TERENCE AND THE COMIC POETS SUBSEQUENT TO PLAUTUS.
The names of five or six comic dramatists are known, who fill
the space of eighteen years between the death of Plautus and the
representation of the earliest play of Terence, the 'Andria.' From
one of these, Aquilius, some verses are quoted, which Varro did not
hesitate to attribute to Plautus, and which Gellius characterises as
'Plautinissimi.' They are the words of a parasite, complaining of
the invention of sun-dials as inconveniently retarding the dinner
hour. Among these writers the most famous was Caecilius Statius, an
Insubrian Gaul, first a slave, and afterwards a freedman of a member
of the Caecilian house. He is mentioned by Jerome as having been a
'contubernalis' of Ennius,--a term which has been explained as meaning
that they were together members of the poets' collegium or club, which
met in the temple of Minerva on the Aventine. His poetic career very
nearly coincides with that of the epic and tragic poet, and he is said
to have died one year after him, in 168 B.C. Some Roman critics ranked
him above even Plautus as a poet. The line of Horace--
Vincere Caecilius gravitate, Terentius arte--
probably indicates the ground of their preference. He is said also
to have been careful in the construction of his plots[264]. Cicero,
who often quotes from him, speaks of him as having written a bad
style[265]. He is also mentioned among those poets who 'powerfully
moved the feelings.'
He composed about forty plays. Most of them had Greek titles, and
a considerable number of these are identical with the titles of
comedies by Menander. Two of the longest of his fragments express
with more bitterness and less humour the feelings which husbands in
Plautus entertain towards their wives. In one of these passages he has
adapted his Greek original to the coarser Roman taste with even less
fastidiousness than Plautus generally shows[266]. Another passage,
from the Synephebi, is more in the spirit of Terence than of Plautus.
It is one in which a young lover complains that the 'good nature'
(commoditas) of his father made it impossible to cheat him with an easy
conscience. Occasionally we find specimens of those short maxims which
probably led the Augustan critics to attribute to him the character of
_gravitas_, such as the
Serit arbores quae alteri saeclo prosint,
quoted by Cicero in the Tusculan Questions, and this line--
Saepe est etiam sub palliolo sordido sapientia.
He seems to have had nothing of the creative originality of Plautus,
nor ever to have enjoyed the same general popularity. He prepared the
way for Terence by a more careful conformity to his Greek models than
his predecessor had shown, and, apparently, by introducing a more
serious and sentimental vein into his representations of life.
With Terence Roman literature takes a new departure. When he appeared,
a younger generation had grown up, who not only inherited the
enthusiasm for Greek art and letters of the older generation,--of
men of the stamp of the elder Scipio, Æmilius Paulus, T. Quintius
Flamininus,--but who had been carefully educated from their boyhood
in Greek accomplishments. The leading representative of this younger
generation, Scipio Aemilianus, was about the same age as Terence, and
admitted him to his intimacy; thus showing in his early youth the same
enlightened and tolerant spirit and the same cultivated aspiration
which made him choose Panaetius and Polybius as the associates of
his manhood, and induced him to live in relations of frank unreserve
with Lucilius during the latter years of his life. Among the members
of the Scipionic circle, Laelius and Furius Philo were also closely
associated with Terence; and he is said to have enjoyed the favour
of older men of distinction and culture, Sulpicius Gallus, Q. Fabius
Labeo, and M. Popillius, men of consular rank and of literary and
poetic accomplishment[267]. In the interval between Plautus and
Terence, the great gap which was never again to be bridged over had
been made between the mass of the people and a small educated class.
While the former became less capable of intellectual pleasure, and
were beginning to prefer the exhibitions of boxers, rope-dancers, and
gladiators[268], to the comedies which had delighted their fathers,
the latter became more exacting in their demands for correctness and
elegance than the men of a former generation. They had acquired through
education the fastidiousness of scholars and men of culture, a quality
not easily gained and retained without some sacrifice of native force
and popular sympathies. Recognising the immense superiority of the
Greek originals in literature to the rude Roman copies, they believed
that the best way to create a national Latin literature was to deviate
as little as possible, in spirit, form, and substance, from the works
of Greek genius. But though cosmopolitan, or rather purely Greek, in
their literary tastes, they were thoroughly patriotic in devotion to
their country's interests. They cherished their native language as the
great instrument of social and political life; and they recognised
the influence which a cultivated literature might have in rendering
that instrument finer and more flexible than natural use had made
it. By concentrating attention on form and style, without aiming at
originality of invention, Latin literature might become a truer medium
of Greek culture, and might, at the same time, impart a finer edge and
temper to the rude ore of Latin speech.
The task which awaited Terence was the complete Hellenising of Roman
comedy, and the creation of a style which might combine something of
Attic flexibility and delicacy with the idiomatic purity of the Latin
spoken in the best Roman houses. By birth a Phoenician, by intellectual
education a Greek, by the associations of his daily life a foreigner
living in Rome, he was more in sympathy with the cosmopolitan mode
of thought and feeling which Greek culture was diffusing over the
civilised world, than with the traditions of Roman morality or the
homely and genial humours of Italian life. As a dependent and associate
of men belonging to the most select society of Rome, he had neither
the contact with the many sides of life, nor the familiarity with the
animated modes of popular speech, which helped to fashion the style of
Plautus: but by assimilating the literary grace of the Athenian comedy
and the familiar manner of a friendly, courteous, and active-minded
society, he gave to Latin, what the Greek language in ancient and the
French in modern times have had preeminently, a style which gives
dignity and urbanity to conversation, and freedom and simplicity to
literary expression. If the oratorical tastes and training of the
Romans make the absence of these last qualities perceptible in much
both of their prose and verse, we feel the charm of their presence in
the Letters of Cicero, the lighter poems of Catullus, the Epistles
of Horace, the Epigrams of Martial: and it was owing to the social
and intellectual position of Terence that this secret of combining
consummate literary grace with conversational ease and spontaneity was
discovered.
The biography of Terence written by Suetonius has been preserved in
a complete state; so that in regard to the facts of his life, as of
that of Horace and Virgil, we have ampler evidence than is afforded
in the case of other writers, of whom the only external record is
contained in the short summaries of Jerome. We are enabled to go back
to the original and nearly contemporary authorities which Suetonius
used in his work 'De viris illustribus.' But the result of this fuller
information is to increase the distrust which some of the summaries in
Jerome naturally arouse. The authorities are found to be inconsistent
with one another in several important points. We find also proof
that the grammarians and _littérateurs_ of the second century B.C.
had a pleasure in chronicling the same kind of scandalous gossip
which Suetonius has perpetuated in his lives of the Caesars, and his
biographies of Virgil and Horace.
He was born at Carthage in the year 185 B.C.[269], and became the
slave of Terentius Lucanus, by whom he was liberally educated and soon
emancipated. According to the statement of Porcius Licinus he was
ruined in fortune by the intimacy of his noble friends, who did nothing
to save him from poverty, and retired in disgust to Greece, where he
died, at Stymphalus in Arcadia. The same authority adds that he had not
even a lodging in Rome, to which a slave might have brought the news of
his death. This account is contradicted by other authorities, who give
a more probable reason for his journey into Greece--viz. his desire to
become more familiar with the life and manners which he represents. In
him we note that impulse to travel, stimulated by artistic enthusiasm,
which acted on the great Roman poets of a later time. Other conflicting
accounts are given of his death: one, that he was never heard of after
sailing from Italy; another, that he was lost at sea, on his return
from Greece, along with a number of plays which he had translated from
Menander; another, that he died in Arcadia or at Leucadia from grief
at the loss of his baggage (including a number of new plays), which
he had sent forward by sea by a different route. The account given of
the extreme poverty into which the neglect of his friends allowed him
to sink is contradicted by the statement that he left behind him a
property, consisting of gardens to the extent of twenty acres, close
to the Appian Way. It seems also inconsistent with the fact that
his daughter was so well provided for that she ultimately married a
Roman knight. The 'animus' of Porcius Licinus against the members of
the Scipionic circle is probably the explanation of the conflicting
accounts of the poet's circumstances.
The 'Andria,' his earliest play, was exhibited in 166 B.C., when the
poet was eighteen or nineteen years of age. A story is told, that
before the play was accepted by the aediles, he was desired to read
it to Caecilius; that he came to him at supper, and being meanly
dressed ('quod erat contemptiore vestitu'), he sat down on a bench at
the foot of his couch; but after reading a few lines he was invited
to take his place at the table, and afterwards read the whole play,
to the great admiration of the older poet. The story probably owes
its origin to the tendency which delights to find a point of contact
between the beginning of one literary career and the close of another.
It is inconsistent with the date assigned for the death of Caecilius:
nor does it seem likely that one, admitted to the intimacy of young
men of the highest rank, should have appeared on such an occasion
'contemptiore vestitu.' Perhaps however it may be regarded as quite as
worthy of credit as the story of the meeting of Accius with Pacuvius at
Brundisium.
The next play in order of composition was the 'Hecyra,' first produced
in 165, but withdrawn owing to the bad reception which it met. The
'Hautontimorumenos' appeared in 163, and the 'Eunuchus' and 'Phormio'
in 161 B.C.; the second and third representations of the 'Hecyra'
and the production of the 'Adelphi' took place in 160. The last was
represented at the funeral games of L. Aemilius Paulus. It was in this
year that Terence sailed for Greece; and he died in the following year
when only twenty-five years of age. Two of his plays, 'Phormio' and
'Hecyra,' were translated from Apollodorus, the rest from Menander.
His art is so purely imitative, that for any knowledge of his
circumstances and character we have to trust entirely to his
'prologues,' in which he speaks in his own person. We note in them
his apologetic tone, in marked contrast to the confident hold which
Plautus has over his audiences. This tone is to be explained partly,
perhaps, by the consciousness of his servile origin and his position
as an alien; partly by a sense that his art was not congenial to his
audiences. He shows great sensitiveness to criticism, and shields
himself from the want of popular applause by the sense of the favour
and protection of the great[270]. His attitude to his 'noble friends'
is not unlike that of Horace to the higher class of his day; but he
seems to want the Italian self-confidence and independence of the son
of the Venusian freedman. In the prologue to the 'Adelphi' he refers
with pride to the charge made against him that he was assisted by his
friends in the composition of his plays--
Nam quod isti dicunt malivoli, hominis nobilis
Eum adiutare adsidueque una scribere:
Quod illi maledictum vemens esse existumant.
Eam laudem his ducit maxumam, quom illis placet,
Qui vobis univorsis et populo placent,
Quorum opera in bello, in otio, in negotio
Suo quisque tempore usus't sine superbia.[271]
Traditions both of Scipio and Laelius show that the report was believed
in later times; and as his plays lay no claim to original invention, it
is quite possible that he may have been directly assisted by them or by
other men of rank in the task of translating and adapting. In any case
the style in which they are written seems to reflect the simplicity
and urbanity, the friendliness and the freedom from intolerance,
though not the more serious interests or the graver aspirations of
young men who, in their maturer years, had to play the greatest parts
in the Roman State. In other passages of his prologues he vindicates
himself from the reproach of 'contaminatio,' i.e. the combination of
scenes from different plays, and also from that of plagiarising from
Naevius and Plautus[272]. He contrasts the sobriety of his own art with
the sensationalism of his detractor[273]; and in another place[274],
he charges his opponent with having, by his bad style and literal
adherence to his original, turned good Greek plays into bad Latin ones--
Qui bene vortendo et easdem scribendo male
Ex Graecis bonis Latinas fecit non bonas.
In the prologue to the Andria he professes to imitate the carelessness
of Naevius, Plautus, Ennius, rather than the 'obscura diligentia' of
his detractors.
All these passages show that he was at war with the survivors of the
older generation of playwrights; that he was not a popular poet, in the
sense in which Plautus was popular; that he made no claim to original
invention, or even original treatment of his materials; that he was
however not a mere translator but rather an adapter from the Greek; and
that his aim was to give a true picture of Greek life and manners in
the purest Latin style. He speaks with the enthusiasm not of a creative
genius, but of an imitative artist, inspired by a strong admiration
of his models. And this view of his aim is confirmed by the result
which he attained. He has none of the purely Roman characteristics
of Plautus, in sentiment, allusion, or style[275]; none of his
extravagance, and none of his vigour. The law which Terence always
imposes on himself is the 'ne quid nimis.' He aims at correctness and
consistency, and rejects nearly every expression or allusion which
might remind his hearers that they were in Rome and not in Athens.
His plots are tamer and less varied in their interest than those of
Plautus, but they are worked out more carefully and artistically.
He takes great pains in the opening scenes to make the situation in
which the play begins clear, and he allows the action to proceed to
the dénouement through the medium of the natural play of character and
motive. As a painter of life it is not by striking effects, but by his
truth in detail, and his power of delineating the finer distinctions
in varying specimens of the same type, that he gains a hold over the
reader. There are no strongly-drawn or vividly conceived personages
in his plays, but they all act and speak in the most natural manner:
and the powers of intrigue and mystification attributed to his slaves
are limited by the ordinary resources of human ingenuity. Characters,
circumstances, motives, etc., are all in keeping with a cosmopolitan
type of citizen life, courteous and humane, taking the world easily,
and outwardly decorous in its pleasures, but without any serious
interests, any sense of duty, or any high aspirations.
Terence is, accordingly, in substance and form, a 'dimidiatus
Menander,'--a Roman only in his language. The aim of his art was to be
as purely Athenian as it was possible for one writing in Latin to be.
The life of Athens, in the third century B.C., after the loss of her
religious belief, her great political activity, her speculative and
artistic energy,--or, rather, one of the phases of that life, as it was
shaped by Menander for dramatic purposes--supplies the material of all
his plays. It is the embodiment of the lighter side of the philosophy
of Epicurus, without the elevation of the speculative and scientific
curiosity which gave serious interest even to that form of the
philosophic life. There is a charm of friendliness, urbanity, social
enjoyment, superficial kindness of heart, in the picture presented: and
it was a necessary stage in the culture of the best Romans that they
should learn to appreciate this charm, and assimilate its influence in
their intercourse with one another. The Greek comedy of Menander was a
lesson to the Romans in manners, in tolerance, in kindly indulgence to
equals and inferiors, and in the cultivation of pleasant relations with
one another. The often quoted line,--
Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto,
might be taken as its motto. The idea of 'human nature,' in its
weakness and in its sympathy with weakness, may be said to be the
new element contributed to Roman life by the comedy of Terence. The
qualities of 'humanitas, clementia, facilitas,'--general amiability and
good nature,--are the virtues which it exemplifies. The indulgence of
the old to the follies or pleasures of the young is often contrasted
with the stricter view of the obligations of life, entertained by an
earlier generation, and always in favour of the former. The plea of the
passionate modern poet--
'To step aside is human'--
is often urged, but without any feeling that this divergence needs
an apology. The hollowness of the social conditions on which this
superficial agreeability and humanity rested is revealed by passages
in these plays which prove that the habitual comfort of a moderately
wealthy class was maintained by the practice of infanticide: and a
virtuous wife is represented as begging the forgiveness of her husband
for having given her child away instead of ordering it to be put to
death[276]. In its outward amenity, as well as its inward hollowness,
the social and family life depicted in the comedies of Terence was the
very antithesis of the old Roman austere and formal discipline. How
far this comedy contributed to the subsequent depravation of Roman
character, it is difficult to say. The tone in which pleasure or
vice is treated seems too feeble and sentimental to have powerfully
stimulated the Roman temperament. The writings of Cicero and Horace
show that the receptive Italian intellect was able to extract the
elements of courtesy, tolerance, and social amiability out of such
a delineation without any loss of native manliness and strength of
affection. And thus perhaps, apart from their literary charm, the
permanent gain to the world from the comedies of Terence and the
philosophy which they embody, has been greater than the immediate loss
to the weaker members of the Roman youth who may have been misled by
the view of life presented in them.
The motive of all the pieces is love. There is generally a double
love-story; one, an attachment, which, if not virtuous in the
beginning, has become so afterwards, and which ends in marriage and
the discovery that the lady is the daughter of a citizen, who has
been exposed or carried away in her infancy; the other, an ordinary
intrigue, like those which form the subject of most of the comedies
of Plautus. In his treatment of love, Terence may be said to be the
precursor of Catullus, Propertius, and Tibullus. He has the serious
sense of its pains and pleasures which they display, though he wants
the passionate intensity of the two first of these. The greatest
attraction of his love passages arises from his tenderness of feeling.
In this he is like Tibullus. Although the origin of the sentiment, in
most of his plays, is nothing deeper than desire, inspired by outward
charms and enhanced by compassion, yet we recognise in him, or in
the model which he followed, much more than in Plautus, a belief in
and appreciation of constancy and fidelity. In his treatment of his
'amantes ephebi' he shows sympathy with, rather than the humourous
superiority to their weaknesses which we find in Plautus. But though
there is more grossness in the older poet, yet there is occasionally
more real indelicacy in Terence; as in the subject of the 'Eunuchus'
and in the acceptance by Phaedria, at the end of that play, of the
suggestion of Gnatho, which, in its union of mercenary with sentimental
motives, is almost more repugnant to natural feeling than the
conclusion of the 'Asinaria' and 'Bacchides.'
The characters in Terence, although more consistent and more true to
ordinary life, are more faintly drawn than those of Plautus. None of
them stand out in our memory with the distinctness and individuality
of Euclio, Pseudolus, Ballio, or Tyndarus. The want of definite
personality which they had to the poet himself is implied in the
frequent recurrence of the same names in his different pieces. They
are products of analysis and reflexion, not of bold invention and
creative sympathy. They are embodiments of the good sense which keeps
a conventional society together, or of the tamer impulses by which the
surface of that society is temporarily ruffled. The predominant tone
in their intercourse with one another is one of urbanity. We find none
of the rollicking vituperation and execration in which Plautus revels.
The encounter of wits between slaves and fathers is conducted with the
weapons of polished irony and mutual deference to one another. Davus,
Parmeno, Syrus, Geta, speak with the terse and epigrammatic polish of
gentlemen and men of the world.
While the 'Andria' has more pathetic situations, and the 'Adelphi' is
on the whole more true to human nature, the 'Eunuchus' presents the
greatest number of interesting personages. The Thais of that play is
the most favourable delineation of the Athenian 'Hetaera' in ancient
literature. She has grace and dignity, a consciousness of her charms
combined with a proud humility, and not only kindliness of nature, but
real goodness of heart. The natural dignity of her nature, tempered by
the sense of her position, appears in her rebuke to Chaerea,--
Non te dignum, Chaerea,
Fecisti: nam si ego digna hac contumelia
Sum maxume, at tu indignus qui faceres tamen;[277]
and her kindness is equally manifest in her ready admission of his
excuse,
Non adeo inhumano ingenio sum, Chaerea,
Neque ita inperita, ut quid amor valeat, nesciam.[278]
Gnatho is a new and more subtly conceived type of the parasite, and
in Thraso the 'Miles Gloriosus' does not transcend the limits of
credibility. Parmeno and Phaedria are natural embodiments of the
confidential slave and the weak lover. Their relations to one another
are brought out with more delicate irony and finer psychological
analysis, though with less vigour than those of Pseudolus and
Calidorus, or of Ludus and Pistoclerus in the Pseudolus and Bacchides
of Plautus. The Davus, Geta, and Syrus of the other plays are tamer
and less humourous than the slaves of Plautus; but they play their
part with wit and liveliness, and the rôle which they have to perform
is not felt to be incompatible with the ordinary conditions of life.
Aeschinus, in the Adelphi, shows a higher spirit and more energy of
character than most of the other lovers in Plautus or Terence. The
contrast between the genial, indulgent, selfish man of the world,
and the harder type of character produced by exclusive devotion to
business, is well brought out in the Micio and Demea of the Adelphi,
and in the Chremes and Menedemus of the Heauton Timorumenos. The two
brothers in the 'Phormio,' Demipho and Chremes, are also happily
characterised and distinguished from one another; and Phormio is
himself a type of the parasite, as distinct from Gnatho, as he is
from the Gelasimus or Curculio of Plautus. The character-painting
in Terence is altogether free from the tendency to exaggeration and
caricature which is the besetting fault of some of the greatest
humourists. Yet with all his truth of detail, his careful avoidance
of the extreme forms of villainy, roguery, and inhuman hardness, it
may be doubted whether the life represented by Terence is not on the
whole more purely conventional than that represented by Plautus. His
personages seem to move about in a kind of 'Fools' paradise' without
the knowledge either of good or evil. All the sentimental virtues seem
to flourish spontaneously, even in the hearts of his courtesans: and
the only lesson that seems to be suggested is the duty of overcoming
the restraints imposed by prudence and conscience on the indulgence of
natural inclination.
If we consider the form, substance, and spirit of these six plays, we
find that their merit consists in the art with which the situation is
unfolded and the plot developed, the consistency and moderation with
which a conventional view of life and various types of character are
set before us, and in the large part played in them by the tender and
sympathetic emotions. But their great attraction, both to ancient and
modern readers, has been their charm of style. The diction of Terence,
while it wants the creativeness and exuberance of Plautus, is free from
the mannerisms which accompanied these large endowments of the older
poet. He does not attempt to emulate his 'numeri innumeri,' but limits
himself almost entirely to those metres which suit the natural flow
of placid or more animated conversation, viz. the iambic (senarian or
septenarian) and the trochaic septenarian. The effect of his metre is
to introduce measure, propriety, grace, and point into ordinary speech
without impairing its ease and spontaneousness. The natural vivacity
and urbanity of his style is equally apparent in dialogue, or in rapid
and picturesque narrative of incidents and pathetic situations[279]. He
is full of happy often-quoted sayings, such as
Hinc illae lacrimae. Amantium irae amoris integratiost.
Quot homines, tot sententiae.
Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.
Tacent: satis laudant.
Nosse omnia haec salus est adulescentulis.
Cantilenam eandem canis--laterem lavem,--etc. etc.
Many of these--such as 'ne quid nimis,' 'ad restim res redit mihi,'
'auribus teneo lupum,' etc.--are obviously translations from Greek
proverbial sayings; and in all his use of language we may trace the
influence of a close observation and sympathetic enjoyment of Greek
subtlety, reserve, delicate allusiveness, curious felicity in union
with direct simplicity. These qualities of style, reproduced in the
purest Latin idiom, had a great influence on the familiar style of
Horace. Expressions in his Satires and Epistles, and even in his Odes,
show how closely he studied the language of Terence[280]. It is from
a scene in Terence that Horace takes his example of the weakness of
passion[281]; and the mode in which he tells how his father trained
him to correct his own faults by observing other men must have
been suggested by the conversation between Demea and Syrus in the
Adelphi[282]:
_De._ Denique
Inspicere tamquam in speculum in vitas omnium
Iubeo atque ex aliis sumere exemplum sibi.
'Hoc facito.' _Sy._ Recte sane. _De._ 'Hoc fugito.' _Sy._ Callide.
_De._ 'Hoc laudist.' _Sy._ Istaec res est. _De._ 'Hoc vitio
datur.'[283]
Again, the remonstrance of Micio to Demea,
Si esses homo,
Sineres nunc facere, dum per aetatem licet,
expresses the philosophy of many of his love poems and his drinking
songs. The Epicurean sentiment and reflexion borrowed from Menander
were congenial to one side of Horace's nature, as the manly
independence and serious spirit of Lucilius were to another: and in
his own style he has incorporated the conversational urbanity of the
one writer no less than the intellectual vigour of the other. But
Horace was much richer and more varied in the subjects of his art, as
he was larger and more penetrating in his knowledge of the world, and
more manly and serious in his view of life, than the comic poet who
died so early in his career. It is as the 'puri sermonis amator' that
Terence deserves to be ranked high among Latin authors. The limitation
of his ambition to the production of a faithful copy of his original
enables us better than any other evidence to appreciate the originality
and creative force of Plautus. The absence of all moral fibre in his
representations of character and his philosophy of life, makes us
feel how necessary the Roman 'gravity' was for the creation of a new
literature as well as for the conquest and governing of the world.
After the death of Terence the only writer of _palliatae_ of any name
was Sextus Turpilius, who died about the end of the second century
B.C. No new element seems to have been contributed by him to the Roman
Stage. After the decline of the Comoedia palliata, the Comoedia togata,
which professed to represent the Roman and Italian life of the middle
classes, first obtained popular favour. The principal writers of this
branch of comedy were T. Quintius Atta and L. Afranius. The latter was
regarded as the Roman Menander:--
Dicitur Afrani toga convenisse Menandro.
The admiration which he expressed for Terence, whom he regarded as
the foremost of all the Roman comic poets, is in keeping with this
criticism. From the testimony of Quintilian[284] we may infer that
the change of scene from Athens to Rome and the provincial towns of
Italy did not improve the morality of the Roman stage. A further
decline both in intellectual interest and in moral tendency appeared
in the resuscitation in a literary form of the Fabulae Atellanae, the
chief writers of which were L. Pomponius and Novius. A still further
degradation was witnessed in the later days of the Republic and under
the Empire in the rise of the 'Mimus,' as a recognised branch of
dramatic literature. If the influence of the comic stage, when its
chief representatives were Plautus and Terence, is to be regarded as
only of a mixed character, it is difficult to associate any idea of
intellectual pleasure with the gross buffooneries of the Atellan farce,
when it had passed from the spontaneous hilarity of primitive times
into the conditions of an artistic performance, and still less with the
'mimi,' which were intended to gratify the lowest propensities of the
spectators. The rapid degeneracy of the mass of the people from the
characteristic virtues of the older Republic is testified as much by
the popularity of such spectacles as by the passionate delight excited
by the gladiatorial combats.
[Footnote 264: 'In argumento Caecilius poscit palmam,' quoted from
Varro.]
[Footnote 265: Ep. ad Attic. vii. 3; Brutus, 74.]
[Footnote 266: Cf. Mommsen, vol. ii. p. 435, English translation.]
[Footnote 267: 'Consulari utroque ac poeta.' Life of Terence, by
Suetonius.]
[Footnote 268: Cf. Prologue to the Hecyra.]
[Footnote 269: Another reading makes the date ten years earlier.]
[Footnote 270: Eunuchus, 1-3:
'Si quisquamst, qui placere se studeat bonis
Quam plurimis et minime multos laedere,
In his poeta hic nomen profitetur suom.'
Hecyra, 46:
'Nolite sinere per vos artem musicam
Recidere ad paucos.'
]
[Footnote 271: 'For as to the charge of these ill-natured people, that
men of rank aid him, and constantly write along with him, what they
regard as a great reproach he considers the greatest compliment, while
he enjoys the favour of those who enjoy the favour of all of you and of
the people, whose services in war, in your leisure, in your business,
each one of you has availed himself of at his own time without pride.']
[Footnote 272: Eunuchus, Prologue.]
[Footnote 273: Prologue to Phormio, l. 5 etc.]
[Footnote 274: Eunuchus, 7.]
[Footnote 275: We have one or two Latin puns. Such as the play of words
in _amentium_ and _amantium_, _verba_ and _verbera_; one or two cases
of alliteration and asyndeton, e.g.--
'Hic est vietus, vetus, veternosus senex,'--
and
'Profundat, perdat, pereat, etc.;'
but such mannerisms, which abound in Plautus, are extremely rare in the
younger poet.]
[Footnote 276: In the Heauton Timorumenos.]
[Footnote 277: 'This act was not worthy of you, Chaerea: for even if
it is quite fitting that I should receive such an insult, it was not
fitting that it should come from you.']
[Footnote 278: 'I am not so wanting in natural feeling or so unschooled
in its ways as not to know what love is capable of.']
[Footnote 279: E. g. Andria, 115-136; 282-298; Heauton Timorumenos,
273-301.]
[Footnote 280: The original of such expressions as--'Appone lucro;'
'Dulce est desipere in loco;' 'Rimosa quae deponuntur in aure;' 'Qua
parte debacchentur ignes;' 'Cena dubia;' 'Paucorum hominum et mentis
bene sanae;' 'Quam sapere et ringi;' 'Quid non ebrietas designat;'--and
others, are to be found in Terence.]
[Footnote 281: Eunuch. A. i. 1; cf. Hor. Sat. ii. 3, 260, etc.]
[Footnote 282: 414, etc.]
[Footnote 283: 'Then I bid him look into the lives of men as into a
mirror, and to form for himself an example from others.' 'Do this.'
_Sy._ 'Quite right.' _De._ 'Avoid this.' _Sy._ 'Cleverly said.'
_De._ 'This is honourable.' _Sy._ 'That is it.' _De._ 'This is
discreditable.']
[Footnote 284: Quint. x. 1, 100.]