Yale Classics - Roman Classical Literature
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Content:
Plautus:
Aulularia
Amphitryon
Terence:
Adelphoe
Ennius:
Annales
Catullus:
Poems
Lucretius:
On the Nature of Things
Julius Caesar:
The Civil War
Sallust:
History of Catiline's Conspiracy
Cicero:
De Oratore
Brutus
Horace:
The Odes
The Epodes
The Satires
The Epistles
The Art of Poetry
Virgil:
The Aeneid
The Georgics
Tibullus:
Elegies
Propertius:
Elegies
Cornelius Nepos:
Lives of Eminent Commanders
Ovid:
The Metamorphoses
Augustus:
Res Gestae Divi Augusti
Lucius Annaeus Seneca:
Moral Letters to Lucilius
Lucan:
On the Civil War
Persius:
Satires
Petronius:
Satyricon
Martial:
Epigrams
Pliny the Younger:
Letters
Tacitus:
The Annals
Quintilian:
Institutio Oratoria
Juvenal:
Satires
Suetonius:
The Twelve Caesars
Apuleius:
The Metamorphoses
Ammianus Marcellinus:
The Roman History
Saint Augustine of Hippo:
The Confessions
Claudian:
Against Eutropius
Boethius:
The Consolation of Philosophy
Plutarch:
The Rise and Fall of Roman Supremacy:
Romulus
Poplicola
Camillus
Marcus Cato
Lucullus
Fabius
Crassus
Coriolanus
Cato the Younger
Cicero
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Yale Classics - Roman Classical Literature - Plautus
Plautus, Terence, Ennius, Catullus, Lucretius, Julius Caesar, Sallust, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, Tibullus, Propertius, Cornelius Nepos, The Metamorphoses, Augustus, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Lucan, Persius, Petronius, Martial, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Quintilian, Juvenal, Suetonius, Apuleius, Ammianus Marcellinus, Saint Augustine of Hippo, Claudian, Boethius
Yale Classics – Roman Classical Literature
e-artnow, 2021
Contact: info@e-artnow.org
EAN 4066338129864
Disclaimer: This collection is created exclusively for public educational purposes. It does not constitute an endorsement or an approval by Yale University and it should not be considered as an official textbook. This collection was made for the public in interest of open learning. The selection of works in this digitalized edition is based on the list of books required for ancient literature studies publicly issued by Yale University.
Table of Contents
Plautus:
The Life and Work of Plautus
Aulularia
Amphitryon
Terence:
The Life and Work of Terence
Adelphoe
Ennius:
The Life and Work of Ennius
Annales
Catullus:
The Life and Work of Catullus
Poems and Fragments
Lucretius:
The Life and Work of Lucretius
On the Nature of Things
Julius Caesar:
The Life and Work of Julius Caesar
The Civil War
Sallust:
The Life and Work of Sallust
History of Catiline’s Conspiracy
Cicero:
The Life and Work of Cicero
De Oratore
Brutus
Horace:
The Life and Work of Horace
The Odes
The Epodes
The Satires
The Epistles
The Art of Poetry
Virgil:
The Life and Work of Virgil
The Aeneid
The Georgics
Tibullus:
The Life and Work of Tibullus
Elegies
Propertius:
The Life and Work of Propertius
Elegies
Cornelius Nepos:
The Life and Work of Cornelius Nepos
Lives of Eminent Commanders
Ovid:
The Life and Work of Ovid
The Metamorphoses
Augustus:
The Life and Work of Augustus
Res Gestae Divi Augusti
Lucius Annaeus Seneca:
The Life and Work of Seneca
Moral Letters to Lucilius
Lucan:
The Life and Work of Lucan
On the Civil War
Persius:
The Life and Work of Persius
Satires (Persius)
Petronius:
The Life and Work of Petronius
Satyricon
Martial:
The Life and Work of Martial
Epigrams
Pliny the Younger:
The Life and Work of Pliny the Younger
Letters
Tacitus:
The Life and Work of Tacitus
The Annals
Quintilian:
The Life and Work of Quintilian
Institutio Oratoria
Juvenal:
The Life and Work of Juvenal
Satires
Suetonius:
The Life and Work of Suetonius
The Twelve Caesars
Apuleius:
The Life and Work of Apuleius
The Metamorphoses
Ammianus Marcellinus:
The Life and Work of Ammianus Marcellinus
The Roman History
Saint Augustine of Hippo:
The Life and Work of Saint Augustine of Hippo
The Confessions
Claudian:
The Life and Work of Claudian
Against Eutropius
Boethius:
The Life and Work of Boethius
The Consolation of Philosophy
Plutarch:
The Life and Work of Plutarch
The Rise and Fall of Roman Supremacy:
Romulus
Poplicola
Camillus
Marcus Cato
Lucullus
Fabius
Crassus
Coriolanus
Cato the Younger
Cicero
Plautus:
Table of Contents
The Life and Work of Plautus
Table of Contents
Titus Maccius Plautus (Flatfoot) was born at Sarsina, a town of Umbria, about 254 B. C. He went to Rome while still a boy, and seems to have earned so much as a servant or assistant of actors, that he was able to leave the city and engage in trade at some other place. His business venture was a failure; he lost his money, and returned to Rome, where he hired himself out to a miller, in whose service he was when he wrote his first three plays. His first appearance with a play was probably about 224 B. C. Further details of his life are unknown. He died in 184 B. C., at the age of about seventy years. He was, therefore, a younger contemporary of Livius Andronicus and Nævius, but older than Ennius and Pacuvius.
Of the plays of Plautus twenty are extant, besides extensive fragments of another. His total production is said to have been one hundred and thirty plays, though some of these were probably wrongly ascribed to him. The plots of his plays, as of those of Terence, are usually founded upon a love affair between a young man of good family and a girl of low position and doubtful character. The young man is aided by his servant or a parasite, but his father is opposed to his having anything to do with the girl. The girl’s mother or mistress usually aids the lovers, but often has to be won over by money, which the young man and his servant have to get from his father. Sometimes the characters mentioned are duplicated, and we have two pairs of lovers, two irate fathers, two cunning slaves, etc. Other typical characters are the procurer, the parasite, the boastful soldier, and a few more, who help to bring about amusing situations, and serve as the butt of many jokes. In the end, the lovers are usually united, and the girl turns out to be of good birth, often the long-lost daughter of one of the older men in the play. Sometimes other plots are chosen, as in the Amphitruo, which is founded on the story that Jupiter, when he visited Alcmene, used to take the form of her husband Amphitryon, and the fun of the play is caused by the confusion between the real husband and the disguised god. In a few plays the plot is less decidedly a love plot, but, as a general rule, the Roman comedies had love stories for their foundation. There is, however, room for considerable variety, as may be seen by a brief sketch of the contents of the extant plays of Plautus.
The Amphitruo, bringing the Father of gods and men
into comic confusion with a mortal, and under very suspicious circumstances at that, is a burlesque, full of rather broad fun and amusing situations, perhaps the most interesting of all Latin comedies. In the Asinaria, the Casina, and the Mercator, father and son are rivals for the affection of the same girl. Of these three, the Casina is the worst in its indecency, while the other two lack interest. These plays, however, like all the comedies of Plautus, are full of animal spirits, plays on words, and clever dialogue. The Aulularia, or Pot of Gold, has a plot of little interest, but is famous for the brilliant and lifelike presentation of the chief character, the old miser Euclio. The Captivi, one of the best of the plays, has for its subject the friendship between a master and his slave. There are no female characters, and the piece is entirely free from the coarseness and immorality which disfigure most of the others. The Trinummus, or Three-penny Piece, has also friendship, not love, as its leading motive, though it ends with a betrothal. This play also is free from coarseness, and gives an attractive picture of the good old days when friend was true to friend. The Curculio is interesting chiefly through the cleverness of the parasite, who succeeds in making the rival of his employer furnish the money needed to obtain the girl. The Epidicus, the Mostellaria, and the Persa, also owe their interest to the tricks and rascalities of the parasite or the valet. The Cistellaria, only part of which is preserved, contains a love affair, but has for its chief interest the recognition between a father and his long-lost daughter. The Vidularia, too, which exists only in fragments, leads up to a recognition, this time between a father and his son. The Miles Gloriosus, a play of very ordinary plot, is distinguished for the somewhat exaggerated and farcical portrait of the braggart soldier. So the Pseudolus is a piece of character drawing, in which the perjured go-between, Ballio, is the one important figure. In the Bacchides the plot is more intricate and interesting, and the execution more brilliant, but the life depicted is that of loose women and immoral men. The Stichus has little plot, but several attractive scenes. Two women, whose husbands have disappeared, remain faithful to them, and are rewarded by having them return with great wealth. The Pœnulus is chiefly interesting on account of passages in the Carthaginian language, which have for centuries attracted the attention of linguists. In the Truculentus, a countryman comes to the city and changes his rustic manners for city polish. The scenes are witty and effective, but the plot is weak. In the Menæchmi, twin brothers come to the town of Epidamnum, and their likeness to each other causes most laughable confusion. This is the original of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors and many other modern plays of similar plot. The Rudens, or Cable, has for its subject the restoration of a long-lost daughter to her father and her union with her lover, but is distinguished from the other plays of Plautus by the evident love of nature and the fresh breath of the sea and open air that breathe through it, making it one of the most attractive of his comedies.
How much of the plots of these plays can be attributed to Plautus himself it is hard to tell. In some instances nearly all the details seem to be Greek, and probably the plays in which this is the case are simply free translations with just enough changes to make them easily understood at Rome. In other cases, as in the Stichus, the play as we have it seems to be made up of scenes only loosely strung together, arranged apparently rather for a Roman audience which cared chiefly for spectacular effect and stage by-play than for a Greek audience accustomed to weigh and criticize the excellence of the plot. In some instances, too, the Latin play is known to be made up of scenes taken from two Greek plays and put together in order to produce a single piece of more action than either of the originals. The importance of the work of the Latin playwright varies therefore considerably. There are, however, numerous passages containing references to details of Roman life, which must be in great measure original with the Roman writer; there are many plays on Latin words which could not be introduced in a mere translation from a foreign language; and in other respects also the comedies show Roman rather than Greek qualities. We must therefore attribute to Plautus a considerable share of originality, and the metrical form of his plays is naturally due to him alone.
The following passage, whatever it may owe to the Greek original, doubtless owes part of its unusual liveliness to Plautus:⁷
Sceparnio. But, O Palæmon, holy companion of Neptune, who art said to be a sharer in the labors of Hercules, what’s that I see? Dæmones.What do you see? Scep. I see two women folk sitting all alone in a boat. How the poor things are tossed about! Ah! ha! Bully for that! The current has turned the boat from the rock to the shore. No pilot could have done it better. I think I never saw bigger waves. They are safe, if they have escaped those billows. Now, now’s the danger! Oh! It has thrown one of them out. But she’s in shallow water; she’ll swim out easily. Whew! Do you see how the water threw that other one out? She’s come up again; she’s coming this way. She’s safe!
A second passage⁸ will give an idea of the style of some of the dialogue of Plautus. The speakers are a boy, Pægnium, and a maid-servant, Sophoclidisca:
Sophoclidisca. Pægnium, darling boy, good day. How do you do? How’s your health? Pægnium. Sophoclidisca, the gods bless me! Soph. How about me? Pæg. That’s as the gods choose; but if they do as you deserve, they’ll hate you and hurt you. Soph. Stop your bad talk. Pæg. When I talk as you deserve, my talk is good, not bad. Soph. What are you doing? Pæg. I’m standing opposite and looking at you, a bad woman. Soph. Surely I never knew a worse boy than you. Pæg. What do I do that’s bad, or to whom do I say anything bad? Soph. To whomever you get a chance. Pæg. No man ever thought so. Soph. But many know that it is so. Pæg. Ah! Soph. Bah! Pæg. You judge other people’s characters by your own nature. Soph. I confess I am as a pimp’s maid should be. Pæg. I’ve heard enough. Soph. What about you? Do you confess you’re as I say? Pæg. I’d confess if I were so. Soph. Go off now. You’re too much for me. Pæg. Then you go off now. Soph. Tell me this: where are you going? Pæg. Where are you going? Soph. You tell; I asked first. Pæg. But you’ll find out last. Soph. I’m not going far from here. Pæg. And I’m not going far, either. Soph. Where are you going, then, scamp? Pæg. Unless I hear first from you, you’ll never know what you ask. Soph. I declare you’ll never find out to-day, unless I hear first from you. Pæg. Is that so? Soph. Yes, it is. Pæg. You’re bad.
⁷ Rudens, 160-173.
⁸ Persa, 204-224.
Aulularia
Table of Contents
Argument I
Argument II
Dramatis Personae
Prologue
ACT I
Scene 2
ACT II
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Scene 5
Scene 6
Scene 7
Scene 8
Scene 9
ACT III
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Scene 5
Scene 6
ACT IV
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Scene 5
Scene 6
Scene 7
Scene 8
Scene 9
Scene 10
ACT V
Summary of missing text
Fragments