of Menander’s in which a miser is represented δεδιὼς μή τι τῶν ἔιδον
ὁ καπνος οἴχοιτο φερων. Euclio’s distress[9] at seeing any smoke
escape from his house seems at least to suggest that Plautus may have
borrowed the _Aulularia_ from Menander. The allusion to _praefectum
mulierum_,[10] rather than _censorem_, would seem to show that in the
original γυναικοι ομον had been written; this would prove the Greek
play to have been presented while Demetrius of Phalerum was in power
at Athens (317-307 B.C.), where he introduced this detested office,
which was done away with by 307 B.C.

Ritschl[11] has shown clearly enough that the original of the
_Bacchides_ was Menander’s Δὶς ἐξαπατῶν. The 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 Δὶς
ἐξαπατῶν 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_, Göttingen, 1894; Legrand, _Daos_, Paris, 1910, English
translation by James Loeb under title _The New Greek Comedy_, William
Heinemann, 1916; Leo, _Plautinische Forschungen_, Berlin, 1912.]