THEME: A day at the theatre THEME REPUBLICAN ROMAN THEATRE Between the third and second centuries BC, Rome experienced a complex historical phase. Clashes with Carthage, expansion towards the north and east, and the conquest of southern Italy, an area colonized by the Greeks, brought about numerous changes, from the adoption of the Greek theatrical tradition to being the head of a territorial empire fraught with complications.
The socio-political context of Plautus' plays
After conquering a large part of the Italian peninsula through the reduction of Sicily to a province (241 BC), and after defeating the ancient eastern powers of Macedonia and its allies (200-197 BC), the Aetolians (189 BC), and Syria (192-189 BC), the Roman state extended its dominion as far as Asia Minor, thus succeeding in subjugating, in various forms,…
