SOURCE: "Micio and the Perils of Perfection," in California Studies in Classical Antiquity, Vol. 1, 1968, pp. 171-86.

In the following essay, Johnson delineates the defects in the character of Micio in The Brothers, flaws which prepare us for his fall at the play's conclusion.

In the manner of fine comedy, the Adelphoe's initial snarl is extremely neat: irascible and rigid, Demea has allowed his brother, the affable and marvellously sane Micio, to adopt his elder son, Aeschinus; his young son, Ctesiphon, he keeps with him and rears with the strictness which alone, he feels, will ensure for the young man a life of virtue; Ctesiphon, of course, comes to pine for a music-girl, and Aeschinus, sophisticated, high-spirited, and ingenious by virtue of the liberal upbringing his adoptive father has given him, contrives to steal the girl from the pimp who possesses her and to hand her over to...