"Amphitryon" is a comedic play written by Titus Maccius Plautus, likely addressed simply to the public Roman audiences due to its inherent qualities as a comedy. In writing the play, Plautus was likely responding to ideas he heard in Roman mythology about how the birth of Heracles went about, and he seemed to agree with them as he followed the traditional plot of the hero 's birth (with some minor exceptions, such as changing the birth itself from a laborious process to one that is completely painless). Having inferred the aforementioned ideas, the motivation behind Plautus writing this piece was likely to share the story of Heracles 's birth to the common people through a medium that they would understand and enjoy: a lighthearted