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Mostellaria is a play by the Roman author Plautus. Its name translates from Latin as "The Ghost (play)" (with the word fabula understood in the title). [1] [2] The play is believed to be an adaptation of a lost comedy of the Athenian poet Philemon called Phasma (the Ghost). [1] It is set in a street in the city of Athens.
A young man named Philolaches is having a great time while his father Theopropides is overseas on business. Philolaches has borrowed a lot of money to buy the freedom of the slave-girl he loves. One day, he is having a party in the street with his friends, when his slave Tranio interrupts the merry-making to announce that Philolaches' father has returned unexpectedly and will arrive from the harbour at any minute. Amid the general panic, Tranio has an idea. He hustles Philolaches and his friends into the house and locks the door. The father now arrives. Tranio greets him respectfully but pretends that it is dangerous to enter the house because it is haunted by the ghost of a man once killed there.
Unfortunately, at this moment a money-lender turns up to claim the money that Philolaches borrowed. Tranio thinks quickly and pretends that the money was borrowed to buy the house next door. Even after Philolaches' father meets the real owner of the house, Tranio manages to hide the truth for some time, but he is finally found out and jumps on top of an altar to escape punishment. Fortunately, all ends happily when one of Philolaches' friends offers to repay the debt, allowing the father to forgive his son. Even Tranio is forgiven.
The play is set in a street in Athens. The houses of Theopropides and his neighbour Simo face the audience. Between them is a narrow alley leading to the garden door of Simo's house. There is an altar between the stage and the audience. To the audience's left the road leads to the harbour, and on the right to the forum. [1]
Plautus's plays are traditionally divided into five acts; these are referred to here for convenience, since many editions make use of them. However, it is not thought that they go back to Plautus's time, since no manuscript contains them before the 15th century. [3] Also, the acts themselves do not always match the structure of the plays, which is more clearly shown by the variation in metres.
The different scenes of the play are clearly differentiated by changes of metre. The usual pattern is to begin each section with iambic senarii (which were spoken without music), then a scene of music in various metres. Each section is rounded off by lively trochaic septenarii, which were apparently recited or sung to the accompaniment of tībiae (a pair of reed pipes). Moore calls this the "ABC" metrical succession. [4] In this play, the pattern is varied from ABC, ABC... as follows:
C. W. Marshall (2006), however, who sees the metrical sections (or "arcs") as always starting with iambic senarii, divides the play into just four sections as follows: [5]
The play contains five songs: three of them polymetric, using a range of different metres, involving young men and slaves; and one each of cretic and bacchiac, involving the old men Simo and Theopropides. There is also a section of 90 lines of iambic septenarii (a metre often associated with prostitutes) [6] when the prostitute Philematium is chatting with her maid Scapha.
Mostellaria is one of several Plautus plays used as inspiration for the Stephen Sondheim, Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart 1962 musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum . The character Erroneous returns from being abroad to be told his house is haunted and must walk seven times around the seven hills of Rome to remove the ghosts.
Kevin P. Joyce's play When the Cat's Away is loosely based on Mostellaria, transposing the story from Athens to modern day Nantucket.
Rachel Beth Cunning simplified and adapted the play to create more comprehensible reading materials for Latin 3 and Latin 4 students in a high school classroom. [8]
Andria is a Roman comedy adapted by Terence from two Greek plays by Menander the first being Samia and the other being Perinthia. It was the first play by Terence to be presented publicly, and was performed in 166 BC during the Ludi Megalenses. It became the first of Terence's plays to be performed post-antiquity, in Florence in 1476. It was adapted by Machiavelli, whose Andria was likewise the author's first venture into playwriting and was the first of Terence's plays to be translated into English ca. 1520. The second English translation was by the Welsh writer Morris Kyffin in 1588.
Poenulus, also called The Little Carthaginian or The Little Punic Man, is a Latin comedic play for the early Roman theatre by Titus Maccius Plautus, probably written between 195 and 189 BC. The play is noteworthy for containing text in Carthaginian Punic, spoken by the character Hanno in the fifth act. Another remarkable feature is the sympathetic portrayal of the character of the Carthaginian Hanno at a time when only a few years previously the Romans had suffered huge losses in the 2nd Punic War fought against the Carthaginian general Hannibal.
Menaechmi, a Latin-language play, is often considered Plautus' greatest play. The title is sometimes translated as The Brothers Menaechmus or The Two Menaechmuses.
Pseudolus is a play by the ancient Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. It is one of the earliest examples of Roman literature. Pseudolus was first shown in 191 B.C. during the Megalesian Festival, which was a celebration for the Greek Goddess Cybele. The temple for worship of Cybele in Rome was completed during the same year in time for the festival.
Rudens is a play by Roman author Plautus. Its name translates from Latin as "The Rope;" in English translation it has been called The Shipwreck or The Fisherman's Rope. It is a Roman comedy, which describes how a girl, Palaestra, stolen from her parents by pirates, is reunited with her father, Daemones, ironically, by means of her pimp, Labrax. The play is set on the coast of Cyrene, in north Africa, although the characters come from a range of cities around the Mediterranean, most notably, Athens.
Aulularia is a Latin play by the early Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. The title literally means The Little Pot, but some translators provide The Pot of Gold, and the plot revolves around a literal pot of gold which the miserly protagonist, Euclio, guards zealously. The play's ending does not survive, though there are indications of how the plot is resolved in later summaries and a few fragments of dialogue.
Captivi is a Latin play by the early Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. The title has been translated as The Captives or The Prisoners, and the plot focuses on slavery and prisoners of war. Although the play contains much broad humor, it is a relatively serious treatment of significant themes compared to most of Plautus’ other comedies. Plautus himself points out the difference in tone between this play and his other works in Captivi’s prologue.
Casina is a Latin comedy or farce by the early Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. Set in ancient Athens, the play describes how an Athenian gentleman and his son are both in love with the same slave-girl, Casina. The old man tries to conduct a secret affair with Casina by having her marry his farm-manager; but his plan is foiled by his wife, who dresses her son's armour-bearer up as the bride and sends him into the bridal chamber in place of Casina.
Bacchides is a Latin comedy by the early Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. The title has been translated as The Bacchises, and the plot revolves around the misunderstandings surrounding two sisters, each called Bacchis, who work in a brothel. It includes Plautus' frequent theme of a clever servant outwitting his supposed superior to get money.
Truculentus is a comedic Latin play by the early Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. Following the relationships between prostitutes and their customers, it contains perhaps Plautus's most cynical depiction of human nature in comparison with his other surviving plays.
Trinummus is a comedic Latin play by the early Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. It is called Trinummus "The Three Coins" because in the play an imposter is paid three coins to dress up as a messenger from Syria. According to the prologue, the play is adapted from one called Thesaurus by the Greek playwright Philemon.
Amphitryon or Amphitruo is a Latin play for the early Roman theatre by playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. It is Plautus’s only play on a mythological subject. The play is mostly extant, but has a large missing section in its latter portion. The plot of the play involves Amphitryon’s jealous and confused reaction to Alcmena’s seduction by Jupiter, and ends with the birth of Hercules. There is a subplot in which Jupiter's son Mercury, keeping watch outside the house while his father is inside, has fun teasing first Amphitryon's servant Sosia, and then Amphitryon himself.
Curculio, also called The Weevil, is a Latin comedic play for the early Roman theatre by Titus Maccius Plautus. It is the shortest of Plautus's surviving plays.
Mercator, or The Merchant, is a Latin comedic play for the early Roman theatre by Titus Maccius Plautus. It is based on the Greek play Emporos by the Greek comedy playwright Philemon. It is believed to be among Plautus's first plays, possibly written around 206 BC. The central conflict involves a father who falls in love with a slave girl who is, unbeknownst to the father, his son's lover.
Epidicus is an ancient Roman comedy written by T. Maccius Plautus. It is said to have been one of Plautus's favorite works. Epidicus is the name of the main character, who is a slave. The plot takes many turns as Epidicus tries to please his master's son, Stratippocles.
Asinaria is a comic play written in Latin by the Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. In the play an Athenian gentleman, Demaenetus, tells his slave Libanus that he knows his son Argyrippus is having an affair with the prostitute Philaenium next door, and he asks him to try to find some money to pay for the affair. When by chance a stranger comes bringing money owed for some donkeys sold by Saurea, the steward of Demaenetus's wife, Libanus's fellow-slave Leonida pretends to be Saurea, and the two slaves trick the stranger into giving them the money. Argyrippus is given the money on condition that his father is to be allowed to enjoy the first night with the prostitute. But a jealous rival, Diabolus, snitches on Demaenetus to his wife Artemona, who storms to the brothel and prevents her husband from enjoying the girl as well.
Cistellaria is a comedic Latin play by the early Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. The story, set in the Greek town of Sicyon, concerns a girl called Selenium who was exposed as a baby and brought up by a courtesan called Melaenis. By a happy chance it is discovered that her birth mother, married to a senator Demipho, lives next door, enabling her to marry the young man Alcesimarchus who loves her.
Stichus is a comedic Latin play by the early Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. According to a notice transmitted with the play, Stichus was first performed in 200 BC. The same notice informs us that it was adapted from the play Adelphoe by Menander.
Persa is a comedic Latin play by the early Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. Unusually in this play, the lover is not a wealthy young man helped by a cunning slave, but the cunning slave himself. In order to repay the money he has borrowed to buy his girlfriend from the pimp Dordalus who owns her, Toxilus persuades his friend Sagaristio to dress up as a Persian, in order to trick the pimp Dordalus into paying a large sum to buy a girl who is dressed as an Arabian captive, but who is in fact free. The girl's father Saturio then appears and reclaims his daughter.
Roman comedy is mainly represented by two playwrights, Plautus and Terence. The works of other Latin playwrights such as Livius Andronicus, Naevius, Ennius, and Caecilius Statius are now lost except for a few lines quoted in other authors. 20 plays of Plautus survive complete, and 6 of Terence.
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