he extant plays[6] are as follows:

1. _Amphitruo_, a _tragicomoedia_, the only play of Plautus of the
kind. Prol. 59,

'Faciam ut conmixta sit haec tragicomoedia.'

The original and the date are unknown. The play shows the features of
the Sicilian _Rhinthonica_.[7] About three hundred lines have been
lost after Act. iv., Scene 2. The scene is Thebes, which, with Roman
carelessness or ignorance, is made a harbour; cf. ll. 629 _sqq._

2. _Asinaria_ (sc. _fabula_), from the +Onagos+ of Demophilus,
supposed to have been a writer of the New Comedy. Prol. 10-12,

'Huic nomen Graece Onagost fabulae;
Demophilus scripsit, Maccius vortit barbare.
Asinariam volt esse, si per vos licet.'

Authorities assign the play to about B.C. 194. The scene is Athens.

3. _Aulularia_ (from _aulula_, 'a little pot.')--Neither the original
nor the exact time of composition is known. From Megadorus' tirade
against the luxury of women, ll. 478 _sqq._, it has been inferred that
the play was written after the repeal of the Oppian Law in B.C. 195.
The end of the play is lost. The scene is Athens.

4. _Captivi_, a piece without active interest (_stataria_), without
female characters, and claiming a moral purpose; l. 1029,

'Spectatores, ad pudicos mores facta haec fabulast.'

Some authorities think that the parasite (Ergasilus) is an addition to
the original play, which may have belonged to the New Comedy. The
scene is in Aetolia.

5. _Curculio_, so called from the name of the parasite. The Greek
original is unknown; but ll. 462-86 contain a speech from the
Choragus, in the style of the +parabasis+ of the Old Comedy. In
l. 509,

'Rogitationes plurumas propter vos populus scivit
quas vos rogatas rumpitis,'

there is probably an allusion to the Lex Sempronia de pecunia credita,
B.C. 193. The scene is Epidaurus.

6. _Casina_, so called from a slave-girl introduced. The original was
the +Kleroumenoi+ of Diphilus. Prol. 31,

'Clerumenoe vocatur haec comoedia
Graece, Latine Sortientes. Deiphilus
hanc Graece scripsit.'

The inference from l. 979, 'Nam ecastor nunc Bacchae nullae ludunt,'
that the play was written after the S.C. de Bacchanalibus in B.C. 186,
is improbable; the words rather show, as Mommsen[8] believes, an
anterior date, when it was not yet dangerous to speak of the
Bacchanalia. Some authorities find support for the latter date in the
words of the prologue, ll. 9-20 (written after the poet's death). Th