''Bacchides'' is a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

play by the early Roman

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

Titus Maccius Plautus. The title has been translated as ''The Bacchises'', and the

plot Plot or Plotting may refer to: Art, media and entertainment * Plot (narrative), the story of a piece of fiction Music * ''The Plot'' (album), a 1976 album by jazz trumpeter Enrico Rava * The Plot (band), a band formed in 2003 Other * ''Plot ...

revolves around the misunderstandings surrounding two sisters, each called Bacchis, who work in a local house of ill-repute. It includes Plautus' frequent theme of clever servants outwitting their supposed superiors. The play was likely an adaptation of the play Δὶς Ἐξαπατῶν (Dis Exapaton), meaning ''Twice Deceiving'' but more commonly known as ''The Double Deceiver,'' by the Greek

New Comedy Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece (the others being tragedy and the satyr play). Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods: Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, an ...

playwright

Menander Menander (; grc-gre, Μένανδρος ''Menandros''; c. 342/41 – c. 290 BC) was a Greek dramatist and the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy. He wrote 108 comedies and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times. His re ...

. The beginning of it is lost to history, and so is often reconstructed in modern-day adaptations using contextual clues as well as twenty surviving fragments.

Plot summary

Two young friends, Mnesilochus and Pistoclerus, have fallen in love with two sisters, and both are prostitutes named Bacchis. Mnesilochus's Bacchis has been hired for a year by Cleomachus. In order to get the money to buy her release Mnesilochus asks Chrysalus, the clever slave, to extort money from Mnesilochus' father Nicobulus (a common recipe in Greek and Roman comedies). Chrysalus succeeds in getting two hundred coins from the old man but then Pistoclerus announces his love for Bacchis. Mnesilochus, not knowing that there is more than one Bacchis, hands back the money to his father and reveals the whole deception and Chrysalus's part in it. Then the truth comes out – There are two Bacchises and Pistoclerus loves the other Bacchis! In despair Mnesilochus returns to Chrysalus and begs him to try to get money from Nicobulus again. Chrysalus agrees and tricks Nicobulus out of his money by saying that Mnesilochus is in trouble because he has fallen in love with a soldier's wife. He claims that the only way to get Mnesilochus out of trouble is to pay the soldier. Nicobulus falls for the trick and gives over the money. Soon he finds out that he has been deceived, and with Philoxenus he storms the brothel. Nicobulus demands his son and gold back. Bacchis offers the old man half of his gold back if he comes in. Philoxenus and Nicobulus soon give into Bacchis and her sister. They enter the brothel

Etymology

Several of the characters names are significant. ''Nicobulus'' ironically means ''Victorious in counsel'', ''Chrysalus'' means ''Goldie'', ''Cleomachus'' means ''Glorious fighter'', and ''Bacchis'' means ''

Bacchant In Greek mythology, maenads (; grc, μαινάδες ) were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones". Maenads were known as Bassarids, ...

'', a female worshipper of

Bacchus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; grc, wikt:Διόνυσος, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstas ...

, god of wine.

Translations

Henry Thomas Riley Henry Thomas Riley (June 1816 – 14 April 1878) was an English translator, lexicographer, and antiquary. Life Born in June 1816, he was only son of Henry Riley of Southwark, an ironmonger. He was educated at Chatham House, Ramsgate, and at Ch ...

, 1912
''Bacchides'' full text
* Paul Nixon, 1916–38:
''Bacchides'' full text
* Edward Holdsworth Sugden, 1942 * James Tatum, 1983 * John Barsby, 1986 * Deena and Douglass Parker Berg, 1999 * Wolfang de Melo, 2011

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bacchides (Play) Plays by Plautus Plays set in ancient Greece Plays set in Athens Works about sisters Cultural depictions of prostitutes