Plautus

From Freepedia

Titus Maccius Plautus (born at Sarsina, Umbria in 254 B.C.) was a comic playwright in the time of the Roman Republic. The years of his life are uncertain, but his plays were first produced between about 205 BC and 184 BC. Twenty-one plays survive.

Plautus' comedies, which are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature, are all adaptations of Greek models for a Roman audience. The characters remain in Greek settings, or perhaps a Greek setting imagined by a Roman. His most typical character is the clever slave who manipulates his master, reversing the master-slave dynamic expected of such relationships in the Roman world.

Plautus' work gave ideas to many playwrights afterwards, such as William Shakespeare, Molière, Lessing and others. His comedies Miles Gloriosus and Pseudolus were also the basis for the 1962 musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

He wrote the plays Poenulus, Amphitryon, Captivi, Persa, Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus, Aulularia, Trinummus, Rudens, Mercator, Curculio, Stichus, Menaechmi and Asinaria.