Studemund, Studia in priscosscriplofes latmos (vo. i. 1873, vol. ii. 1891); Langen, Beirrage(1877) and Plautinische Studien (1886); Leo, Plautinische Forschungen(1895); Lindsay, Codex T urnebt (1898). Bentley's PlautineEmendatzons were published by Sonnenschein partly in his editionpfs th? Captivi (1880), partly in the Anecdota oxoniensia series1 83
METRE AND PR0soDY.-The most important treatises (apartfrom those mentioned under ' Editions ”) are Muller, PlautinischeProsodze (1869); Spengel, Reformvorschlage zur Metrik der lyrischenVersarten(1 882), Klotz, Grundzuge altromtscher M etrik (1 890), Skutsch,Farschungen zur lateinischen Grammattk und Metrik (1892), Iambenkurzungund Synizese (Satura Viadrina) (1896), continued by theauthor in a work called Pépas (1903); Leo, Die plautinischen Cantuaund die hellenistische L rik (1897); Maurenbrecher, Hiatus undVerschleifung im alten fhtein (1899); Ahlberg, De proceleusmaticis(1900), De corre tione iambicatglautina (1901); Jaco sohn, Quaestionesplautinae 5904); Radfo, on the ' Recession of the LatinAccent “ (in Amer. Journ. Phil., 1904), “ Studies in Latin Accentand Metric' (in Trans. Amer. Phil. Assoc., 1904), ' Plautinesyn1zesis' (ibid., 1905, continued in Amer. Journ. Phil., 1906), (awork on cognate subjects is promised by Exon); Sudhaus, DerAujbau der plautinischen Canttca (19O%).
bYNTAX.*-Th€ most recent works earing on Old Latin syntax,are Sjogren, Zum Gebrauch des Futurums im Altlateinischen (1906);Lindsay, Syntax of Plautus (1907); Sonnenschein, The Unity of theLatin Subjunctwe (1910). A work by H. Thomas, entitled Acatalogue raisonné 1? the Subjunctwe in Plautus, in support of thetheory of the unity 4 origin of the Latin Subjunctive, is announced asin preparation.
LEx1cA.-The only completed lexicon (alpart from the Indicesof Naudet, 1832, and Weise, 1838) is that of areus (2nd ed., 1634).New lexica have been begun by Waltzing (1900; apparently not tobe continued) and Lodge (1901; in progress). The latter work,when completed, will be indispensable.
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Titus Maccius Plautus The Casket Comedy
TRANSLATIONS AND ADAPTATIONS.-*A comprehensive view ofthe influence of Plautus on modern literature's IS given by Reinhardstoettner,Spatere Bearbeitungen plautinischer Lustspiele (1886).Many adaptations for the Italian stage were produced between theyears 1486 and 1550, the earliest (the Menaechmi) under the directionof Ercole I., duke of Ferrara. From Italy the practice spread toFrance, Spain, England and other countries.
Of Eng ish plays, the interlude called Jack Juggler (between 1 45and 1553) was based on the Amphitruo, and the lost play callethe Historie of Error (acted in 1577) was probably based 011 theM enae-chmi; Nicholas Udall's Ralph Royster Doyster, the first Englishcomedy (acted before 1551, first printed 1566), is founded on theMiles glorious; Shakespeare's Comed of Errors (about 1591) is anadaptation of the Menaechmi; and his Falstaff may be regardedas an idealized reproduction or development of the braggart soldierof Plautus and Terence-a type of character which reappears inother forms not only in English literature (eg. in Shakespeare'sParolles and BendI0nson's Captain Bobadil) but also in most of theliterature's of mo ern Europe. Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrewhas been influenced in several respects (including the names Tranioand Grumw) by the Mostellarta. Ben Jonson produced a skilfulamalgamation of the Aulularta and the Captivi in his early plaThe Case is Altered (written before 1599). Thomas Heywoodadapted the Amghttruo in his Silver Age (1613). the Rudens in hisCaptwes (license 1624), and the Mostellaria in his English Traveller(1633). Dryden's Amphitryon or the two Sosias (1690) is based partlyon the Amphitruo, partl on M0liére's adaptation thereof; Fielding'sM iser (acted 1732) on M}oliere's L'Avare rather than on the Aulularta,and his Intriguing Chambermaid (acted 1733) on Regnard's Le Retourimprévu rather than on the Mostellaria. There was no En lishtranslation, strictly so called, of any play of Plautus in the 1651 or17th century, except that of the Menaechmi by W. W. (probablyWilliam Warner), first printed in 1595, which Shakespeare maypossibly have used (in MS.) for his Comedy of Errors. A translationof the whole of Plautus in “ familiar blank verse ' by Bonnell Thorntonand others appeared in 1767 (2nd ed., 1769-l77é). Five playshave been translated in the metres of the original by u den (1893).(IE. A. So.)
- ↑See further P. E. Legrand, Daos: tableau de la comédie grecque pendant la période dite nouvelle (1910).
