acknowledged excellence, the _Captivi_. It is a comedy of sentiment,
without female characters, and therefore without the coarseness which (as
one is forced to say with regret) disfigures some of the other plays. The
development of the plot has won high praise from all critics, and
justifies the boast of the epilogue, _Huiusmodi paucas poetae reperiunt
comoedias_. But the praise which the author gives to his own piece--

_Non pertractate facta est neque item ut ceterae,
Neque spurcidici insunt versus immemorabiles,
Hic neque periurus leno est nec meretrix mala
Neque miles gloriosus--_

is really a severe condemnation of two other groups of Plautine plays.
The _Casina_ and the _Truculentus_ (the latter, as we know from Cicero, a
special favourite with its author) are studies in pornography which only
the unflagging animal spirits of the poet can redeem from being
disgusting; and the _Asinaria, Curculio_, and _Miles Gloriosus_ are broad
farces with the thinnest thread of plot. The last depends wholly on the
somewhat forced and exaggerated character of the title-role; as the
_Pseudolus_, a piece with rather more substance, does mainly on its
_periurus leno_, Ballio, a character who reminds one of Falstaff in his
entire shamelessness and inexhaustible vocabulary.

A different vein, the domestic comedy of middle-class life, is opened in
one of the most quietly successful of his pieces, the _Trinummus_, or
_Threepenny-bit_. In spite of all the characters being rather fatiguingly
virtuous in their sentiments, it is full of life, and not without
gracefulness and charm. After the riotous scenes of the lighter plays, it
is something of a comfort to return to the good sense and good feeling of
respectable people. It forms an interesting contrast to the _Bacchides_,