The attenuation of the pater familias power through the female characters in Plautus' theater

• Grant number: 23/17770-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: December 01, 2024
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Margarida Maria de Carvalho
• Grantee: Lais Felippe Lucon
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/07733-0 - The attenuation of the pater familias' power through the female characters in the theatre of Plautus, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

Surrounded by the historical context as of the III and II B.C.E., Plautus' theater rose in the scene of a wide cultural amalgam - which was a result of Rome's frequent expansions. Plautus' temporal arc, situated on the period commonly called Midle Republic, was marked by vast changes in the apparatus that composed and administered the republican sistem. Notably, the Punic Wars fought against Carthage established the roman's projection in the Mediterranean, as well as a higher contact with the greek culture. As an echo of its time, plautine corpus highlighted plural representations of the feminine and the masculine seen in that society, specially in the household. While dedicating ourselves to the reading of Asinaria (The Comedy of Asses), Casina (Casina), Menaechmi (The Two Menaechmuses) and Mercator (The Merchant), we perceived a construction that contests the pater familias' figure - demonstrated by behaviours shown towards female characters. Therefore, we suggest, as a hypothesis, that Plautus' comedy, using the feminine as a manner that stimulates - and performs - critic discourse, presentes sings of a decrease in the power that comes from the most prominent component of the household: the pater familias. Moreover, assimilating the roman family as a social organization with strong political features, we argue that plautine critic's reflects in Rome's political ambience.