We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2013
The Aulularia has always been one of the most popular and most studied of Plautus' plays, both because of its intrinsic interest and quality and also because of its later influence in the European dramatic tradition. In the large amount of scholarly work which has been devoted to this play the identity of the author of Plautus' Greek model and the alterations which Plautus may have made in this model have been much discussed. Research on these questions was, however, placed on a quite new footing in 1958 by the publication of Menander's Dyscolus: the striking similarities between these plays have now produced a loose consensus of scholarly opinion, although the dissenting voice can still be heard. The two conclusions upon which most scholars who have written recently on this subject seem to agree are that the Plautine changes to the Greek model were relatively minor, consisting in the omission of one or two scenes and the expansion of a couple of others, and that Menander was the author of the Greek original. Although it will become clear that I am very sceptical of the former of these propositions and have at least an open mind on the latter, the aim of this present paper is simply to re-open discussion of the relationship between the Aulularia and its Greek original by pointing to some problems which have been neglected and to others which have not yet been satisfactorily answered. In Part I I discuss the division of the Greek original into five acts and the conclusions to be drawn from difficulties in this division and in Part II I examine a further problem in the Aulularia which might have some bearing on the question of the authorship of the Greek original.
1. In the footnotes the following works are cited by author name only Batzer, S., Die Umformung der Aulularia (1956), Ed. Fraenkel, , Plautinisches im Plautus (1922)Google Scholar which was translated by Munari, F. as Elementi Plautini in Plauto (1960)Google Scholar, Ludwig, W., ‘Aulularia-Probleme’, Philologus 105 (1961) 44–71 and 247–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Webster, T. B. L., Studies in Menander ed. 2 (1960) Volume XVI of the Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt (1970)Google Scholar is cited as Ménandre and all references to Menander, unless otherwise indicated, follow the numeration of Sandbach's Oxford text.
2. Cf. Kraus, W., ‘Menanders Dyskolos und das Original der Aulularia’ in Muth, R. (ed ), Serta philologica aenipontana (1962) 185–90Google Scholar and Corbato, C., Studi Menandrei (1965) 104–7Google Scholar The differences between the two plays are well discussed by Schäfer, A., Menanders Dyskolos: Untersuchungen zur dramatischen Technik (1965) 100–3Google Scholar and MacCary, W. and Willcock, M., Plautus: Casina (1976) 13–16Google Scholar.
3. The most important warnings against the assumption of a Menandrean origin for the Aulularia have come from Sandbach, F. H.: cf. Ménandre 97–8Google Scholar and the note on p. 4 of the Gomme–Sandbach commentary.
4. Cf. Webster, T. B. L., Studies in later Greek comedy ed. 2 (1970) 190–1Google Scholar and Arnott, W. G.,‘Time, plot and character in Menander’, Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 2 (1979) 343–60Google Scholar.
5. I think it most unlikely that Plautus has omitted scenes before the prologue, cf. Holzberg, N., Menander: Untersuchungen zur dramatischen Technik (1974) 43–5Google Scholar; the opposite case is argued by Ludwig 70-1. In extant Comedy divine prologists announce the next entry if the prologue begins the play (Men. Dysc., Plaut. Amph., Aul., Rudens: Plaut., Trin. 17Google Scholar is a special case), but do not do so if the prologue is postponed (Men. Aspis, Periceir., Plaut. Cist.) This may not, however, have been an invariable practice and Plautus himself could be responsible for Aul. 37-9, Webster 122 n. 4 sees Eur. Hecuba 52-3 as the model for Aul. 37-9, but the dramatic situations are quite different.
6. Ludwig 259-62 demonstrates that Eunomia and Lyconides do not share a house with Megadorus; this is, in any case, implied by the silence of the prologue as was realised by Kunst, K., ‘Zur Aulularia des Plautus’, Zeitschrift für die österreichischen Mittelschulen 1 (1923/1924) 212–36, p. 214Google Scholar.
7. For a shopping-trip ‘covered’ by an act-division cf. Men., Samia 198–283Google Scholar, Plaut., Bacch. 100–109Google Scholar and, presumably, Plaut., Menaechmi 225–73Google Scholar.
8. Christopher Lowe points out that the break after 700 is more likely as Eucho's daughter is in labour at 691 but has been delivered of her child by 798.
9. I have found only Kuiper, W., The Greek Aulularia (1940) 32–3Google Scholar, but cf. also Legrand, P., Daos (1910) 479Google Scholar and Burckhardt, Georgine, Die Akteinteilung in der neuen griechischen und in der römischen Komödie (1927) 50Google Scholar.
10. Cf. Lefèvre, E. in Seeck, G. A. (ed ), Das griechische Drama (1979) 342–3Google Scholar.
11. In favour of a break after 807 Christopher Lowe argues that the slave needs time to hide the gold and I would add that a break at this point would help to explain the curious similarity between 696-700 and 804-7; Plautus may have simply repeated an earlier passage when he needed to keep Lyconides on the stage to disguise the act-division I cannot follow the discussion of this problem in Batzer 135–9.
12. The cooks may well have reappeared at the end of the play (cf T. Williams apud Arnott, W. G., Phoenix 18 (1964) 236–7Google Scholar) and at Men., Aspis 218Google Scholar a cook complains that his work is interrupted when 
which reminds one of the end of the Aulularia; the cook in the Aspis is certainly referring to a stock comic situation, if not in fact to a particular scene from a particular play.
13. On this scene cf. Burck, E., ‘Zur Aulularia des Plautus (Vs. 280–370)”, WS 69 (1956) 265–77Google Scholar (=Vom Menschenbild in der romischen Literatur (1966) 36–44Google Scholar) and Klingner, F., ‘Ueber eine Szene der plautinischen Aulularia (280–349)’, SIFC 27/8 (1956) 157–70Google Scholar (=Studien zur griechischen und römischen Literatur (1964) 114–25Google Scholar).
14. Cf. Fraenkel 137–40 (=Elementi 130–2).
15. Cf. Ludwig, W. in Ménandre 49–59Google Scholar.
16. The 39 Latin trimeters of the Lar's speech compare with 51 Greek trimeters in the prologue of Menander, 's Aspis, 49Google Scholar in the Dyscolus, 51 in the extant part of the Periceiromene prologue and 53 Latin ones in the divine part of the Cistellaria prologue, to consider only Menandrean examples and not much longer prologues such as those of Mercury in the Amphitruo and Arcturus in the Rudens. Particularly striking in the Lar's speech is the brevity of his description of Euclio's character which is to be contrasted with Pan's description of Knemon in the Dyscolus and Tyche's description of Smikrines in the Aspis; it is, I think, partly as a result of this that scholars have been able to doubt whether auiditas really is a part of Euclio's innate nature.
17. Krieger, A., De Aululariae Plautinae exemplari Graeco (1914) 24Google Scholar, and Konstan, D., Arethusa 10 (1977) 309Google Scholar, think that the gold is still hidden in the hearth during the first part of the play and Klotz, A., Philologische Wochenschrift 61 (1941) 590–1Google Scholar, supposes that after trying a number of locations Euclio had put the gold back in the hearth.
18. This temple is missing from the stage-setting in Nixon's Loeb edition and cf. Wagner on v. 102, ‘there is a temple of Fides in the vicinity’.
19. If Pataikos' house was on the stage in Menander's Periceiromene this was presumably pointed out in the lost part of that prologue in which reference must have been made to him, cf. Sandbach, Gomme, Menander pp. 501–2Google Scholar. In the Cistellaria it is stated before the postponed prologue that Demipho and Phanostrata live on the stage (100) and it is also probable that in Menander's play these characters appeared in the first act in a scene which Plautus has excised, cf. Webster 92 and Ludwig, W. in Ménandre 54–5Google Scholar; the Greek prologist may also have used a deictic to make their house clear, like 
at Men., Dysc. 24Google Scholar If Melaenis' house was also on the stage (cf Woytek, E., ‘Ein Cistellariaproblem”, WS 84 (1971) 110–22Google Scholar), then the lena identifies this by huic meretrici in v. 133.
20. Cf. n. 5 supra.
21. This is the view of Batzer (p. 1); in Aeschylus' Eumenides the priestess must leave by a side-exit at 63, but there this abandonment of the shrine has obvious symbolic importance.
22. Cf. Abel, K., Die Plautusprologe (1955) 43Google Scholar.
23. That this door represented a temple might, of course, have been made clear by special decoration of some kind, but in the ancient theatre audiences were not normally left to infer such things by themselves On the Roman legal joke with which Euclio leaves the stage (v. 584-6) cf. Watson, A., ZRG 79 (1962) 329–34Google Scholar.
24. For the problem of the two slaves in the Aulularia cf. Ludwig 255-8 and Bader, B., Szenetitel und Szeneneinteilung bei Plautus (1970) 112–6Google Scholar. Marcovich, M., Illinois Classical Studies 2 (1977) 212–15Google Scholar, points out that we might have expected Lyconides' slave rather than Megadorus' to be called ‘Strobilos’.
25. The Greek bird might have been a κοραξ, but an owl is as likely, cf. Men. fr. 620.11 K-T, Theophr. Char. 16 8Google Scholar, West, M. L. on Hes. WD 747Google Scholar.
26. Such a hiatus in the middle of an act is most unusual in Greek drama; cf. ZPE 36 (1979) 24–8Google Scholar.
27. This imaginary noise is never explained, although an explanation is hardly necessary for a character such as Euclio: cf. Xen. Symp. 4.30, Lucian, , Gallus 29Google Scholar, Hor. Sat. 1.1.76–7, Rosivach, V. J., TAPhA 101 (1970) 450–1Google Scholar; Euclio's similar behaviour at 202-3, 242-50 and 444-9 is, however, either explicitly motivated or subsequently explained.
28. Cf. Legrand (n. 9) 403–4 and Norwood, G., Plautus and Terence (1932) 80–1Google Scholar.
29. The other examples are Menaechmi 966-89, Mostell. 858-84 and Pseud. 1103-23; cf. Fraenkel 243-5 (=Elementi 234–6 and 430) and Williams, G., Tradition and onginality in Roman poetry (1968) 580Google Scholar It is true that a feature which is common in Latin comedy is likely to have a Greek ancestry (cf Bain, D., Actors and audience (1977) 154–5Google Scholar) and Men. fr. 351 K-T might come from such a monologue, but what is important is the prominence and frequency of this motif in Plautus.
30. Cf. Webster 121. Ludwig's explanation (69–70) of these difficulties is quite unconvincing.
31. Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie und Paedagogik 91 (1865) 56–7Google Scholar.
32. Wagner, W., De Plauti Aulularia (1864) 27–9Google Scholar Wagner is followed by Ussing and Marcovich (n. 24) 213 n. 55.
33. Cf. Thierfelder, A., De rationibus interpolationum Plautinarum (1929) 77Google Scholar, Batzer 98-102.
34. This was the view of Krieger (n. 17) and Kuiper (n. 9).
35. For slapstick as a characteristic of Plautine comedy cf. Jachmann, G., Plautinisches und Attisches (1931Google Scholar) passim.
36. Any complete account of the Fides-scene would have to explain Euclio's correct description of Greek marriage practice in 613 (cf. Men., Samia 157–9Google Scholar), although this is not a serious objection to the thesis of Plautine workmanship Ludwig's suggestion (p. 63) that the third act of the Greek play ended after II.7 is most unlikely as that act would then be entirely devoted to the slave's conversation with the two cooks: Webster (p. 122), however, supposes that Plautus has omitted scenes featuring Lyconides, his slave and Staphyla after 362. On the short monologue of the cook at 398–405 cf. Fraenkel 163 n. 1 (=Elementi 155 n. 1) who demonstrates that this speech is almost certainly from the Greek play; to his examples should probably be added Men., Epitrep. 603–9Google Scholar and for the thought Webster 124 compares Ter., Adelphoe 375–81Google Scholar.
37. Cf. Jachmann, G., Berliner Philologische Wochenschrift 35 (1915) 1015Google Scholar, and Ludwig, W. in Ménandre 76–7Google Scholar.
38. Merc. 225-71 ∼ Rudens 593-614, cf. Leo, Fr., Plautinische Forschungen ed. 2 (1912) 162–5Google Scholar, Fraenkel 198-206 (=Elementi 187-95).
39. Cf. Leo (n. 38) 164 n. 1, Marx, 's edition of the Rudens pp. 269–71Google Scholar.
40. Sidonius Apollinaris' description of the Epitrepontes and the Hecyra as similis argumenti (Epist. 4.12.1) is correct if argumentum means the 
of the two plays; for the ancient division between argumentum and oratio cf. Jocelyn, H. D., The tragedies of Ennius (1967) 24–8Google Scholar.
41. The reading Schedia is rejected by Marx, , Rudens p. 273Google Scholar. For a detailed discussion of the Vidularia cf. Friedrich, W., Euripides und Diphilos (1953) 199–216Google Scholar.
42. In the Georgos Gorgias helps the distressed Kleainetos 
(58-9) and many scholars have picked up this clue; cf. Gomme–Sandbach pp. 106-7 Plaut., Rudens 410Google Scholar where Ampelisca says that the priestess Ptolemocratia helped Palaestra and herself haud secus quam si ex se simus natae is perhaps a warning against overconfidence in the case of the Georgos.
43. For this motif cf. also Sosicrates fr. 1 Kock, Adesp. fr. 9 Kock and Ter., Adelphoe 849Google Scholar (from Menander).
44. The conflict between Megadorus and Lyconides finds its closest parallel in Menander's Georgos (and cf. also Ter., Adelphoe 636–712Google Scholar); the misunderstanding between Lyconides, and Euclio, in Aulularia IV.10Google Scholar is very like the scene between Moschion and his father in the fourth act of the Samia: cf. Katsouris, A., Tragic patterns in Menander (1975) 140–3Google ScholarAulularia 255-387 is strikingly like the sequence of action at Samia 170–404.
45. Cf. Handley's commentary pp. 214-15.
46. On Euclio's character cf. Enk, P., ‘De Euclionis Plautini moribus’, Mnemosyne 2 (1935) 281–90Google Scholar, Ludwig 55–8 and Marcovich (n. 24) Euclio's denial of fire and water is a particularly anti-social act; cf. Plaut., Rudens 434Google Scholar (=438 Marx) cur tu aquam grauare, amabo, quam hostis hosti commodat Xen. Oec. 2.15, Longus Past. 3.6.3, Konstan (n. 17) 309-10.
47. Cf. Jachmann (n. 35) 71.
48. Cf. Kunst (n. 6) 216-17, Batzer 21-3, Stace, C., CPh 70 (1975) 42Google Scholar.
49. This type of scene is as old as the confrontation of Dicaeopolis and Euripides in Aristophanes' Acharnians.
50. Ludwig 46-50 argues that 385-7, nunc tusculum emi hoc et coronas floreas / haec imponentur in foco nostro Lari / ut fortunatas faciat gnatae nuptias, demonstrate that a house-god must have spoken the prologue in the Greek play; does 351 of the Epitrepontes mean that Τύχη spoke the prologue of that play?.
51. Menander: Das Schiedsgericht (1925) 136Google Scholar The paroemiographers record a ἱερὸν Πίστεως in Athens (Diogen. 2.80, Apostol. 4.25), but no indication of date is given and the notice must be considered very doubtful For what it is worth, I do not think that Skutsch was correct to infer from Casina 2 that Fides is the prologist in that play.
52. This was observed as early as Lambinus and again by Eduard Fraenkel apud Jachmann (n. 37) 1015 n. 3.
53. Cf. Arist. Rhet. 1.1362 a 9, id.Eth. Nic. 3.1112 a 27, Hor. Sat. 2.6.10, Dover, K. J., Greek popular morality in the time of Plato and Aristotle (1974) 174–5Google Scholar.
54. Cf. Latte, K., Römische Religionsgeschichte (1960) 182Google Scholar n. 1, R. Nisbet and M. Hubbard on Hor. C. 1.35.21.
55. Blänsdorf, J., Archaische Gedankengänge in den Komödien des Plautus (1967) 110–11Google Scholar, sees in the repetition introduced by profecto in 98 a typically Plautine figure of thought and speech, but this hardly proves that it is a Plautine insertion. Of the reference to Bona Fortuna Blänsdorf states ‘die grobkomische Uebersteigerung hat hier im Munde des Euclio keinen Platz’;, Euclio's remarks are, however, singularly mild by the standards of a Knemon. For the thought expressed cf. Rudens 501, Malam Fortunam in aedis te adduxi meas.
56. I am most grateful to David Bain and Christopher Lowe for many helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
