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1->''Credo, hercle! adveniens nomen mutabit mihi,\
2Facietque extemplo [[GallowsHumor Crucisalum me ex Chrysalo]].''
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4->By Hercules, I think that if he shows up he'll change my name,\
5and instantly transform me from "Christopher" to "Cross-offer!" [[note]]literally, from "Chrysalus"="Goldie" to "Crucisalus"="Jump-onto-the-cross." That one probably had 'em rolling in the aisles.[[/note]]
6-->-- '''Chrysalus the Slave''', in Plautus's ''Bacchidæ''
7
8Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254–184 BC) was a Roman comic playwright of the Old Latin period. Imitating most of his plots from the Greek playwright Menander, he gave them a distinctly Roman feel, despite the fact that (in order to escape the charge of "slandering the Roman People and State") he put his characters in the PaperThinDisguise of Greek names.
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10With his fellow playwright, Terence (Publius Terentius Afer), he popularized the "[[BoyMeetsGirl boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl]]" plot, typical of the Greek "New Comedy," that has been perhaps the most common dramatic structure in Western drama ever since. He also helped to establish an array of StockCharacters, including the Nice Young Man and Girl, the Nice Young Man's slightly racier Best Friend, the Rival (who is often a [[MilesGloriosus Boastful Soldier]]), the Parasite who lives off him and [[ServileSnarker makes sarcastic remarks behind his back]], the HenpeckedHusband, the [[GrandeDame uptight, domineering Matron]], and the Clever Servant who manages his master's affairs, that have been common (with variations) in comedy ever since.
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12In Plautus, however, we never forget that all these characters are Romans -- there is a particularly brutal edge to his jokes (he tends to be rougher and cruder than Terence, who was consciously aiming his plays at a more aristocratic audience) and we are never allowed to forget that if the Clever Servant is caught in his tricks, he will be [[DisproportionateRetribution tortured and crucified]]. Nor does the fact that his setting is in Athens or Syracuse prevent his characters from making snide remarks about "those Greeks" nor the gods from appearing under their Latin appellations.
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14One of Plautus's plays is the TropeNamer for MilesGloriosus. His works were also the principal inspiration for the later musical comedies ''The Boys From Syracuse'' and ''Theatre/AFunnyThingHappenedOnTheWayToTheForum''. And his ''Menaechmi'' was the basis for Creator/{{William Shakespeare}}'s ''Theatre/TheComedyOfErrors''.
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16----
17!!Tropes found in his works:
18* AmbiguousSituation: ''Poenulus'' has a character calling a Carthaginian ''deglupta maena'' ("skinned fish"), a meal often eaten by the poor in Rome, which might mean he's calling him stinky or lowlife. However, some have interpreted it to be an reference to circumcision, which was practiced by Phoenicians. This opens an interesting debate, because circumcision was seemingly not practiced in Carthage,[[note]]No Greek or Roman chronicle mentions Carthaginians as circumcised, which they would have probably not let us hear the end of given that Greeks and Romans were at war with Carthage for generations and considered circumcision a barbaric and hideous practice. Carthage was a Phoenician colony, but apparently even Phoenicians used to abandon the practice whenever they became sufficiently Hellenized, which may imply it was long abandoned in Carthage (geographically close to the Hellenic Sicily) before they came into conflict with the Greeks.[[/note]] and would also open a major PlotHole, given that the work's protagonist, another Carthaginian raised as a Greek, could have never passed as one in the nudity-friendly culture of Greece had he been circumcised like his countryman supposedly was.
19* AnachronismStew: As with Creator/{{Aristophanes}}, sometimes the jokes are updated. For example, in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrJPpbBepxE Boston University's 2017 production of]] ''Pseudolus'', at one point in the first scene, the title character asks, "What is this? Website/{{Twitter}}?"
20* BilingualBonus: For comedic effect, ''Poenulus'' contains long tracts of actual Punic, which has endeared linguists for centuries because it is probably the only long, casual Punic dialogue we have today, with translations included and other benefits for the scholars.[[note]]The work is a gift because it also includes the language's vowels, which Phoenician alphabet itself doesn't, and also because it contains not one, but two different copies of the same monologue, which might be in early Punic and late Punic.[[/note]] The work seems to have been essentially Plautus' remake of an earlier Greek comedy, ''Karkhedonios'', which have led to speculations that either he obtained the lines by cut-and-pasting parts of a Punic translation of the original, or the latter already had it by way of someone who spoke the language.
21* MilesGloriosus: TropeNamer, though derived from a now-lost Athenian comedy.
22* MissingEpisode: We have twenty of his plays--more than any other Greco-Roman dramatist--but he wrote at least fifty-one.
23* MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels: The characters' attempts to translate Hanno's Carthaginian language in ''Poenulus'' leave something to be desired. Hanno turns out to know Latin (well, Greek) himself anyway.
24* PopculturalOsmosisFailure: A few of the references have faded into such complete obscurity that translators don't have a clue how to make them intelligible to modern audiences.
25* RaisedByRival: ''Poenulus'''s main character is a Carthaginian raised under a Greek identity.
26* ScoobyDoobyDoors: His plays are possibly the UrExample, as Roman comedy was one of the first forms of theatre that featured multiple working doors onstage.
27* SeparatedAtBirth: The title characters in ''Menaechmi''.
28* SmugSnake: Ballio the pimp in ''Pseudolus'' is a raging egomaniac who threatens his courtesans with demotion to low-class whores--as well as floggings--if they fail to obtain rich birthday presents for him from their lovers; and he takes a nasty delight in telling Calidorus that his [Calidorus'] beloved is about to be sold. In the end, when he's been tricked out of the deal, he resolves to hang himself.
29* TropeNamer: "Ballio" became the Latin word for that sort of character the sort of character detailed in SmugSnake above.
30* YouMakeMeSick: One of the surviving fragments of ''Frivolaria'' runs as follows:
31-->'''Unidentified Character''': He was a bilious attack to me, an ague, a cough, a dropsy.

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