Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa

Chapter Title: ”Imitating” vs ”Inventing”: Defining Stagecraft in Plautine Comedy

Chapter Author(s): Argyri G. Karanasiou

Book Title: The Many Faces of Mimesis

Book Subtitle: Selected Essays from the 2017 Symposium on the Hellenic Heritage of
Western Greece
Book Editor(s): Heather L. Reid and Jeremy C. DeLong
Published by: Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7g5b.25

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 Argyri G. Karanasiou1
“Imitating“ vs “Inventing“:
Defining Stagecraft in Plautine Comedy

‘φαντασία’ ... σοφωτέρα μιμήσεως δημιουργός:

μίμησις μὲν γὰρ δημιουργήσει, ὃ εἶδεν,
φαντασία δὲ καὶ ὃ μὴ εἶδεν, (...)
Imagination, ... a wiser and subtler artist by far than imitation;
for imitation can only create as its handiwork what it has seen,
but imagination equally what it has not seen.
Philostratus, Vita Apoll. VI 192
New Comedy (4th–3rd century BCE) demonstrates a close
connection between theatre performance and reality. Unlike Old
Comedy, it shows disregard for politics, and focuses on the
representation of domestic life. It is this particular feature that the
eminent Alexandrian critic, Aristophanes of Byzantium (c. 257-c. 180
BCE) highlights in this comment on Menander, the main
representative of the New Comedy: “O Menander and life, which of
you has imitated the other?” (ὦ Μένανδρε καὶ βίε, πότερος ἄρ᾽
ὑμῶν πότερον ἀπεμιμήσατο’).3 This praise for comedy’s adept
“imitation of reality” persists for centuries. In first-century literary
criticism, for example, the Roman rhetorician Quintilian expresses
admiration for Menander for his accurate reproduction of the real
world.4 According to the much later (mid-fourth century CE)
testimony of the Roman grammarian Aelius Donatus,5 Cicero
similarly foregrounds New Comedy’s mimetic representations of
reality: “Cicero says that comedy is an imitation of life, a mirror of
custom, an image of truth” (Comoediam esse Cicero ait imitationem
vitae, specululum consuetudinis, imaginem veritatis).6 Yet, despite such
claims that New Comedy is broadly concerned with “imitatio vitae,”
this does not apply to Plautine Comedy, even if it draws its material
from the New Comedy. Plautus’s fabula palliata comedies do not
merely “imitate” reality; rather, they display a change of reality that
takes place on stage.7 The following passages discussed in this paper
will demonstrate that Plautus understands himself as a master of his
profession who is destined to create something new and totally
different from previous artistic achievements. His self-confident
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presentation of his work is reminiscent of ancient theories about
comedy and comic poets.
Aristophanes’s (5th c. BCE) testimony labels comedy as a kind of
craft, establishing the poet as a craftsman of words or music.8 In his
Poetics, Aristotle confirms this line of argument, maintaining that
comic poets—unlike tragic ones—are compelled to make-up
everything in their works: names, characters, settings and plots.9 Yet
he also goes further, emphasizing that a poet should be a “maker of
stories,” rather than a “maker of verses.”10 In Plautus’s plays, the
process of inventing, constructing, and fabricating (or, using Greek
termini technici, the moment of “heuresis” and “synthesis”)—as the
following citation demonstrates—is continuously emphasized.11 This
facet alone firmly places Plautus’s approach within the Greco-Roman
fiction.12
Thus, at Plautus’s Pseudolus 401-404, the playwright mentions
mendacium (lie), in the sense of “the seemingly true,” or “the
fictional:”
sed quasi poeta, tabulas cum cepit sibi,
quaerit quod nusquamst gentium, reperit tamen,
facit illud verisimile, quod mendacium est,
nunc ego poeta fiam…
But just like a poet, once his tablets are in hand, hunts for what is
nowhere on this earth, yet finds it, and makes a lie look like the
truth, I’ll turn poet myself now…13
By sustaining the Greek dichotomy between truth (αλήθεια) and lie
(ψευδος), the playwright does not merely reformulate the Greek
topos about the poets’ lies, but he rather employs “mendacium” (lie),
expanding its meaning in the sense of the “imaginary,“ since in the
Latin terminology of his era, there is no distinct term for “fiction“
yet.14 Moreover, his intention is to stress the importance of
imagination (φαντασία), since he operates in a fictional mode of
narrative, where the invention of a new universe—as revealed in his
comedies—takes place.
It is communis opinio that Plautus’s comedies unfold within a
liminal space between the Hellenistic Greek originals and the Italic
comic tradition. Within this transition-period, Plautus’s work is best

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understood not as an attempt at art mirroring life, but rather an art
imitating prior art (i.e. Hellenistic comedy), while simultaneously
inventing a new art form (i.e. the Roman comoedia palliata). And the
latter—even as a genuine Roman creation—does not attempt to
accurately represent the Roman world. Instead, it reflects pieces of
quotidian Roman life in a subversive way. For example, in an inversio
of the social norm on stage, empowered slaves become dynamic
figures who control their masters and govern the storylines.15
This characteristic of Plautine comedy has been primarily
analyzed under the aspect of a cult license (freedom) at the feast of
Saturnalia.16 Yet, Plautus does not seem confined within this religious
context. Unlike earlier playwrights, Plautus initiates a new
communicative system, wherein the poet operates between the world
of the stage (intra-diegetic) and the world of the cavea (extra-
diegetic). He is not merely as an omniscient beholder of the plot as
playwright, but an active commentator upon his own composition.
Consequently, when he reminds his audience of the tensed
relationship between the conventions of his craft and his own bold
innovations, his plays become so transparent that they occasionally
engender meta-theatrical evaluations. In these ways, Plautus
repeatedly marks the boundaries of his creative activity as a poet,
decidedly separating himself from his Greek predecessors.
For example, in numerous prologues, he does not hesitate to
reveal his sources—i.e. to name the Greek poets, and occasionally to
add the titles of the Greek originals. This practice—although a
seemingly conventional device of the genre—signals the poet’s self-
confidence in creating a derivative work with his own signature
approach. For after naming the Greek poet and mentioning the Greek
title, what prevails is Plautus’s name for the play. Accordingly, at
Asinaria 10-12 the speaker of the prologue clearly states:
huic nomen Graece Onagost fabulae,
Demophilus scripsit, Maccus vortit barbare;
Asinariam volt esse, si per vos licet.
The Greek name of this play is Onagos:
Demophilus wrote it: Maccus translated it into a foreign tongue.
He wishes to call it The Comedy of Asses, by your leave.17

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Similarly, in Mercator 8-10, Charinus, in his love lament, includes the
following typical information, even if somehow abruptly:
vobis narrabo potius meas nunc miserias
graece haec vocatur Emporos Philemonis,
eadem Latine Mercator Macci Titi.
It is to you rather that I shall now confide my woes.
The Greek name of this play is the Emporos of Philemon;
in Latin we call it the Mercator of Maccius Titus.18
And in the prologue of Trinummus 18-21, the personified Luxury
announces to the audience:
huic Graece nomen est Thensauro fabulae:
Philemo scripsit, Plautus vertit barbare,
nomen Trinummo fecit, nunc hoc vos rogat
ut licet possidere hanc nomen fabulam.
The Greek name of this play is Thensaurus:
Philemon wrote it; Plautus translated it into a foreign tongue
naming it Three Bob Day, and now asks you
that it be allowed to keep this name.19
Further at Casina 30-34 the prologue speaker declares:
comoediai nomen dare vobis volo.
Clerumenoe vocatur haec comoedia
Graece, latine Sortientes. Deiphilus
hanc graece scripsit, post id rursum denuo
latine Plautus cum latranti nomine.
I wish to give you the name of our comedy.
Its Greek title is Clerumenoe, in Latin, Sortientes. Diphilus
wrote the play in Greek, and later Plautus,
he of the barking name, gave us a fresh version of it in Latin.20
And at Poenulus 50-51, 53-55, the prologue speaker imparts the usual
information to the spectators:
nomen dare vobis volo
comoediai…
Carchedonius vocatur haec comoedia,
latine Plautus Patruus Pultiphagonides.
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 Nomen iam habetis.
I wish to give you the name of this comedy...
It is called Carchedonius,
Plautus giving it the Latin title of Uncle Papeater.
There you have its name.21
Further at Miles Gloriosus 84-88, in a delayed prologue speech, the
slave Palaestrio offers the standard piece of exposition, though this
time without naming Plautus. However, this is not surprising, since
Palaestrio—the tricky slave who guides the plot—may occasionally
lend his voice to the poet:
comoediai quam nos acturi sumus
et argumentum et nomen vobis eloquar.
Alazon Graece huic nomen est comoediae,
id nos Latine gloriosum dicimus.
Hoc oppidum Ephesust…
I shall acquaint you with the plot and name
of the comedy we are about to act.
The Greek name of this comedy is Alazon,
a word which we translate as Braggart.
This town is Ephesus…22
Among Plautus’s deviations from the Hellenistic tradition, the
clear distinction between the world of the actors and the world of the
spectators is of central importance to his success at conveying the
impression of a fictional dimension. For instance, at Captivi 52, the
prologue speaker clearly states:
haec res agetur nobis, vobis fabula
All this will be fact on the boards, fiction for the benches (i.e.
to you, spectators).23
Here it is Plautus himself who reminds his audience of their real
experience in the theatre, as well as of their experience of the
fictitious Greek world on stage. As McCarthy correctly observes,
Plautus stresses the different quality of these two worlds, only to
draw attention to the fact that the stage activity both does and does
not exist from the perspective of the audience.24 However, he also

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simultaneously implies the co-existence of real and fictional worlds.25
In the same spirit, at Miles Gloriosus 1437, the actors go off stage;
upon which the spectators, playing their role, should applaud:
Eamus / ad me. Plaudite.
Home we go. Give us your applause.26
The status of the play’s characters as actors is being explicitly
highlighted here. Similarly, at Casina 81-86, the speaker leads the
spectators out of the fictive word, when he describes how the actress
who impersonates Casina will regain her usual status after the end of
the show:27
ea invenietur et pudica et libera,
ingenua Atheniensis, neque quicquam stupri
faciet profecto in hac quidem comoedia.
Mox hercle vero, post transactam fabulam,
argentum si quis dederit, ut ego suspicor,
ultro ibit nuptum, non manebit auspices.
This girl will prove to be both chaste and freeborn,
the daughter of an Athenian citizen, and not a bit of immodesty
will she be guilty of – I mean, of course, not in this comedy.
But later, though, after the play is done, good Lord!
Let someone give her money, and I have a suspicion
she will plunge into matrimony without waiting for witnesses.28
In some cases, Plautus defines himself indirectly as the creator of
space, and triggers the imagination of the audience even beyond the
visual dimension of the stage. This is evident in the prologue of
Menaechmi 72-74, at which point the prologue speaker introduces an
external perspective, breaking the stage illusion:29
haec urbs Epidamnus est,
dum haec agitur fabula,
quando alia agetur, aliud fiet oppidum
sicut familiae quoque solent mutarier
This city is Epidamnus,
during the presentation of this play:
When another play is presented it will become another town,

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 it is quite like the way in which families, too, are wont to change
their homes.30
Similarly, at Poenulus 46-49, Prologus—the stage manager (imperator
histricus)—refers to the plot (argumentum) of the play employing
geographic terms:31
Ad argumentum nunc vicissatim volo
remigrare (...)
eius nunc regiones, limites, confinia
determinabo: ei rei ego finitor factus sum.
Now I wish to revert again to the Argument of this play...
its bounds, limits and confines I shall now
determine: I have been selected as its surveyor.32
In these passages Plautus clearly surpasses the realism of the
Hellenistic comic tradition.33 Indeed, he succeeds in creating an
alternative world, and in seducing his spectators into his own fiction,
his own fantastic universe. To this effect, the stage is occasionally
being determined as “Athens;” however, a kind of Athens existing
only in the poet’s words. Since he does not strive for realism, but
rather for a credible invented reality, he feels free to criticize, while
maintaining a safe equidistance from both Athens and Rome, taking
advantage of the licentia or the mos of the theatre.34 Indeed, in the
opening scene of Truculentus (1-3, 10-11), the playwright explicitly
claims to be capable of erecting “Athens” on the stage, even within
Rome, and without architects:35
perparvam partem postulat Plautus loci
de vestris magnis atque amoenis maoenibus,
Athenas quo sine architectis conferat (...)
Athenis mutabo ita ut hoc est proscaenium
tantisper dum transigimus hanc comoediam.
Within the precincts of your great and gracious city
’tis but a tiny tract that Plautus asks,
whereto he may bring Athens without the aid of engineers (...)
I shall thus transform this stage into Athens
for just so long as we’re acting this comedy.36

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 Here the spectacular outcome of this “magical” power of the
poet to change on stage whatever the spectator perceives with his
senses takes shape; Plautus searches for a “place,” in order to build
his “Athens.” Yet, this new city is located in Rome. The geographic
term at this point is clearly specified and real. The paradox is that
within the boarders of a real city (Rome), a virtual city is about to be
placed which will soon prove fictitious, as the following passages
will demonstrate. Thus, next to the Roman reality, a “seemingly
Greek” reality will co-exist, but only for the duration of the
performance.
The following passage from Stichus 446-48 serves the same role.
The fictitious character of “Athens” becomes evident. Here, the poet
projects a remote, un-historical image of Athens into the
contemporary Roman reality.37 He does not express nostalgic
reminiscences of a romanticized past: Rome is rather depicted as a
“dystopia,” vested in a Greek (Athenian) garment (pallium), while
featuring Athens as a “eutopia.” By displaying an idealized Athens on
stage, Plautus encourages his spectators to use his comedies as a kind
of a magic “mirror” for a “better Rome:”
atque id ne vos miremini, homines servolos
potare, amare atque ad cenam condicere:
licet haec Athenis nobis.
Yes, and you people needn’t be surprised that we slavelings
have our liquor and love affairs and dinner engagements:
all that’s permitted us in Athens.38
The two preceding passages display the fact that the “changed
reality” that Plautus re-constructs bears a fixed stage name:
“Athens.” However, throughout his comedies, the term will
invariably allude to a “reformed Rome,” where slaves are allowed to
lead a life of justice and happiness.
Furthermore, the geographical definitions of the stage setting
could be broadened enough to even include “nowhere.” Thus, at
Menaechmi 10, the events on stage are presented within the frame of a
vague “nowhere” (nusquam), implying a utopic scenario, a different
dimension, a non-existent place, an equivalent of Plautus’s fictional
Athens :39

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 ego nusquam dicam nisi ubi factum dicitur.
As for me, I will report the scene as being nowhere, save
where, by report, the events occured.40
Other passages further draw attention to the remoteness of such
imaginary place-settings from reality, while also emphasizing their
path-breaking novelty, in a way which is intended to surprise the
audience. At Casina 70-72, the prologue speaker mentions:
novom attulerunt, quod fit nusquam gentium.
At ego aio id fieri in Graecia et Carthagini,
et hic in nostra terra in Apullia;
Something new, this something that happens nowhere on earth!
But I say it does happen in Greece and at Carthage,
and here in our own country in Apulia.41
Consequently, contrary to what appears to be a reminiscence of the
Greek heritage, the passages mentioned above rather indicate that
Plautus emphatically distances himself from the Hellenistic comic
tradition, exactly when he refers to an imaginary, remote Greek
world where supposedly everything is allowed. How eagerly Plautus
strives for novelty is further shown by the lines at Pseudolus 562-70,
when the protagonist adresses the audience, stressing the importance
of inventing something new (novum).42 At this point the phrase “qui
in scaenam provenit” could apply not only to the actor, but implicitly
to the author of the play:
Suspicio est mihi nunc vos suspicarier,
me idcirco haec tanta facinora promittere,
quo vos oblectem, hanc fabulam dum transigam,
neque sim facturus quod facturum dixeram.
non demutabo. Atque etiam certum, quod sciam,
quo id sim facturus pacto nil etiam scio,
nisi quia futurumst. Nam qui in scaenam provenit,
novo modo novum aliquid inventum adferre addecet;
sed id facere nequeat, det locum illi qui queat.43
I have a suspicion that you folks suspect me now of
promising these mighty deeds just to amuse you during the
course of this play, and of not doing what I said I would. I
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 won’t retract. And as for knowing how I’ll do it, I am just
certain of knowing just nothing, except that it’ll be done. I
tell you what, a man that appears on the stage ought to
bring some fresh idea worked out in fresh fashion. If he
can’t do this, he should give place to a man that can.44
Indeed, Plautus succeeds in transcending the universality of the
comic plot, as coined by Aristotle.45 He goes beyond the “probable”
(eikos), transforming even the “improbable” into something both
“probable” and “credible” (verisimile), as at Casina 511-14:
ibo intro, ut id quod alius condivit cocus,
ego nunc vicissim ut alio pacto condiam,
quo id quoi paratum est, ut paratum ne siet
sitque ei paratum quod paratum non erat.
I’ll go in now so as to try my hand on a mess another cook
has seasoned, and season it another way; and I’ll see to it
that the mess is not ready for the man it was ready for, but
that a mess not ready for him is in readiness.46
Here the term paratum makes it clear that the mystery of the plot is
being invented before our eyes. The “different kind of cook” (alius
cocus) in these lines could even allude to the poet himself, who at this
point “intervenes” in order to change the storyline. The last verses
(513-14) refer to the effect of “the unexpected” (aprosdoketon, explexis),
and unmistakably recall the Euripidean coda in anapaests, which
closes five of Euripides’s tragedies when the chorus leaves the stage
(Medea 1415-19, Helen 1688-92, Bacchae 1388-92, Alcestis 1159 sqq. and
Andromache 1284 sqq.):47
πολλῶν ταμίας Ζεὺς ἐν Ὀλύμπῳ,
πολλὰ δ᾽ ἀέλπτως κραίνουσι θεοὶ48
καὶ τὰ δοκηθέντ᾽οὐκ ἐτελέσθη,
τῶν δ᾽ἀδοκήτων πόρον ηὗρε θεὸς.
τοιόνδ᾽ἀπέβη τόδε πρᾶγμα. (Med. 1415-19)

Zeus on Olympus has many things in his treasure-house,

and many are the things the gods accomplish against our
expectation. What men expect is not brought to pass, but a

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 god finds a way to achieve the unexpected. Such is the
outcome of this story.
Whereas Euripides’s verses are to be understood literally, Plautus
invents the cocus-metaphor. While in tragedy “the unexpected” is
god-sent, in Plautus’s comedy, a cook is put in charge of it. This is
not merely a comic effect. The slave-servant in this passage assumes
the role of a god, controlling the plot. Plautus modifies the
Euripidean ekplexis-motiv, transforming it in a spontaneous
innovation of a comic tradition. Furthermore, what in tragedy
functions as a conclusion, Plautus employs programmatically: only
he, the poet, knows exactly how the plot will proceed.
Elsewhere in Plautus’s plays can be found what Dingel perceives
as a perfect paradigm of deconstruction:49 when the poet manifests
himself in the play under the identity of servus-poeta, an alter ego
which unravels the artificiality of his work.50 In doing so, he becomes
a “metaleptic” author, as Genette understood the term.51 In these
passages, the separate identities of actor and author briefly merge,
the result of which is a blurring between boundaries—between the
external world of the real author, and the internal world of the
narrator.52 And when Plautus occasionally offers a definition of his
craft, albeit more or less implicitly, he moves even closer towards
placing himself within his fictional dimension. The key word here is
reperior, as at Pseudolus 401-404:
sed quasi poeta, tabulas cum cepit sibi,
quaerit quod nusquamst gentium, reperit tamen,
facit illud verisimile, quod mendacium est,
nunc ego poeta fiam…
But just like a poet, once his tablets are in hand, hunts for
what is nowhere on this earth, yet finds it, and makes a lie
look like the truth, I’ll turn poet myself now…53
Hence, using his poetic skills Plautus seeks the invention of a lie, and
by transforming it into a credible truth, he establishes himself as a
“maker” of a new reality. In the same spirit, in Epidicus’s famous
soliloquy (96-100), the key term (reperior) recurs:
nequam homo es, Epidice.
qui lubidost male loqui?
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 quia tu tete deseris.
 quid faciam?
men rogas?
tu quidem antehac aliis solebas dare consilia mutua
aliquid aliqua reperiundumst.
You good-for-nothing, Epidicus! Why should I enjoy
abusing myself? Because you leave yourself in the lurch.
What shall I do? Do you ask me? Why, you’re the man that
before this used to lend counsel to other folks. Some scheme
must be found somewhere).54
Similarly, at the end of Captivi 1029-36, the actor addressing the
audience comments on the unusual features of this play:
spectatores, ad pudicos mores facta haec fabula est,
neque in hac subigitationes sunt neque ulla amatio
nec pueri suppositio nec argenti circumductio,
neque ubi amans adulescens scortum liberet clam suom patrem.
huius modi paucas poetae reperiunt comoedias,
ubi boni meliores fiant...
Spectators, this play was composed with due regard to the
proprieties: here you have no vicious intriques, no love-
affair, no supposititious child, no getting money on false
pretences, no young spark setting a wench free without his
father’s knowledge. Dramatists find few plays such as this
which make good men better....55
Plautus here gives his spectators and readers a few helpful pointers:
the key term “reperiunt,” the clearly stated rarity of the subject
(“paucas…comoedias”), and the specified authorial intention (“boni
meliores fiant”). Of pivotal importance is the emphasis on the nature
of the dramatist’s invention and its innovative character, since there
are “few plays” to be found “such as this.” And the reason is that
such plays “make good men better.” Plautus sees himself as a kind of
“reformer of reality.” His goal is to create a new reality, one which is
an “improved version” of the reality we experience daily.
Finally, it is no pure coincidence that in the preface to
Benavente’s comedy, “The Bonds of Interest” (1922), the character
Crispin closely imitates the style of Plautus’s crafty slave. In

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describing the nature of the performance, he emphasizes not simply
the stage-illusion, but more precisely, the fictional aspect of Roman
comic composition:
It’s a farce for puppets; its subject is nonsensical and it’s
completely unreal. You will soon see that its entire action
could never have taken place, that its characters aren’t, and
don’t even resemble, men and women, but are puppets or
marionettes of cardboard and rags, pulled by thick strings ...
They are the same grotesque masks of that Old Italian
comedy...56
In these lines Crispin as a typical prologue speaker proclaims the
particular character of Benavente’s play guiding his audience,
controlling its expectations. Thus, Benavente’s subject is introduced
as “completely unreal,” its “entire action could never have taken
place,” and its characters “aren’t and don’t even resemble men and
women.” At this point, it is beyond all doubt that Crispin, in doing
so, simply recapitulates the whole set of key facets which form the
substance of Plautus’s artistic creation: the “unreal,” the “nowhere
existing,” the “credibly incredible characters.”

1 Argyri G. Karanasiou is Lecturer in Ancient Greek and Latin Literature at

the Department of Classics of the Saarland University, Germany. Her
most characteristic publications include: “Transcriptio: Fälschung in
minimaler Textform am Beispiel von Plutarchs Euripideszitaten”,
Verleugnete Rezeption, Fälschungen antiker Texte, Pontes Band VII, eds. W.
Kofler and A. Novokhatko (Freiburg i.Br./Berlin/Wien: Rombach
Verlag KG, 2017), 109-117; “Hieron I and Aeschylus’ Persians: re-
considering the probability of a Syracusan production” Politics and
Performance in Western Greece, eds. Heather L. Reid, Davide Tanasi and
S. Kimbell (Sioux City, Iowa: Parnassos Press, 2017) 33-54; “Non
atticissat, verum sicilicissitat (Men. 12): Plautus's Menaechmi between
the Attic Greek and Sicilian Greek comic traditions,” Philosopher Kings
and Tragic Heroes, Essays on Images and Ideas from Western Greece, eds.
Heather L. Reid and Davide Tanasi (Sioux City, IA: Parnassos Press,
2016), 281-294; “The term sumplokē in Symposion 202b1 and in Sophist
240c1ff., 259d-261c: Heidegger’s interpretation of the concept of

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 ‘interconnection’ in Platonic thought,“ Sophistes: Plato's Dialogue and
Heidegger's Lectures in Marburg (1924-25); eds Diego DeBrasi and Marko
J. Fuchs (Newcastle upon Tyne UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
2016), 113-130; “A Euripidised Clement of Alexandria or a
Christianised Euripides? The Interplay of Authority between Quoting
Author and Cited Author,” Splendide Mendax, Rethinking Fakes and
Forgeries in Classical, Late Antique, & Early Christian Literature, eds. E. P.
Cueva and J. Martinez (Groningen: Barkhuis, 2016), 331-346; “Hecuba's
erotic argument (Euripides, Hec. 812-904): a rhetoric enthymeme of
probability on stage?,” Translatio humanitatis, Festschrift zum 60.
Geburtstag von Peter Riemer, ed. Ch. Kugelmeier (St. Ingbert: Röhrig
Universitätsverlag, 2015), 77-92.
2 Philostratus, Vita Apoll. VI 19, trans. F. C. Conybeare (Loeb Classical
Library, 1912).
3 Poetae Comici Graeci (PCG), Vol. VI, 2 Menander, Men. Test. 83 K. – A,
eds. Rudolf Kassel and Colin Austin (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1998), (= Men.
Test. 32 K-Th)
4 Quint. Inst. Or. X 1, 69: “ita omnem vitae imaginem expressit, tanta in eo
inveniendi copia et eloquendi facultas, ita est omnibus rebus personis
adfectibus accommodates,” trans. Harold Edgeworth Butler (Loeb
Edition 1920-22): “so perfect is his representation of actual life, so rich is
his power of invention and his gift of style, so perfectly does he adapt
himself to every kind of circumstance, character and emotion.”
5 Donatus, De Comoedia et Tragoedia 12, The Reader’s Encyclopaedia of World
Drama, eds. John Gassner and Edward Quinn (New York: Dover, 2002),
952. Cf. also: Cicero. Replubica. 4, 13; G. Vogt-Spira, “Secundum Verum
Fingere: Wirklichkeitsnachahmung, Imagination und Fiktionalität,
Epistemologische Überlegungen zur Hellenistisch-Römischen
Literaturkonzeption,” A&A 53 (2007), 21-38. 22; Cf. M. Hose,
“Fiktionalität und Lüge, Über einen Unterschied zwischen römischer
und griechischer Terminologie,” Klassische Philologie inter disciplinas,
Aktuelle Konzepte zu Gegenstand und Methode eines Grundlagenfaches, ed. J.
P. Schwindt (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C., 2002), 271-274.
6 Donatus, De Comoedia et Tragoedia 12, trans. George Miltz, Theories of
Comedy, ed. Paul Lauter (New York: Doubleday, 1964), 27-32.
7 D. Konstan, “Menander's Slaves: the banality of violence”, Slaves and
Slavery in Ancient Greek Comic Drama, eds. B. Akrigg and R. Tordoff
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 144-158. 144..

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8
N. W. Slater, “Inventing Everything: Comic and Performative sources of
Graeco-Roman Fiction,” Ancient Comedy and Reception, Essays in Honor of
Jeffrey Henderson, ed. S. Douglas Olson (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 309-21.
311. “Agathon…is going to construct the framework of a drama. He is
rounding fresh poetical forms, [55] he is polishing them in the lathe and
is welding them; he is hammering out sentences and metaphors; he is
working up his subject like soft wax. First he models it and then he casts
it in bronze.” Aristophanes, “Women at the Thesmophoria,” The Complete
Greek Drama: Volume II, eds. Whitney Oates and Eugene O'Neill, Jr.
(New York: Random House, 1938). 52-57
9
Poetics 1451b 11-16. “In the case of comedy this has now become obvious,
for comedians construct their plots out of probable incidents and then
put in any names that occur to them... the poet must be a maker not of
verses but of stories, since he is a poet in virtue of his representation, and
what he represents is action.” Aristotle, Aristotle in 23 Volumes, v.23,
trans. W. H. Fyfe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932).
10
Regarding comic made-up characters. N. J. Lowe, “Comic Plots and the
Invention of Fiction,” The Rivals of Aristophanes, eds. D. Harvey and J.
Wilkins (London: Duckworth, 2000), 261; N. J. Lowe, “Aristophanic
Stagecraft,” Playing around Aristophanes, Essays in Celebration of the
Completion of the Edition of the Comedies of Aristophanes by Alan
Sommerstein, eds. I. Kozak and J. Rich (Oxford: Aris & Philips, 2006), 52.
11
On Alcman, see: N. W. Slater, 310. M. Finkelberg, The Birth of Literary
Fiction in Ancient Greece (Oxford 1998), 18-27. On Solon (PMG 39, transl.
Campbell) and Aristophanes’ Thesm. 49-57. See N. W. Slater, 314
referring to the mid-4th-century comic playwright Antiphanes’ Fr. 189.17-
21 (Poetry): ‘ta panta dei heurein, onomata kaina, set-up, present state, the
turning point (or the fourth act curtain), opening (…)’, and F 207. 1-6
(Tritagonist).
12
Namely fable, narrative history, biography, novel, Euripidean tragedy,
mime. On this, see N. W. Slater, 309-310.
13 P. Nixon (transl.), Plautus IV, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard

Press, 1980).
14 The threefold categorization into res verae-res fictae-res fabulosae will be

firstly introduced into literary criticism under the influence of the Roman
rhetorical tradition after 93 BCE; that is why at Plautus’s Curculio 594 the
verb “fingere“ simply signifies “imagine.“ On this, M. Hose convincingly
argues how Greek poetological vocabulary was modified in Rome after
the establishment of Gallus’s school of rhetorics in 93 BC and how traces

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 of this literary dispute can be found in Cicero’s De Oratore 2, 78 sqq.; he
explains how the Romans searched for an alternative term for pseudos,
and found the term fingere (imagine) which was translated later from the
Greek theorists with plasma. Hose, 270-274. On the triptychon res vera –
res ficta – res fabulosa within the rhetoric schools of Rome during the first
century BCE, see: G. Vogt-Spira, 35-36, who observes that res ficta, in the
sense of the verosimile, was applied to comedy and literature in general,
whereas res fabulosa defined the unreal realm of the mythos; and thus in
Rome, fictionality was not compared to the lie (mendacium, or the Greek
term pseudos).
15 Such as Pseudolus in “Pseudolus,“ Chrysalus in “Bacchides,“ Epidicus in
“Epidicus“ –being the most striking typical examples– but also Palaestrio
in “The Braggart Warrior.“
16 E. Lefèvre, “Saturnalien und Palliata”, Poetica 20 (1988), 32-46; cf. K. R.
Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome, Cambridge 1994. Cf. Slaves and
Masters in the Roman Empire, A study in social control (New York/Oxford
1987); J. Dingel, “Herren und Sklaven bei Plautus,“ Gymnasium 88
(1981), 489-50and C. Stace, “The slaves of Plautus,“ G&R 15, (1968) No
1, 64-77.
17 P. Nixon (transl.), Plautus I, Loeb Classical Library, (Cambridge: Harvard
Press, 1965), 127.
18 P. Nixon (transl.), Plautus III, Loeb Classical Library, (Cambridge: Harvard

Press, 1970), 7.
19 P. Nixon (transl.), Plautus V, Loeb Classical Library, (Cambridge: Harvard

Press, 1968), 103.

20 P. Nixon (transl.), Plautus II, Loeb Classical Library, (Cambridge: Harvard

Press, 1965), 7
21 Ibid.

22 Nixon, Plautus III, 133.

23 Nixon, Plautus I, 467.

24 K. McCarthy, “Prologues between Performance and Fiction,” Roman

Drama and Its Contexts, eds. S. Frangoulidis, S. J. Harrison, and G.

Manuwald (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 203-213. 205-208.
25 McCarthy, 210.

26 P. Nixon (transl.), Plautus III, 285.

27 A. Wessels, “Zur Exposition bei Plautus,” Der Einsatz des Dramas:

Dramenanfänge, Wissenschaftspoetik und Gattungspolitik, eds. C. Haas and

A. Polaschegg, (Freiburg i.Br.: Rombach Wisenscahften – Reihe Litterae,
2012), 59-74. 65-66.

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28 Nixon, Plautus II, 9-11.
29 A. Wessels, 63-64.
30 Nixon, Plautus II, 371.

31
Poenulus 4, 44.
32 P. Nixon Plautus IV, 7.

33
See how Quintilian describes this realism at Quintilianus, Institutio
Oratoria X 1.69, on the latin text and the translation, Cf. n. 4 above.
34 J. Blänsdorf, 246-47.

35 Cf. N. W. Slater, 316-17.

36 Nixon, Plautus V, 227.

37 I. Ruffell, “The World Turned Upside Down: Utopia and Utopianism in

the Fragments of Old Comedy,” The Rivals of Aristophanes, Studies in

Athenian Old Comedy, eds. D. Harvey and J. Wilkinsch (London: Classical
Press of Wales, 2000), 475-506. 487.
38 Nixon, Plautus V, 53.

39 The name ‘utopia’ is the result of a pun in English, since the Greek phrases

‘ou topos’ and ‘eu topos’ are pronounced in exactly the same way, namely
as /ju/. Thomas More, in his book ‘Utopia’ (1516), introduces this term
into literature, denoting a place that both is not here, and is ideal. On
this, see Ruffell, 474. This utopic scenario, which might entail an
inversion, and be aggressively expressing either a positive or a negative
critique on society, or even a total rejection of it, is defined as “anti-
utopia” or “dystopia.” On this, see Ruffell, 490-93.
40 Nixon, Loeb II, 367.

41 Nixon, Loeb II, 9.

42
Horace will later define this with boldness: pictoribus atque poetis/quidlibet
audendi semper fuit aeque potestas. AP 9-10
43
Cf. Plautus, Amphitruo, 118-119.
44 Nixon, Plautus IV, 207-209.

45
Poet. 1451b13-16.
46 Nixon, Plautus II, 57.

47
Cf. the same motive in Pseud. 692.
48
Cf. Hel. 1688-92: πολλαὶ μορφαὶ τῶν δαιμονίων…
49 J. Dingel, “Herren and Sklaven bei Plautus,” Gymnasium 88 (1981), 489-

504. 489.
50 Cf. P. Riemer on the transparency of his writing: “(sie) tragen die Spuren

ihrer Gestaltung ganz offen zur Schau.” Das Spiel im Spiel, Studien zum
plautinischen Agon in Trinummus und Rudens, BzA 75 (Stuttgart: Vieweg
and Teubner Verlag, 1996), 22.

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51 Whitmarsh rightly attributes this technique to the Aristophanic parabasis
when the chorus directly addresses the audience commenting on the
play. Beyond the Second Sophistic, 62-63
52 Whitmarsh understands this phenomenon of transgressiveness, this

shifting from the identity of the narrator to that of the author, as a

subspecies of Genette’s ‘metalepsis,’ and defines it as “mode of
impersonation.” Beyond the Second Sophistic, 59-61.
53 Nixon, Plautus IV, 193, with a slight modification of the translation at the

beginning from “But the same as a poet” to “But just like a poet.”
54 Nixon, Plautus II, 237.

55 Nixon, Plautus I, 567.

56
Jacinto Benavente, The Bonds of Interest/Los Intereses Creados, Dover Dual
Language: Spanish, ed. by Stanley Appelbaum (New York: Dover, 2003).

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