Theatre At Pompeii: Initially constructed during the second century B.C., it is the earliest surviving theatre in Italy
outside the Greek colonies; auditoria like this might have housed the first performances of plays by Plautus and
Terence. Its present form, however, is the result of extensive modernization in the time of Augustus.
But Plautus' main interest was not so much in reproducing dramatic structures as in using them as an opportunity for
virtuoso display. We have seen from Bacchides that he wrote a creative adaptation rather than a slavish translation of
Menander's text. In many respects he can be said to have changed radically the type of comedy which the plays
contain. Consistency of characterization and plot development are cheerfully sacrificed for the sake of an immediate
effect. The humour resides less in the irony of the situation than in the cracking of jokes and the perpetration of puns.
Instead of characters in a dramatic context we sometimes see comedians going through a routine. Three things in
particular stand out: the glorification of the scheming slave, the musical element, and the creation of an imaginary
world which is set in Greece but includes many Italian features.
Plautus did not invent the scheming slave: the Greek original of Bacchides was called The Double Deceiver, and the
part played in it by Syrus must have been similar at least in outline to the part played by Chrysalus in Plautus' play.
But Chrysalus dominates Bacchides not simply by his scheming (which is not particularly ingenious) but by his
boasting. His plan to trick his master out of money is seen as a military campaign, and his description of it is
embroidered at some points with triumph imagery which is peculiarly Roman. Chrysalus has an extended monologue
in which he compares his campaign with that of the Greeks in the Trojan War (925 ff):
They say the two brothers, the sons of Atreus, did a great deed when with their weapons and their horses, with their