Lives of the Poets | Page 2

to Albanum for his youthful beauty, he finds himself stripped of his property, and reduced to the lowest state of indigence. Then, withdrawing from the world, he betook himself to Greece, where he met his end, dying at Strymphalos, a town in Arcadia. What availed him the friendship of Scipio, of Laelius, or of Furius, three of the most affluent nobles of that age? They did not even minister to his necessities so much as to provide him a hired house, to which his slave might return with the intelligence of his master's death."
He wrote comedies, the earliest of which, The Andria, having to be performed at the public spectacles given by the aediles [928], he was commanded to read it first before Caecilius [929]. Having been introduced while Caecilius was at supper, and being meanly dressed, he is reported to have read the beginning of the play seated on a low stool near the great man's couch. But after reciting a few verses, he was invited to take his place at table, and, having supped with his host, went through the rest to his great delight. This play and five others were received by the public with similar applause, although Volcatius, in his enumeration of them, says that "The Hecyra [930] must not be reckoned among these."
The Eunuch was even acted twice the same day [931], and earned more money than any comedy, whoever was the writer, had (533) ever done before, namely, eight thousand sesterces [932]; besides which, a certain sum accrued to the author for the title. But Varro prefers the opening of The Adelphi [933] to that of Menander. It is very commonly reported that Terence was assisted in his works by Laelius and Scipio [934], with whom he lived in such great intimacy. He gave some currency to this report himself, nor did he ever attempt to defend himself against it, except in a light way; as in the prologue to The Adelphi:
Nam quod isti dicunt malevoli, homines nohiles?Hunc adjutare, assidueque una scribere;?Quod illi maledictun vehemens existimant,?Eam laudem hic ducit maximam: cum illis placet,?Qui vobis universis et populo placent;?Quorum opera in bello, in otio, in negotio,?Suo quisque tempore usus est sine superbia.
--------For this,?Which malice tells that certain noble persons?Assist the bard, and write in concert with him,?That which they deem a heavy slander, he?Esteems his greatest praise: that he can please?Those who in war, in peace, as counsellors,?Have rendered you the dearest services,?And ever borne their faculties so meekly.
Colman.
He appears to have protested against this imputation with less earnestness, because the notion was far from being disagreeable to Laelius and Scipio. It therefore gained ground, and prevailed in aftertimes.
Quintus Memmius, in his speech in his own defence, says "Publius Africanus, who borrowed from Terence a character which he had acted in private, brought it on the stage in his name." Nepos tells us he found in some book that C. Laelius, when he was on some occasion at Puteoli, on the calends [the first] of March, [935] being requested by his wife to rise early, (534) begged her not to suffer him to be disturbed, as he had gone to bed late, having been engaged in writing with more than usual success. On her asking him to tell her what he had been writing, he repeated the verses which are found in the Heautontimoroumenos:
Satis pol proterve me Syri promessa--Heauton. IV. iv. 1. I'faith! the rogue Syrus's impudent pretences--
Santra [936] is of opinion that if Terence required any assistance in his compositions [937], he would not have had recourse to Scipio and Laelius, who were then very young men, but rather to Sulpicius Gallus [938], an accomplished scholar, who had been the first to introduce his plays at the games given by the consuls; or to Q. Fabius Labeo, or Marcus Popilius [939], both men of consular rank, as well as poets. It was for this reason that, in alluding to the assistance he had received, he did not speak of his coadjutors as very young men, but as persons of whose services the people had full experience in peace, in war, and in the administration of affairs.
After he had given his comedies to the world, at a time when he had not passed his thirty-fifth year, in order to avoid suspicion, as he found others publishing their works under his name, or else to make himself acquainted with the modes of life and habits of the Greeks, for the purpose of exhibiting them in his plays, he withdrew from home, to which he never returned. Volcatius gives this account of his death:
Sed ut Afer sei populo dedit comoedias,?Iter hic in Asiam fecit. Navem cum semel?Conscendit, visus nunquam est. Sic vita vacat.
(535) When Afer had produced six plays for the entertainment of the
people,?He embarked for Asia;