An Analysis of Plautus' 'The Pot of Gold' themes in pot of gold themes in pot of gold pot of gold plautus theme of pot of gold the pot of gold story plautus pot of gold translation euclio's.

• Mostellaria Summary

The play starts with Harpaz. He is Macedonia's slave that appears to drop off money. The money is for Ballio.

Pseudolus comes in and is unable to get the money from the slaves. A sort of agreement in the form of a letter is made.

The agreement in the form of a letter is made. The agreement is made in between Harpax's master and Ballio. The agreement states that Harpax will be brought back to Ballio's house if Ballio is returned.

The play then describes Pseudolus figuring out a plan. He thinks of who is a smart man.

Calidorus brings him his friend Charinus. Pseudolus then asks for another smart friend. Charinus brings him his smart friend Simia. Ballio has a party and hires a cook to make the food for him. He doesn't want this cook to steal anything so he tells a slave to watch over him all day. Pseudolus wants a prostitute.

He is given the money to get one. The smart character Simia becomes a fake slave. He is given the prostitute because he tricks Ballio.

Calidorus gets the girl and helps the girl become free. Harpax returns, Ballio jokes with him because he thinks that Harpax is fake.

He then finds out that he isn't fake and has to pay back all the money to Harpax. Ballio is very mad. Play ends with Pseudolus ability to pull off a scandal. Simo ends up paying back his money as well. In this play, yes. Even though Calidorus threatened to kill himself if he didn't get the girl he was doing it for a dramatic effect rather than to get attention because of his love for the girl.

Calidorus talked about how much he loved the prostitute however this was not the main theme of the plot at all. The trickery was the main plot of the play. Sure the trickery happened so that he could get the girl however it was quite obvious that what Plautus was aiming for was a story about trickery.

We can conclude that however in love Calidorus is throughout this story trickery overrides the love aspect. Plautus uses metatheatre as a way to help win over the spectators. One example is located on page 205, 'where are they?, where are those young dudes who buy their lovin' from a pimp'. This quote is trying to engage the men in the crowed that use prostitutes and the character is literally asking the audience hey who does this? Another example is when the cook extensively talks about using his spices and about why he is so pricy. This begin on page 237 and continues onto page 238, 'if that's really what you think of me.' This quote shows that Plautus could have been trying to engage the cooks and the owners of diners in the audience.

It is a lengthy speech by the cook meaning that it could have been made solely to please the foodies in the audience. No this play is not a serious comedy. The stock characters seemed to be placed in the play for comedy. They were made to please the audience and make people laugh.

They are not there to raise concerns about the Ancient Greek societies. The slaves in the play knew that they were slaves and did not uprise against their masters. They seem content with being slaves. The selling of females for sex is also apparent and a major part of this story however it again is not considered wrong in any way.

The selling of prostitutes is very apparent and considered a huge part of this play but no where does it state that it is wrong. Calidorus is also in love with a women that sells herself for sex. This shows that prostitutes are considered the same level as other women, and that men still fall in love with them. Calidorus was doing things to better the women which also shows that it wasn't a problem. Another way that the play is shown in a non serious light is when at the end Simo is forced to pay back money to the drunk Pseudolus, he starts laughing.

This shows that it isn't serious and that it should be funny that the slaves were able to do such trickery.

Plautus Plautus (ca. 184 B.C.) was a Roman writer. His theatrical genius, vitality, farcical humor, and control of the rank him as Rome's greatest comic playwright.

During the 3d century B.C., Roman writers began to imitate the forms and contents of Greek literature. Unlike the early poets, Plautus confined himself to one area: translation and adaptation of Greek New Comedy (ca. Knowledge of the life of Plautus, whose full name was Titus Maccius Plautus, is scant.

Random remarks by later Roman writers and others furnish the questionable details. From Cicero the date of Plautus's birth can be placed about 254 B.C.

And his death about 184 B.C. Festus, scholar of the 2d century A.D., gives Plautus's birthplace as the small town of Sarsina in Umbria, Italy.

From, a grammarian from the 2d century, comes the traditional and fascinating, if brief, account of Plautus's life in Rome. Plautus earned money by working in the theater but promptly lost it in trade. He returned to Rome penniless and for a time supported himself by working as a laborer in a flour mill. During this period he wrote three plays (not extant). Scholars who accept this romantic career suggest that it may have been reported in Plautine prologues now lost.

That Plautus earned money by theatrical work is generally accepted and may mean that he was a stagehand, carpenter, playwright, or actor. His mastery of stagecraft and comic effect suggests long experience as an actor prior to writing plays. Most intriguing is precisely how Plautus, an Umbrian from rural Sarsina, managed to acquire both a knowledge of Greek and the superb control of Latin displayed in his dramas. The total of Plautus's plays is probably close to 50. Twenty plays are extant more or less in their entirety: Amphitruo (Amphitryon), Asinaria (The Comedy of Asses), Aulularia (The Pot of Gold), Bacchides (The Two Bacchides), Captivi (The Captives), Casina (Casina), Cistellaria (The Casket), Curculio (Curculio), Epidicus (Epidicus), Menaechmi (The Twin Menaechmi), Mercator (The Merchant), Miles Gloriosus (The Braggart Warrior), Mostellaria (The Haunted House), Persa (The Girl from Persia), Poenulus (The Carthaginian), Pseudolus (Pseudolus), Rudens (The Rope), Stichus (Stichus), Trinummus (The Three Penny Day), and Truculentus (Truculentus). Fewer than 100 lines survive from the Vidularia (The Traveling Bag). All the plays are based on Greek originals, especially those by the 3d-and 2d-century B.C.

Comic playwrights Menander, Diphilus, and Philemon. Dates for the production of only two plays are known: Stichus (200 B.C.) and the Pseudolus (191 B.C.). Approximate dates for some plays are derived from reference to contemporary persons and events, amount of sung verses, and various criteria of style and technique.

Modern chronological studies suggest the following relative datings—early period: Asinaria, Mercator, Miles Gloriosus (ca. 205 B.C.), Cistellaria (before 201 B.C.); middle period: Stichus (200 B.C.), Aulularia, Curculio; late period: Pseudolus (191 B.C.), Bacchides, Casina (185/184 B.C.). Plautus's Style The middle of the 1st century B.C.

Witnessed a revival of interest in Plautus and the restaging of many of his plays with consequent altering of original prologues. Some plays have no prologue; others have deferred prologues; and still others have authentic prologues or prologues based on those composed by Plautus. Often the prologue furnishes the audience with details necessary to understanding the opening of a complicated plot, or it may even explain in advance the outcome of the play with a consequent loss of suspense and surprise but a gain of irony. As a rule, the Plautine play presents one plot with one problem and one set of characters; these simple plots of Plautus allow comic digression and repetition.

Humorous passages loosely connected with the plot and violation of dramatic illusion are clear evidence of Plautus's concern for entertaining his audience with a good laugh even at the expense of careful workmanship and finish. Themes display considerable variety. There are plays of subdued comedy ( Captivi), sentimental comedy ( Cistellaria), romance ( Rudens), mythological travesty ( Amphitruo), and coarse farce ( Asinaria). Mistaken identity and deception, either individually or jointly, give rise to the misunderstandings and complications on which the plays turn. Plautus appears to rely on earlier native Italian farces for the devices of trickery and impersonation. Plautus's Characterization Roman comedy for the most part paid careful attention to delineation of character but within a framework of types in which subtlety, complexity, and individuality were severely restricted.

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Mostellaria Summary

Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. Citation styles Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). Within the “Cite this article” tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style.

Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. Therefore, it’s best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publication’s requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites. Modern Language Association The Chicago Manual of Style American Psychological Association Notes:. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers.

Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. However, the date of retrieval is often important. Refer to each style’s convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. Citation styles Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). Within the “Cite this article” tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style.

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Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. Titus Maccius Plautus c. 250 b.c.e.–c. Comic playwright From Slave to King of Comedy. Because Plautus was the most popular playwright in Roman history, there are many biographical details about him from many sources. It is ultimately impossible to determine which are true, or even partly true, and which are wholly false.

In any case, the stories about Plautus bestow on him a colorful life, with a dramatic rise from slavery to comic sovereign. It is said that he was born in Sarsina, Umbria, around 250 b.c.e., and was a native speaker of his regional Italic language, Umbrian. 'Plotus' is the Umbrian spelling of his cognomen, or last name, which may have meant 'flat-footed' or 'big-eared,' both perfect for a comedian. This name would have been Romanized as 'Plautus.'

'Plautus' also connotes 'applause' (the modern English word comes from a Latin root), and therefore is a clever last name for a famous playwright, whose livelihood depended on his popularity with his audience. His gentilician or family name, Maccius or Maccus (the manuscripts are unclear), was very probably made up as a joke on the Roman nobility with prestigious family names like Julius and Claudius. There was a typical character named 'Maccus,' a clown, in the native Italic dramatic genre known as Atellan farce. Though Plautus was born a free citizen, his popular biography told that he was a slave who had been a performer in Atellan farce and mime, and who then came to Rome as a freedman and rose to greatness on the comic stage.

Library of Work. In the second century b.c.e.

Over 130 titles of plays were attributed to Plautus. Certainly he was a prolific author, but part of this overwhelming number of attributions may be a result of his name itself: any play said to be written by the great Plautus would certainly have attracted more audience members. At the end of the century, the Library of Alexandria began to collect manuscripts and put together reliable editions of the best known authors, and in the first century, one of the foremost scholars in Rome, Varro, made what he considered a definitive list of 21 plays that could accurately be called Plautine.

These plays are the ones that have been recognized by modern scholars, mostly complete with some fragmentation. The chronology of the plays is uncertain and has been a source of scholarly debate for hundreds of years. Because New Comedy focused on general social situations and avoided most topical references, allusions to historical events are few and often hard to assess.

The titles of Plautus' best-known plays are as follows: Casina, the name of a household maidservant (c. 186 b.c.e.); The Twin Sisters Named Bacchis; The Twin Brothers Named Menaechmus; The Boastful Soldier; and Pseudolus, the clever slave of the play (c.

Themes and Styles. From these plays, much can be garnered about Plautine style, characterization, and staging. Plautus often presented as his comic heroes not members of the nobility or figures of authority but the lowliest and least powerful elements of society: slaves, foreigners, prostitutes, young men without resources. Since Plautus unabashedly 'adapted' plots from his Greek New Comedy predecessors, many of the same characters that were established in that genre can be seen: the grouchy old man, the nagging wife, the nosy neighbor, the shrewd prostitute, the dissolute son, the victimized young woman.

Plautus made these characters his own, however, by changing them from Greek comic stereotypes to real denizens of Rome, who used Roman idioms and legal terms and thought like Romans. In this way, Plautus could satirize aspects of his own ultra-conservative society by presenting all his characters as 'Greek,' thereby absolving them of their debauched morals and behavior, and allowing his Roman audience to enjoy the reversal of heroic status. One scholar has compared the comedies of Plautus to the celebration of the Saturnalia, a festival in which masters and servants changed places for the day. Plautus' Latin is the only example of literary Latin in the late third and early second centuries b.c.e. His latinity is deceptively fluid and idiomatic; it is also highly stylized, uses a great number of anachronisms and other oddities, and follows a complicated metrical schema. Plautus' play Twin Brothers Named Menaechmus was the basis for Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors.

Anderson, Barbarian Play: Plautus' Roman Comedy (Toronto; Buffalo; London: University of Toronto, 1993). Beacham, The Roman Theater and Its Audience (London: Routledge, 1991). Gian Biagio Conte, Latin Literature: A History (Baltimore and London: The University Press, 1994). Kenney, ed., The Cambridge History of Classical Literature II: Latin Literature (Cambridge: Press, 1982). Citation styles Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). Within the “Cite this article” tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style.

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