Plautus: Curculio

This is the first book-length study of Plautus'' shortest surviving comedy, Curculio, a play in which the tricksy brown-nosed title character (“The Weevil”) bamboozles a shady banker and a pious pimp to secure the freedom of the enslaved girl his patron has fallen for while keeping her out of the clutches of a megalomaniacal soldier. It all takes place in the Greek city Epidaurus, the most importa...