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96 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