SOURCE: "The Business of Roman Comedy," in Perspectives of Roman Poetry: A Classics Symposium, edited by G. Karl Galinsky, University of Texas Press, 1974, pp. 93-103.

In this essay from a 1972 symposium, Segal examines the concern with financial and business affairs displayed in Plautus's works.

Comedy is, in one sense, the perfect crime. It effects a magic larceny that temporarily diverts the moral bill collector. Normal checks and balances cease to operate; perpetrators of outrageous acts are not called into account. Comic heroes get away with behavior that would normally require them to pay a debt to society.

The preponderance of financial imagery in the preceding paragraph is hardly coincidental. Similar language often describes moral and monetary attitudes. Debt and guilt are really two sides of the same coin that buys comedy its laughter. It is all a funny business wherein business contributes richly to the fun—especially in...