said by Varro to be derived from the Sabine word terenus, which signified "soft" (Macrob. Sat. ii. 9.) The Terentii are mentioned as early as B. C. 462, for the C. Terentillus Arsa, who was tribune of the plebs in that year (Liv. iii. 9), must have belonged to the gens; and indeed he is called C. Terentius by Dionysius (x. 1). The first member of the gens who obtained the consulship was C. Terentius Varro, who commanded at the fatal battle of Cannae in B. C. 216; and persons of the name continue to be mentioned under the early emperors. The principal surnames of the Terentii during the republic are Culleo, Lucanus, and Varro: there are a few others of less importance, which are given below under Terentius.
TERENTIA′NUS MAURUS, a Roman poet, probably lived at the end of the first or the beginning of the second century under Nerva and Trajan, and is perhaps the same person as the Terentianus, the governor of Syene in Egypt, whose praises are celebrated by Martial (i. 87; comp. Wernsdorf, Poëtae Latini Minores, vol. ii. p. 269). Terentianus was a native of Africa, as we might have inferred from his surname Maurus. There is still extant a poem of Terentianus, intitled De Literis, Syllabis, Pedibus, Metris, which treats of prosody and the different kinds of metre with much elegance and skill. The work is printed in the collection of the ancient grammarians by Putschius, pp. 2383–2450, and in a separate form by Santen and Van Lennep, Traj. ad Rhen. 1825, and by Lachmann, Berol. 1836.
TERENTILLA. [Terentia, No. 2.]
TERENTILLUS. [Terentius, No. 1.]
TERE′NTIUS. 1. C. Terentius Arsa, called Terentillus by Livy, tribune of the plebs, B. C. 462, proposed that five commissioners should be appointed to draw up a body of laws to define the consular imperium. (Liv. iii. 9; Dionys. x. 1.)
2. Q. Terentius, was sent by the senate, along with M. Antistius, to bring back the consul C. Flaminius to the city, but he refused to obey their summons. (Liv. xxi. 63.)
3. L. Terentius Massaliota, plebeian aedile. B. C. 200, and praetor B. C. 187, when he obtained Sicily as his province. (Liv. xxxi. 50, xxxviii. 42.)
4. L. Terentius, one of the ambassadors sent to king Antiochus in B. C. 196. (Liv. xxxiii. 35.)
5. C. Terentius Istra, praetor B. C. 182, obtained Sardinia as his province. In the following year he was one of the triumviri for founding a colony at Graviscae. (Liv. xxxix. 56, xi. 1, 29.)
6. L. Terentius Massaliota, probably a son of No. 3, was tribunus militum in B. C. 180. (Liv xl. 35.)
7. P. Terentius Tuscivanus, one of the ambassadors sent into Illyricum in B. C. 167. (Liv. xlv. 18.)
8. Terentius Vespa, one of whose witticisms is quoted by Cicero in his De Oratore (ii. 61).
9. L. Terentius, was the companion and tentmate of Cn. Pompeius, when the latter was serving under his father Strabo in B. C. 87, and was bribed by Cinna to kill Pompeius. (Plut. Pomp. 3.)
10. Cn. Terentius, a senator, into vviiose custody Caeparius, one of the Catilinarian conspirators, was given. (Sall. Cat. 47.)
11. P. Terentius Hispo, a friend of Cicero, was promagister of the company of publicani, who farmed the taxes in Asia. Cicero recommended him in a letter to P. Silius. (Cic. ad Att. xi. 10, ad Fam. xiii. 65.)
12. Ser. Terentius, was a friend of D. Brutus, whom he pretended to be on the flight from Mutina, B. C. 43, in order to save the life of his friend; but he was recognised by the officer of Antony's cavalry, and preserved from death. (Val. Max. iv. 7. §6.)
13. M. Terentius, a Roman eques, was accused, in A. D. 32, on account of his having been a friend of Sejanus. He defended himself with great courage, and was acquitted. (Tac. Ann. vi. 8, 9.)
14. Terentius Lentinus, a Roman eques, was privy to the forgery of Valerius Fabianus, and was in consequence condemned in A. D. 61. (Tac. Ann. xiv. 40.)
15. Terentius, was said by some persons to have been the murderer of the emperor Galba. (Tac. Hist. i. 41; Plut. Galb. 27.)
TERE′NTIUS CLEMENS. [Clemens.]
TERE′NTIUS SCAURUS. [Scaurus.]
P. TERE′NTIUS AFER, was the second and the last of the Roman comic poets, of whose works more than fragments are preserved. The few particulars of his life were collected long after his decease, and are of very doubtful authority. It would therefore be to little purpose to repeat them without scrutiny or comment. We shall, in the first place, inquire who were the biographers of Terence, what they relate of him, and the consistency and credibility of their several accounts. We shall next briefly survey the comedies themselves, their reception at the time, their influence on dramatic literature, their translators and imitators, their commentators and bibliography.
Our knowledge of Terence himself is derived principally from the life ascribed to Donatus or Suetonius, and from two scanty memoirs, or collections of Scholia, the one published in the seventeenth century, by Abraham Gronovius, from an Oxford MS., and the other by Angelo Mai, from a MS. in the Vatican. The life of Terence, printed in the Milan edition of Petrarch's works 1476, is merely a comment on Donatus. Of these, the first mentioned is the longest and most particular. It is nevertheless a meagre and incongruous medley, which, for its barrenness, may be ascribed to Donatus, and for its scandal to Suetonius. But it cites still earlier writers,—C. Nepos, Fenestella, Porcius, Santra, Volcatius, and Q. Cosconius. Of these Nepos is the best known, and perhaps the most trustworthy. His contemporaries deemed him a sound antiquarian (Catull. i. 1), and his historical studies had trained him to examine facts and dates. (Gell. XV. 48.) Of Fenestella, more voluminous than accurate, we have already given some account [Vol. II. p. 145]. Q. Cosconius was probably the grammarian cited by Varro (L. L. vi. 36, 89), Porcius, the Porcius Licinius, a satirical and seemingly libellous versifier, mentioned by Gellius (xvii. 21, xix. 19), and Volcatius was the Volcatius Sedigitus quoted by the same author (xv. 24). Santra is enumerated by St. Jerome (Vit. Script. Eccles.) among the Latin compilers of Memoirs; he wrote also a treatise De Antiquitate Verborum, cited frequently by Festus. Such writers are but indifferent vouchers for either facts or dates, whether from their living so long after the poet's age, or from the character of their testimony. In the following account we interweave our comment with their text.
