THE PLOT OF THE "TYPICAL" ROMAN COMEDY: ANCIENT SCOPE AND MODERN FOCUS

Abstract

One point of continuing interest in the study of the Roman comic writers is the unequal status of male and female in the tales of young love so often encountered in the texts. While the young man in love is almost invariably both free and of citizen class, the young woman with whom he wishes to be united, reunited,. or continuing in union is sometimes both free and of citizen class, sometimes free but not of citizen class, and sometimes a slave. In a few cases a young woman apparently belonging to one of the latter two classes turns out to belong in fact to the first. The problems attendant upon each love story, and to some extent the outcome of each, depend in large part on the status of the young woman involved.