Litigious); Bacchides, or the Sisters; Miles
Gloriosus, (the Bragging Captain);
Mercator (the Merchant), and Pænulus, the
Carthaginian, with Casina, Persa, and
Stichus, all three being the names of slaves,
who are introduced among the characters.
For the most part, Plautus has observed in
these plays the technical unities of time and
place.

Terence is a less original and animated
but a more elegant dramatist. He was
born about nine years before Plautus died.
The Romans had already begun to be more
learned, and Plautus was, therefore, from
his birth surrounded with more favourable
influences than Terence had been, and
these operated accordingly on his genius.
He was probably a Carthaginian of good
family, who had been made captive by the
Numidians, and purchased as a slave by
the Romans. He fell into the hands of
a generous master, Terentius Lucanus, a
senator, who gave him his education and
his freedom. He soon became familiar
with the nobility, and was patronised by
Paulus Æmilianus and his son Scipio, and
adopted also by the son of the elder Scipio
Africanus, a young nobleman about nine
years his junior, who had distinguished
himself in the wars at seventeen years of
age. To him and to another of his patrons
Lælius, the enemies of Plautus attributed
the composition of his plays. Lælius, in
fact, is known to have written some verses
in the Fourth Act of Heautontimorumenos
(the Self-Tormentor).

The Andria is generally stated to have
been Terence's first piece, but erroneously.
It was, in fact, his second, and acted in
his twenty-seventh year (166 B.C.) The
Hecyra was performed in the following
year, and the above-mentioned Self-
Tormentor two years subsequently. The
Eunuch and the Phormio date two years
later still, and in the next year the Adelphi
(or Brothers) was acted.

Terence was now thirty-three years of
age, and determined to travel into Greece.
He did so, and remained there a year,
during which he was engaged in collecting
the plays of the celebrated Athenian poet,
Menander. Of these he translated many.
He then prepared to return home. But
the voyage was fatal to him, and he died
on the passage, being not quite thirty-five
years of age.

Terence was a married man, and had a
daughter, to whom he left a house and
gardens on the Appian Way; so that the
account that he died very poor cannot be
accurate. He received, it is said, eight
thousand sesterces for his Eunuch the
first time it was performed; and it appears
that the poets used to be paid every time
their plays were acted, the Ædiles employing
the chief actor of the company to settle
with the author about the price. Many of
the plays of Terence were acted more than
once, the Eunuch, for instance, twice in one
day, and the Hecyra three times.

The commentators and critics have
decided that three points of excellence belong
to Terence; the beauty of his characters,
the politeness of his dialogue, and the
regularity of the scene. The differences
between him and Plautus are antithetically
expressed. Allowance, it is urged, must be
made for circumstances. Terence
composed his pieces at a villa of Scipio or
Lælius; whereas poor Plautus was forced
to make some of his at the mill. The
vivacity of Plautus's wit triumphs over
their hasty birth; whereas, if Terence have
produced more mature and timely offspring,
we may thank for it the felicity of circumstance
as much as his own genius. Plautus
is the more gay, Terence the more chaste;
Plautus has more genius and fire, Terence
more manners and solidity; Plautus excels
in low comedy and ridicule, Terence in drawing
just characters, and maintaining them
to the last. In this fashion, we might
multiply similar parallels until they filled
several columns. These suffice to indicate
the real distinctions between the two poets,
both excellent, however various. Lessing,
it may be mentioned, has devoted a whole
essay to the life and genius of Plautus;
and the elder Colman effected a complete
translation of the works of Terence.

The most celebrated writer of tragedies
among the Romans was Seneca, the
philosopher, who was the preceptor of Nero, and
perished by the tyrant's order, A.D. 65. Ten
dramas are extant with his name, but it is
supposed that he was not the author of them
all, many of them being by his nephew or
son. Two only need be noticed, the Medea
and the Œdipus. The former subject,
which is now well known through Madame
Ristori's superb representation of the
character, had already been finely treated by
the great poet Euripides in one of the
greatest of his tragedies. Seneca has
bestowed upon it a weight and a
magniloquence of diction, which are
peculiarities of his style. In simplicity and
pathos he is inferior; and here Euripides
will continue to be read when Seneca is
forgotten. For the theme of the latter play,
the Roman poet, whether Seneca the elder
or younger, was indebted to Sophocles. It