Abstract

The Curculio, with its 729 lines, is the shortest play of Plautus which has survived, about half the length of the Miles Gloriosus or Rudens . The Epidicus, with 733 lines, and the Stichus, with 775, are almost as brief. It is most unlikely that any of these shorter plays took even a full hour to perform. Although it is possible that their Greek originals were also of less than normal length, the many signs of compression and disproportion in their development seem to guarantee that their brevity is imposed by Plautus