1. The Pot Of Gold Plautus Sparknotes Summary
2. The Pot Of Gold Plautus Summary
3. The Pot Of Gold Plautus Analysis
4. The Pot Of Gold Plautus Sparknotes Of Mice And Men
5. Plautus The Pot Of Gold Summary

Click here to download a slideshow from the 2009 production of Plautus’ Aulularia. Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254-184 B.C.) composed over 100 comedies in Latin, adapting them from Greek originals. The play on which he based his Aulularia (“The Pot of Gold”) has not survived. The Brothers Menaechmus study guide contains a biography of Plautus, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Euclio has discovered a pot of gold in his house which he watches with the greatest anxiety. In the meantime, Megadorus asks his daughter in marriage, and his proposal is accepted; and while preparations are making for the nuptials, Euclio conceals his treasure, first in on place and then in another.

LCL 60: 254-255

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Argvmentvm I

senex auarus uix sibi credens Eucliodomi suae defossam multis cum opibusaulam inuenit, rursumque penitus conditamexsanguis amens seruat. eius filiam5Lyconides uitiarat. interea senexMegadorus a sorore suasus ducereuxorem auari gnatam deposcit sibi.durus senex uix promittit atque aulae timensdomo sublatam uariis apstrudit locis.10insidias seruos facit huius Lyconidisqui uirginem uitiarat; atque ipse opsecratauonculum Megadorum sibimet cedereuxorem amanti. per dolum mox Eucliocum perdidisset aulam, insperato inuenit15laetusque natam collocat Lyconidi.

Argvmentvm IIAulam repertam auri plenam EuclioVi summa seruat, miseris affectus modis.Lyconides istius uitiat filiam.Volt hanc Megadorus indotatam ducere254Plot Summary 1

Euclio, a stingy old man who would barely trust himself, finds apot with great wealth buried in his house. He hides it deepdown again and watches over it, pale with fear and full of anxiety.Lyconides had violated his daughter’s chastity. Meanwhileold Megadorus, persuaded to marry by his sister, asks for thehand of the miser’s daughter. The austere old man consents at7last. Afraid for his pot, he removes it from home and hides it invarious places. The slave of Lyconides, the man who had done10violence to the girl, lies in ambush. Lyconides entreats his uncleMegadorus to yield her as wife to him because he loves her.Soon after, when Euclio had lost the pot by a trick, he finds itagain, against his hopes, and happily betroths his daughter to15Lyconides.

The Pot Of Gold Plautus Sparknotes Summary

Plot Summary 2

The Pot Of Gold Plautus Summary

Euclio watches very carefully over a pot full of gold that hefound, feeling great anxiety. Lyconides violates his daughter’schastity. Megadorus wants to marry her without dowry, and in5

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The Pot Of Gold Plautus Analysis

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'Aulularia' is a Latin play by the early RomanplaywrightTitus Maccius Plautus. The title has been translated as 'The Pot of Gold', and the plot revolves around a literal pot of gold that the miserly protagonist, Euclio, guards zealously. The play’s ending does not survive, though there are indications of how the plot is resolved in later summaries and a few fragments of dialogue.

Plot summary

Lars Familiaris, the household deity of Euclio, an old man with a marriageable daughter named Phaedria, begins the play with a prologue about how he allowed Euclio to discover a pot of gold buried in his house. Euclio is then shown almost maniacally guarding his gold from real and imagined threats. Unknown to Euclio, Phaedria is pregnant by a young man named Lyconides. Phaedria is never seen on stage, though at a key point in the play the audience hears her painful cries in labor.

Euclio is persuaded to marry his daughter to his rich neighbor, an elderly bachelor named Magadorus, who happens to be the uncle of Lyconides. This leads to much by-play involving preparations for the nuptials. Eventually Lyconides and his slave appear, and Lyconides confesses to Euclio his ravishing of Phaedria. Lyconides’ slave manages to steal the by now notorious pot of gold. Lyconides confronts his slave about the theft.

At this point the manuscript breaks off. From surviving summaries of the play, we know that Euclio eventually recovers his pot of gold and gives it to Lyconides and Phaedria, who marry in a happy ending. In the Penguin Classics edition of the play, translator E.F. Watling actually wrote the ending as it might have originally been constructed, based on the summaries and a few surviving scraps of dialogue. Other writers down through the centuries have also written endings for the play, with somewhat varying results.

Key themes

The figure of the miser has been a stock character of comedy for literally centuries. Molière'sHarpagon is perhaps the best known of Euclio’s many reincarnations in later plays, but avarice has inspired mockery by many playwrights. Ben Jonson, for instance, adapted the plot of 'Aulularia' for his early comedy 'The Case is Altered'.Plautus does not spare his protagonist various embarrassments caused by the vice, but he is relatively gentle in his satire. Euclio is eventually shown as basically a good-hearted man who has been only temporarily affected by greed for gold.

The play also ridicules the ancient bachelor Megadorus for his dream of marrying the nubile and far younger Phaedria. The silly business of preparing for the marriage provides much opportunity for satire on the laughable lust of an old man for much younger flesh, in a clever parallel to Euclio’s lust for his gold. Again, Megadorus is eventually shown as sensible and kind-hearted enough to abandon his foolish dream.

The play also includes Plautus’ frequent theme of clever servants outwitting their supposed superiors. Not only does Lyconides’ slave manage to filch Euclio’s beloved gold, but Euclio’s housemaid Staphyla is shown as intelligent and kind in her attitude toward the unfortunately pregnant Phaedria.

Critical evaluation

Despite its incomplete form in surviving manuscripts, 'Aulularia' has attracted relatively favorable comment from critics. E.F. Watling called it a “peculiarly enjoyable and genial” comedy, and Plautus’ broad but witty satire on the monetary and sexual lusts of old men has been much appreciated. The happy ending takes the sting from what might have been too sour a satire, and the play focuses on the main action with few digressions or distractions.

The Pot Of Gold Plautus Sparknotes Of Mice And Men

No surviving Greek play seems to be a model for 'Aulularia', though the character Smicrines in 'Epitrepontes' by Menander may have influenced Plautus’ conception of Euclio. Scholars have dated the play to roughly 195 B.C. due to an indirect reference to the Oppian Law, which was relaxed about that time. But the dating is not conclusive.

Plautus The Pot Of Gold Summary

Warenar

A Dutch play, 'Warenar', based on Alularia was written by Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft in 1617.

References

*'The Pot of Gold and Other Plays' by Plautus, translated and introduced by E.F. Watling, Penguin Classics 1965 ISBN 0-14-044149-2

External links

* [http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/aululariaeng.html English translation of 'Aulularia']
* [http://www.vroma.org/~plautus/aulu.main.html Original Latin version of 'Aulularia']
* [http://www.geocities.com/athens/academy/6422/rev0222.html Review of 'Aulularia' and E.F. Watling’s translation]
* [http://www.apaclassics.org/AnnualMeeting/01mtg/abstracts/major.html Abstract of paper on endings to 'Aulularia' composed by later writers]