Plautus, the Roman Comedy and the Greek Models

Abstract

We know very little about greek models that have inspired Plautus, Terentius and other poets of the palliata. This is why the attempt of reconstruction of their original shapes and even of their details, on the basis of an analytical approach on latin ‘texts of arrival’, is an useless exercise and a merely hypothetical proceeding. Instead the utilization of reliable data preserved by the tradition is helpful to understand how Plautus especially has built his comic dramas by using the greek theater. We will see therefore that he makes use of general and recurrent ‘dramaturgical motifs’ that can be traced back to the New Comedy. By the combination and the creative variation of these ‘motifs’ Plautus composes original comedies in total keeping with his inimitable idea of comic theater.