But as an adapter for the Roman stage Plautus is nothing less than masterly. His command of Latin is such that his plays read like original works, and it may be at least said that some of his characters stand out so vividly from his canvas that they have ever since served as representatives of certain types of human ity, e.g., Euclio in the Aulularia, the model of Moliere's miser. Alliteration, assonance, plays upon words and happy coinages of new terms, give his plays a charm of their own. "To read Plautus is to be once for all disabused of the impression that Latin is a dry and uninteresting language" (Skutsch, in Die Cultur der Gegenwart, 1905). It is a mistake to regard the Latin of Plautus as "vulgar" Latin. It is essentially a literary idiom, based upon the language of intercourse of the Roman society of the day (cf. Cic. De oratore, ill. 12, 45).
in his plays are the stock characters of the New Comedy, and they remind us also of the standing figures of the Fabulae Atellanae (Maccus, Bucco, Dossennus, etc.). We may miss the finer insight into human nature and the delicate touch in character-drawing which Terence presents to us in his reproductions of Menander, but there is wonderful life and vigour, and considerable variety in the Plautine embodiments of these different types. Their language is often coarse; and there is some deliberate obscenity in it, but not so much as has been dis covered by Gurlitt and introduced into his German translation (192o-22). And the careful reader will take note of occasional touches of serious thought (no doubt derived from the Greek originals), as in the enumeration of the ten deadly political sins (Persa, 555 seq.) and allusions to ethical philosophy (Pseud. 972 seq.; Stich, 124; Trin. 305 seq., 320 seq., 363 seq., 447; Rud. 767, 1235-1248, etc.). The Captivi is the story of the heroic self-sacrifice of a slave. The Amphitruo is a mythological bur lesque. But most of his plays depend for their main interest in intrigue, such as the Pseudolus, Bacchides, Mostellaria. In the Menaechmi and as a subordinate incident in the Amphitruo we have a comedy of errors.
In the metrical structure of his plays Plautus intro duced an important innovation. The New Comedy of Greece had confined itself for the most part to the metres of dialogue: Plautus took the bold step of transposing whole scenes into metres suitable for singing to the accompaniment of the flute (cantica); and to other scenes he gave a quasi-operatic character by the use of recitative. But the cantica are not mere inserts or accessories,
like the songs introduced in the Shakespearean drama ; they form integral parts of the action, which would often be unintelligible without them (see Frankel [op. cit.] whose theory is a develop ment of that of Leo in Die plautinischen Cantica and die liellen istische Lyrik, 1897). The metres employed were, of course, not invented by Plautus; they are of Greek origin and are common to Roman tragedy and Roman comedy; but Plautus gave them a new development and a wider scope. Further light is thrown upon the immediate source of these Plautine metres by J. H. 0. Im misch (Zur Frage der plant. Cantica, in Berichte der Heidelb. Akad., 1923). The Plautine metres are wonderfully varied, and the textual critic does well not to attempt to limit the possibilities of original metrical combinations and developments in the Roman comedian.
Plautus was a general favourite in the days of republican Rome. Cicero, though he found fault with the iambics of the Latin comedians generally as abiecti "slovenly" (Orator lv. 184), admired Plautus as elegans, urbanus, ingeniosus, facetus (De. offic. i.,29,104). To the fastidious critics of the Augustan age, such as Horace, he seemed rude (cf. Ars Poetica,
just as Addison declared Spenser to be no longer fitted to please "a cultivated age." In another passage (Epist. ii. 1 170-176) Horace accuses him of clumsiness in the construction of his plays and the drawing of his characters, and indifference to everything except immediate success ; gestit cairn nummum in loculos de mittere, post hoc secures cadat an recto stet fabula talo. That there are many inconsistencies and signs of carelessness in his work has been proved in detail by Langen. But that he found many admirers, even in the Augustan age, Horace himself bears witness (ibid. 1. 58), where he says that Plautus was regarded as a second Epicharmus : Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi; cf. Varro's statement (in Priscian ix. 32), deinde ad Siculos se applicavit. It is possible that Plautus may have been working on the lines of the old comedy in the tell-tale names which he is so fond of inventing for his characters such as Polymachaeroplagides (Pseud. 988), Pyrgopolinices (ma. 56), Thesaurochrysonicochrysides (Capt. 285)—names which stand in remarkable contrast to the more commonplace Greek names employed by Terence.