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Terence

Publius Terentius Afer (/təˈrɛnʃiəs, -ʃəs/; c. 195/185c. 159? BC), better known in English as Terence (/ˈtɛrəns/), was a playwright during the Roman Republic. He was the author of six comedies based on Greek originals by Menander or Apollodorus of Carystus. Terence's plays were originally staged around 166–160 BC.

This article is about the Roman playwright. For other persons named Terence, see Terence (given name). For other members of the Roman gens, see Terentia gens.

Terence

Publius Terentius Afer
c. 195/185 BC

c. 159? BC

Playwright

166–160 BC

According to ancient authors, Terence was born in Carthage and was brought to Rome as a slave, where he gained an education and his freedom; around the age of 25, Terence is said to have made a voyage to the east in search of inspiration for his plays, where he died either of disease in Greece, or by shipwreck on the return voyage. However, Terence's traditional biography is often thought to consist of speculation by ancient scholars who lived too long after Terence to have access to reliable facts about his life.


Terence's plays quickly became standard school texts. He ultimately secured a place as one of the four authors taught to all grammar pupils in the Western Roman Empire, and retained a central place in the European school curriculum until the 19th Century, exercising a formative influence on authors such as William Shakespeare and Molière.

166 BC: Andria at the Ludi Megalenses

165 BC: abortive production of Hecyra at the Ludi Megalenses

163 BC: Heauton timorumenos at the Ludi Megalenses

161 BC: Eunuchus at the Ludi Megalenses; Phormio at the Ludi Romani

160 BC: Adelphoe, and second abortive production of Hecyra, at the funeral games of ; third (and successful) production of Hecyra at the Ludi Romani

Aemilius Paullus

(166 BC)

Andria (The Girl from Andros)

Like Plautus, Terence adapted Greek plays from the late phases of Attic comedy. Unlike Plautus though, Terence's way of writing his comedies was more in a simple conversational Latin, pleasant and direct, while less visually humorous to watch.[56]


Five of Terence's plays are about a pair of young men in love (in the Hecyra there is only one young man, who is already married, but who suspects his wife of infidelity). In all the plays there are two girls involved, one a citizen woman, the other a prostitute. In four of the plays a recognition (anagnorisis or anagnorismos) occurs which proves that one of the girls is the long-lost daughter of a respectable citizen, thus making the way free for her marriage.[57][58]


Terence's six plays are:

Ancient commentary[edit]

Saint Jerome mentions in Contra Rufinum I.16 that "my teacher Donatus" had written a commentary on the comedies of Terence.[59] Donatus' commentary does not survive in the form in which he originally wrote it. It is commonly believed that an unknown medieval scribe, using two or more manuscripts of Terence containing marginal notes excerpted from Donatus, copied the notes in order to reconstitute the commentary as a separate book, incorporating extraneous material in the process, assigning notes to verses where they did not originally belong, or including material that had been otherwise changed in the course of transmission.[60][61][62][63][64][65] Citations from Donatus' commentary which are not found in the extant redaction occur in Priscian and in scholia to the Codex Bembinus and Codex Victorianus.[61] Another ancient commentary is attributed to one Eugraphius, of whom nothing is known but his authorship of this commentary.[66] Donatus' commentary on the Heauton timorumenos is lacking, but his references to this play in his commentary on other parts of the corpus and Eugraphius' commentary help to make up the gap.


In its extant form, Donatus' commentary is prefaced by Suetonius' Vita Terenti, a short essay on the genre of comedy and its differences from tragedy now commonly called De fabula, and a separate, shorter work on the same subject which in some manuscripts begins with the heading De comoedia. Friedrich Lindenbrog was able to identify the De fabula as the work of an earlier commentator on Terence named Evanthius (probably identical with the grammarian Evanthius said in Jerome's Chronicon to have died at Constantinople in AD 358) because the grammarian Rufinus of Antioch (5th cent. AD), in a work On the Metres of Terence, quotes the De fabula and ascribes it to Evanthius.[67][68][69] Evanthius' work is otherwise lost.[70][71] The De comoedia has continued to be considered the work of Donatus.

Manuscripts of Terence[edit]

The manuscripts of Terence can be divided into two main groups. One group has just one representative, the Codex Bembinus (known as A), dating to the 4th or early 5th century AD, and kept in the Vatican library.[72] This book, written in rustic capitals, is one of the earliest surviving manuscripts of any Latin writer. It has the plays in the order An., Eu., Hau., Ph., Hec., Ad. Three small fragments of similar antiquity survive as well.


Approximately 650 manuscripts exist of later date.[73] These are often known as the "Calliopian" manuscripts, based on subscriptions to the plays found in several of the earlier manuscripts indicating the text had been corrected by someone named Calliopius; nothing further is known of this individual.[74] They date from the 9th century onwards and are written in minuscule letters. This group can be subdivided into three classes. The first class, known as γ (gamma), dates to the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries and includes manuscripts P (Parisinus), C (Vaticanus), and possibly F (Ambrosianus), and E (Riccardianus) among others. They have the plays in the order An., Eu., Hau., Ad., Hec., Ph.. Manuscript C is the famous Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3868, which has illustrations which seem to be copied from originals dating in style to the mid-third century.


Another group, known as δ (delta), has the plays in alphabetical order: An., Ad., Eu., Ph.(=F), Hau., Hec. This consists of 3 or 4 10th-century manuscripts: D (Victorianus), G (Decurtatus), p (Parisinus), and perhaps also L (Lipsiensis).


All the remaining manuscripts belong to the "mixed" group and contain readings copied from both γ and δ, and so are of little value in establishing the text.


It is thought that the γ group and the δ group go back to two archetypes, both now lost, called Γ (Gamma) and Δ (Delta), and that both of these were copied from a single archetype, also now lost, known as Σ (sigma). According to A. J. Brothers, manuscript A, although it contains some errors, generally has a better text than Σ, which has a number of changes designed perhaps to make Terence easier to read in schools. Both A and the now lost Σ are believed to be derived from an even earlier archetype known as Φ (phi), the date of which is unknown.[75]


In addition to these manuscripts there are also certain commentaries, glossaries, and quotations in ancient writers and grammarians which sometimes assist editors in establishing the original reading. The best known of these is the Commentum Terenti, a commentary by the 4th-century grammarian Aelius Donatus, which is often helpful, although the part dealing with the Heauton Timorumenos is missing.

, ed. (1688). Les comédies de Térence traduites en françois, avec des remarques, par Madame D***. Paris. 3 vols.

Dacier, Anne

, ed. (1726). Publii Terentii Afri Comoediae. Cambridge.

Bentley, Richard

Umpfenbach, Franz, ed. (1870). . Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung.

P. Terenti Comoediae

Ashmore, Sidney G., ed. (1910). (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

The Comedies of Terence

Kauer, Robert; Lindsay, Wallace M., eds. (1926). (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

P. Terenti Afri Comoediae

Kauer, Robert; Lindsay, Wallace M., eds. (1958). (2nd ed. with additions to the apparatus by Otto Skutsch ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

P. Terenti Afri Comoediae

Marouzeau, Jules, ed. (1942–49). Comédies. Paris: Les Belles-Lettres. 3 vols.

Barsby, John, ed. (2001). Terence. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2 vols.

(1997). A History of Roman Literature. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 214–40.

Albrecht, Michael von

Augoustakis, A. and Ariana Traill eds. (2013). A Companion to Terence. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Malden/Oxford/Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Augoustakis, Antony (2013). "Hrotsvit of Gandersheim Christianizes Terence". A Companion to Terence. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 397–409. :10.1002/9781118301975.ch21. ISBN 978-1-4051-9875-2.

doi

Baldwin, T. W. (1947). Shakspere's Five-Act Structure. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Beare, W. (1951). The Roman Stage: A Short History of Latin Drama in the Time of the Republic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bonner, Stanley F. (1977). Education in Ancient Rome: From the elder Cato to the younger Pliny. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.  0-520-03439-2.

ISBN

Boyle, A. J., ed. (2004). Special Issue: Rethinking Terence. Ramus 33:1–2.

Büchner, K. (1974). Das Theater des Terenz. Heidelberg: C. Winter.

Cain, Andrew (2013). "Terence in Late Antiquity". A Companion to Terence. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 380–396. :10.1002/9781118301975.ch20. ISBN 978-1-4051-9875-2.

doi

Coulter, Cornelia C. (April 1929). "The "Terentian" Comedies of a Tenth-Century Nun". The Classical Journal. 24 (7): 515–529.  3289343.

JSTOR

Davis, J. E. (2014). Terence Interrupted: Literary Biography and the Reception of the Terentian Canon. American Journal of Philology 135(3), 387–409.

Dintner, Martin T., ed. (2019). The Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. :10.1017/9780511740466. ISBN 978-0-511-74046-6.

doi

Duckworth, George E. (1952). The Nature of Roman Comedy: A Study in Popular Entertainment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.  0-691-06082-7.

ISBN

Flickinger, Roy C. (July 1927). . Philological Quarterly. 6 (3): 235–269.

"A Study of Terence's Prologues"

Forehand, W. E. (1985). Terence. Boston: Twayne.

Gilula, Dwora (1989). . Scripta Classica Israelica. 8/9: 74–8.

"How Rich was Terence?"

Goldberg, Sander M. (1986). Understanding Terence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.  0-691-03586-5.

ISBN

Goldberg, Sander M. (1998). "Plautus on the Palatine". The Journal of Roman Studies. 88: 1–20. :10.2307/300802. JSTOR 300802.

doi

Grant, John N. (1986). Studies in the Textual Tradition of Terence. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Gratwick, A. S. (1982). "Early Republic: Drama". Cambridge History of Classical Literature. Vol. 2: Latin Literature. pp. 77–137. :10.1017/CHOL9780521210430.006.

doi

Karakasis, Evangelos (2005). Terence and the Language of Roman Comedy. Cambridge University Press. :10.1017/CBO9780511482267. ISBN 978-0-521-84298-3.

doi

Kretschmer, Marek Thue (2019). "The Anti-Terentian Dramas of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim". The Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 297–311. :10.1017/9780511740466.020. ISBN 978-0-511-74046-6.

doi

Manuwald, Gesine (2011). Roman Republican Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. :10.1017/CBO9780511920868. ISBN 978-0-511-92086-8.

doi

Marshall, C. W. (2006). The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. :10.1017/CBO9780511486203. ISBN 978-0-521-86161-8.

doi

Miola, Robert (2010). "Terence". The Classical Tradition. Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press. pp. 929–932.

Norwood, Gilbert (1923). The Art of Terence. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Papaioannou, S., ed. (2014). Terence and Interpretation. Pierides, 4. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Pezzini, G. (2015). Terence and the Verb ‘To Be’ in Latin. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.

Prete, Sesto (Jan 1961). "Terence". The Classical World. 54 (4): 112–122. :10.2307/4344491. JSTOR 4344491.

doi

(1983a). "Aelius Donatus". Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics. Oxford University Press. pp. 153–6.

Reeve, M. D.

(1983b). "Terence". Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics. Oxford University Press. pp. 412–20.

Reeve, M. D.

Rous, Sarah A. (Spring 2020). "Homo sum: John Adams Reads Terence". Classical World. 113 (3): 299–334. :10.1353/clw.2020.0026.

doi

Sandbach, F. H. (1977). The Comic Theatre of Greece and Rome. London: Chatto & Windus.

Sharrock, Alison (2009). Reading Roman Comedy: Poetics and Playfulness in Plautus and Terence. The W. B. Stanford Memorial Lectures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. :10.1017/CBO9780511635588. ISBN 978-0-521-76181-9.

doi

Theiner, Paul (1974). "The Medieval Terence". The Learned and the Lewed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 231–247.  0-674-51885-3.

ISBN

Works by or about Terence at Wikisource

Wikisource logo

at Project Gutenberg

Works by Terence

at Internet Archive

Works by or about Terence

at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

Works by Terence

at PHI Latin Texts. Text from Kauer & Lindsay 1958.

Works of Publius Terentius Afer

: Fully scanned texts of Terence (and other authors) by David Chamberlain of the University of Oregon.

Greek and Latin Meter

: Online edition of Donatus' commentary with French translation.

Hyperdonat

Andria

: text, concordances and frequency list (in Latin).

Terence's works

Archived 2019-04-17 at the Wayback Machine, read in Latin by Matthew Dillon.

SORGLL: Terence, Eunuch 232-264

.

Latin with Laughter: Terence through Time