TERENCE

(185-159)

Terentius Afer

LIFE

• Born in Cartage

• Educated by Terentius Lucanus

• Part of Scipio’s circle of intellectuals

• In 160 T. leaves Rome setting for Greece, and never comes back.

LIFE (deconstructed)

• Cartage: cf. Africanus

• Involvement: with aristocratic circles

• Time of intense Roman contact with mainland Greek civilization

Terentius Lucanus

• Senator

• owned

• then freed Terence

• giving him his name

Scipio Africanus Minor

• son of L. Aemilius Paulus,

• adopted by the older Africanus

• Terence is believed to have known him

Lucius Aemilius Paulus

• In 168 BCE wins the decisive battle of the Third Macedonian War

• Booty: 250 wagons of artifacts

• Greek art becomes fashionable among aristocracy

Cultural background

• 186 Worship of Bacchus suppressed

• 173: Epicurean philosophers banished from Rome

• But not without opposition

Plays

• Andria (166 BCE)

• Hecyra (165, 160)

• Heauton Timorumenos (163)

• Eunuchus (161)

• Phormio (161)

• Adelphi (160)

Pattern

• Young man falls in love but cannot marry until obstacles are overcome

• & a side-plot

• Focus on relationships & misunderstandings

• Interest in human nature; homo sum humani nil a me alienum puto.

“CONTAMINATION”

• Contaminatio has been practiced by Naevius, Plautus and Ennius (An. 15ff)

• — Terence’s art pleases the elite and he is proud of it (Ad. 15 ff)

• —Terence uses in his compositions the method of contaminatio, a practice of combining several Greek models into one Roman adaptation. Naevius, Plautus and Ennius did the same (An. 15ff)

Terence’s audience

• Luscius of Lanuvium accuses Terence of contaminatio and patronage

• Advocate of fidelity towards Greek sources• ‘Language thin and writing slight’• T. Luscius had a comedy with a flying deer