Terence
Publius Terentius Afer, better known as
Terence, was a comic
playwright of the
Roman Republic. His date of birth is unknown, but his comedies were performed for the first time ca.
170-
160 BC, and he died young in
159 BC. He wrote six plays, all of which have survived (by comparison, his predecessor
Plautus wrote twenty-one extant plays).
One famous quote by Terence reads:
"Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", or "I am human, nothing that is human is alien to me." This appeared in his play
Heauton Timorumenos.
Terence was a son of a rich family of Carthage that went bankrupt and was sold to Terentius, a Roman
senator, who educated him and later on, impressed by Terence's abilities,
freed him. As a sign of respect, Terence adopted his patron's name.
When he was 25, Terence left Rome and he never returned, after having exhibited the six comedies which are still in existence. Some ancient writers tend to say that he died at sea.
Like Plautus, Terence adapted
Greek plays from the late phases of
Attic comedy. He was more than a translator, as modern discoveries of ancient Greek plays have confirmed. However, Terence's plays use a convincingly 'Greek' setting rather than Romanizing the characters and situations.
Terence worked hard to write natural conversational
Latin, and most students who persevere long enough to be able to read him in the vernacular find his style particularly pleasant and direct.
Aelius Donatus,
Jerome's teacher, is the earliest surviving
commentator on Terence's work. Terence's popularity throughout the
Middle Ages and the
Renaissance is attested to by the numerous manuscripts containing part or all of his plays; the scholar
Claudia Villa has estimated that 650
manuscripts containing Terence's work date from after
800 AD. The
mediaeval playwright
Hroswitha of Gandersheim claims to have written her plays so that learned men had a Christian alternative to reading the pagan plays of Terence.
Terence's six plays are:
Adelphoe (The Brothers)Andria (The Girl from Andros)EunuchusHeauton Timorumenos (The Self-Tormentor)Hecyra (The Mother-in-Law)PhormioThe first printed edition of Terence appeared in
Strasbourg in
1470, while the first post-antiquity performance of one of Terence's plays,
Andria, took place in
Florence in
1476.
A phrase by his
musical
collaborator Flaccus for Terence's comedy
Hecyra is all that remains of the entire body of
ancient Roman music. This has recently been shown to be inauthentic.
*
Latin literature*
Slavery*
The six plays of Terence at
The Latin Library *
Andria at The Perseus Digital Library *
Hecyra at The Perseus Digital Library *
Heautontimorumenos at The Perseus Digital Library *
The Eunuch at The Perseus Digital Library *
Phormio at The Perseus Digital Library *
The Brothers at The Perseus Digital Library *
Terence Quotes
