Plautus’ Miles Gloriosus (The Braggart Soldier) features one of the great stock character types of comedy. Likely a play of Plautus’ early career (probably around 206 BCE based on lines 211-212 which scholars think refer to the imprisonment of the playwright Naevius), it focuses on the conniving of Palaestrio (the clever slave) to rescue Philocomasium (the girlfriend) for his master Pleusicles (the lover), from the clutches of Pyrgopolynices (the braggart soldier) whose sense of his own hyper-masculinity is constantly undermined by other characters. Palaestrio must first deceive the soldier’s slave Sceledrus in order to remove him from the picture before turning his attention to bamboozling the soldier. Through these …
1281 words
Citation: Bungard, Christopher. "Miles Gloriosus". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 June 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21414, accessed 22 November 2024.]
