Titus Maccius Plautus was a Roman playwright who leads huge influence on theatre development. He mainly wrote comedies. His comedies based on Greek comedies and it’s fascinating because of its humorous. Meanwhile, Plautus was also engaging in social criticism because the five plays reflected some social problem of the Roman society.
The first play of the five assigned ones is “The Pot of Gold”. The main theme of this one is the process that how Euclio changed to a good man, or the evolution of Euclio. Plautus started with the situation that Euclio tried to make sure that no one else knew he hide a pot of gold. The first part it describes that how Euclio wanted to hide the gold and everyday he worried about others stole the pot of gold. During …show more content…
And the theme of this one is the same which also described the loyalty of slaves to his owner. In this play, the salve named Pseudolus has an owner whose name is Calidorus. Calidorus told the salve that he fell in love with a girl named Phoenicium. But unfortunately, Calidorus was unable to marry her because she was sent to a Macedonian general by his owner Ballio in order to get a large amount of money. The slave wanted to help his owner so he told the problem to Simo, who is the father of Calidorus, to raise some money to free the girl from the pimp. Fortunately, one friend of the slave named Charinus loaned the slave some money which can be used the girl in time. Because of Pseudolus work, Calidorus could finally marry the girl he loved. The theme shows that the slave tried his best to accompany his owner’s …show more content…
Someone may claim that Plautus was only writing for entertainment such as translating Greek plays to Roman own ones but actually he criticized the society inconspicuously, because his plays are full of humorous so the audience may be difficult to recognize the criticism in the plays. Without doubt, his plays give variety of details of the Roman society and Roman’s life. For example, he described the relationship between slaves and their owners such as Pseudolus and Calidorus, Philocrates and Tyndarus. Additionally, love between men and women is also well described in this plays. All of these give the audience information of the Roman society of that time. But at the same time, Plautus also found some blemish of the Roman society so another function of his plays is social criticism. He used some of the characters to represent the flaws of the society and criticize. For example, in the first paly “The Pot of Gold”, Euclio is such a character who cared nothing but just the pot of gold. Plautus might use this to criticize the phenomenon that people only cared about money and ignored anything else. Another example is Heigo, who treated Tynadrus bad at first but finally he found he was his long last son so he started to realize his behavior was wrong. Plautus might also use this to criticize because at that time Romans usually treated their slaves much worse than
The first play of the five assigned ones is “The Pot of Gold”. The main theme of this one is the process that how Euclio changed to a good man, or the evolution of Euclio. Plautus started with the situation that Euclio tried to make sure that no one else knew he hide a pot of gold. The first part it describes that how Euclio wanted to hide the gold and everyday he worried about others stole the pot of gold. During …show more content…
And the theme of this one is the same which also described the loyalty of slaves to his owner. In this play, the salve named Pseudolus has an owner whose name is Calidorus. Calidorus told the salve that he fell in love with a girl named Phoenicium. But unfortunately, Calidorus was unable to marry her because she was sent to a Macedonian general by his owner Ballio in order to get a large amount of money. The slave wanted to help his owner so he told the problem to Simo, who is the father of Calidorus, to raise some money to free the girl from the pimp. Fortunately, one friend of the slave named Charinus loaned the slave some money which can be used the girl in time. Because of Pseudolus work, Calidorus could finally marry the girl he loved. The theme shows that the slave tried his best to accompany his owner’s …show more content…
Someone may claim that Plautus was only writing for entertainment such as translating Greek plays to Roman own ones but actually he criticized the society inconspicuously, because his plays are full of humorous so the audience may be difficult to recognize the criticism in the plays. Without doubt, his plays give variety of details of the Roman society and Roman’s life. For example, he described the relationship between slaves and their owners such as Pseudolus and Calidorus, Philocrates and Tyndarus. Additionally, love between men and women is also well described in this plays. All of these give the audience information of the Roman society of that time. But at the same time, Plautus also found some blemish of the Roman society so another function of his plays is social criticism. He used some of the characters to represent the flaws of the society and criticize. For example, in the first paly “The Pot of Gold”, Euclio is such a character who cared nothing but just the pot of gold. Plautus might use this to criticize the phenomenon that people only cared about money and ignored anything else. Another example is Heigo, who treated Tynadrus bad at first but finally he found he was his long last son so he started to realize his behavior was wrong. Plautus might also use this to criticize because at that time Romans usually treated their slaves much worse than