M. Attius, the father of Roman comedy, was born of humble parents, in the Umbrian village of Sarsina. He flourished during the second Punic war; and his death happened n. c. 184, when Terence had reached his ninth year. Of his private circumstances we are entirely ignorant; but fortune, which had blessed him with extraordinary talents, does not appear to have been very bountiful in worldly goods. To gain a livelihood, he was compelled to have recourse to the most laborious employments; yet still he contrived to write comedies, by the sale of which he added something to his enjoyments. The number of comedies composed by Plautus, or at least known under his name, was, according to Aulus Gellius, about one hundred and thirty, of which L. Ellis considered only twenty-five as genuine productions. Gellius imagines that the others, if they were not composed by Plautus, belong at least to the poets of that period, and had been read and amended by him; so that in this manner they had acquired his style and character. Varro considered as genuine only twenty-one, which were hence called Varromiana; and perhaps a few others, from their similarity of style. Changes in the text and in the arrangement, which were brought about at the will of the editors, to whom he sold the plays, and even of the actors who were employed in performing them, became still more frequent after the death of the poet. The substitution, too, of the plays of another unknown poet, Plautus, for those of Plautus, has increased

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1. The fastidiousness of taste with which he touched his compositions, is illustrated by the account of the opening of the Republic having been found with the clauses variously transposed. Dionys. Hal. De Comp. Prol. 23. 2. Diog. Laert. in Vit. 3. Ἐν τῷ γεωργικῷ εἰλημένος ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ τῷ παραδίδονται ἀπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς ἑαυτοῦ. (Rep. vii. p. 133.) 4. Tim. p. 303. the difficulty of distinguishing the genuine productions of the poet from those erroneously ascribed to him. Thus we find grammarians and critics, such as Elius, Volcatius, Sedigitus, Claudius, and Aurelius, writing treatises respecting the genuine pieces of Plautus. The number of comedies which have been preserved, though by no means quite perfect, amounts, according to Varro, to twenty. The Querulus or Audaluria, written in prose, though found in the manuscripts of Plautus, and even cited by Servius as belonging to him, is considered by some as of a later date, probably of the time of the younger Theodosius. Vossius and Tirlemont considered Claudius Rutilius Numatianus as the author, whilst Vincent was rather inclined to suppose it the production of Phaedrus, the celebrated writer of fables. All the manuscripts of Plautus which have yet been discovered, with the exception of the Palimpsest of the Ambrosian Library, seem to be of a recent date, and must have flowed from a common source, as the same passages are corrupt in all.

It is usually supposed that we are indebted to the grammarian Priscian for the order in which we find these twenty plays arranged; and he, too, is the author of the short arguments prefixed to each comedy in some of the old manuscripts. The purity of the language proves their remote antiquity, even though we be inclined to think that Plautus is not the author. The plays are found generally in the following arrangement. Amphitruus, called by Plautus himself in the prologue a tragi-comedy, because gods and princes are the principal characters, and tragic events are brought upon the comic stage; it has been imitated by Boccaccio, Molière, and Dryden. Asinaria, in imitation of the Greek play 'Oxyzygos' of Demophilos, exhibiting in strongly marked characters the corruption of Greek manners. Audaluria, one of the best, distinguished by its Roman colouring; but its end is wanting: it is the foundation of Molière's Aeneas. Captivi, according to the opinion of the poet himself, one of his most successful efforts, which is recommended particularly by the moral feeling that pervades it. The subject is more grave, and the coarse licentiousness and extravagance which disgust us in his other plays are here thrown into the back-ground, whilst a purely moral character steps forward, without any diminution in the comic vigour and genius of the poet, who must have written it in the latter years of his life. Curculio, from the name of the parasite who acts the chief part. Casina, in imitation of the Kasina of Diphilus. Cistellaria. Epidicus, a play highly thought of by the author. Chrysalus or Bacchides, in which the prologue and beginning are wanting: the copy which Lascaris pretended to have found in Sicily is not considered as genuine, being probably the work of Petrarch. Phormio, or Mostellaria, in modern times imitated by Reynard and Addison. Meneclesmus, also imitated by Reynard, and even by Shakspeare in some parts. Miles Gloriosus, one of his most successful pieces, which reminds us of Holbein's Brahmabors. Mercator, in imitation of the Eumaeus of Philoemon. Pseudolus, one of the favourites of the poet, as appears from Cicero. Persa, represented probably about 191, and therefore to be numbered amongst the latest plays of Plautus. This is proved by the labour he has bestowed upon it, the superior manner in which it delineates character, and the skilful arrangement of the whole. It is remarkable for the introduction of Carthaginian words, the only monument of the language which remains, with the exception of coins and inscriptions; and it has therefore been frequently referred to by the learned of ancient and modern times. Persa, from which Pliny quotes some verses that are not found in the play which has come down to us. Rudens, a beautiful play, in imitation of the Greek of Diphilus. Stichus. Trinummus, in imitation of the Oxyzygos of Philoemon: after the Captivi, it is the most remarkable play, both in regard to the design of the whole, and the delineation of character, as well as in the skilful arrangement of individual parts. Truculentus, also a favourite of the poet. Besides these, we have likewise the names and fragments of many other comedies.

These comedies belong to the class of Comedie Palliatae, and are so far to be considered as free imitations of the works of the Greek comedians of the new school; yet it would be doing injustice to the talents of Plautus to suppose that he imitated slavishly the Greek originals, and copied their works without asserting his own intellectual powers, or making changes both in relation to the form and design of the whole, as well as of its individual parts. The bold manner in which he made use of the Greek materials, by which the poet was able to bring into play his natural genius and vein of comic humour, and the frequent introduction of Roman characters and customs, even into the midst of Greek plays, distinguished Plautus from the polished Terence, who adhered much more closely to the Greek originals. It marks him as the genuine poet of the people, who knew how to create a popular drama, and thereby to furnish amusement for the lower ranks of life. He sold his plays to the rich, and therefore must have written them expressly for the diversion of the people. We need scarcely doubt that the poet would have taken a still wider range, and have exhibited still more of the true national character of the Romans, if he had not had before his eyes the fate of Nevius, to warn him from the dangerous path on which he was entering. The entire loss of the Greek originals prevents us from being able to decide how much of his materials the poet borrowed, and how far he imitated them in the design and conduct of his plays. Plautus must have made more use of the productions of the Attic comic writers than of those of the Sicilian poets. Yet Epicharmus and some others he had evidently read with much care, and may also have imitated them, as he certainly did in respect to Theocritus. The prologue, which is generally thought to have been wanting to the Greek comedy, was peculiar to him and his imitators. The poet was chiefly distinguished by the raciness of his wit, and the original and spirited manner in which he treated his subjects. But as it was not the higher and more polished classes of society for whom he wrote, but rather for those in humble life, from which he himself had sprung, we may expect to find in his comedies much low buffoonery, as well as many words and expressions bearing a double meaning; and here and there he oversteps the bounds of modesty and decency, which may however be forgiven, in return for the rich vein of humour which will always stamp Plautus as one of the most original of the comic poets of Rome. For this reason, however, much caution ought to be used in introducing the young to an acquaintance with the writings of Plautus.

The language of Plautus is natural and forcible, though not always harmonious and musical. Neither is it free from a certain harshness and ruggedness, apparent in the use of old forms of words and expressions, which became obsolete in later times, though we may ascribe this to the still uncultivated state of the language. The form of the verse is not regular; indeed the prosody and metre are both treated with so much carelessness, that we are almost inclined to believe that the poet either refused to submit to the trammels of a regular metre, or was unacquainted with the laws and rules of prosody. Yet of late a more minute examination of his writings, and a more profound study of the principles of Latin prosody and metrical laws, have led writers to take a different view of the subject. Many of the ancients bestowed unmeasured praise on the language of Plautus; yet we need not be surprised at the less favourable opinion pronounced by Horace, whose taste was formed upon a purer Greek model.

The earliest edition of Plautus is that of Venice, 1472; and the best is that published by Brunck, Bipont, 1788, in three vols. 8vo.