The Roman Comedies of Plautus and Terence, deriving from Greek New Comedy, establish the main comic traditions of the Western theater. Ranging from wild exuberant farce to high comedy marked by pathos and moral seriousness, they have remained alive in their own right for over two thousand years, as well as through their influence on works by the later masters of comedy: Machiavelli, Moliere, Shakespeare, Jonson, Dryden, Fielding, and, among contemporary dramatists, Giraudoux. A basically social drama, finding the springs of laughter in the mistakes, deceptions, and confusions of identity which the vital human spirit is subject to, these comedies create a series of essential actions and a gallery of characters that are meaningful in any social world: the braggart warrior, the miser, the self-tormenter, the tyrannical father, the scheming or virtuous courtesan, the pimp, the clever slave, the playboy, the decent young man, and young men and women variously in love, among others.