Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1012

1000 of Shakspeare's Timon. But as none of Terence's plays are so remote from modern manners, the Heauton-timoroumenos has not retained its ancient reputation. Chapman's All Fools, printed in 1605, owes a portion of its plot to the Self- tormentor. (Collier, Annals of the Stage, iii. 95.) Colman (Terence, p. 160) notices the resemblance between Menedemus and Laërtes in the Odyssey (xv. 354, xvi. 139.) Some of the lines of Menander's Heauton-timoroumenos are preserved. (Meinek. Hist. Graec. Com.)

4., "the Eunuch," was at the time the most popular of Terence's comedies. It was played at the Megalesian Games, B. C. 162, and so highly applauded that it was repeated at the same festival; and the poet received from the aediles the unusual sum of 8000 sesterces, a fact so memorable as to be recorded in the Didascalia. It is an adaptation of Menander's, but Thraso and Gnatho, the swaggering captain and the parasite, are taken from that author's , "the Flatterer." There was also a "Colax" by Naevius, which Terence's enemies accused him of appropriating, but which he denies having ever seen. Lavinius (Prol. in Eunuch.) managed to get sight of the Eunuch before it was acted, and told the aediles they had bought stolen goods. Terence replied, that if stock-characters—currentes servos, bonas matronas, meretrices malas, parasitum edacem, gloriosum militem—were to be prohibited, there was an end of play-writing. He bids his censor mind the blunders in his own "Thesaurus," and remember that his Phasma was all Menander's, except the faults. As the manners of the Self-tormentor are obsolete, so the subject of the Eunuch is unsuitable to modern feelings, yet of all Terence's plays it is the most varied in action and the most vivacious in dialogue, and makes the received censure of his being deficient in vis comica scarcely intelligible.

Baif, a poet in the reign of Charles IX., translated the Eunuch into French verse. The modern imitations of it are Aretine's La Talanta, LaFontaine's L'Eunuque, which is in fact a translation, retaining the names, scenes, and manners of the original; and Sir Charles Sedley's Bellamira 1687. It is also the source of Le Muet, by Bruyés and Palaprat, first acted in 1691.

5., was performed in the same year with the preceding, at the Roman Games on the 1st of October. (Comp. Drakenborch. ad Liv. xlv. 1, 6.) This year (161) may therefore be regarded as the "annus mirabilis" of his reputation. It is borrowed from the, "Plaintiff" or "Heir at-Law" of Apollodorus, and is named "Phormio" from the parasite whose devices connect the double-plot. Phormio, however, is not a parasite of the Gnatho stamp, but an accommodating gentleman who reconciles all parties, somewhat after the fashion of Mr. Harmony in Mrs. Inchbald's Every One has his Fault. It would seem from the Prologue, that Terence wearied out, if not convinced, by his censors iterating that his plays were "tenui oratione et scripturâ levi," attempted in the present a loftier style, and, as Donatius says, dealt with passions too earnest for mirth. It is therefore the more strange that this comedy should have suggested to Molière one of his most extravagant farces, Les Fourberies de Scapin. Molière, however, borrowed from other sources as well.

6., "the Brothers," was acted for the first time at the funeral games of L. Aemilius Paullus, B. C. 160. The Greek stage possessed no less than seven dramas with this title. (Meineke, Comic. Graec. Hist.) But Terence took the greater part of his plot from Menander's. One scene, however (Prol.), was borrowed from the of Diphilus, which Plautus had already reproduced under the title of Commorientes. A full and lively analysis of this play, to the modern reader the most delightful of all Terence's comedies, is given by Mr. Dunlop (Hist. of Rom. Lit. I. pp. 302–317). In its Prologue the charge, implied before (Prol. in Heautont.), is expressed of the poet's being not merely helped in composition by his friends, but that the plays themselves were really written by Scipio or Laelius. We have already examined the validity of this accusation. The Prologue shows that the hostility of the critics increased with the success of Terence.

The modern imitations of this comedy are very numerous. Baron copied it in his Ecole des Pères, and it furnished Molière with more than hints for his Ecole des Maris. It is the original of Fagan's La Pupile, and of Garrick's Farce of the Guardian. Diderot in his comédie larmoyante Le Père de Famille, in his characters of M. d'Orbesson and Le Commandeur had evidently Micio and Demea before him, and Shadwell's Squire of Alsatia is from the same source. Manlove and Nightshade in Cumberland's Choleric Man are repetitions of Micio and Demea, and Know'ell in Every Man in his Humour is Micio. Even so recently as 1826–7 the "Brothers of Terence" in its essential parts of contrast, was brought upon the English stage as the Rose-Feast.

The comedies of Terence have been translated into most of the languages of modern Europe, and in conjunction with Plautus were, on the revival of the drama, the models of the most refined, if not the most genial play-writers. In Italy the Terentian Comedy was opposed in the 15th and 16th centuries to the Commédie dell' Arte, and Ariosto, Aretine, Lodovico Dolce, and Battista Porta drew deeply from "this well of" Latin "undefiled." The Pedante was substituted for the Currens Servus, but the swaggering captain and the parasite were retained with little alteration. In Spain Pedro Simon de Abril, about the middle of the 16th century, published a complete translation of Terence, which is still much esteemed. (Bouterwek, Spanish Lit. p. 198, Eng. trans. Bogue.) The English versions of Bernard, Hoole, and Echard (see Tytler's Essay on the Principles of Translat. p. 244, &c.) have been long superseded by that of Colman, one of the most faithful and spirited translations of an ancient writer. Besides Baif's Eunuchus Menage mentions a very old French version of the whole of Terence, partly in prose; but the most accurate and useful of the French translations is the prose version by the Daciers. Politian was the first to divide the scenes into metrical lines, but Erasmus greatly improved upon his arrangement.

The Didascalia preserve the names of the principal actors of Terence's plays, when originally produced. They were Ambivius Turpio, L. Atilius Praenestinus, and Minutius Prothimus; and Flaccus, son of Claudius, furnished the musical accompaniments to all six comedies. The Periochae or summaries in Iambic verse of the plot of each