It is likely that there was already much skepticism about the gods in Plautus ’ era.

The state controlled stage productions, and Plautus ’ plays would have been banned, had they been too risqué.

As W. M. Owens writes in his article “ Plautus ’ Stichus and the Political Crisis of 200 B. C .”, “ There is evidence that antiwar feeling ran deep and persisted even after the war was approved.

In Plautus, on the other hand, the focus is still on the relationship between father and son, but we see betrayal between the two men that wasn ’ t seen in Menander.

William S. Anderson discusses the believability of Menander versus the believability of Plautus and, in essence, says that Plautus ’ plays are much less believable than those plays of Menander because they seem to be such a farce in comparison.

He addresses them as a reflection of Menander with some of Plautus ’ own contributions.

Plautus ’ characters — many of which seem to crop up in quite a few of his plays — also came from Greek stock, though they too received some Plautine innovations.

Lowe wrote in his article “ Aspects of Plautus ’ Originality in the Asinaria ”, “ Plautus could substantially modify the characterization, and thus the whole emphasis of a play .”

One of the best examples of this method is the Plautine slave, a form that plays a major role in quite a few of Plautus ’ works.

The “ clever slave ” in particular is a very strong character ; he not only provides exposition and humor, but also often drives the plot in Plautus ’ plays.

Anderson would steer any reader away from the idea that Plautus ’ plays are somehow not his own or at least only his interpretation.

Against the spirit of the Greek original, he engineers events at the end ... or alter the situation to fit his expectations .” Anderson ’ s vehement reaction to the co-opting of Greek plays by Plautus seems to suggest that they are in no way like their originals were.

Plautus ’ attack on the genre whose material he pirated was, as already stated, fourfold.

In their introduction to the Miles Gloriosus, Hammond, Mack and Moskalew say that “ the Romans were acquainted with the Greek stone theater, but, because they believed drama to be a demoralizing influence, they had a strong aversion to the erection of permanent theaters .” This worry rings true when considering the subject matter of Plautus ’ plays.

T. J. Moore notes that “ seating in the temporary theaters where Plautus ’ plays were first performed was often insufficient for all those who wished to see the play, that the primary criterion for determining who was to stand and who could sit was social status ”.

Plautus ’ Casina employs these conventional tragic correlations between

The words denoting direction or action such as abeo (“ I go off ”), transeo (“ I go over ”), fores crepuerunt (“ the doors creak ”), or intus (“ inside ”), which signal any character ’ s departure or entrance, are standard in the dialogue of Plautus ’ plays.

For instance, in the works of Athenaeus, Alciphron, and Lucian there are deceptions that involve the aid of a slave, and in Menander ’ s Dis Exapaton there was an elaborate deception executed by a clever slave that Plautus mirrors in his Bacchides.

But in Plautus ’ Stichus the two young women are referred to as sorores, later mulieres, and then matronae, all of which have different meanings and connotations.

The whole system of inflexion — and, I suspect, of syntax also and of versification — was less fixed and stable in Plautus ’ time than it became later.

There are many manifestations of these archaic forms in the texts of Plautus ’ plays, in fact too many to completely include them in this article.

Plautus perhaps does this to demoralize the characters.

Plautus is well known for his devotion to puns, especially when it comes to the names of his characters.

Indeed, since Plautus was adapting these plays it would be difficult not to have the same kinds of characters — roles such as slaves, concubines, soldiers, and old men.

The humor Plautus offered, such as “ puns, word plays, distortions of meaning, or other forms of verbal humor he usually puts them in the mouths of characters belonging to the lower social ranks, to whose language and position these varieties of humorous technique are most suitable ,” matched well with the stable of characters.

All of these characters have the same goal, to be with a younger woman, but all go about it in different ways, as Plautus could not be too redundant with his characters despite their already obvious similarities.

There are approximately 220 characters in the 20 plays of Plautus.

This means that about 18 % of the total number of characters in Plautus are nameless.

Plautus would sometimes incorporate passages in other languages as well in places where it would suit his characters.

These similar characters set up the same kind of deceptions in which many of Plautus ’ plays find their driving force, which is not a simple coincidence.

# Some literary works written in a lower register of Latin provide a glimpse into the world of Vulgar Latin in the classical period: the dialogues of the plays of Plautus and Terence, being comedies with many characters who were slaves, and the speech of freedmen in the Cena Trimalchionis by Petronius Arbiter

Howerd played a slave, Lurcio ( pronounced Lurk-io ); the other main characters were Lurcio's bumbling old master, Senator Ludicrus Sextus ( initially Max Adrian and then Wallas Eaton ), the senator's promiscuous wife Ammonia ( Elizabeth Larner ), his daughter Erotica ( Georgina Moon ) and his eternally virginal son Nausius ( Kerry Gardner ), along with the Cassandra-esque Senna the Soothsayer ( Jeanne Mockford ) and Plautus ( Willie Rushton ).

By the time the Roman playwright Plautus wrote his plays, the use of characters to define dramatic genres was well established.

Baïf was the author of two comedies, L ' Eunuque, 1565 ( published 1573 ), a free translation of Terence's Eunuchus, and Le Brave ( 1567 ), an imitation of the Miles Gloriosus, in which the characters of Plautus are turned into Frenchmen, the action taking place at Orléans.

The works of Plautus and Terence, being comedies with many characters who were slaves, preserve some early basilectal Latin features, as does the recorded speech of the freedmen in the Cena Trimalchionis by Petronius Arbiter.

His style, elaborate plots, and stock characters were imitated by the Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence, whose comedies were widely known and copied during the Renaissance.

Some modern historians theorize that Nero's decision to kill Agrippina was prompted by her plotting to set Gaius Rubellius Plautus ( Nero's maternal second cousin ) or Britannicus ( Claudius ' biological son ) on the throne.

Alexis was known in Roman times ; Aulus Gellius noted that Alexis ' poetry was used by Roman comedians, including Turpilius and possibly Plautus.

Titus Maccius Plautus ( c. 254 – 184 BC ), commonly known as " Plautus ", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period.

His acting talent was eventually discovered ; and he adopted the names " Maccius " ( a clownish stock-character in popular farces ) and " Plautus " ( a term meaning either " flat-footed " or " flat-eared ," like the ears of a hound ).

He seems to have begun furiously, scrubbing out Plautus ' alphabetically arranged plays with zest, before growing lazy, before finally regaining his vigour at the end of the manuscript to ensure not a word of Plautus was legible.

Plautus was a popular comedic playwright while Roman theatre was still in its infancy and still largely undeveloped.

Plautus was sometimes accused of teaching the public indifference and mockery of the gods.

" Owens contends that Plautus was attempting to match the complex mood of the Roman audience riding the victory of the Second Punic War but facing the beginning of a new conflict.

There is a focus on the proper conduct between a father and son that, apparently, was so important to Roman society at the time of Plautus.

This shows that there was precedent for this slave archetype, and obviously some of its old role continues in Plautus ( the expository monologues, for instance ).

Also, by using his many Greek references and showing that his plays were originally Greek, “ It is possible that Plautus was in a way a teacher of Greek literature, myth, art and philosophy ; so too was he teaching something of the nature of Greek words to people, who, like himself, had recently come into closer contact with that foreign tongue and all its riches .”

At the time of Plautus, Rome was expanding, and having much success in Greece.

Anderson has commented that Plautus “ is using and abusing Greek comedy to imply the superiority of Rome, in all its crude vitality, over the Greek world, which was now the political dependent of Rome, whose effete comic plots helped explain why the Greeks proved inadequate in the real world of the third and second centuries, in which the Romans exercised mastery ".

Plautus was known for the use of Greek style in his plays, as part of the tradition of the variation on a theme.

It seems more likely that Plautus was just experimenting putting Roman ideas in Greek forms.

By exploring ideas about Roman loyalty, Greek deceit, and differences in ethnicity, “ Plautus in a sense surpassed his model .” He was not content to rest solely on a loyal adaptation that, while amusing, was not new or engaging for Rome.