Shakespeare was strongly influenced by Latin comedy, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. The fact that of all Shakespeare's comedies "The Merchant of Venice" is among the least influenced by Latin comedy, especially when we compare it, for example, with "The Comedy of Errors" or with "The Taming of the Shrew", shows how pervading this Latin influence was. The characters in "The Merchant of Venice" could not escape this influence. So in Shylock, a study of whom is the main purpose of this paper, we have a modified character who is not same the as the Jew of medieval or Elizabethan literature. Although there was no Jew in Latin comedy who would be model for Shylock, the influences working on and modifying him came from another character, the slave-dealer. This character is undoubtedly a comic figure with a clear-cut part to perform within the comedies in which he is placed and he shares with Shylock similarities of character, purpose, action, and role. These similarities help to strengthen the recent criticism of Shylock that he is at first a comic character in a comedy.