Suetonius: DE POETIS

I. PUBLIUS TERENTIUS AFER, Carthagine natus, serviit Romae Terentio Lucano senatori, a quo ob ingenium et formam non institutus modo liberaliter sed et mature manumissus est. Quidam captum esse existimant, quod fieri nullo modo potuisse Fenestella docet, cum inter finem secundi Punici belli et initium tertii natus sit et mortuus; nec si a Numidis et Gaetulis captus sit, ad ducem Romanum pervenire potuisse, nullo commercio inter Italicos et Afros nisi post deletam Carthaginem coepto. Hic cum multis nobilibus familiariter vixit, sed maxime cum Scipione Africano et C. Laelio.

1. PUBLIUS TERENTIUS AFER, born at Carthage, served at Rome the senator Terentius Lucanus, by whom, on account of his talent and appearance, he was not only liberally educated but also promptly manumitted. Some suppose that he was captured; which Fenestella shows could by no means have happened, since he both was born and died between the end of the Second Punic War and the beginning of the Third; nor, even if he had been captured by the Numidians and Gaetulians, could he have come to a Roman commander, there having been no commerce between the Italians and the Africans until it was begun after Carthage had been destroyed. He lived on familiar terms with many nobles, but especially with Scipio Africanus and C. Laelius.

Quibus etiam corporis gratia conciliatus existimatur, quod et ipsum Fenestella arguit, contendens utroque maiorem natu fuisse, quamvis et Nepos aequales omnes fuisse tradat et Porcius suspicionem de consuetudine per haec faciat:

He is even thought to have been conciliated to them by the grace of his body; which Fenestella himself also argues against, contending that he was older than both, although Nepos likewise hands down that they were all coevals, and Porcius creates a suspicion concerning their consuetude by these things:

"Dum lasciviam nobilium et laudes fucosas petit,
Dum Africani vocem divinam inhiat avidis auribus,
Dum ad Philum se cenitare et Laelium pulchrum putat,
Dum in Albanum crebro rapitur ob florem aetatis suae:
Post sublatis rebus ad summam inopiam redactus est.
Itaque e conspectu omnium abit Graeciam in terram ultimam.
Mortuust Stymphali, Arcadiae in oppido.

"While he seeks the lasciviousness of the nobles and painted lauds,
While he gapes for the divine voice of Africanus with avid ears,
While he thinks himself to be dining at Philus’s and deems Laelius fair,
While he is often swept off to the Alban estate on account of the flower of his age:
Afterwards, his goods having been taken away, he was reduced to extreme indigence.
And so, out of everyone’s sight, he goes away to Greece, to the farthest land.
He died at Stymphalus, a town in Arcadia.

Nil Publius
Scipio profuit, nil illi Laelius, nil Furius,
Tres per id tempus qui agitabant nobiles facillime.
Eorum ille opera ne domum quidem habuit conducticiam,
Saltem ut esset quo referret obitum domini servulus."

Nothing did Publius
Scipio avail, nothing to him Laelius, nothing Furius,
three who at that time most easily wielded influence among the nobles.
By the agency of those men he did not have even a rented house,
at least so that there might be somewhere for the little slave to report his master’s obit."

II. Scripsit comoedias sex, ex quibus primam "Andriam" cum aedilibus daret, iussus ante Caecilio recitare, ad cenantem cum venisset, dictus est initium quidem fabulae, quod erat contemptiore vestitu, subsellio iuxta lectulum residens legisse, post paucos vero versus invitatus ut accumberet cenasse una, dein cetera percucurrisse non sine magna Caecilii admiratione. Et hanc autem et quinque reliquas aequaliter populo probavit, quamvis Vulcatius dinumeratione omnium ita scribat:

2. He wrote six comedies, of which the first, "The Andrian," when he was giving it to the aediles,
ordered to recite it first to Caecilius, when he had come to him as he was dining, he is said
to have read the beginning of the play, being in more contemptible attire, sitting on a bench next
to the little couch; but after a few verses, invited to recline, he dined together with him, then
to have run through the rest not without great admiration from Caecilius. And he equally commended
both this and the remaining five to the people, although Vulcatius in the enumeration of all writes thus:

"Sumetur Hecyra sexta ex his fabula."

"The play Hecyra will be taken as the sixth out of these."

"Eunuchus" quidem bis die acta est meruitque pretium quantum nulla antea cuiusquam comoedia, id est octo milia nummorum; propterea summa quoque titulo ascribitur. Nam "Adelphorum" principium Varro etiam praefert principio Menandri.

"Eunuchus" indeed was acted twice in a day and merited a price such as no one’s comedy had before, that is 8,000 coins; therefore the sum too is ascribed to the title. For the beginning of the "Adelphorum" Varro even prefers to the beginning of Menander.

III. Non obscura fama est adiutum Terentium in scriptis a Laelio et Scipione, eamque ipse auxit numquam nisi leviter refutare conatus, ut in prologo "Adelphorum":

3. There is no obscure rumor that Terence was aided in his writings by Laelius and Scipio, and he himself augmented it, having never tried to refute it except lightly, as in the prologue of the "Adelphorum":

"Nam quod isti dicunt malevoli, homines nobiles
Hunc adiutare assidueque una scribere;
Quod illi maledictum vehemens esse existumant,
Eam laudem hic ducit maxumam, quom illis placet
Qui vobis univorsis et populo placent,
Quorum opera in bello, in otio, in negotio
Suo quisque tempore usus est sine superbia."

"Now, as to what those malevolent ones say, that noble men
aid this man and incessantly write together with him;
what they esteem to be a vehement malediction,
he here counts that the greatest praise, since it pleases those
who please you all and the people,
by whose work, in war, in leisure, in business,
each man in his own time has made use—without arrogance."

Videtur autem se levius defendisse, quia sciebat et Laelio et Scipioni non ingratam esse hanc opinionem; quae tamen magis et usque ad posteriora tempora valuit. C. Memmius in oratione pro se ait: "P. Africanus, qui a Terentio personam mutuatus, quae domi luserat ipse, nomine illius in scenam detulit."

He seems, moreover, to have defended himself rather lightly, because he knew that to both Laelius and Scipio this opinion was not displeasing; which nevertheless prevailed more and even down to later times. Gaius Memmius, in a speech on his own behalf, says: "Publius Africanus, who, having borrowed a persona from Terence, brought onto the stage under his name what he himself had played at home."

Nepos auctore certo comperisse se ait, C. Laelium quondam in Puteolano Kal. Martiis admonitum ab uxore temperius ut discumberet petisse ab ea ne interpellaret, seroque tandem ingressum triclinium dixisse, non saepe in scribendo magis sibi successisse; deinde rogatum ut scripta illa proferret pronuntiasse versus qui sunt in "Heautontimorumeno":

Nepos, on a sure authority, says he ascertained that Gaius Laelius, once at his Puteolan residence on the Kalends of March, when he had been admonished by his wife to recline earlier at table, asked her not to interrupt; and when at last he entered the triclinium late, he said that he had not often succeeded more in writing; then, when asked to produce those writings, he pronounced the verses which are in the "Heautontimorumeno":

"Satis pol proterve me Syri promissa huc induxerunt."

"By Pollux, quite insolently Syrus’s promises have led me here."

IV. Santra Terentium existimat, si modo in scribendo adiutoribus indiguerit, non tam Scipione et Laelio uti potuisse, qui tunc adulescentuli fuerunt, quam C. Sulpicio Gallo, homine docto et cuius consularibus ludis initium fabularum dandarum fecerit, vel Q. Fabio Labeone et M. Popillio, consulari utroque ac poeta; ideo ipsum non iuvenes designare qui se adiuvare dicantur, sed viros "quorum operam et in bello et in otio et in negotio" populus sit expertus.
Post editas comoedias nondum quintum atque vicesimum egressus annum, causa vitandae opinionis qua videbatur aliena pro suis edere, seu percipiendi Graecorum instituta moresque, quos non perinde exprimeret in scriptis egressus est neque amplius rediit. De morte eius Vulcacius sic tradit:

4. Santra judges that Terence, if indeed in writing he needed helpers, could have made use not so much of Scipio and Laelius, who at that time were mere adolescents, as of C. Sulpicius Gallus, a learned man and at whose consular games he inaugurated the giving of plays, or of Q. Fabius Labeo and M. Popillius, each a consular and a poet; therefore he himself does not designate youths who are said to have helped him, but men “whose service both in war and in leisure and in business” the people had experienced.
After his comedies were brought out, not yet having passed his twenty-fifth year, for the sake of avoiding the opinion by which he seemed to publish another’s works as his own, or for the purpose of grasping the institutions and mores of the Greeks, which he did not to the same degree express in his writings, he went abroad and did not return again. Concerning his death Vulcacius thus transmits:

"Sed ut Afer populo sex dedit comoedias,
Iter hinc in Asiam fecit, et navem ut semel
Conscendit, visus numquam est; sic vita vacat."

"But when the African gave the people six comedies,
From here he made a journey into Asia, and once he
Boarded the ship, he was never seen; thus his life stands vacant."

V. Q. Cosconius redeuntem e Graecia perisse in mari dicit cum C. et VIII. fabulis conversis a Menandro. Ceteri mortuum esse in Arcadia Stymphali sive Leuccadiae tradunt Cn. Cornelio Dolabella M. Fulvio Nobiliore consulibus, morbo implicitum ex dolore ac taedio amissarum sarcinarum, quas in nave praemiserat, ac simul fabularum, quas novas fecerat.

5. Quintus Cosconius says that, as he was returning from Greece, he perished at sea with 108 plays converted from Menander. The rest report that he died in Arcadia at Stymphalus or at Leucadia, when Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella and Marcus Fulvius Nobilior were consuls, overtaken by an illness from the grief and weariness over the loss of his baggage, which he had sent on ahead by ship, and likewise of the plays which he had newly made.

Fuisse dicitur mediocri statura, gracili corpore, colore fusco. Reliquit filiam, quae post equiti Romano nupsit; item hortulos XX iugerum via Appia ad Martis villam. Quo magis miror Porcium scribere:

He is said to have been of medium stature, with a slender body, of dusky complexion. He left a daughter, who afterward married a Roman eques; likewise small garden-plots of 20 iugera on the Appian Way, by the Villa of Mars. For which reason I marvel the more that Porcius writes:

"Scipio nihil profuit, nihil Laelius, nihil Furius,
Tres per id tempus qui agitabant nobiles facillime;
Eorum ille opera ne domum quidem habuit conducticiam,
Saltem ut esset quo referret obitum domini servulus."

"Scipio profited nothing, nothing Laelius, nothing Furius,
three who at that time were most easily active among the nobles;
by their efforts he did not even have a leased house,
at least so that there might be a place whither the little slave might carry back the master's death."

Hunc Afranius quidem omnibus comicis praefert scribens in "Compitalibus":

Afranius indeed prefers him to all the comic poets, writing in
"Compitalia":

"Terenti non similem dicens quempiam."

"saying that no one is like Terence."

Vulcatius autem non solum Naevio et Plauto et Caecilio, sed Licinio quoque et Atilio postponit. Cicero in "Limone" hactenus laudat:

Vulcatius, however, puts him after not only Naevius and Plautus and Caecilius, but Licinius and Atilius as well. Cicero in "Limone" praises thus far:

"Tu quoque, qui solus lecto sermone, Terenti,
Conversum expressumque Latina voce Menandrum
In medium nobis sedatis vocibus effers,
Quiddam come loquens atque omnia dulcia dicens."

"You too, who alone, with chosen speech, Terence,
bring Menander, converted and expressed in the Latin voice,
into the midst for us with sedate voices,
speaking somewhat affably and saying all things sweet."

Item C. Caesar:

Likewise Gaius Caesar:

"Tu quoque, tu in summis, o dimidiate Menander,
Poneris, et merito, puri sermonis amator.
Lenibus atque utinam scriptis adiuncta foret vis,
Comica ut aequato virtus polleret honore
Cum Graecis neve hac despectus parte iaceres!
Unum hoc maceror ac doleo tibi desse, Terenti."

"You too, you among the highest, O half-Menander,
will be placed, and deservedly, lover of pure speech.
And would that to your smooth writings force had been joined,
so that comic virtue might prevail with equal honor
with the Greeks, and you not lie despised in this part!
This one thing I fret over and grieve is lacking to you, Terence."