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In the prologue of the "Poenulus" of Plautus, it is said of the hero of the title: -Et is omnes linguas scit; sed dissimulat sciens Se scire; Poenus plane est; quid verbit opus't-? Doubts have been expressed as to the correctness of this number, and the highest possible number of inhabitants, taking into account the available space, has been reckoned at 250,000.
In the prologue of the "Poenulus" of Plautus, it is said of the hero of the title: -Et is omnes linguas scit; sed dissimulat sciens Se scire; Poenus plane est; quid verbit opus't-? Doubts have been expressed as to the correctness of this number, and the highest possible number of inhabitants, taking into account the available space, has been reckoned at 250,000.
They comprise three variations on the theme which, to modern taste, has become so excessively tedious, of the Fourberies de Scapin the Epidicus, Mostellaria, and Persa; the Poenulus, a dull play, which owes its only interest to the passages in it written in the Carthaginian language, which offer a tempting field for the conjectures of the philologist; two more, the Mercator and Stichus, of confused plot and insipid dialogue; and a mutilated fragment of the Cistellaria, or Travelling-Trunk, which would not have been missed had it shared the fate of the Carpet-Bag.
Here and there, no doubt, we find traces of slave labour in factories, e.g. as far back as the time of Plautus, if we can take him as writing of Rome rather than translating from the Greek: An te ibi vis inter istas versarier Prosedas, pistorum amicas, reginas alicarias, Miseras schoeno delibutas servilicolas sordidas? Poenulus, 265 foll.
Among the other plays, the Poenulus possesses for the philologist this special attraction, that it contains a Phoenician passage, which, though rather carelessly transliterated, is the longest fragment we possess of that important Semitic language.
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