THE POT OF GOLD
AND OTHER PLAYS
Advisory Editor: Betty Radice
TITUS MACCIUS PLAUTUS was born in Sarsina, Umbria, in about 254 B.C., and was originally named, after his father, Titus. Little is known of his life, but it is believed that he went to Rome when young and worked as a stage assistant. His potential as an actor was discovered and he acquired two other names: Maccius, derived perhaps from the name of a clown in popular farce, and Plautus, a cognomen meaning ‘flat-footed’.
Somehow Plautus saved enough capital to go into business as a merchant shipper, but this venture collapsed, and he worked (says the tradition) as a miller’s labourer, and in his spare time studied Greek drama. From the age of forty onwards he achieved increasing success as an adaptor of Greek comedies for the Roman stage. Much of his work seems to be original, however, and not mere translation. He was rewarded by being granted Roman citizenship. According to Cicero he died in 184 B.C.
E. F. WATLING was educated at Christ’s Hospital and University College, Oxford. His translations of Greek and Roman plays for the Penguin Classics include the seven plays of Sophocles, nine plays of Plautus, and a selection of the tragedies of Seneca. He died in 1990.
PLAUTUS
THE POT OF GOLD
THE PRISONERS
THE BROTHERS MENAECHMUS
THE SWAGGERING SOLDIER
PSEUDOLUS
TRANSLATED BY
E. F. WATLING
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This translation first published 1965
37
Copyright © E. F. Watling, 1965
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T. MACCIUS PLAUTUS (c. 254–184 B.C . ) Wrote comedies for the Roman stage, based on, and probably in part translated from, Greek comedies of the fourth and third centuries. His scenes and characters remain nominally Greek but reflect Roman manners and contemporary life and the influence of a popular taste for broad and lively rather than contemplative or romantic comedy.
A fuller discussion of the life and work of Plautus will be found in the Introduction to the first volume of this series of translations, The Rope and Other Plays (Penguin Classics).