fact that Athens, Samos,
and Ephesus are at peace, that the Aegaean is not swept by hostile
fleets, that one can travel freely between Athens and Phoeis, together
with the allusion to Demetrius,[12] lead one to believe that the +Dis
exapato:n+ was written either between the years 316-307 or 298-296 B.C.

The original of the _Captivi_ is quite unknown, while the war between
the Aetolians and Eleans gives the only clue to the date of this
original. Hueffner[13] considers it probable that the war was that
between Aristodemus and Alexander, and the Greek play was produced
shortly after 314 B.C. Others[14] assume that the scene of the play
would not be Aetolia unless Aetolia had become an important state,
and that the war was therefore one of the third century B.C.

[Footnote 1: See especially Hueffner, _De Plauti Comoediarum Exemplis
Atticis_, Goettingen, 1894; Legrand, _Daos_, Paris, 1910, English
translation by James Loeb under title _The New Greek Comedy_, William
Heinemann, 1916; Leo, _Plautinische Forschungen_, Berlin, 1912.]

[Footnote 2: _Amph._ 203 _seq._]

[Footnote 3: Produced later than the _Epidicus._ Cf. _Bacch._ 214.]

[Footnote 4: _Amphitruo_, Thebes, _Captivi_, Aetolia, _Cistellaria_,
Sicyon, _Curculio_, Epidaurus (the Caria first referred to in v. 67
was a Greek town, not the state in Asia Minor), _Menaechmi_,
Epidamnus.]

[Footnote 5: _Asin._ Prol. 10-11.]

[Footnote 6: _Asin._ 713.]

[Footnote 7: _Asin._ 334.]

[Footnote 8: _Asin._ 499.]

[Footnote 9: _Aulul._ 299, 301.]

[Footnote 10: _Aulul._ 504.]

[Footnote 11: Ritschl, _Parerga_, pp. 405 _seq._ Cf. Menander,
_Fragments_, 125, 126.]

[Footnote 12: _Bacch._ 912.]

[Footnote 13: Hueffner, _op. cit._ pp. 41-42.]

[Footnote 14: Cf. Legrand, _op. cit._ p. 18.]

INTRODUCTION

Little is known of the life of Titus Maccius Plautus. He was born
about 255 B.C. at Sarsina, in Umbria; it is said that he went to Rome
at an early age, worked at a theatre, saved some money, lost it in a
mercantile venture, returned to Rome penniless, got employment in a
mill and wrote, during his leisure hours, three plays. These three
plays were followed by many more than the twenty extant, most of them
written, it would seem, in the latter half of his life, and all of
them adapted from the comedies of various Greek dramatists, chiefly
of the New Comedy.[15] Adaptations rather than translations they
certainly w