Abstract

Egypt has not yet given us a Greek original of Plautus, unless the paltry Hibeh fragments belong to the original of the Aulularia. If they do, then Plautus departed widely from the Greek. And that is what one would expect. Read any ‘sermo’ in Plautus and see how recklessly he abandons himself to the vagaries of his humour. Clearly no ‘icily regular’ Greek is his guide there. Still a ray of light has come from Egypt that illumines one dark spot in Plautus, the end of the first Scene of the Bacchides. The two sisters retreat into the house after a line which appears in our editions in this form