A NEW COMMENTARY ON PLAUTUS’ PSEUDOLUS

Abstract

his glorious death, the past becomes true in the present, in a legacy – ideally transmitted from father to son – which reads the Hannibalic war in the light of the First Punic War. The insistence on family ties and on the attempt made by the children to equal and overcome the deeds of their fathers, seems almost, at the end of the chapter, to reverberate on the genetic relationship that binds the Punica to the Bellum Poenicum, the first to the second war, ancestors to descendants, a crucial issue in all three Flavian epics (to B.’s bibliography now add M. Fucecchi, Il futuro del passato [2020], esp. Chapter 1). Though it does not offer a personal interpretation of the works discussed, this is a rich book, written with outstanding clarity; it addresses crucial problems from various milestones of Roman history and literature. It will be worthwhile reading for anyone interested in the origins of Latin literature, cultural memory and the poetics / politics of the Empire.