As servus bonus, Messenio initially discourages Menaechmus II from comic merrymaking, thus impeding the reunion of the siblings, but later assists in forwarding the plot: he thwarts the Epidmanians’ intention to seclude him and eventually facilitates the recognitio between the twins as well as their final decision to return to their native land. To discredit either Shakespeare or Plautus by a com-parison of The Comedy of Errors, the only classical comedy which Shakespeare wrote, and Menaechmi, one of the most spir-ited of the Plautine farces, is illogical and futile, for the two plays were written under conditions entirely different and served audi-ences as remote as the poles. The process of withdrawal runs through the play, and is achieved in two stages in which Menaechmus II assumes his twin brother’s meta-dramatic role: in the first play the newly arrived brother alienates the Epidamnian twin from his immediate social and family milieu and in the second he almost leads the Epidamnians to have his brother isolated within the community on account of the latter’s alleged insanity.
This paper explores how Menaechmus II of Syracuse unintentionally succeeds in removing Menaechmus I, his Epidamnian twin, from a society which has been exploiting him. THE STRUCTURE OF THE MENAECHMI There is near consensus among scholars that Plautus has considerably adapted and altered whatever Greek play he may have used as a model for the Menaechmi, by enlarging the role of the parasite, Peniculus, expanding monologues, and avouring the play with his distinctive and amboyant language.1 Many of these. The process of withdrawal runs through the play, and is achieved in two stages in which Menaechmus II assumes his twin brother’s meta-dramatic role: in the first play the newly arrived brother alienates the Epidamnian twin from his immediate social and family milieu and in the second he almost leads the Epidamnians to have his brother isolated within the community on account of the latter.