abandon the theme of love-making in a comic setting, or to adopt the Greek hetaera; and if he did the latter he was obliged to deprive her of various pleasant qualities that might have been hers in Greece or incur the enmity of Roman moral censorship. Plautus has been severely blamed, especially by French critics, for making his women futile twaddlers with no redeeming features. It is true that this description fits them well enough, but what was he to do? Titinius seems to have found a way out later, but it was not a very obvious way. The method of Plautus should not be ascribed to a coarse grain in the dramatist. It grew naturally from his comprehension of the real status of the Roman family. In adapting Greek slaves, parasites, and young men with little or no change, he might take a risk, but on the subject of Roman womanhood he could not compromise. It is noticeable that Terence could. Bacchis in the _Hecyra_, who harks back to Habratonon in Menander, has an appealingly generous nature despite her station, and even the morose old man of the play has to admit it. But Terence wrote the _Hecyra_ more than twenty years after Plautus’ death, at a time when Greek customs had invaded Rome. Today Terence receives the credit for a liberal humanity denied to Plautus, but it is safe to say that Terence would not have ventured to present his Bacchis a generation earlier. His respect for the position and the deserved rights of the women of old Rome would have made him feel that it was a cheap thing to do.