Roman comedy-in-law

Abstract

Expositors and translators of the lively Latin comedies of Plautus (250s - ca.184 BC) are often too little informed of rules and terms of Roman Law. Sometimes this deficiency leaves readers or, in performance, audiences unaware of amusing irony and clever joking. They find a bland bit of dialogue or unremarkable circum­stance where the playwright included, in plays loosely modeled after Greek ones, not only Roman references but Roman humor. Comparison of translations with the Latin behind them shows how much may missed if one does not understand contemporary law pertaining (for example) to personal status and contract, some of it recently developed by the Praetores Urbani. Related texts show the richness of Plautus legal-jocular scripts.