Page:Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett - Comparative Literature (1886).djvu/249

 the Greek drama had not been and could not have been Romanised either in form or spirit. In the hands of Terence, comedy became the expression of a polished class of Græcised Romans and gave up the attempt to be popular; at the same time, it made a quiet protest against patrician exclusiveness and the old strictness of the Roman familia by bringing the freedom of the Greek citizen directly before the eyes of the class whose wealth and power made them the patrons of literature.

It has been said with truth that "all the plays of Terence are written with a purpose; and this purpose is the same which animated the political leaders of free thought." When it is remembered that the aim of Terence was "to base conduct upon reason rather than tradition, and paternal authority upon kindness rather than fear," we may find a distinct reason for the repetition of certain characters in his plays. If his characters may be easily classified (as Terence himself in the prologue to the Eunuchus classifies them), if they look not so much like individuals as types of social and domestic relationships, these features are to be attributed to the influence of family life at Rome, and Terence's desire to remind his audience of family relations incomparably less servile than those which turned on the patria potestas. A Carthaginian by birth, Terence published his first play, the Andria, in 166, and his last, the Adelphœ, in 160 The six comedies which represent this short dramatic career enable us to note various important changes in the tone of Roman culture. In his metres, language, and careful exclusion of Roman associations of place, time, incident, Terence breathes the spirit of the Græcised Roman, while Plautus, in spite of Greek metres and associations, has still something of the Romanised Greek about him. The literary refinement of Terence's