William Young Sellar and Ernest Harrison

“ An old poet quoted by Suetonius states that he was ruined in fortune through his intimacy with his noble friends. Another account speaks of him as having left behind him gardens, to the extent of about twelve acres, close to the Appian Way. It is further stated that his daughter married a Roman knight.
No writer in any literature, who has contented himself with so limited a function, has gained so great a reputation as Terence. He lays no claim to the position of an original artist painting from life or commenting on the results of his own observation. ”

“ Living in the interval between Ennius and Lucilius, whose original force and genius Survive only in rude and inartistic fragments, he produced six plays, which have not only reached our time in the form in which they were given to the world, but have been read in the most critical and exacting literary epochs, and still may be read without any feeling of the need of making allowance for the rudeness of a new and undeveloped art. ”

“ The best judges and the greatest masters of style in the best period of Roman literature were his chief admirers in ancient times. Cicero frequently reproduces his expressions, applies passages in his plays to his own circumstances, and refers to his personages as typical representations of character. [1] Julius Caesar's lines on Terence, the “dimidiatus Menander,” while they complain of lack of comic power, characterize him as “puri sermonis amator.” ”

“ TERENCE. Our knowledge of the life of the celebrated Latin playwright, Publius Terentius Afer, is derived chiefly from a fragment of the lost work of Suetonius, De viris illustribus, preserved in the commentary of Donatus, who adds a few words of his own. The prologues to the comedies were among the original sources of Suetonius; but he quotes or refers to the works of various grammarians and antiquaries—Porcius Licinus, Volcacius Sedigitus, Q. Cosconius, Nepos, Santra, Fenestella. There is uncertainty as to both the date of the poet's birth and the manner of his death. ”

“ Their tone is for the most part apologetic, and indicates a great sensitiveness to criticism. He constantly speaks of the malevolence and detraction of an older poet, whose name is said to have been Luscius Lavinius or Lanuvinus. The chief charge which his detractor brings against him is that of contamination, the combining in one play of scenes out of different Greek plays. Terence justifies this practice by that of the older poets, Naevius, Plautus, Ennius, whose careless freedom he follows in preference to the “obscura diligentia” of his detractor. ”

“ If Terence was born in 185, he published his six plays between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. Even in an imitative artist such precocity of talent is remarkable, and the date is therefore open to legitimate doubt. ”

“ He was admitted into the intimacy of young men of the best families, such as Scipio, Laelius and Furius Philus; and he enjoyed the favour of older men of literary distinction and official position. In the circle of Scipio he doubtless met the historian Polybius, who was brought to Italy in 167. He is said to have owed the favour of the great as much to his personal gifts and graces as to his literary eminence ”