Greek words in Roman comedy

Abstract

Previous interpretations of the use of Greek loanwords and purely Greek expressions in Roman comedy are not supported by the ancient texts. There is no solid evidence for the hypothesis that the use of Greek was either an upper-class or a lower-class phenomenon in Plautus’ day. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the Roman poets wanted to depict a specifically South Italian Greek or a Roman slang, for the expressions that have been considered unidiomatic in the past are either modern emendations or have good parallels in classical Greek literature. Drawing from recent research on code-switching we argue that Greek expressions and loanwords are used for a variety of purposes and are central constituents of the funnily absurd and exotic fantasy world of Roman comedy.