Diocletian, five hundred years after his death; he generally copied from
the Greek, often naming the author to whom he was indebted.

Plautus is interesting, not only as giving us an insight into the Greek
mode of life before his time, and preserving many of the works of
Philemon, Diphilus, and others, but as being the only Latin writer of
his date whose productions have survived. He wrote one hundred and
thirty plays, of which thirty are extant, and show an orthography very
different from that of the Augustan age. His style was forcible, and
like that of all the Latin comic writers, highly complex. He sometimes
coins words, (such as Trifurcifur, gugga,[18] parenticida,) and he is
constantly giving new metaphorical senses to those already in use--as
when he speaks of a man being a "hell of elms," _i.e._, severely flogged
with elm-rods--calls cooks "briars," because they take fast hold of
everything they touch, and threatens a slave with "memorials of oxen,"
_i.e._, a thrashing that will make him remember the thong.

We may possibly trace the Greek original in a few references to
conversations of animals--although no plays are now called after
them--and the names, places, and money he introduces are generally
Greek. Still, we cannot regard him as a mere servile imitator--much of
his own genius is doubtless preserved in the plays. In some, we can
clearly recognise his hand, as where he alludes to Roman customs, or
indulges in puns. For instance, where a man speaks of the blessing of
having children, (liberi,) another observes he would rather be _free_
(liber). In "The Churl," we read that it is better to fight with minæ
than with menaces, and a lover says that Phronesium has expelled her own
name (wisdom) from his breast.

An old man says he has begun to go to school again, and learn his