A close reading of friendship practices in the plays of Plautus, in light of social science and anthropological literature, can help establish the parameters, discourse, and behaviors associated with Roman friendship. Application of a new analytical framework for studying such relationships in ancient literature (a « processual model of friendship interaction ») to Plautus ' « Captiui », « Trinummus », « Persa », « Pseudolus », « Miles gloriosus », and other plays increases our understanding of Roman amicitia in that it marks the relationship as an all-too-rare social bond, fraught with ambivalence, and generative of tensions and asymmetries.
