The Plautine character is never a consistent human character. He is rather
a personified trait, a broad caricature on magnified foibles of some type
of mankind. There is never any character development, no chastening. We
leave our friends as we found them. They may exhibit the outward
manifestation of grief, joy, love, anger, but their marionette nature
cannot be affected thereby. That we should find inconsistencies in
character portrayal under these circumstances, is not only to be expected,
but is a mathematical certainty. The poet cares not; they must only dance,
dance, dance!

Persistent moralizers, such as Megaronides in the _Trin._, who serve but
as a foil from whom the revelry "sticks fiery off," descend themselves at
moments to bandying the merriest quips (Scene I.). In _Ep._ 382 ff., the
moralizing of Periphanes is counterfeit coinage. Gilded youths such as
Calidorus of the _Ps._ begin by asking (290 f.): "Could I by any chance
trip up father, who is such a wide-awake old boy?", and end by rolling
their eyes upward with: "And besides, if I could, filial piety prevents."
The Menaechmi twins are eminently respectable, but they cheerfully purloin
mantles, bracelets and purses. Hanno of the _Poen._ should according to
specifications be a staid _pater familias_, but Plautus imputes to him a
layer of the _Punica fides_ that he knew his public would take delight in
"booing." And the old gentleman enters into a plot (1090) to chaff
elaborately his newly-found long-lost daughters, whom he has spent a
lifetime in seeking, before disclosing his identity to them (1211 ff.).
Saturio's daughter in the _Per._ is at one time the very model of maidenly
modesty and wisdom (336 ff.), at others an accomplished intriguante and
demi-mondaine (549 ff., esp. 607 ff.). When the plot of the _Ep._ is
getting hopelessly tangled, of a sudden it is magically resolved as by a
deus ex machina and everybody decides to "shake and make up."