Timothy J. Moore

The Theater of Plautus: Playing to the Audience

Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.

Published Reviews in English:

·Franko Bryn Mawr Classical Review 10 (1999)

·Scafuro Classical World 94.3 (2001-2002) 283-4

·Goldberg The Journal of Roman Studies 91 (2001) 223-4

·Cristenson The Classical Journal 97.1 (2001-2002) 81-3

Published Review in Spanish:

·Suarez Argos 23 (1999) 132-5

SUMMARY

Section

Pages

Summary

PART I:
Chapter 1:
Actors and Spectators
8-23
Spectators often forget they are in a theater when they watch plays.Therefore, playwrights often make allusions to the existence of the actors.

·Moore claims that Plautus’s actors address the audience directly often through monologues.The actors remind the audience of their vulnerability while also manipulating, mocking, and commanding the spectators.
oThe vulnerability of the audience ensures that they succeed in gaining the audience’s approval.
oActors were often freedmen or members of the lower class, which also augmented their vulnerability in the eyes of the spectators.
·According to Moore, Plautus’s audience was made up of “theatrical connoisseurs” and probably understood some, if not all, the Greek, metaphors, and parody Plautus employs. The audience came with a certain set of expectations regarding comedy.
·Prologi: The prologi are the actors who speak to the audience directly before the play.The spectators see this actor as“actor” immediately.The prologus seeks the audience’s permission and attention.He or she often acts self-important, conveying conspicuous knowledge to the audience in a teasing way.This is the beginning of the relationship the actor forms with the spectators.In the prologue, an actor makes allusions to the audience’s expectations, reminding it of stock characters and plots.
·In Epilogues, Plautus’s actors attempt to manipulate the audience for applause. The actors often assume an imperative tone, as if they no longer need to rely on the audience for assurance, although they are truly dependent on the spectators.

Chapter 2:
Characters and Spectators
24-49
Moore argues that the content and style of the monologues strengthens the significance of the relationship between the audience and characters.

·Monologues work to:
oPresent a character as needy and desparate for attention.
oEstablish a character’s rapport with the audience.
oDevelop a hierarchy of rapport by which different characters compete for the audience’s approval.
·Following the Greek tradition, actors deliver rhetorical monologues in which they make a generalization and then prove that generalization with their own actions.According to Moore, Plautus added new and longer sententiae where they did not exist in the Greek originals of the plays.These sententiae contain extra verbal humor and persuasion attempts.
·Characters plead for audience’s attention using imperatives, such as ecce or other imperative forms of videre.The characters make direct requests to the audience. This is amusing in that it would be impossible to fulfill the request and in that the characters cannot get something they want.It is in this way that characters compete for the audience’s favor.
·The hierarchy of rapport depends upon:
oThe amount of time characters speak to the audience.
oThe asides, which provide connection with the audience.
oEavesdropping by which the audience shares in a character’s sense of power.
oDeception, which allies the audience to the deceivers.
·Moore examines the role of the servus callidus, the clever slave who is the most common plotter of deception and whose station in life places him on the lowest level in the eyes of the spectators.
oThe slave’s rapport increases as the play progresses.
oSlaves often have many monologues, asides, and moments of direct address.
oMoore examines the slaves, Libanus (Asinaria), Epidicus (Epidicus), and Pseudolus (Pseudolus), among others.
oThe power Plautus gives to his servi callidi is humorous to Romans
·The slave’s delayed rapport reveals Plautus’s attempt at easing the audience into the subversion of social norms.
·Moore examines Aulularia, in particular Eculio, the servus callidus, and the hierarchy of rapport that is worked out in the play.

Chapter 3:
Greece or Rome?
50-66
Plautine plays are usually set in Greece.Moore contends that the characters’ emphasis on “Greekness” reminds the Roman audience that they are Roman.

àPlautus also makes allusions to Italy and Rome for comic effect.The some members in the audience may not have realized that some of these allusions were particularly Roman and out of place, especially in a Greek context, but most spectators would recognize locations and institutions in Rome.In this way, Plautus appeals to an audience of varying education and social status.
·“Hyper-Hellenization” Several allusions to Greece remind the audience that the actors are Roman.Plautus makes us of this to make his plays amusing at certain points.
oCharacters use the term barbarus, literally “non-Greek,” to refer to each other.
o“Juxtaposition Jokes” Plautus uses Roman and Greek elements simultaneously to remind audience that Roman actors are pretending to be Greek
oSatirical play is evident when characters call themselves Greek.
oWhen Plautus Hellenizes a servus callidus, it is often at the climax of the slave’s deception.Slaves can get away with outrageous things because they are “Greek.”Audience realizes this and is amused at the same time.
Moore suggests that the Greek setting allows Plautus to explore issues that affect Rome in an inoffensive manner.

Chapter 4:
Metatheater and Morality
67-90
Moore claims that Plautus does not attempt to moralize with his plays.His only intent is entertainment and pleasure. Moore also notes that moralizing sententiae often occur in scenes of deception.He examines three plays and their edifying tendencies.

·Miles Gloriosus
oThe play concerns a moralistic misreading of a play-within-the-play.A servus callidus plays a playwright.
o     Deception is portrayed as a theatrical performance.One of the characters, Pyrgopolynices, views the play as moralizing, misreading the object of the play.
·Rudens
oThe play has heavy moral overtones as it explores the conflict between good evil.
oThe play’s moral message collapses mid-play as Plautus reveals that life is not so morally simple.
·Trinummus
oThis play is the most moralizing Plautine comedy.
oMoore argues that irony eventually overtakes the play and its edifying qualities disappear as the play progresses.
oThe characters’ fixations on moralizing produce comic effect, as they ramble nonsensically about morality.
According to Moore, the self-righteous are the target of comic dramatists.Moore also associates the audience’s awareness of the performance with the decrease in moralizing in the plays.In this sense, Plautus is able to make fun of sermonizing rather than morals themselves.

PART II:
Chapter 5:
Audience and Occasion:

Pseudolus
92-107
In Pseudolus, the close relationships between actors and spectators reinforce the play’s effectiveness as a tour de force; this appropriate for the extraordinary events that occurred when the play was first produced.

·The action in the play is frequently described in theatrical terms.
·The title character becomes a metaphor for the playwright himself.
·Plautus employs many surprising, novel elements that are not crucial to the plot in order to entertain.
oThrough bets, Pseudolus overcomes both the pimp and the master.Usually a servus callidus triumphs over only one of the two.
oPlautus uses music (tibia) to entertain the audience.
oThe first 600 lines of the play do nothing to accomplish the plot.They appear to be there just to provide pleasure for the audience.
·The characters meet all the expectations of stock comic types.
oPseudolus and Samia are perfect servi callidi.
oBallio is a “super-pimp.”
oPlautus also reinforces the strength of his characters by having other characters praise Pseudolus, Samia, and Ballio for their performances.
·Pseudolus compares himself to a poet.Plautus engages the audience in metatheater with a metaphor for himself, the playwright.
·Time is of great importance, and Plautus avoids continuous repetition.
·Ballio and Pseudolus compete for rapport with the audience.Each displays a desire for rapport, and a hierarchy of rapport is established.
oBallio loses.
oPseudolus succeeds through eavesdropping, asides, and direct address to the audience as if it were a political or judicial assembly.
·Moore claims that the reason Plautus was so concerned with making Pseudolus appear extraordinary is that the play was first presented at the games associated with the dedication of the temple of Magna Mater in 192 B.C.E.Plautus needed a special play that would stand out from all the rest and establish goodwill between the people and the ruling class.

Chapter 6:
Gods and Mortals:

Amphitruo
108-25
Amphitruo contains the most unusual plot in Plautine comedy.It involves gods and blends the elements of tragedy and of comedy into a “tragicomedy.”

·The prologue, the longest of all in Plautus’s plays, sets up a puzzle for the audience, suggesting how they should view the gods in the play.Throughout the play, the audience feels superiority over characters that do not know the truth of the puzzle.It gives the spectators satisfaction with their cleverness.
oMercury, who delivers the prologue, is a slave actor playing the part of Mercury pretending to be a slave.
oJupiter is the lead actor in the troop playing the chief god.
oMercury’s feathers and Jupiter’s torulus are visual equivalents to direct address, reminding the audience that they are the gods as they impersonate mortal characters during the play.
oThe prologue establishes Mercury’s rapport with the audience, who continues to favor him throughout the play.
·Moore points out that Mercury’s costume becomes a metaphor for the play as a whole.Just as Plautus turns a god into a slave, he converts the mythological story of the birth of Hercules into a comedy.
·Alcumena attempts to gain sympathy in her monologue.She gains the audience’s attention, though because “she” is really a male actor dressed as a pregnant woman. The audience certainly laughs at her, but does not necessarily sympathize.
·Mercury often acts as a servus callidus and a parasitus, fulfilling the audience’s expectations of comic characters.
Moore maintains that Plautus’s characters achieve a close relationship with the audience, even in a play with such an unusual plot.

Chapter 7:
Bankers and Pimps:

Curculio
126-39
According to Moore, Curculio surfaces as a satire of Roman life.It achieves this with monologues that tease the audience more than they flatter it, and with allusions to Rome and Italy that suggest the play’s application to Roman affairs.

·The monologues and asides are more varied and widespread.
·The addition of the banker, Lyco, adds more opportunities for deceit within the plot.
·Deception is connected with courts of law, and the play is full of legal imagery and parody.
·The Roman allusions augment its satirical effect.
o  There is no prologue establishing the setting.The audience learns that the play is set in Epidaurus 350 lines into the play.
·Plautus plays with the Romanness of his “Greek” characters with several acknowledgments of “Greekness” and with allusions to Rome
oPhaedromus asks the bolts of a gate to shake like “ludii barbari,” signaling to the audience a correlation between the “non-Greek” dancers and the non-Greek performers on stage.
oCappadox refers to the Capitoline hill by name.
oIn Curculio’s servus currens scene, he complains about Graeci palliati as he makes his way through an area that closely resembles the Roman forum.
·Plautus’s inclusion of a banker character may be a satirical comment on the money lending controversy in Rome in 193 B.C.E.
·The monologue by the choragus is where Plautus delivers his most clear satire of Rome.
oThe choragus suggests that Epidaurus and Rome are joined as one in the play.
oHe describes specifically where one can find the shady characters of Rome.
·Moore also suggests that the play may have been performed near the section of the forum that the choragus describes.There may have been actors in particular places exemplifying his examples.
oThrough the description of types in the forum, events in the play become applicable to Roman life.The choragus affirms this further when he praises the deception of Curculio, suggesting that, like him, the spectators may adore the deception in their lives as well.

Chapter 8:
Prostitutes and Lovers:

Truculentus
140-57

In Truculentus, Plautus’s satire concerns one thing – the waste of money on prostitutes.

·Were high-class prostitutes familiar to Romans, or were they considered an “exotic Greek species?”
oRomans knew of prostitutes on brothels and on the street, but the idea of a high-class meretrix like the hetaerae in Greece were unusual.
·Using Roman allusions, direct address, eavesdropping, and monologues, Plautus suggests that the play is relevant to Rome.
oThe prologue states that the actors of the play create an Athens in Rome.
o      Diniarchus’s tirade against prostitutes contains juxtaposition jokes and hyper-Hellenization.In this monologue, he addresses the spectators and joins them with himself.He gains more rapport early in the play by eavesdropping.
oPhronesium’s monologue goes back and forth, as she addresses both the audience and her handmaidens on stage.In this way she involves the audience with the action in the play.
oStratophanes fulfills the audience’s expectations of the typical braggart soldier.His asides, addresses, and eavesdropping allow him to gain rapport, and his juxtaposition jokes remind the audience of the play’s satirical elements.
oStrabax refers to a sheep for Tarentum (in Italy) in his monologue.
oTruculentus also appears Roman when he mentions veteres mores and novi mores.
·Moore also discusses the role of women as scapegoats for satire.This is evident in jokes and generalizations throughout the play that would not have seemed offensive in ancient Rome.
·In the end, Plautus reminds the audience that men’s vices are the source of problems in the play more often than women’s vices.

Chapter 9:
Husbands and Wives:

Casina
158-80
Moore notes that wives, matronae, do not fare well in Plautine comedy.

·The wives who bring large dowries endure ridicule most.
·Matronae were often classified as “other” in ancient Rome.Wives in comedy usually do not gain rapport with the audience.
·Plautus’s audience was composed mostly of men.In plays written by a man and performed by male actors for a mostly male audience, it is no wonder that wives are not treated favorably.
·Plautus’s plays reflect the historical circumstances of ancient Rome during his day.
oWar left many wives alone at home when their husbands left to fight.
oDivorce was becoming more common at the time.
oMany women chose to marry sine manu instead of cum manu, preferring to remain under the legal control of their fathers rather then their husbands.
oThe lex Oppia, which placed several restrictions on women, was repealed in 195 B. C. E.The repeal suggested that wives were influencing politics, which frightened conservative men.
·Casina depicts a powerful wife in conflict with her husband.Plautus attempts to undermine the stereotypes of women.
·Moore discusses instances in Plautine comedy in which men display their misogynistic views.
oThe bachelor Megadorus in Aulularia expresses his hatred for dowered wives in a long tirade.His speech resembles the excessive moralizing in Trinummus.Moore suggests that Plautus is mocking misogynistic speeches.
oIn Mercator, Demipho avoids his wife altogether, revealing his indifference to her feelings.
·The prologus in Casina introduces the plot as a conflict between husband and wife, not the typical clash between father and son.In fact, the prologus says that the son will not even appear in the play, yet his presence is known as the wife works on his behalf.
·Plautus urges his audience to accept this abnormal plot using metatheatrical devices.
oWhen Cleostrata is first introduced she emerges as the stock comic shrew.In her conversation with Myrrhina though she influences the hierarchy of rapport between the characters and the spectators so that they ally with her.
oLysidamus, the husband, thinks he gains rapport, but Cleostrata gains more by eavesdropping on his monologues and by making asides he cannot hear.
oIn fact Cleostrata and her allies overhear almost all of the monologues spoken by Lysidamus and Olympio, his friend.The two men fail to gain rapport.
oWhen Lysidamus does eavesdrop through Paradalisca, he not only loses rapport, but fails to notice that she is working against him also.
·The deception in the play mirrors the Roman assumption that women were responsible for making men copulate with each other during Bacchanalian festivals.Lysidamus even blames the trick on Bacchants.
·The epilogue jokes with the spectators and aligns them with Lysidamus.

Chapter 10:
Slaves and Masters:

Captivi
181-96
In Captivi, Plautus questions the status of slaves as innately flawed.

·Prejudice against slaves pervaded Roman culture, especially in Plautus’s day when military conquest began bringing many slaves to Rome.
·In comedy though, slaves are often portrayed as more intelligent or cleverer than their masters.
·The plot of Captivi concerns the ambiguity of the distinction between slaves and free people.
oTyndarus occupies a double rank in the play.He is a free man turned into a slave, who eventually becomes the property of his father.
·Moore claims that this relays the uncertainty of a slave’s moral status in that fortune, not character, makes a man a slave.
oDuring the prologue, two captives stand on the stage in chains.One is free and the other is a slave, yet the audience cannot tell the difference.The prologus address members of the audience, separating them into those who are standing and those who could afford the more comfortable seats.The slaves standing in the audience identify with the two men.
oThroughout the play, Plautus keeps the audience confused over Tyndarus’s status.At some points he plots like a servus callidus.At others, he speaks and acts like a freeborn man.
oPhilocrates, Tyndarus’s master, also acts like the stock clever slave in that he engages in deception, something other nobles avoid in Plautus’s plays.
oTyndarus mentions patricii pueri, making an obvious Roman allusion and urging the audience to question slavery by juxtaposing the name of Rome’s upper class with a typical slave term.
Moore explains that, although Plautus attempts to reveal that slaves are people too, Captivi is certainly not an abolitionist piece.

Conclusion 197-201
Ultimately Plautus seeks to entertain and to assume.He does so by inciting laughter with jokes and playing with the nature of theater.

·Moore supports Segal’s suggestion that Plautus’s plays provided an escape from the taboos of everyday Roman life and achieved a Saturnalian effect in undermining social norms.
·Plautus seeks to challenge his audience as well as provide entertainment.

Section	Pages	Summary
PART I: Chapter 1: Actors and Spectators	8-23	Spectators often forget they are in a theater when they watch plays.Therefore, playwrights often make allusions to the existence of the actors. ·Moore claims that Plautus’s actors address the audience directly often through monologues.The actors remind the audience of their vulnerability while also manipulating, mocking, and commanding the spectators. oThe vulnerability of the audience ensures that they succeed in gaining the audience’s approval. oActors were often freedmen or members of the lower class, which also augmented their vulnerability in the eyes of the spectators. ·According to Moore, Plautus’s audience was made up of “theatrical connoisseurs” and probably understood some, if not all, the Greek, metaphors, and parody Plautus employs. The audience came with a certain set of expectations regarding comedy. ·Prologi: The prologi are the actors who speak to the audience directly before the play.The spectators see this actor as“actor” immediately.The prologus seeks the audience’s permission and attention.He or she often acts self-important, conveying conspicuous knowledge to the audience in a teasing way.This is the beginning of the relationship the actor forms with the spectators.In the prologue, an actor makes allusions to the audience’s expectations, reminding it of stock characters and plots. ·In Epilogues, Plautus’s actors attempt to manipulate the audience for applause. The actors often assume an imperative tone, as if they no longer need to rely on the audience for assurance, although they are truly dependent on the spectators.
Chapter 2: Characters and Spectators	24-49	Moore argues that the content and style of the monologues strengthens the significance of the relationship between the audience and characters. ·Monologues work to: oPresent a character as needy and desparate for attention. oEstablish a character’s rapport with the audience. oDevelop a hierarchy of rapport by which different characters compete for the audience’s approval. ·Following the Greek tradition, actors deliver rhetorical monologues in which they make a generalization and then prove that generalization with their own actions.According to Moore, Plautus added new and longer sententiae where they did not exist in the Greek originals of the plays.These sententiae contain extra verbal humor and persuasion attempts. ·Characters plead for audience’s attention using imperatives, such as ecce or other imperative forms of videre.The characters make direct requests to the audience. This is amusing in that it would be impossible to fulfill the request and in that the characters cannot get something they want.It is in this way that characters compete for the audience’s favor. ·The hierarchy of rapport depends upon: oThe amount of time characters speak to the audience. oThe asides, which provide connection with the audience. oEavesdropping by which the audience shares in a character’s sense of power. oDeception, which allies the audience to the deceivers. ·Moore examines the role of the servus callidus, the clever slave who is the most common plotter of deception and whose station in life places him on the lowest level in the eyes of the spectators. oThe slave’s rapport increases as the play progresses. oSlaves often have many monologues, asides, and moments of direct address. oMoore examines the slaves, Libanus (Asinaria), Epidicus (Epidicus), and Pseudolus (Pseudolus), among others. oThe power Plautus gives to his servi callidi is humorous to Romans ·The slave’s delayed rapport reveals Plautus’s attempt at easing the audience into the subversion of social norms. ·Moore examines Aulularia, in particular Eculio, the servus callidus, and the hierarchy of rapport that is worked out in the play.
Chapter 3: Greece or Rome?	50-66	Plautine plays are usually set in Greece.Moore contends that the characters’ emphasis on “Greekness” reminds the Roman audience that they are Roman. àPlautus also makes allusions to Italy and Rome for comic effect.The some members in the audience may not have realized that some of these allusions were particularly Roman and out of place, especially in a Greek context, but most spectators would recognize locations and institutions in Rome.In this way, Plautus appeals to an audience of varying education and social status. ·“Hyper-Hellenization” Several allusions to Greece remind the audience that the actors are Roman.Plautus makes us of this to make his plays amusing at certain points. oCharacters use the term barbarus, literally “non-Greek,” to refer to each other. o“Juxtaposition Jokes” Plautus uses Roman and Greek elements simultaneously to remind audience that Roman actors are pretending to be Greek oSatirical play is evident when characters call themselves Greek. oWhen Plautus Hellenizes a servus callidus, it is often at the climax of the slave’s deception.Slaves can get away with outrageous things because they are “Greek.”Audience realizes this and is amused at the same time. Moore suggests that the Greek setting allows Plautus to explore issues that affect Rome in an inoffensive manner.
Chapter 4: Metatheater and Morality	67-90	Moore claims that Plautus does not attempt to moralize with his plays.His only intent is entertainment and pleasure. Moore also notes that moralizing sententiae often occur in scenes of deception.He examines three plays and their edifying tendencies. ·Miles Gloriosus oThe play concerns a moralistic misreading of a play-within-the-play.A servus callidus plays a playwright. o Deception is portrayed as a theatrical performance.One of the characters, Pyrgopolynices, views the play as moralizing, misreading the object of the play. ·Rudens oThe play has heavy moral overtones as it explores the conflict between good evil. oThe play’s moral message collapses mid-play as Plautus reveals that life is not so morally simple. ·Trinummus oThis play is the most moralizing Plautine comedy. oMoore argues that irony eventually overtakes the play and its edifying qualities disappear as the play progresses. oThe characters’ fixations on moralizing produce comic effect, as they ramble nonsensically about morality. According to Moore, the self-righteous are the target of comic dramatists.Moore also associates the audience’s awareness of the performance with the decrease in moralizing in the plays.In this sense, Plautus is able to make fun of sermonizing rather than morals themselves.
PART II: Chapter 5: Audience and Occasion: Pseudolus	92-107	In Pseudolus, the close relationships between actors and spectators reinforce the play’s effectiveness as a tour de force; this appropriate for the extraordinary events that occurred when the play was first produced. ·The action in the play is frequently described in theatrical terms. ·The title character becomes a metaphor for the playwright himself. ·Plautus employs many surprising, novel elements that are not crucial to the plot in order to entertain. oThrough bets, Pseudolus overcomes both the pimp and the master.Usually a servus callidus triumphs over only one of the two. oPlautus uses music (tibia) to entertain the audience. oThe first 600 lines of the play do nothing to accomplish the plot.They appear to be there just to provide pleasure for the audience. ·The characters meet all the expectations of stock comic types. oPseudolus and Samia are perfect servi callidi. oBallio is a “super-pimp.” oPlautus also reinforces the strength of his characters by having other characters praise Pseudolus, Samia, and Ballio for their performances. ·Pseudolus compares himself to a poet.Plautus engages the audience in metatheater with a metaphor for himself, the playwright. ·Time is of great importance, and Plautus avoids continuous repetition. ·Ballio and Pseudolus compete for rapport with the audience.Each displays a desire for rapport, and a hierarchy of rapport is established. oBallio loses. oPseudolus succeeds through eavesdropping, asides, and direct address to the audience as if it were a political or judicial assembly. ·Moore claims that the reason Plautus was so concerned with making Pseudolus appear extraordinary is that the play was first presented at the games associated with the dedication of the temple of Magna Mater in 192 B.C.E.Plautus needed a special play that would stand out from all the rest and establish goodwill between the people and the ruling class.
Chapter 6: Gods and Mortals: Amphitruo	108-25	Amphitruo contains the most unusual plot in Plautine comedy.It involves gods and blends the elements of tragedy and of comedy into a “tragicomedy.” ·The prologue, the longest of all in Plautus’s plays, sets up a puzzle for the audience, suggesting how they should view the gods in the play.Throughout the play, the audience feels superiority over characters that do not know the truth of the puzzle.It gives the spectators satisfaction with their cleverness. oMercury, who delivers the prologue, is a slave actor playing the part of Mercury pretending to be a slave. oJupiter is the lead actor in the troop playing the chief god. oMercury’s feathers and Jupiter’s torulus are visual equivalents to direct address, reminding the audience that they are the gods as they impersonate mortal characters during the play. oThe prologue establishes Mercury’s rapport with the audience, who continues to favor him throughout the play. ·Moore points out that Mercury’s costume becomes a metaphor for the play as a whole.Just as Plautus turns a god into a slave, he converts the mythological story of the birth of Hercules into a comedy. ·Alcumena attempts to gain sympathy in her monologue.She gains the audience’s attention, though because “she” is really a male actor dressed as a pregnant woman. The audience certainly laughs at her, but does not necessarily sympathize. ·Mercury often acts as a servus callidus and a parasitus, fulfilling the audience’s expectations of comic characters. Moore maintains that Plautus’s characters achieve a close relationship with the audience, even in a play with such an unusual plot.
Chapter 7: Bankers and Pimps: Curculio	126-39	According to Moore, Curculio surfaces as a satire of Roman life.It achieves this with monologues that tease the audience more than they flatter it, and with allusions to Rome and Italy that suggest the play’s application to Roman affairs. ·The monologues and asides are more varied and widespread. ·The addition of the banker, Lyco, adds more opportunities for deceit within the plot. ·Deception is connected with courts of law, and the play is full of legal imagery and parody. ·The Roman allusions augment its satirical effect. o There is no prologue establishing the setting.The audience learns that the play is set in Epidaurus 350 lines into the play. ·Plautus plays with the Romanness of his “Greek” characters with several acknowledgments of “Greekness” and with allusions to Rome oPhaedromus asks the bolts of a gate to shake like “ludii barbari,” signaling to the audience a correlation between the “non-Greek” dancers and the non-Greek performers on stage. oCappadox refers to the Capitoline hill by name. oIn Curculio’s servus currens scene, he complains about Graeci palliati as he makes his way through an area that closely resembles the Roman forum. ·Plautus’s inclusion of a banker character may be a satirical comment on the money lending controversy in Rome in 193 B.C.E. ·The monologue by the choragus is where Plautus delivers his most clear satire of Rome. oThe choragus suggests that Epidaurus and Rome are joined as one in the play. oHe describes specifically where one can find the shady characters of Rome. ·Moore also suggests that the play may have been performed near the section of the forum that the choragus describes.There may have been actors in particular places exemplifying his examples. oThrough the description of types in the forum, events in the play become applicable to Roman life.The choragus affirms this further when he praises the deception of Curculio, suggesting that, like him, the spectators may adore the deception in their lives as well.
Chapter 8: Prostitutes and Lovers: Truculentus	140-57	In Truculentus, Plautus’s satire concerns one thing – the waste of money on prostitutes. ·Were high-class prostitutes familiar to Romans, or were they considered an “exotic Greek species?” oRomans knew of prostitutes on brothels and on the street, but the idea of a high-class meretrix like the hetaerae in Greece were unusual. ·Using Roman allusions, direct address, eavesdropping, and monologues, Plautus suggests that the play is relevant to Rome. oThe prologue states that the actors of the play create an Athens in Rome. o Diniarchus’s tirade against prostitutes contains juxtaposition jokes and hyper-Hellenization.In this monologue, he addresses the spectators and joins them with himself.He gains more rapport early in the play by eavesdropping. oPhronesium’s monologue goes back and forth, as she addresses both the audience and her handmaidens on stage.In this way she involves the audience with the action in the play. oStratophanes fulfills the audience’s expectations of the typical braggart soldier.His asides, addresses, and eavesdropping allow him to gain rapport, and his juxtaposition jokes remind the audience of the play’s satirical elements. oStrabax refers to a sheep for Tarentum (in Italy) in his monologue. oTruculentus also appears Roman when he mentions veteres mores and novi mores. ·Moore also discusses the role of women as scapegoats for satire.This is evident in jokes and generalizations throughout the play that would not have seemed offensive in ancient Rome. ·In the end, Plautus reminds the audience that men’s vices are the source of problems in the play more often than women’s vices.
Chapter 9: Husbands and Wives: Casina	158-80	Moore notes that wives, matronae, do not fare well in Plautine comedy. ·The wives who bring large dowries endure ridicule most. ·Matronae were often classified as “other” in ancient Rome.Wives in comedy usually do not gain rapport with the audience. ·Plautus’s audience was composed mostly of men.In plays written by a man and performed by male actors for a mostly male audience, it is no wonder that wives are not treated favorably. ·Plautus’s plays reflect the historical circumstances of ancient Rome during his day. oWar left many wives alone at home when their husbands left to fight. oDivorce was becoming more common at the time. oMany women chose to marry sine manu instead of cum manu, preferring to remain under the legal control of their fathers rather then their husbands. oThe lex Oppia, which placed several restrictions on women, was repealed in 195 B. C. E.The repeal suggested that wives were influencing politics, which frightened conservative men. ·Casina depicts a powerful wife in conflict with her husband.Plautus attempts to undermine the stereotypes of women. ·Moore discusses instances in Plautine comedy in which men display their misogynistic views. oThe bachelor Megadorus in Aulularia expresses his hatred for dowered wives in a long tirade.His speech resembles the excessive moralizing in Trinummus.Moore suggests that Plautus is mocking misogynistic speeches. oIn Mercator, Demipho avoids his wife altogether, revealing his indifference to her feelings. ·The prologus in Casina introduces the plot as a conflict between husband and wife, not the typical clash between father and son.In fact, the prologus says that the son will not even appear in the play, yet his presence is known as the wife works on his behalf. ·Plautus urges his audience to accept this abnormal plot using metatheatrical devices. oWhen Cleostrata is first introduced she emerges as the stock comic shrew.In her conversation with Myrrhina though she influences the hierarchy of rapport between the characters and the spectators so that they ally with her. oLysidamus, the husband, thinks he gains rapport, but Cleostrata gains more by eavesdropping on his monologues and by making asides he cannot hear. oIn fact Cleostrata and her allies overhear almost all of the monologues spoken by Lysidamus and Olympio, his friend.The two men fail to gain rapport. oWhen Lysidamus does eavesdrop through Paradalisca, he not only loses rapport, but fails to notice that she is working against him also. ·The deception in the play mirrors the Roman assumption that women were responsible for making men copulate with each other during Bacchanalian festivals.Lysidamus even blames the trick on Bacchants. ·The epilogue jokes with the spectators and aligns them with Lysidamus.
Chapter 10: Slaves and Masters: Captivi	181-96	In Captivi, Plautus questions the status of slaves as innately flawed. ·Prejudice against slaves pervaded Roman culture, especially in Plautus’s day when military conquest began bringing many slaves to Rome. ·In comedy though, slaves are often portrayed as more intelligent or cleverer than their masters. ·The plot of Captivi concerns the ambiguity of the distinction between slaves and free people. oTyndarus occupies a double rank in the play.He is a free man turned into a slave, who eventually becomes the property of his father. ·Moore claims that this relays the uncertainty of a slave’s moral status in that fortune, not character, makes a man a slave. oDuring the prologue, two captives stand on the stage in chains.One is free and the other is a slave, yet the audience cannot tell the difference.The prologus address members of the audience, separating them into those who are standing and those who could afford the more comfortable seats.The slaves standing in the audience identify with the two men. oThroughout the play, Plautus keeps the audience confused over Tyndarus’s status.At some points he plots like a servus callidus.At others, he speaks and acts like a freeborn man. oPhilocrates, Tyndarus’s master, also acts like the stock clever slave in that he engages in deception, something other nobles avoid in Plautus’s plays. oTyndarus mentions patricii pueri, making an obvious Roman allusion and urging the audience to question slavery by juxtaposing the name of Rome’s upper class with a typical slave term. Moore explains that, although Plautus attempts to reveal that slaves are people too, Captivi is certainly not an abolitionist piece.
Conclusion	197-201	Ultimately Plautus seeks to entertain and to assume.He does so by inciting laughter with jokes and playing with the nature of theater. ·Moore supports Segal’s suggestion that Plautus’s plays provided an escape from the taboos of everyday Roman life and achieved a Saturnalian effect in undermining social norms. ·Plautus seeks to challenge his audience as well as provide entertainment.