This dissertation examines the relationship between theatrical and religious performances at Rome as evident in the comedies of the early second century BCE playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. Though these comedies were performed at festivals to the gods, it is frequently maintained that there was no connection between the content of Roman comedy and its religious context. I, however, argue that parody is the key to understanding the link between these two seemingly disparate types of social performance and that it is necessary to recognize this connection in order to appreciate how these plays fit within their cultural context.

Much of the work done on parody over the last century focuses on the way in which one text can imitate and comment on another, but since Plautus' audience experienced his plays as performances rather than as texts, I look for models of Plautine parody among the various religious performances that would have been on display at the same festivals at which the plays themselves were staged. The religious parodies in Plautine comedy engage with and critique many of the noteworthy religious practices of the day, including the strict monitoring of prayer language and ritual action, the regulation of worshipers according to class and gender, and the importation of foreign cults into the Roman system of worship.

After an introduction, the three following chapters will focus on one play each from the Plautine corpus---Aulularia, Rudens, and Poenulus---each chosen because of some special relationship to the world of Roman cult. The set of Aulularia features a shrine to the abstract quality Fides, which allows for parody of the political use of such cults in the third century BCE, while Rudens and Poenulus both depict the worship of Venus, providing a parodic image of the importation of the cult of Venus Erycina from Sicily. In each instance, Plautus uses parody to draw attention to the rigidity within the system of Roman worship while simultaneously engendering reflection on the audience's own cultural practices at a time when the ascendant power of Rome was defining itself in relation to other cultures throughout the Mediterranean.