Note 38 — Chapter VI

Turning now to the particular plays we find that they all belong to the class of palliatae. They are adaptations or combinations from the works of Menander, Diphilus, Philemon, and other writers of the new comedy. The action represented is generally supposed to take place in Athens, sometimes in other Greek towns, in Epidamnus, Ephesus, Cyrene, etc. The plays of Plautus, unlike those of Terence and most of those of Caecilius, have generally Latin titles, but nearly all his personages have Greek names. One or two of his parasites (Peniculus, Saturio, Curculio) are exceptions to this rule: but the absence of all gentile designations among his richer personages would alone prove that he had no intention of presenting to his audience the outward conditions of Roman or Italian life. The social circumstances implied in all his plays are those of well-to-do citizens engaged in foreign commerce, or retired from business after having made their fortunes. The only differences in station among his personages are those of rich and poor, free and slave. There is no recognition of those great distinctions of birth, privilege, and political status, which were so pervading a characteristic of Roman life. Old men are indeed spoken of as 'senati columen'; and it is made a ground of reproach to a young man that he is not already a candidate for public office, or making a name for himself by defending cases in the law-courts. But such passages are probably to be classed among the frequent Roman allusions to be found in Plautus, which had no equivalent in his original. The new comedy of Menander was based on the philosophy of Epicurus, which taught the lesson of abstention from all public duties38. The life of the young men is almost entirely a life of pleasure, varied perhaps by some participation in their fathers' foreign business, or occasional service in the army. But the dislike of a military life among the 'easy livers' of Athens in the beginning of the third century b.c. is shown as much by the indifference of these young men to their honour as soldiers39, as by the ridicule which is heaped upon the 'Captain Bobadils' who served as mercenaries in the military monarchies of the successors of Alexander. Even a slave regards enlisting as a soldier as the last refuge of a ruined man. The other characters are of Greek origin, though some of them became naturalised in Rome. The ordinary Roman client on the one hand—such as the Volteius Mena of Horace,—and the scurra of Roman satire on the other (Volanerius or Maenius), had a certain likeness to the Greek parasite; though the position of the first was more respectable40, and the last was a more formidable element in society than a Gelasimus or an Artotrogus. The 'fallax servus' of comedy, though a wonderful conception of a humorous imagination, is a character hardly compatible with any social conditions; but it is undoubtedly an exaggeration of Greek mendacity and intelligence, the very antithesis of Italian rusticity. The commanding part they play in the affairs of their masters seems like a grotesque anticipation of the part played under the empire by Greek freedmen,—