Curculio

The Curculius, Curculio or the Gorgojo is a play by the Latin comediógrafo Plauto.

The Gorgojo is a production of little interest from the literary point of view, but instead is a precious source of knowledge regarding the history of art and customs.

Named this comedy of the comic nickname that gives in it the parasite who plays in the piece a leading role. The characters in this comedy offer all types worthy of being punished with the whip of satire:

In order to make this animated painting of the time more complete, we find everything in this comedy: dreams interpretations, the fictional destiny of a stolen girl in her early years, later slave and recognized free at the end of the drama and last, until an intermission sung by the director of the grex or choir. It is a kind of aristophane windshield in which all the scoundrels and iniquities of the same rude people applauded with delirious jubilation.

This Roman comedy, however, offers the particularity of lacking a prologue, no doubt because its excellent exposure made it unnecessary.

In Act IV, it refers to the Sempronia Law where the critics deduce that this drama should have been composed around the year 545 since the founding of Rome.

This article contains material from A. González Garbín's Classical Latin Literature Lessons (1882), which is in the public domain.

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