Sosia
Sosia is a name that appears in ancient Roman comedy as the designation of a slave character in Plautus's plays. The name became a stock label for a servant figure in Latin farce, associated with social types of loyalty, gullibility, and subordinate status. In Plautine drama, Sosia characters are typically used to catalyze plots through misunderstandings, swaps of identity, and witty dialogue, illustrating the tension between freeborn patrons and their dependents. The name's frequent recurrence across plays led scholars to describe Sosia as a stock character rather than a single, defined person.
Modern scholarly treatment regards Sosia as representative of the slave type in Plautus, and the figure is