Titos Maceins Plautus, a Roman dramatist, born at Sarsina in Umbria about 254 B. C, died in 184. The little we know of his life is derived from a passage in Aulus Gellius, quoted from Varro. He went to Rome when young, entered the service of the actors, and having made sufficient money left the city, and set up in business for himself. He failed, and returned to Rome, where he was employed in turning a hand mill. While thus occupied he wrote three comedies, which were successful; and from that time he wrote constantly, and became the favorite comic dramatist. His plays continued to be performed as late as the reign of Diocletian. Cicero considers his wit as equal to that of the old Attic comedy. When Varro wrote there were 130 plays attributed to Plautus, although some were supposed either to have been written by another person of the same name, or to have been old plays rewritten and improved by the poet himself. Varro could enumerate only 21 which were without any question authentic, and these, being the comedies most carefully preserved, are all extant with one exception, the Vidula-ria which, being last, was probably torn off in the manuscript.

The Captivi is usually considered the finest work of Plautus. His plots were mostly taken from the Greek writers of the new comedy, although in his treatment of the subject he does not slavishly adhere to his models. The real name of this poet was not known until it was demonstrated in an essay published by Eitschl in 1842 that it was Titus Maccius, and not Marcus Accius, as it had always been printed. The text of Plautus is very corrupt, some of the scenes having been forged at a later period. A palimpsest manuscript was found in the Ambrosian library of Milan, which was as old as the 5th century, and this also contains interpolations. The edi-tio princeps was published at Venice in 1472, by Georgius Merula. All the modern editions of Plautus have been superseded by that of F. W. Eitschl (5 vols., Bonn, 1848-'54; 2d ed., 1871). Thornton and Warner translated all the plays into English (5 vols. 8vo, 1767-74).