._ ii. 9), who fell in Spain B.C. 212, leads to the conclusion that
he must have been well established as an author by that date, though
none of his plays can be proved to have been written so early. If we
suppose that his career as a playwright commenced at thirty, and that
his acquaintance with the Scipios lasted ten years, the year of his
birth must have been about B.C. 254. This view is supported (1) by the
notice in Cic. _Brut._ 73, that Plautus had produced many plays by
B.C. 197; (2) by Cic. _Cato maior_, 50, 'quam gaudebat ... Truculento
Plautus, quam Pseudolo,' where Plautus is said to have written these
plays as _senex_. Now the _Pseudolus_ was written B.C. 191; and
therefore, as a man could not be called _senex_ till he was at least
sixty, his birth must have been not later than B.C. 251.

Plautus is said to have written his own epitaph.

Gell. i. 24, 3, 'Epigramma Plauti, quod dubitassemus an Plauti foret,
nisi a M. Varrone positum esset in libro de poetis primo:

"Postquam est mortem aptus Plautus, Comoedia luget,
Scaena est deserta, ac dein Risus, Ludus Iocusque,
et Numeri innumeri simul omnes conlacrimarunt."'

(2) WORKS.

Plautus' plays were early criticized as to their genuineness. Gell.
iii. 3, 1-3, after mentioning the canons of Aelius Stilo, Sedigitus,
etc., says that Varro admitted twenty-one plays which were given by
all the canons, and added some more. 'Nam praeter illas unam et
viginti, quae Varronianae vocantur, quas idcirco a ceteris segregavit,
quoniam dubiosae non erant, set consensu omnium Plauti esse
censebantur, quasdam item alias probavit adductus filo atque facetia
sermonis Plauto congruentis easque iam nominibus aliorum occupatas
Plauto vindicavit.'

About one hundred and thirty plays were current under the name of
Plautus; the theory of Varro (Gell. iii. 3, 10) that these were
written by a certain Plautius is improbable.

Gell. iii. 3, 11, 'Feruntur sub Plauti nomine comoediae circiter
centum atque triginta.'

There is little doubt that the 'fabulae Varronianae' are those which
have come down to us with the addition of the _Vidularia_, which was
lost between the sixth and the eleventh centuries. The number of
Varro's second class, consisting of those pieces that stood in most of
the indices and exhibited Plautine features, Ritschl has fixed at
nineteen, from citations in Varro _de lingua Latina_. Besides the
genuine plays the names of thirty-two others are known.

T