Some of the characters in the _Captivi_ are very beautifully drawn. Hegio is an excellent representation of a respectable rich old citizen: He is naturally a humane good-humoured man, but his disposition is warped by excess of paternal tenderness. There is not in any of the comedies of Plautus, a more agreeable and interesting character than Tyndarus: and no delineation can be more pleasing than that of his faithful attachment to Philocrates, by whom he was in return implicitly trusted, and considered rather in the light of a friend than a slave. In this play, as in most others of Plautus, the parasite is a character somewhat of an episodical description: He goes about prowling for a supper, and is associated to the main subject of the piece only by the delight which he feels at the prospect of a feast, to honour the return of Hegio’s son. The parasites of Plautus are almost as deserving a dissertation as Shakspeare’s clowns. Parasite, as is well known, was a name originally applied in Greece to persons devoted to the service of the gods, and who were appointed for the purpose of keeping the consecrated provisions of the temples. Diodorus of Sinope, as quoted by Athenæus(241), after speaking of the dignity of the sacred parasites of Hercules, (who was himself a noted _gourmand_,) mentions that the rich, in emulation of this demi-god, chose as followers persons called parasites, who were not selected for their virtues or talents, but were remarkable for extravagant flattery to their superiors, and insolence to those inferiors who approached the persons of their patrons. This was the character which came to be represented on the stage. We learn from Athenæus(242), that a parasite was introduced in one of his plays by Epicharmus, the founder of the Greek comedy. The parasite of this ancient dramatist lay at the feet of the rich, eat the offals from their tables, and drank the dregs of their cups. He speaks of himself as of a person ever ready to dine abroad when invited, and when any one is to be married, to go to his house without an invitation—to pay for his good cheer by exciting the merriment of the company, and to retire as soon as he had eat and drunk sufficiently, without caring whether or not he was lighted out by the slaves(243). In the most ancient comedies, however, this character was not denominated parasite, and was first so called in the plays of Araros, the son of Aristophanes, and one of the earliest authors of the middle comedy. Antiphanes, a dramatist of the same class, has given a very full description of the vocation of a parasite. The part, however, did not become extremely common till the introduction of the new comedy, when Diphilus, whose works were frequently imitated on the Roman stage, particularly distinguished himself by his delineation of the parasitical character(244). In the Greek theatre, the part was usually represented by young men, dressed in a black or brown garb, and wearing