Scholars have also been troubled by the fact that the plays of Plautus bristle with Greek words. There is an average of about ninety occurrences a play, counting repetitions of the same word. How would our comedies fare on the stage if foreign words were used with equal lavishness? Not a few of these words—like _amphora_, _ancora_, _epistula_—had of course been acclimated through commerce, and would cause no trouble. A few technical names that could not be translated—of Greek magistrates, for instance—were illumined by the context. In a few instances Plautus literally dumps in Greek words for amusement, as when an irate husband reels off the items of the bill he has received from the modiste, or reads the menu that will cost him more than he is able to pay. Such words the audience were hardly expected to know. The very outlandish extravagance of the list is intentional. But after we have made these subtractions, the bulk remains.[2] Are we to assume that Plautus addressed his plays to the score of cultured gentlemen who had had Greek tutors? If he had, the aediles would hardly have gone to the expense of buying the plays and presenting them, for the purpose of the games was to attract and amuse the holiday masses. Can it be that Plautus indolently neglected to invent Latin jokes in place of the Greek ones of his models? That is hardly a satisfactory solution in the case of a writer who inundates his scenes with rollicking fun. Another common explanation—too frequently hazarded—that the streets were already overrun with Greek captives who had spread a knowledge of Greek, will hardly serve. In neither of the Punic wars had many Greek captives been taken—the captives had been chiefly Carthaginian, and their Spanish, Gallic, and Ligurian mercenaries—and these are not noticed in the Plautine plays.[3]