"Many a time from a bad beginning great friendships have sprung up." -- Terence
Publius Terentius Afer (195/185–159 BC), better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC, and he died young, probably in Greece or on his way back to Rome. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on, impressed by his abilities, freed him. All of the six plays Terence wrote have survived.
One famous quotation by Terence reads: "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", or "I am a man, I consider nothing that is human alien to me." This appeared in his play Heauton Timorumenos.
"Children should be led into the right paths, not by severity, but by persuasion.""Extreme law is often extreme injustice.""For you to ask advice on the rules of love is no better than to ask advice on the rules of madness.""Fortune favors the brave.""He makes a great mistake... who supposes that authority is firmer or better established when it is founded by force than that which is welded by affection.""How often things occur by mere chance which we dared not even hope for.""How unfair the fate which ordains that those who have the least should be always adding to the treasury of the wealthy.""Human nature is so constituted, that all see and judge better in the affairs of other men than in their own.""I am a human being; nothing human can be alien to me.""I am a man, and whatever concerns humanity is of interest to me.""I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.""I do not give money for just mere hopes.""I hold this as a rule of life: too much of anything is bad.""I take it to be a principle rule of life, not to be too much addicted to any one thing.""In fact nothing is said that has not been said before.""Lovers quarrels are the renewal of love.""Moderation in all things.""Nothing is said that has not been said before.""Nowadays those are rewarded who make right appear wrong.""Of my friends I am the only one left.""Perhaps believing in good design is like believing in God, it makes you an optimist.""Riches get their value from the mind of the possessor; they are blessings to those who know how to use them, and curses to those who do not.""She ne'er was really charming till she died.""So many men, so many opinions.""The anger of lovers renews their love.""Their silence is praise enough.""There is a demand in these days for men who can make wrong appear right.""They are so knowing, that they know nothing.""They who love dancing too much seem to have more brains in their feet than in their head.""This I consider to be a valuable principle in life: Do no thing in excess.""To touch a sore is to renew one's grief.""Too much liberty corrupts us all.""We are all of us the worse for too much liberty.""What a grand thing it is to be clever and have common sense.""What harsh judges fathers are to all young men!""Where there's life, there's hope.""While the mind is in doubt it is driven this way and that by a slight impulse.""You believe easily that which you hope for earnestly.""You can take a chance with any man who pays his bills on time.""You're a wise person if you can easily direct your attention to what ever needs it."
Terence's date of birth is disputed; Aelius Donatus, in his incomplete Commentum Terenti, considers the year 185 BC to be the year Terentius was born; Fenestella, on the other hand, states that he was born ten years earlier, in 195 BC.
He may have been born in or near Carthage or in Greek Italy to a woman taken to Carthage as a slave. Terence's ethnonym Afer suggests he lived in the territory of the Libyan tribe called by the Romans Afri near Carthage prior to being brought to Rome as a slave. This inference is based on the fact that the term was used in two different ways during the republican era: during Terence's lifetime, it was used to refer to anyone from the land of the Afri (Africa, meaning Northern Tunisia including Carthage); later, after the destruction of Carthage in 146, it was used to refer to non-Carthaginian Berbero-Libyans, with the term Punicus reserved for the Carthaginians. It is therefore possible that Terence was of Libyan descent, considered ancestors to the modern-day Berber peoples.
In any case, he was sold to P. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, who educated him and later on, impressed by Terence's abilities, freed him. Terence then took the nomen "Terentius," which is the origin of the present form.
When he was 25, Terence left Rome and he never returned, after having exhibited the six comedies which are still in existence. According to some ancient writers, he died at sea.
Like Plautus, Terence adapted Greek plays from the late phases of Attic comedy. He was more than a translator, as modern discoveries of ancient Greek plays have confirmed. However, Terence's plays use a convincingly 'Greek' setting rather than Romanizing the characters and situations.
Terence worked hard to write natural conversational Latin, and most students who persevere long enough to be able to read him in the vernacular find his style particularly pleasant and direct. Aelius Donatus, Jerome's teacher, is the earliest surviving commentator on Terence's work. Terence's popularity throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is attested to by the numerous manuscripts containing part or all of his plays; the scholar Claudia Villa has estimated that 650 manuscripts containing Terence's work date from after 800 AD. The mediaeval playwright Hroswitha of Gandersheim claims to have written her plays so that learned men had a Christian alternative to reading the pagan plays of Terence, while the reformer Martin Luther not only quoted Terence frequently to tap into his insights into all things human but also recommended his comedies for the instruction of children in school.
Terence's six plays are:
Adelphoe (160 BC)
Andria (166 BC)
Eunuchus (161 BC)
Heauton Timorumenos (163 BC)
Hecyra (165 BC)
Phormio (161 BC)
The first printed edition of Terence appeared in Strasbourg in 1470, while the first certain post-antiquity performance of one of Terence's plays, Andria, took place in Florence in 1476. There is evidence, however, that Terence was performed much earlier. The short dialogue Terentius et delusor was probably written to be performed as an introduction to a Terentian performance in the ninth century (possibly earlier).
A phrase by his musical collaborator Flaccus for Terence's comedy Hecyra is all that remains of the entire body of ancient Roman music. This has recently been shown to be inauthentic.
