Plaute (in Latin Titus Maccius Plautus ) is a comic author Latin born towards 254 front J. - C. with Sarsina in the Ombrie antique (now located in Romagna) and died in 184 front J. - C.

Its life

Titus Sama was born into 254 in Sarsina in Ombrie, area located at the south of Tuscany, a country which had been subject to the Etruscan influence. It is supposed that it received a good education but that its family was very modest. Plaute did not remain a long time in this country, too little Latinized, too disputed not influences Etruscan, ombriennes, Celtic. It had to come quickly to Rome where it improved its Latin and learned the Greek. Cicéron will regard it its language as a model of purity. Plaute started to earn money in companies of theatrical material. After having gained a certain capital, he ventured it and lost it in the maritime trade. Ruined, it took again courage and began a heavy work of craftsman baker. It started to write parts during its spare times. Then they sold them to the magistrates charged with the public spectacles. It sometimes happened to live about it. One knows nothing any more of his life, if these are not the parts that he wrote and representations of its works. The historians say that he died one year after his last part, in 184. Some have even alleged that Plaute was an imaginary being, because its life, the departure of at his place, its talent, its work of baker, his ruin… could be the topic of a comic part of the Roman epoch.

Its works

Plaute, like Terence, was inspired by Greek authors. A general topic was in its parts: an young man, generally of origin even slave is in love with a free young girl of birth. The majority of the parts of Plaute, like that of Terence, opened by a prolog summarizing and explaining the part. This prolog is presented by a god or a played allegorical character, played either by an actor of the part or the “Prologus”, actor affected especially with this role. Plaute jumps of the important details, the explanations necessary, reveals or to disappear the actors with his liking, his goal being especially to involve its public of sketch in sketch. Each scene is spread with a surprising richness and a perfection. The characters find part in part, all caricatural: the young man extravagant libertine and, the beautiful and vain courtesan, the modest young girl and sympathetic nerve, the father (old man), very severe, the mother, worthy, but revêche, the slave, imprudent and inventive, the merchant of slave, brutal, dishonest person. There is sometimes, more rarely of the different roles.

130 parts were allotted to Plaute at the end of the Roman Republic, but the Varron scholar estimated that only forty were authentic, of which the half undoubtedly. Twenties of these parts are read still today: ''' Famous the ''' (These 4 parts were a source of inspiration for the authors of XVème and of XVIIème):

- In 187: Amphitruo (the host), which will inspire Molière;

- Aulularia (the part of the pot), which will also inspire Molière (the Miserly one);

- Before 215: Menaechmi (Ménechmes), taken again by Shaekspeare in the Mistakes;

- In 203: Miles Glorius (the soldier fanfaron), the hero is the prototype of Matamore, character of the commedia dell' arte.

wise the :

- Captiui (Prisoners of war), the only part of Plaute not having an intrigue in love;

- In 201: Cistellaria (the part with the box), sentimental comedy;

- Rudens (the Rope), kind of middle-class drama tenderizing which sees the triumph of the virtue.

dared the :

- In 212: Asinaria (the Part with the asses), where for the price of his indulgence a father requires one night of love with his future daughter-in-law;

- In 185: Casina (name of heroin), joke often obscene, where an young girl is coveted at the same time by a father, her son and two slaves who draw it with the fate;

- In 192: Truculentus (the rough one: name of the driving slave of play), which offers a very precise painting of the mediums of the prostitution. There are nothing any more but some fragments.

preferred of Plaute :

- In 191: Pseudolus (the misleading one: name of a driving slave of play), where the procurer Ballio and Pseudolus itself are particularly colourful;

- Truculentus (see in “dared”).

the least succeeded :

- Epidicus (name of a slave), with the very muddled intrigue: the only one where the public did not include/understand anything;

- In 200: Stichus (name of a slave), short part décousue and bâclée;

- Trinummus (the man with the 3 ecus), of all the parts, it contains the most monologs.

the other parts :

- In 188: Bacchides (bacchides: name of two twin sisters exerting the oldest trade of the world);

- In 193: Curculio (Charançon: expressive name of a parasite which extorts from a soldier the sum which its patron needs to buy a young slave);

- Mercator (the trader): history of a salesman who gives up the perfect girl, because his/her father asks him, who leaves to work, finds a girl still better and buys it, whom her father will say?

- Mostellaria (history of phantoms), whose topic will be began again by Regnard

- Poenulus (the Carthaginian), one of the best parts of Plaute; she contains a passage in punic language.

- Persa (Persia), comedy-ballet very exotic and full with spirit.

One can notice the variety of the theater of Plaute; this last draws from many different sources. The parts of the category “the wise ones” strongly resemble the parts of Terence.