Suetonius 'The Eunuch': The Pervasiveness Of Greek New Comedy

If we are to believe Suetonius’s biography of Publius Terence, then the latter was born in 184 B.C., the exact year of the death of his predecessor, Plautus. The two wrote for a Rome in the midst of a centuries-long period of hellanisation. (Barsby.) One of the many ways in which the pervasiveness of Greek culture is evident is the popularity, at the time, of adaptations of Greek New Comedy. One of the plays that I will be discussing in this essay, Terence’s The Eunuch, is in fact a direct adaptation of one such work of Menander’s. (Barsby). The other, Platus’s Pseudolus, is described by Norton Anthology as “drawing both on the improvisatory structure of Atelan farce and on Greek New Comedy.” The most obvious example of the “other” on stage

However, whether they made up any large portion of it, or whether they would have been a member of the intended audience, is debatable. Michael Fontaine, Classics professor at Cornell University, published an excellent essay entitled “Who was in the audience of Roman comedy?” in which he argues that Plautus, at least, most likely wrote for a “predominately aristocratic” public, and that is who I will be discussing as the intended audience in this

Rather, I believe that the slave being the “other” is essential to fulfilling what McCarthy describes as the “functions” of the “representation of slaves in fiction.” Pseudolus’s efforts on Calidorus’s behalf are tempered by his indolence toward Simo himself, and he ultimately seems to spend the money he earns in their bet on alcohol. In short, he fulfills the fantasy of the masters, themselves restricted by Rome’s strict social codes, to subvert authority, while at the same time reaffirming their right to mastery over carefree slaves more concerned with drinking than their own