~}, the
goddess of Chance, is the motive power of the Plautine plot, as
distinguished from the {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} of tragedy. A student of Plautus readily
recognizes this point. The entire development of the _Rud._ and _Poen._
exemplifies it in the highest degree. Hanno in the _Poen._, in particular,
meets first of all, in the strange city of Calydon, the very man he is
looking for! When Pseudolus is racking his wits for a stratagem, Harpax
obligingly drops in with all the requisites. The ass-dealer in the _As._
is so ridiculously fortuitous that it savors of childlike naivete.

Characters are perpetually entering just when wanted. We hear "Optume
advenis" and "Eccum ipsum video" so frequently that they become as
meaningless as "How d'ye do!"[174]; though, as shown above[175], even this
very weakness could at moments be made the pretext for a mild laugh.

For a complete catalogue of the formidable mass of inconsistencies and
contradictions that throng the plays, the reader is referred to the
_Plautinische Studien_ of Langen, as aforesaid. It will be of passing
interest to recall one or two. In _Cas._ 530 Lysidamus goes to the "forum"
and returns _32 verses later_ complaining that he has wasted the whole day
standing "advocate" for a kinsman. But this difficulty is resolved, if we
accept the theory of Prof. Kent (TAPA. XXXVII), that the change of acts
which occurs in between, is a conventional excuse for any lapse of time,
in Roman comedy as well as in Greek tragedy. But it is extremely doubtful
that Prof. Kent succeeds in establishing the truth of this view in the
case of Roman comedy. We see no convincing reason for departing from the
accepted theory, as expressed by Duff (_A Literary History of Rome_, pp.
196-7): "In Plautus' time a play proceeded continuously from the lowering
of the curtain at the beginning to its rise at the end, save for short
breaks filled generally by simple music from the _tibicen_ (_Ps._ 573). The
division into scenes is ancient and regularly indicated in manuscripts of
Plautus and Terence."

Langen seems surprised[176] when Menaechmus Sosicles, on beholding his
twin for the first time (_Men._ 1062), though he was the object of a six
years' search, wades through some twenty lines of amazed argument before
Messenio (with marvelous cunning!) hits on the true expla