_Amphitryon_.—Personal resemblances are a most fertile subject of comic incidents, and almost all nations have had their Amphitryon. The Athenians in particular gladly availed themselves of this subject, as it afforded an opportunity of throwing ridicule on the dull Bœotians. It is not certain, however, from what Greek author the play of Plautus was taken. Being announced as a tragi-comedy, some critics(227) have conjectured that it was most probably imitated from an Amphitryon mentioned by Athenæus,(228) which was the work of Rhinton, a poet of Tarentum, who wrote mock-tragedies and tragi-comedies styled _Rhintonica_ or _Hilarotragœdiæ_. M. Schlegel, however, alleges that it was borrowed from a play of Epicharmus the Sicilian. The subjects indeed of the ancient Greek comedy, particularly in the hands of Epicharmus, its inventor, were frequently derived from mythology. Even in its maturity, these topics were not renounced, as appears from the titles of several lost pieces of Aristophanes and his contemporaries. Such fabulous traditions continued sometimes to occupy the scenes of the middle comedy, and it was not till the new was introduced that the sphere of the comic drama was confined to the representation of private and domestic life. Euripides also is said to have written a play entitled _Alcmena_, on the story of Amphitryon, but how far Plautus may have been indebted to him for his plot cannot be now ascertained. It is probable enough, however, that some of the serious parts may have been copied from the _Alcmena_ of Euripides. The catastrophe of Plautus’s _Amphitryon_ is brought about by a storm; and we learn from the _Rudens_, another play of Plautus, that a tempest was introduced by the Greek tragedian— “Non ventus fuit, verum Alcmena Euripidis.”