army and outstanding warriors, and with their thousand ships they overcame after ten years Priam's town of Troy, its
fortifications built by the hands of gods. But that was less than a blister on the foot in comparison with the way I'm
going to conquer my master without fleet, without army, without that great number of troops
-and so on for fifty lines, with a succession of fantastic and mutually contradictory parallels between the plot of the
play and the events of the Trojan War. When he has completed his deception he boasts (1068 ff.):
That's the way to carry out your projects properly. Now I can triumph in style, laden with booty. Safe and sound, the
city captured by a trick, I now lead my whole army home intact. But, spectators, don't be surprised that I'm not
actually celebrating a triumph: everyone does that, I can't be bothered with it. All the same, my troops will be treated
to a tipple. Now I shall take all this booty straight to the quaestor.
Zeus Visits Alcmene: phlyax vase painted by Asteas (third quarter of fourth century B.C.). The phlyakes were actors
in a popular form of south-Italian farce whose subjects included parodies of Greek myths. This particular subject
recurs in Plautus' Amphitruo, his only known play with a mythological theme, perhaps based on a 'hilarious tragedy'
by the Syracusan playwright Rhinthon (c. 300 B.C.).