Please note that Mommsen uses the AUC chronology (Ab Urbe Condita), i.e. from the founding of the City of Rome. You can use this reference table to have the B.C. dates
Along with these love-pieces we find
others of a pathetic kind. Among the comedies of Plautus, for
instance, the -Rudens- turns on a shipwreck and the right of asylum;
while the -Trinummus- and the -Captivi- contain no amatory intrigue,
but depict the generous devotedness of the friend to his friend and
of the slave to his master. Persons and situations recur down to the
very details like patterns on a carpet; we never get rid of the asides
of unseen listeners, of knocking at the house-doors, and of slaves
scouring the streets on some errand or other.
The standing masks,
of which there was a certain fixed number--viz., eight masks for old
men, and seven for servants--from which alone in ordinary cases at
least the poet had to make his choice, further favoured a stock-model
treatment. Such a comedy almost of necessity rejected the lyrical
element in the older comedy--the chorus--and confined itself from the
first to conversation, or at most recitation; it was devoid not of the
political element only, but of all true passion and of all poetical
elevation.