Plautus - The Pot of Gold and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)

THE POT OF GOLD
(AULULARIA)

THE PRISONERS
(CAPTIVI)

THE BROTHERS MENAECHMUS
(MENAECHMI)

THE SWAGGERING SOLDIER
(MILES GLORIOSUS)

T. MACCIUS PLAUTUS (c. 254184 B.C . ) Wrote comedies for the Roman stage, based on, and probably in part translated from, Greek comedies of the fourth and third centuries. His scenes and characters remain nominally Greek but reflect Roman manners and contemporary life and the influence of a popular taste for broad and lively rather than contemplative or romantic comedy.

A fuller discussion of the life and work of Plautus will be found in the Introduction to the first volume of this series of translations, The Rope and Other Plays (Penguin Classics).

THE character of the miserly old man must have had an ancestry in the Greek Comedy which supplied Plautus with his models; among others, Smicrines in The Arbitration of Menander is a recognizable prototype of the Euclio of Aulularia, though Plautuss play as a whole bears no resemblance to any known Greek forerunner. A double clue to the dating, both of the original and the copy, has been detected in the references to womens extravagance and the office of censor of female conduct: placing the Greek comedy in the decade 31707 B.C. , when this topic engaged the attention of Demetrius of Phalerum, governor of Athens under Macedonian rule, and the Roman comedy near to 195 B.C. , when relief was obtained from the restraints of the Oppian Law. Neither of these ascriptions has conclusive validity.

Of the numerous successors of Euclio, the Harpagon of Molires LAvare is the best known and most complete reincarnation; yet the comparison between the two plays shows a world of difference in the authors treatment of the subject and the character. Euclios avarice- or rather his unexpected acquisition of unearned wealth - brings only gentle ridicule upon his head and involves him in a train of inconveniences, from which he eventually escapes with his honour and good nature unimpaired. Harpagon remains a miser and a curmudgeon to the end.

The end of Aulularia is, in fact, only known to us in outline from the arguments (those metrical summaries of the plot, usually in two alternative versions, added to the plays by later Roman editors). These inform us that Euclio recovered his gold and made a present of it to his daughter and son-in-law; and note may also be taken of the one significant Une among a few unplaceable fragments surviving from the missing last act: nec noctu nec diu quietus unquam eram; nunc dormiam (I have never had a moments peace by day or night; now I am going to sleep). From these clues I have ventured to construct a final scene, to indicate the probable denouement and to restore the completeness of this peculiarly enjoyable and genial comedy. Here Plautus, as nowhere else in his work, concentrates his attention on a single and simple topic, building the play around its central personage, with the minimum of digression or adventitious by-play; indeed there is not a single incident that does not connect neatly and necessarily with the progress of the plot.

There is one curious piece of confusion in the texts, with regard to the names of the slaves. The received texts assign the speech at line 363 to a slave named Pythodicus, who makes no other appearance. On the other hand, the slave of Lyconides, who appears at line 587, has been labelled Strobilus, on the doubtful evidence of Unes 697 and 804, where this name appears to have been given to him, although it is also the name of the head steward in Megadoruss house. It is very unlikely, and dramatically unsuitable, that these two Strobiluses should be one and the same person; one is a responsible factotum in Megadoruss employ, the other a mischievous youth and the property of Lyconides. It seems an obvious solution (as indicated in Lindsays text) to eliminate Pythodicus, whose one speech is entirely appropriate and indeed necessary to Strobilus, and to leave the younger slave anonymous.