Born Macc(i)us at Sarsina, in Umbria, he acquired the cognomen Plotus/Plautus for his flat feet. He settled in Rome and worked first as a servant of a comic actors company, then in a bakery before achieving success as a dramatist.

He wrote al least 56 comedies, freely adapted from Greek originals, of which 20 survive. Shakespeare based The Comedy of Errors on Plautus' Menoechmi.