Antiquities Exhibits

The comedic plays of Titus Maccius Plautus are said to be mostly adapted from the works of established Greek playwrights like Menander, referred to as Greek New Comedy. The resulting plays, thought to be around 130 works, were written between 205 and 184 BCE. Only 20 have survived to modern times.   Unlike the Old Comedy of such playwrights as Aristophances with its critical commentary on politics and societal values, New Comedy has been described as "devoid of a serious political, social or intellectual content" and "could be performed in any number of social and political settings without risk of giving offense." Instead, there is much more of a focus on the home and the family unit—something that the Romans, including Plautus, could easily understand and adopt for themselves later in history. However, Plautus did not ignore the Roman Republic's expansion of power and influence that was taking place during this time.  A. F. West observed that Plautus inserted ...

A Phlyax play, also known as a hilarotragedy, was a burlesque dramatic form that developed in the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia (southern Italy) in the 4th century BCE. Its name derives from the Phlyakes, “Gossip Players,” in Doric Greek. From the surviving titles of the plays they appear to have been a form of mythological burlesque, which mixed figures from the Greek pantheon with the stock characters and situations of Attic New Comedy. The absence of any surviving script has led to conjecture that they were largely improvised.  Although only a few script fragments have been found, fortunately, such plays were a popular subject of vase paintings from the region. The vases first appeared at the end of the 5th century BCE, but most are 4th century BCE. They depict grotesque characters, the masks of comedy, and the props of comic performance such as ladders, baskets, and open windows. These vase paintings indicate that they were performed on a raised wooden stage with an upper gal...

The subject of this group with one person carrying another has a long history in Greek art. It is thought to illustrate a game called ephedrismos. A stone was placed upright on the ground, and balls or pebbles were thrown at it from a distance. The loser's eyes were covered, and he had to carry the other player on his back until he found and touched the stone. There were probably a number of variations. Here the little girl carries her companion but does not have her eyes covered. Image: Terracotta group of two girls playing a game known as ephedrismos late 4th–early 3rd century B.C.E. Greek, Corinthian at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York courtesy of the museum.