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Titus Maccius Plautus was a comic playwright of the
Roman Republic. The years of his life are uncertain, but his plays were
first produced between about 205 and 184
BCE. Twenty-one plays survive.
Plautus' comedies, which are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature, are all adaptations of Greek models for a Roman audience.
The characters remain in Greek settings, or perhaps a Greek setting imagined by a Roman. His most typical character is the clever
slave who manipulates his master, undermining some of our conceptions of normal social relationships in the Roman world.
Plautus' work gave ideas to many playwrights afterwards, such as William Shakespeare, Molière, Lessing and others. His comedies were also the basis for the 1962 musical A Funny Thing
Happened on the Way to the Forum.
He wrote the plays Poenulus, Amphitryon, Captivi, Persa, Miles Gloriosus, Aulularia, Trinummus, Rudens, Mercator, Curculio and Stichus.
See also: Terence
External link
- The complete works of Plautus at The Latin Library
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