Information AboutTerence |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT TERENCE | |
| 2nd century bc births | |
| 159 bc deaths | |
| ancient roman comic dramatists | |
| latin writers | |
| old latin authors | |
| republican era slaves and freedmen | |
|
Terence was a Berber , and was born as a Roman Slave . Terence is commonly supposed - based on his approximate age and cognomen, ''Afer'' ('The Africa n') - to have been born in Carthage . His owner, a Senator , educated him and later Freed him. 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 Manuscript s containing his work date from after AD 800 . 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. The first printed edition of Terence appeared in Strasbourg in 1470 , while the first post-antiquity performance of one of Terence's plays, '' Andria '', took place in Florence in 1476 . A phrase by his Music al 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. (See article on Flaccus). A famous quote by Terence is: “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto”: I am human, nothing that is human is alien to me, from the Heautontimorumenos. PLAYS
SEE ALSO EXTERNAL REFERENCES
|
|
|