the answer is in a higher strain than that familiar to ancient comedy. O Gripe Gripe, in aetate hominum plurimae Fiunt transennae, [illi] ubi decipiuntur dolis. Atque edepol in eas plerumque esca inponitur, Quam siquis avidus poscit escam avariter, Decipitur in transenna avaritia sua. Ille qui consulte, docte atque astute cavet, Diutine uti ei bene licet partum bene. Mi istaec videtur praeda praedatum irier, Majore ut cum dote abeat hinc quam advenerit. Egone ut quod ad me adlatum esse alienum sciam Celem? minume istuc faciet noster Daemones. Semper cavere hoc sapientes aequissumum'st, Ne conscii sint ipsi maleficii suis. Ego nisi quom lusim nil morer ullum lucrum.[241] The 'Captivi' was pronounced by the greatest critic of last century to be the best constructed drama in existence. Though probably few will now be found to assign to it so high a place, yet, if not the best, it certainly is among the very best plays of Plautus, in respect both of plot and the dramatic irony of its situations. But it possesses a still higher claim to our admiration in the presentment of at least one character of true nobleness. And the originality of the conception is all the greater from the fact that this heroism is embodied in the person of one who has been brought up from childhood as a slave. There are not many of the plays of Plautus calculated to raise our ideas of human nature; but the loyal affection of Tyndarus for his young master, his self-sacrifice, the buoyancy, courage, and ready resource with which he first meets his dangers, and the manly fortitude with which he accepts his doom-- Dum ne ob malefacta, peream: parvi id aestimo. Si ego hic peribo, ast ille, ut dixit, non redit, At erit mi hoc factum mortuo memorabile, Me meum erum captum ex servitute atque hostibus Reducem fecisse liberum in patriam ad patrem, Meumque potius me caput periculo Hic praeoptavisse quam is periret ponere[242]-- enable us to feel that some of the glory of the older and nobler Greek tragedy still lingered in the Athens of Menander, and has been reproduced by Plautus with imaginative sympathy. Yet perhaps even to this play the criticism of Horace, Quam non adstricto percurrat pulpita socco, in part applies. The old slave-tricks of mendacity and unseasonable joking, which are a legitimate source of amusement in the Pseudolus and similar plays, jar on our feelings as inconsistent with the simple dignity of the character of Tyndarus and the heroic part which he has to play. There are none of the plays of Plautus which it is so difficult to criticise from a modern point of view as the 'Amphitruo.' On the one hand the humour of the scenes between Mercury and Sosia is not surpassed in any of the other comedies. There is no passage in any other play in which such power of imagination is exhibited, as that in which Bromia tells the tale of the birth of Alcmena's twins--