Garded as one of the earliest plays by P. 214), Captivi, Casina, Curculio, Epidicus, Menaechmi, Mercator (later than the Rudens according to F. The titles of the other extant plays are (in alphabetical order) Amphitruo, Asinczria, Aulularia, Bacchides (later than the Epidicus, see 1. It is at any rate not improbable that the poet gave greater scope to his musical innova tion (see below) as his command over language and metres devel oped and the success of his experiment became assured. Sedgwick (Classical Review, xxxix., 1925, p. An interesting attempt to place them in chronological order according to the proportion in them of scenes written in lyrical metres and set to music (cantica) has recently been made by W. The dates of the other extant plays are uncertain. The Pseudolus and the Truculentus fall within the last seven years of his life and the Trinummus is later than 194 B.C. and the Stichus is proved by its didascalia to have been produced in 200 B.C. Of the extant plays the Cistellaria and the Stichus must be associated with the Miles as comparatively early works for the former was clearly produced before the con clusion of the Second Punic War, see I. occubant (present tense), which alludes to the im prisonment of Naevius. is the ap proximate date of the Miles Gloriosus cf. The main body of his extant works be longs, so far as can be ascertained from the scanty evidence which we have, to the last 20 years of his life 206-204 B.C. The Plays.His literary activity may well have begun some what late in life for it must have taken him a long time and much hard study to acquire the mastery of Latin and Greek which his dramas attest.
The chief fact that emerges is that he left his native Umbrian home and settled as a peregrinus at Rome, where, after earning some money and losing it again, he took to writing plays. 3, 14 (based on Varro), the histori cal character of which is doubted by Leo (Plautinische Forschun gen, ch. The only record that we possess as to his life is that contained in Aulus Gellius iii. 5o) that he was an old man, when he wrote his Truculentus and Pseudolus. The date of his birth depends upon an inference based on the statement of Cicero (De senectute, xiv. I 1), the great comic dramatist of ancient Rome, was born at Sarsina in Umbria according to the testimony of Festus, who calls him Umber Sarsinas, and Jerome. PLAUTUS, TITUS MACCIUS (originally, perhaps, MAccus cf.
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