Casina is a Latin comedy or farce by the early Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. Set in ancient Athens, the play describes how an Athenian gentleman and his son are both in love with the same slave-girl, Casina. The old man tries to conduct a secret affair with Casina by having her marry his farm-manager; but his plan is foiled by his wife, who dresses her son's armour-bearer up as the bride and sends him into the bridal chamber in place of Casina. The play is probably one of Plautus's later comedies, because of the amount of song which it contains. There is also a mention Bacchanialian revels, which are said no longer to take place; this may be a reference to a Roman senatorial decree of 187 BC forbidding such revels. If so, it would date the play to shortly before Plautus's death in 184 BC. According to the prologue (which appears to have been written for a revival some years after Plautus's death), the play is adapted from a comedy called Klerumenoi ("The Lot-Casters") by the Greek playwright Diphilus. The name "Casina" (pronounced with three short vowels) is thought to be related to casia, a scented spice similar to cinnamon, one of several references to scents and foods in the play. Unlike other Plautus plays, where references to homosexuality are either fleeting or present as jokes directed at characters with identifiable feminine characteristics, in Casina it has a more prominent and less stereotypical role. Apart from the climax of the play, in which two men attempt to have relations with a third man disguised as a bride, the character of Lysidamus, who is not described as having identifiable feminine characteristics, is bisexual and makes several references in the play to his carnal desire for his slave Olympius.

Plot

The action takes place on the streets of Athens, and all the characters are Greek. The plot revolves about a beautiful girl, Casina, who was abandoned at the door of Lysidamus and his wife Cleostrata, and has been raised as a servant. Euthynicus, son of Lysidamus, has fallen in love with Casina and wants her to marry his armour-bearer Chalinus so that he can enjoy her favours as a concubine. His father Lysidamus, however, desires Casina as his own concubine, and plans to have her marry his farm-manager Olympio instead. Cleostrata opposes his plan, and wants Casina to marry Chalinus to save her for her son. To resolve the situation, Lysidamus proposes to draw lots (the play is also known as The Lot-Drawers), but Olympio wins. Chalinus discovers that Lysidamus plans to sleep with Casina in the neighbor's house before Olympio takes her to the farm. When Cleostrata learns of this, she dresses Chalinus as Casina and humiliates both Olympio and Lysidamus by taking advantage of the darkened bedroom in her neighbor's home where Lysidamus' affair was to take s wife, and his sins have been exposed to the public. Cleostrata takes him back and life returns to normal. There follows a brief epilogue in which it is explained that Euthynicus will return from the country and will indeed marry Casina, who was really a free-born Athenian when she was taken into the family. Many of the characters in Casina are stock characters of Greek and Roman comedy, such as the old man chasing after the young slave woman.

Metrical structure

Plautus's plays are traditionally divided into five acts. However, it is not thought that the act-divisions go back to Plautus's time, since no manuscript contains them before the 15th century. Also, the acts themselves do not always match the structure of the plays, which is often more clearly shown by the variation in metres. A common pattern in Plautus is for a metrical section to begin with iambic senarii (which were unaccompanied by music), followed optionally by a musical passage or song, and ending with trochaic septenarii, which were recited or sung to the music of a pair of pipes known as tibiae. The structure of the play is as follows, taking A = iambic senarii, B = other metres, C = trochaic septenarii:

The argument over Casina

Olympio wins the lottery

Chalinus discovers Lysidamus's plans

Pardalisca's trick

The wedding begins

The old man is fooled