Review date: 19/3/1999
Publisher: Penguin
Translation: 1965
This play revolves entirely around the title role, the mercenary soldier Pyrgopolynices, a conceited braggart. His character is instantly clear from the first scene, where he agrees to (and builds upon) the outrageous flattery of his dependent Artotrogus ("slaughtered five hundred at one fell swoop - or would have done if your sword hadn't blunted first").
After the first seen, two plots are laid to humiliate Pyrgopolynices. He owns a slavegirl, Philocomasium, who is loved by a young man, Pleusicles, who is staying with Pyrgopolynices' neighbour Periplectomenus. One of Pyrgopolynices' slaves, Palaestrio, undertakes to promote the affair, which he does by knocking a hole in the party wall between the two properties, so that the two lovers can visit each other whenever they wish.
The first plot involves using this hole to trick Pyrgopolynices into thinking that Philocomasium is her own twin sister, supposedly visiting the town to try and find the lost girl. This is basically so that she and Pleusicles can escape from Pyrgopolynices (and wind him up at the same time).
The second plot is not connected to the first, except by the fact that Palaestrio also conceives it. This is to humiliate Pyrgopolynices by setting up a young woman to pretend to be the wife of the elderly Periplectomenus but desperately in love with the soldier. The idea is to give Pyrgopolynices a beating when Periplectomenus "discovers" him with the young woman.
These two practically independent farce plots make Miles Gloriosus quite a long play by Plautian standards, though it is as entertaining as ever. The only false note is struck by the conventionality of the ending, where Pyrgopolynices, discovering the nature of the tricks playd on him, undergoes a moment of self-revelation, leading to a complete turn-around in his character.
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