![Start of an excerpt from Querolus, misattributed to Plautus, in a 12th- or 13th-century copy of the Florilegium Gallicum [fr], an anthology of classical authors BnF, Lat. 17903, fol. 124v, excerpt Querolus.png](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/71/BnF%2C_Lat._17903%2C_fol._124v%2C_excerpt_Querolus.png/220px-BnF%2C_Lat._17903%2C_fol._124v%2C_excerpt_Querolus.png)
Querolus (The Complainer) or Aulularia (The Pot) is an anonymous Latin comedy from late antiquity, the only Latin drama to survive from this period and the only ancient Latin comedy outside the works of Plautus and Terence. [1]
Querolus (The Complainer) or Aulularia (The Pot) is an anonymous Latin comedy from late antiquity, the only Latin drama to survive from this period and the only ancient Latin comedy outside the works of Plautus and Terence. [1]
In his prologue to the spectators the author first says Aululariam hodie sumus acturi (‘We are going to perform the Aulularia today’), [2] then offers a choice of title: Querolus an Aulularia haec dicatur fabula, vestrum hinc iudicium, vestra erit sententia (‘Whether this play is called Querolus or Aulularia will be your judgement, your decision’). [3] The archetype of the surviving manuscripts seem to have had the title Aulularia, along with a false attribution to Plautus, who had also written an Aulularia . Modern scholars generally use the title Querolus to avoid confusion with Plautus’ Aulularia.
Date and place of composition are uncertain. [4] Mention of lawlessness ad Ligerem (‘by the Loire’) [5] suggests a Gallic origin and perhaps an early fifth-century date, if it refers to a Bagaudae uprising. The work is addressed and dedicated to a certain Rutilius (perhaps Rutilius Namatianus), a vir illustris of higher social standing than the author. [6]
Although the text is printed as prose, the author was clearly trying to give the effect of the metres of Plautus. [7] Sentences and phrases regularly end with the line endings of a trochaic septenarius or iambic senarius; and there is a tendency to trochaic sequences at the start of the next unit. In the middle however the metrical form of a Plautine verse is only occasionally preserved. The language used also has many reminiscences of early Latin comedy, both occasional archaisms and imitations or borrowings of whole phrases. [8]
The plot concerns the attempt by a pretended magician, Mandrogerus, to cheat the poor and grumpy Querolus of a treasure hidden in his house. Querolus’ father Euclio, dying abroad, had confided the location of the treasure to Mandrogerus. After Euclio’s death Mandrogerus was supposed to show Querolus the treasure and receive a half share as reward. Instead he tricks Querolus into allowing him to remove his ‘bad fortune’ from his house – the pot with the gold within it. On inspection, the pot seems to be a funerary urn, with only ashes inside it. Mandrogerus throws the pot back into Querolus’ house. It breaks and reveals the gold hidden within. When Mandrogerus learns of the gold, he returns and attempts to claim his share by his agreement with Euclio; but his own account leaves him with a choice of a charge of theft or sacrilege. Finally Querolus takes pity on him and allows him to remain as his dependent.
It seems unlikely that the author of the work was expecting it to be performed on stage in its original context. More probably it may have been read out as an entertainment at a banquet. [9] But it is clear that the play is written to be performable within the conventions of ancient drama; and many aspects of dramatic technique, such as the preparation and motivation of entrances and exits, are carefully observed. [10]
Many scenes are extended far beyond the demands of the plot for their own interest. The play opens with an extended discussion between Querolus and the household Lar, who, in the style of popular philosophy, compels Querolus to admit that his dissatisfaction with life is unjustified and that there is nothing that he can reasonably desire. Querolus’ slave, Pantomalus, has a long monologue complaining of his unreasonable master, which rather reveals his own idleness and dishonesty. Mandrogerus advises Querolus about the various occult powers from which one can seek aid, a scene mocking superstitious beliefs, but also, perhaps, covertly alluding to corrupt civil servants, whose favour must be sought with bribes.
There are several similarities to Plautus’ Aulularia in the play: the grumpy character of Querolus; a pot of gold; the appearance of the Lar of his house and his role in leading Querolus to discover the gold; a theft. In addition the grumpy house owner in Plautus is called Euclio, the name of Querolus’ father; some see the work as a kind of sequel to Plautus’ play. [11]
The play had some success in the Middle Ages and provided Vitalis of Blois in the twelfth century with the model for his own Aulularia. [12] Since the renaissance, however, it has been largely neglected. One exception is the satirical novelist Thomas Love Peacock, who devoted an essay to it in his Horae Dramaticae of 1852. [13]
The first printed edition is that of Pierre Daniel (Paris 1564). [14] Only the most recent critical editions, Jacquemard-Le Saos (1994) and Brandenburg (2024) make use of an important witness, the seventeenth century copy of a lost manuscript from Reims. [15] The ending of the work is missing (although evidently the plot is complete and very little text has been lost). In the manuscripts, it is followed without a break by the (also fragmentary) Lex convivalis , which some regard as a part of the play.
Titus Maccius Plautus was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by Livius Andronicus, the innovator of Latin literature. The word Plautine refers to both Plautus's own works and works similar to or influenced by his.
Lucius Livius Andronicus was a Greco-Roman dramatist and epic poet of the Old Latin period during the Roman Republic. He began as an educator in the service of a noble family, producing Latin translations of Greek works, including Homer's Odyssey. The translations were meant, at first, as educational devices for the school which he founded. He also wrote works for the stage—both tragedies and comedies—which are regarded as the first dramatic works written in the Latin language. His comedies were based on Greek New Comedy and featured characters in Greek costume. Thus, the Romans referred to this new genre by the term comoedia palliata or fabula palliata, meaning "cloaked comedy," the pallium being a Greek-style cloak. The Roman biographer Suetonius later coined the term "half-Greek" of Livius and Ennius. The genre was imitated by later generations of playwrights, and Andronicus is accordingly regarded as the father of Roman drama and of Latin literature in general; that is, he was the first man of letters to write in Latin. Varro, Cicero, and Horace, all men of letters during the subsequent Classical Latin period, considered Livius Andronicus to have been the originator of Latin literature. He is the earliest Roman poet whose name is known.
Rutilius Claudius Namatianus was a Roman Imperial poet, best known for his Latin poem, De reditu suo, in elegiac metre, describing a coastal voyage from Rome to Gaul in 417. The poem was in two books; the exordium of the first and the greater part of the second have been lost. What remains consists of about seven hundred lines.
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.
Lares were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an amalgam of these.
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.
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, written circa 200 BCE. 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.
Mostellaria is a play by the Roman author Plautus. Its name translates from Latin as "The Ghost (play)". The play is believed to be an adaptation of a lost comedy of the Athenian poet Philemon called Phasma. It is set in a street in the city of Athens.
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.
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.
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.
Brevis brevians, also known as iambic shortening or correptio iambica, is a metrical feature of early Latin verse, especially Plautus and Terence, in which a pair of syllables which are theoretically short + long can be scanned as a pair of short syllables. The plural is breves breviantes.
