CHAPTER V.
TERENCE.
A dramatic generation elapsed between Plautus and Terence; for the latter was only ten years old at the date of Plautus's death. The great name which filled the interval in the annals of Roman comedy was that of Cæcilius; but of his works nothing remains except a few disjointed passages to be found here and there in the works of other authors. Horace mentions him with approval, while Cicero accuses him of bad Latin. Cæcilius, too, was a copyist from Menander, and a very indifferent copyist in the opinion of Aulus Gellius, who gives us an additional testimony to the genius of the Greek dramatist, when, in comparing a passage from one of his lost comedies with the imitation of it by Cæcilius, he says that the difference in brilliancy is that of the golden armour of Glaucus compared with the bronze of Diomed.
Such biographical record as we have of Terence is mainly derived from a source which is very apocryphal. There is a "Life" of him, ascribed to Suetonius, but more probably written by the grammarian Donatus: we do not know what authority the writer had for his details, and the anecdotes which it contains have a suspicious colouring.
Though the name by which he is known—Publius Terentius—is Roman, we are told that he was by birth a Carthaginian, whence came his sobriquet of "Afer" (the African), and that he was either born in slavery or had become a prisoner of war. He was brought up in the household of a Roman senator named Terentius, and, as was not uncommon among slaves when they obtained their freedom, took the name of his patron. That under these circumstances he should have had a liberal education need not discredit the story; for in many Roman families we know that such young slaves as showed ability were allowed ample opportunities of instruction. But other opportunities are said to have fallen to the lot of Terence such as few in his position could have hoped for. He was admitted, while yet a young man, to an intimate association with Scipio and Lælius; and this pair of accomplished friends were even said to have had a large share in the composition of the dramas which were brought out in the name of their humbler associate. There is a story that Lælius, being one evening busy in his library, and slow to obey his wife's summons to dinner, excused himself by saying he had never been in a happier mood for composition: and forthwith recited, as part of the result, a passage from what was afterwards known as 'The Self-Tormentor' of Terence. The dramatist himself, perhaps very naturally, seems partly to have encouraged the popular notion that he enjoyed such distinguished help; for though in his prologue to the comedy which was said to have been really the work of his aristocratic friend he speaks of this report as "a weak invention of the enemy," yet in the prologue to a subsequent drama, 'The Brothers,' he evidently treats it as a compliment, and does not care altogether to refute so flattering an accusation.
For as to that which carping tongues report,
That certain noble friends have lent their hand
To this his work, and shared the poet's toil,—
What they would fling at him as a reproach
He counts an honour,—to be thus approved
By those whom universal Rome approves.[1]
Cicero thought it probable that his illustrious friends did help him, though it might have been only by judicious hints and corrections. It is also more than possible that the dramatist may have been indebted for much of the refinement of his dialogue, directly or indirectly, to the accomplished women whose society he enjoyed in the household of Lælius. The ladies of that family were all charming talkers; and Lælia, the eldest daughter of Scipio's friend, is mentioned by her son-in-law Crassus, the famous orator, as reminding him, in the elegance of her language, of the dialogues of Nævius and Plautus.
It is said that when he offered his first play to the Ædiles, who as the regulators of the public games had to choose the pieces which were to enjoy the honour of public representation, he found the officer to whom he brought it to read seated at table. The young author was desired to take a stool at a distance, and begin: but he had scarcely got through the opening passage of 'The Maid of Andros' when the Ædile motioned him to a seat by his own side, and there the reading was completed.
The six comedies which follow are probably all that their author ever put upon the stage. In the midst of his dramatic career, he left Rome in order to travel in Greece, and is said during his tour to have employed himself in the translation of upwards of a hundred of Menander's comedies. He seems never to have returned, and tradition says that he was lost at sea on his voyage homeward, and that his precious manuscripts perished with him. Another story is that he himself escaped from the wreck, but died of grief for the loss of his literary treasures.
His plays have far more elegance, but less action, than those of Plautus. He is perhaps more adapted for the library, and Plautus for the stage. Very much of the fun of the latter is broad farce, while Terence seldom descends below parlour comedy. But the two writers had moved in very different circles: Plautus had been familiar with life in the Suburra—the St Giles's of Rome—while Terence had mixed in the society of the Palatine. Their tastes had thus been formed in very different schools. It is probable that Terence gives us a better notion of what Menander was than either Plautus or Cæcilius. A criticism of Cæsar has been already quoted, in which he calls Terence a "half-Menander." In the same lines he speaks of his "pure diction" and "smoothness," and regrets his deficiency in that lively humour ("vis comica") which Menander seems to have succeeded in combining with the Attic elegance of his style. There seems much justice in this criticism.
The brief prologues with which Terence introduces his plays, unlike those of Plautus, contain no kind of explanation of the plot. They are personal appeals of the poet to his audience, informing them honestly of the sources from which he has borrowed his piece (for to the honours of original invention no Roman dramatist of those days seems to have thought of aspiring), or defending himself against some charge of unfair dealing brought against him by his rivals. In this respect they bear a strong resemblance to the "parabasis," as it was called, introduced here and there between what we should call the acts, in the old Attic Comedy of Aristophanes and Cratinus.
- ↑ Prologue to the Adelphi, 15.