Fides, Aetolia, and Plautus' Captivi

Abstract

Plautus' Captivi tells how two prisoners trick their captor, how the captor discovers the ruse, and how one prisoner is eventually recognized as the captor's long-lost son. The bonds tying the prisoners to their captor and to each other, however, are not iron chains, but rather the system of Roman moral obligations based upon fides. This reliance upon Roman moral values is emphatic and remarkable given the play's Aetolian milieu; although Romano-Aetolian relations were hostile in the era of the play's first production, the Roman audience witnessed a comedy in which Greeks in Aetolia championed Roman moral values. This paper has two goals: first, to indicate the importance of fides to the structure of Plautus' Captivi; second, to suggest that the Aetolian setting for the play was not insignificant for the Roman audience. Throughout the Captivi, characters appeal to the network of Roman moral and political concepts, with primary emphasis on fides.1 The word and its cognates occur more frequently in this play than in any other play of Plautus except the Aulularia, in which a shrine to the goddess Fides figures prominently. The invocations of fides itself occur at the four key moments of the play: the initial deception of Hegio (349 and 351); the long farewell of Tyndarus and Philocrates (405, 418, 432, and 439); Ergasilus' revelation that Philocrates has returned (890 and 893); and the meeting of Philocrates and

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