ords, which may have a place here as the only contemporary
mention of the Hannibalic war in the literature that has come down
to us:--

-Haec res sic gesta est. Bene valete, et vincite
Virtute vera, quod fecistis antidhac;
Servate vostros socios, veteres et novos;
Augete auxilia vostris iustis legibus;
Perdite perduelles: parite laudem et lauream
Ut vobis victi Poeni poenas sufferant.-

The fourth line (-augete auxilia vostris iustis Iegibus-) has
reference to the supplementary payments imposed on the negligent
Latin colonies in 550 (Liv. xxix. 15; see ii. 350).

21. III. XIII. Increase of Amusements

22. For this reason we can hardly be too cautious in assuming
allusions on the part of Plautus to the events of the times. Recent
investigation has set aside many instances of mistaken acuteness of
this sort; but might not even the reference to the Bacchanalia,
which is found in Cas. v. 4, 11 (Ritschl, Parerg. 1. 192), have been
expected to incur censure? We might even reverse the case and infer
from the notices of the festival of Bacchus in the -Casina-, and some
other pieces (Amph. 703; Aul. iii. i, 3; Bacch. 53, 371; Mil. Glor.
1016; and especially Men. 836), that these were written at a time
when it was not yet dangerous to speak of the Bacchanalia.

23. The remarkable passage in the -Tarentilla- can have no
other meaning:--

-Quae ego in theatro hic meis probavi plausibus,
Ea non audere quemquam regem rumpere:
Quanto libertatem hanc hic superat servitus!-

24. The ideas of the modern Hellas on the point of slavery are
illustrated by the passage in Euripides (Ion, 854; comp. Helena,
728):--

--En gar ti tois douloisin alochunen pherei,
Tounoma ta d' alla panta ton eleutheron
Oudeis kakion doulos, ostis esthlos e.--

25. For instance, in the otherwise very graceful examination which in
the -Stichus- of Plautus the father and his daughters institute into
the qualities of a good wife, the irrelevant question--whether it is
better to marry a virgin or a widow--is inserted, merely in order that
it may be answered by a no less irrelevant and, in the mouth of the
interlocutrix, altogether absurd commonplace against women. But that
is a trifle compared with the following specimen. In Menander's
-Plocium- a husband bewails his troubles to his friend:--

--Echo d' epikleron Lamian ouk eireka soi
Tout'; eit' ap' ouchi; kurian tes oikias
Kai ton agron kai panton ant' ekeines
Echoumen, Apollon, os chalepon c