THE DRAMATIC VALUES IN PLAUTUS

condemns35, the scene in which Periplecomenus shouts out to Philocomasium
so loudly that the soldier's household could not conceivably
help hearing, whereas he is supposed to be conveying secret
information.36 If carried out in a broadly farcical spirit, the scene
becomes potentially amusing.
Mommsen in his History37, in the coUrse of an interesting discussion
on palliatae and their Greek originals, has a far
MOMMsEN saner point of view. He says of the authors of New
Comedy:37 "They wrote not like Eupolis and
Aristophanes for a great nation, but rather for a cultivated society
which spent its time in guessing riddles and playing
at charades. Even in the dim Latin copy, through which
we chiefly know it, the grace of the original is not wholly obliterated.
persons and incidents seem capriciously or
carelessly shuffled as in a game of cards; in the original a picture
from life, it became in the reproduction a caricature."
Naturally we are not concerned with any consideration of the
value of his estimate of New Comedy. Assuredly he rates it too
highly, as later investigations have indicatedB8 But here for the
first time we arc able to quote a well-balanced appreciation of some
essential features of Plautine drama : a "capricious shuffling of
incidents" and "caricature." In fact it will be our endeavor to
show that the palliata was not a true art form, but merely an outer
shell or mold into which Plautus poured his stock of witticisms.
Still more trenchant is the conclusion of Korting in his Geschichte
des griechischen und romischen Theaters (P. 218 fl.):· "Die neue
attische Komodie und folglich auch ihr Abklatsch,
KORTING die romische Palliata, war nicht ein Lustspiel im
hochsten, im sittlichen Sinne des vVortes, sand ern ein
blosses Unterhaltungsdrama. Amusieren wollten die Komodiendichter,
nichts weiter. J edes hohere Streben lag ihncn fern.
W ohl spickten sie ihre Lustspiele mit moralischen Sentenzen.
Abel' die sch6nen Sentenzen sind eben nur Zierat, sind
nul' Verbramung einer in ihrem Kerne und IN esen durch und durch
unsittlichen Dichtung Mit del' Wahrscheinlichkeit del'
Handlung wird es sehr leicht genommen : die seltsamsten Zufiille
"Op. cit., p. 167.
36jlfil. 522 ff. (All citations from Plautus are based on the text and number­
ing of the lines in the text of Goetz and Schoell) .
37IIistory of Rome, (Transl. Dickson, Scribner, N. Y., 1900), Vol. III, p. 143.
3sE.g., LeGrand, Daos, V. supra. Cf . also N. 80, Part II.
14