Menander ( / m ə ˈ n æ n d ər / ; Ancient Greek : Μένανδρος Menandros ; c. 342/41 – c. 290 BC) was a Greek dramatist and the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy . He wrote 108 comedies and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times. His record at the City Dionysia is unknown.
171-505: He was one of the most popular writers and most highly admired poets in antiquity, but his work was considered lost before the early Middle Ages . It now survives only in Latin-language adaptations by Terence and Plautus and, in the original Greek, in highly fragmentary form, most of which were discovered on papyrus in Egyptian tombs during the early to mid-20th-century. In the 1950s, to
342-532: A denarius , a coin containing a much larger quantity of silver, so that the price paid for the Eunuchus was really 32,000 sesterces. When he was about the age of 25 (or, according to some manuscripts, 35), Terence travelled to Greece or Asia and never returned. Suetonius' sources disagree about the motive and destination of Terence's voyage, as well as about whether he died of illness in Greece, or died by shipwreck on
513-515: A "higher brow" comedy than Old Greek comedy. They were also more realistic. The standard edition of the least-well-preserved plays of Menander is Kassel-Austin, Poetarum Comicorum Graecorum vol. VI.2 . For the better-preserved plays, the standard edition is now Arnott's 3-volume Loeb. A complete text of these plays for the Oxford Classical Texts series was left unfinished by Colin Austin at
684-527: A Simplicity and an elegance, that makes him proper to be accurately studied, as A Model." This was declined, as John Quincy believed his teacher would not like him to have a translation "because when I shall translate him he would desire that I might do it without help." John Quincy eventually read the Andria over three evenings in February 1786, and was not impressed with the pace of his Harvard class, which finished
855-851: A Terentian performance in the 9th century (possibly earlier). Beatus Rhenanus writes that Erasmus , gifted in his youth with a tenacious memory, held Terence's comedies as closely as his fingers and toes. In the De ratione studii (1511), a central text for European curricula, Erasmus wrote, "among Latin authors, who is more useful for learning to speak than Terence? He is pure, concise, and near to everyday conversation, and pleasant to youth as well for his genre of plot." Martin Luther wrote that "I love Terence" and considered his comedies useful not only to help schoolboys improve their language skills, but also to teach them about society, because Terence "saw how it goes with people"; even if there were some "obscene" passages in
1026-427: A better text than Σ, which has a number of changes designed perhaps to make Terence easier to read in schools. Both A and the now lost Σ are believed to be derived from an even earlier archetype known as Φ ( phi ), the date of which is unknown. In addition to these manuscripts there are also certain commentaries, glossaries, and quotations in ancient writers and grammarians which sometimes assist editors in establishing
1197-434: A core school author while other Republican authors were displaced from the curriculum by Vergil and other Augustan poets. By the late 4th Century AD, Terence had become one of the four main canonical school authors (the others being Cicero , Sallust , and Vergil ), canonised in a celebrated work by Arusianus Messius , and later referred to by Cassiodorus as "Messius' quadriga ." St Jerome , St Augustine of Hippo , and
1368-727: A daughter who later married a Roman knight, and was said to have left 20 acres of gardens on the Appian Way, a report contradicted by another of Suetonius' sources who says that Terence died poor. Ancient biographers' reports that Terence was born in Africa may be an inference from his name and not independent biographical information. His cognomen Afer ("the [North] African") may indicate that Terence hailed from ancient Libya . However, such names did not necessarily denote origin, and there were Romans who had this cognomen who were not Africans, such as Domitius Afer . It has often been asserted on
1539-573: A decline of trade, a small rise in average temperatures in the North Atlantic region and increased migration . In the 19th century the Early Middle Ages were often labelled the Dark Ages , a characterization based on the relative scarcity of literary and cultural output from this time. The term is rarely used by academics today. The Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire , survived, though in
1710-404: A detrimental influence on students' morals, but praised his father's project, writing, "You have indeed skimmed the cream of Terence and sent it to my boys—I trust they will preserve it and that it will aid them in drawing all the solid benefit from the amanuensis of Laelius and Scipio, which he can afford to their future lives." When Adams sent his grandson Charles Francis Adams his excerpts from
1881-528: A kind of moral textbook for the use of schools. The single surviving speech from his early play Drunkenness is an attack on the politician Callimedon , in the manner of Aristophanes , whose bawdy style was adopted in many of his plays. Menander found many Roman imitators. Eunuchus , Andria , Heauton Timorumenos and Adelphi of Terence (called by Caesar "dimidiatus Menander") were avowedly taken from Menander, but some of them appear to be adaptations and combinations of more than one play. Thus in
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#17328490062382052-751: A lasting Norse heritage in northernmost Scotland, and it led to the combination of the Picts and Gaels under the House of Alpin , which became the Kingdom of Alba , the predecessor of the Kingdom of Scotland . The Vikings combined with the Gaels of the Hebrides to become the Gall-Gaidel and establish the Kingdom of the Isles . The Merovingians established themselves in the power vacuum of
2223-427: A man entering a brothel disguised as a lover in order to win a woman to repentance and a life of continence. Robert Talbot reads Hrotsvit's plays as a Christian allegorisation of Terence designed to rehabilitate the comedies themselves, as Hrotsvit's reconfiguration of the genre to demonstrate the superiority of heavenly love to earthly love will enable readers to read Terence in a new way, with their minds directed from
2394-586: A manuscript that is now in the Laurentian Library . The first printed edition of Terence appeared in Strasbourg in 1470, while the first certain post-antique 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
2565-404: A month-long project to go through the plays excerpting approximately 140 passages that he considered illustrative of human nature as it is the same in all ages and countries, adding translations and comments explaining the moral lessons his grandsons should draw from the texts. John Quincy believed the manners and plots of Terence's plays were too remote from modern life for there to be a danger of
2736-417: A mouldboard, or curved metal ploughshare, and a coulter, a vertical blade in front of the ploughshare. The Romans had used light, wheel-less ploughs with flat iron shares that often proved unequal to the heavy soils of northern Europe. The return to systemic agriculture coincided with the introduction of a new social system called feudalism . This system featured a hierarchy of reciprocal obligations. Each man
2907-454: A pair of young men in love (in the Hecyra there is only one young man, who is already married, but who suspects his wife of infidelity). In all the plays there are two girls involved, one a citizen woman, the other a prostitute. In four of the plays a recognition ( anagnorisis or anagnorismos ) occurs which proves that one of the girls is the long-lost daughter of a respectable citizen, thus making
3078-608: A period of Frankish rule was initiated. The Frankish king Pepin the Short had, by the Donation of Pepin , given the pope the " Papal States " and the territory north of that swath of papally-governed land was ruled primarily by Lombard and Frankish vassals of the Holy Roman Emperor until the rise of the city-states in the 11th and 12th centuries. In the south, a period of chaos began. The Duchy of Benevento maintained its sovereignty in
3249-538: A place as one of the four authors taught to all grammar pupils in the Western Roman Empire , and retained a central place in the European school curriculum until the 19th Century, exercising a formative influence on authors such as William Shakespeare and Molière . The manuscripts of Terence's plays contain didascaliae , or production notices, recording the dates, occasions, and personnel of early productions of
3420-497: A practice adopted from Greek paedagogy, and Terence was a rich source of such sententiae. Scores of Terentian maxims enjoyed such currency in late antiquity that they often lost nominal association with their author, with those who quoted Terence qualifying his words as a common proverb. Through the Middle Ages, Terence was frequently quoted as an authority on human nature and the mores of men, without regard for which character spoke
3591-466: A retreat of agriculture centred around 500. The Romans had practiced two-field agriculture , with a crop grown in one field and the other left fallow and ploughed under to eliminate weeds. Systematic agriculture largely disappeared and yields declined. It is estimated that the Plague of Justinian which began in 541 and recurred periodically for 150 years thereafter killed as many as 100 million people across
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#17328490062383762-466: A rival poet as "old" ( Hau. 23), that Terence was young when he wrote his plays in the 160s. Suetonius' statement that Terence died at about the age of 25 in 159 BC would imply that he was born in 184 BC, the same year as the death of Plautus , and was only 18 years old when he produced his first play. The variant reading that Terence was in his 30s when he died suggests instead that he was born ten years earlier in 194, which would appear to be supported by
3933-532: A separate, shorter work on the same subject which in some manuscripts begins with the heading De comoedia. Friedrich Lindenbrog [ de ] was able to identify the De fabula as the work of an earlier commentator on Terence named Evanthius (probably identical with the grammarian Evanthius said in Jerome's Chronicon to have died at Constantinople in AD 358) because the grammarian Rufinus of Antioch (5th cent. AD), in
4104-411: A style of play-writing that Terence considered old-fashioned rather than to advanced age. Terence's judgement of Luscius' work is that "by translating them well and writing them badly, he has made good Greek plays into Latin ones that aren't good" ( Eu. 7–8), and that Luscius' theatrical successes were due more to the efforts of the actors than of the author. ( Ph. 9–11) According to Suetonius, Terence
4275-455: A suspiciously similar story is told about the tragedians Accius and Pacuvius ; and Jerome 's statement that Caecilius died the year after Ennius implies that Caecilius died two years before Andria was produced. However, Thomas Carney argues that Jerome's dating of Caecilius' death is not above suspicion, and besides, a delay of several years between this meeting and production is entirely plausible, as Caecilius may have been impressed by
4446-609: A typical schoolboy at the age of 9 would begin to memorise a great part, if not all, of Terence. A quote from the Eunuchus in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew is not taken direct from the play, but quoted in a form in which it is found in William Lily 's Latin Grammar and Nicholas Udall 's Floures for Latine spekynge, with the syntax adapted to form an independent sentence. However,
4617-639: A unified cultural and educational milieu of far-ranging connections. As this was lost, it was replaced by the rule of local potentates, sometimes members of the established Romanized ruling elite, sometimes new lords of alien culture. In Aquitania , Gallia Narbonensis , southern Italy and Sicily, Baetica or southern Spain , and the Iberian Mediterranean coast, Roman culture lasted until the 6th or 7th centuries. The gradual breakdown and transformation of economic and social linkages and infrastructure resulted in increasingly localized outlooks. This breakdown
4788-412: A woman is taken by the girl who triumphs by resisting all advances (or a prostitute who abandons her former life), and a happy ending lies not in the consummation of the young couple's marriage, but in a figurative marriage to Christ. Whereas in the Eunuchus, Chaerea entered a courtesan's home disguised as a eunuch to gain access to his beloved, two of Hrotsvit's plays ( Abraham and Paphnutius ) feature
4959-608: A work On the Metres of Terence, quotes the De fabula and ascribes it to Evanthius. Evanthius' work is otherwise lost. The De comoedia has continued to be considered the work of Donatus. The manuscripts of Terence can be divided into two main groups. One group has just one representative, the Codex Bembinus (known as A), dating to the 4th or early 5th century AD, and kept in the Vatican library. This book, written in rustic capitals,
5130-495: Is also known for the quote/proverb: "a rich man owns so many goods he has no place to shit." (Meditations, V:12) Another well known quote by Menander is "Whom the gods love dies young". Menander's comedies were very different from the Old Comedies of Aristophanes. New Greek Comedies usually would have two lovers, a blocking character, and a helpful servant. They typically ended with a wedding or happy ending. They were much more of
5301-529: Is attributed to one Eugraphius, of whom nothing is known but his authorship of this commentary. Donatus' commentary on the Heauton timorumenos is lacking, but his references to this play in his commentary on other parts of the corpus and Eugraphius' commentary help to make up the gap. In its extant form, Donatus' commentary is prefaced by Suetonius' Vita Terenti, a short essay on the genre of comedy and its differences from tragedy now commonly called De fabula, and
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5472-406: Is improbable that Terence worked at such a rate after having previously finished less than one play a year, and some editors delete the number, supposing that the numeral CVIII is simply a double copying of the preposition CVM, subsequently rationalised as a number. Terence was said to have been of "moderate height, slender, and of dark complexion." Suetonius' description of Terence's complexion
5643-437: Is known of this individual. They date from the 9th century onwards and are written in minuscule letters. This group can be subdivided into three classes. The first class, known as γ ( gamma ), dates to the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries and includes manuscripts P (Parisinus), C (Vaticanus), and possibly F (Ambrosianus), and E (Riccardianus) among others. They have the plays in the order An., Eu., Hau., Ad., Hec., Ph. . Manuscript C
5814-406: Is likely an inference from his supposed African origin, and his description of the poet's physique may have originated as a metaphor for the "lightness" of his verse style, just as the poet Philitas of Cos was said to have weighted his shoes with lead lest he blow away in the wind. Likenesses of Terence found in medieval manuscripts have no authenticity. Suetonius says that Terence was survived by
5985-461: Is one of the earliest surviving manuscripts of any Latin writer. It has the plays in the order An., Eu., Hau., Ph., Hec., Ad. Three small fragments of similar antiquity survive as well. Approximately 650 manuscripts exist of later date. These are often known as the "Calliopian" manuscripts, based on subscriptions to the plays found in several of the earlier manuscripts indicating the text had been corrected by someone named Calliopius; nothing further
6156-402: Is the famous Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3868 , which has illustrations which seem to be copied from originals dating in style to the mid-third century. Another group, known as δ ( delta ), has the plays in alphabetical order: An., Ad., Eu., Ph. (=F), Hau., Hec. This consists of 3 or 4 10th-century manuscripts: D (Victorianus), G (Decurtatus), p (Parisinus), and perhaps also L (Lipsiensis). All
6327-561: Is the position of Chalcedonian Christianity . Arianism found some favour in the Roman Empire before being eclipsed by the Chalcedonian position and then suppressed as heretical. During the migrations, or Völkerwanderung (wandering of the peoples), the earlier settled populations were sometimes left intact though usually partially or entirely displaced. Roman culture north of the Po River
6498-508: The Confessions about his school days, he quotes the scene from the Eunuchus where Chaerea recounts how he and Pamphila looked together at a painting of Zeus intruding in the home of Danaë , after which Chaerea, emboldened by the example of the pagan god, took the opportunity to rape Pamphila. Augustine argues that it is not necessary for students to be exposed to such "vileness" ( turpitudo ) merely to learn vocabulary and eloquence. In
6669-795: The Samia , the Perikeiromene , and the Epitrepontes ; a section of the Heros ; and another fragment from an unidentified play. A fragment of 115 lines of the Sikyonioi had been found in the papier mache of a mummy case in 1906. In 1959, the Bodmer papyrus was published containing Dyskolos , more of the Samia , and half of the Aspis . In the late 1960s, more of the Sikyonioi
6840-578: The Adelphoe. According to the didascaliae, each of Terence's plays was originally produced by the acting company of Lucius Ambivius Turpio , and musical accompaniment for each of the plays was provided by a tibicen named Flaccus, a slave in the service of a certain Claudius. The traditional and generally accepted chronology of the plays established according to the didascaliae is as follows: The didascalia for each play also identifies its position in
7011-593: The Andria were combined Menander's The Woman from Andros and The Woman from Perinthos , in the Eunuchus , The Eunuch and The Flatterer , while the Adelphi was compiled partly from Menander and partly from Diphilus . The original of Terence's Hecyra (as of the Phormio ) is generally supposed to be, not by Menander, but Apollodorus of Carystus . The Bacchides and Stichus of Plautus were probably based upon Menander's The Double Deceiver and Brotherly-Loving Men , but
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7182-620: The Black Sea , creating formidable confederations which opposed the local Sarmatians . In Dacia (present-day Romania) and on the steppes north of the Black Sea the Goths , a Germanic people, established at least two kingdoms: Therving and Greuthung . The arrival of the Huns in 372–375 ended the history of these kingdoms. The Huns, a confederation of central Asian tribes, founded an empire. They had mastered
7353-676: The Burgundians and bands of the Alamanni . In the fit of anti-barbarian hysteria which followed, the Western Roman Emperor Honorius had Stilicho summarily beheaded (408). Stilicho submitted his neck, "with a firmness not unworthy of the last of the Roman generals ", wrote Gibbon. Honorius was left with only worthless courtiers to advise him. In 410, the Visigoths led by Alaric I captured
7524-570: The Dnieper . By the 9th century, the Slavs had expanded into sparsely inhabited territories to the south and east from these natural frontiers, peacefully assimilating the indigenous Illyrian and Finnic populations. From the 7th century, Byzantine history was greatly affected by the rise of Islam and the Caliphates . Muslim Arabs first invaded historically Roman territory under Abū Bakr , first Caliph of
7695-770: The Dyskolos and 200 lines of another piece by Menander, so far unpublished, titled Titthe . In his First Epistle to the Corinthians , Paul the Apostle quotes Menander in the text "Bad company corrupts good character", which probably comes from his play Thais ; according to 5th century Christian historian Socrates Scholasticus , Menander derived this from Euripides . "He who labors diligently need never despair, for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor." — Menander "Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος" ( anerriphtho kybos ), best known in English as "
7866-656: The Frankish leader Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732. The Umayyads were overthrown in 750 by the Abbāsids and most of the Umayyad clan were massacred. A surviving Umayyad prince, Abd-ar-rahman I , escaped to Spain and founded a new Umayyad dynasty in the Emirate of Cordoba in 756. Charles Martel's son Pippin the Short retook Narbonne , and his grandson Charlemagne established
8037-552: The Gothic War (376–382) , the Goths revolted and confronted the main Roman army in the Battle of Adrianople (378). By this time, the distinction in the Roman army between Roman regulars and barbarian auxiliaries had broken down, and the Roman army was composed mainly of barbarians and soldiers recruited for a single campaign. The general decline in discipline also led to the use of smaller shields and lighter weaponry. Not wanting to share
8208-579: The Greek-speaking successor to the classical Roman Empire. The inhabitants continued to regard themselves as Romans, or Romaioi , until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. Despite this, to distinguish it from its predominantly Latin-speaking predecessor, historians began referring to the empire as "Byzantine", after the original name of Constantinople, Byzantium The Eastern Roman or "Byzantine" Empire aimed to retain control of
8379-555: The Ibis of Ovid , he drowned while bathing, and his countrymen honored him with a tomb on the road leading to Athens, where it was seen by Pausanias . Numerous supposed busts of him survive, including a well-known statue in the Vatican , formerly thought to represent Gaius Marius . His rival in dramatic art (and supposedly in the affections of Glycera) was Philemon , who appears to have been more popular. Menander, however, believed himself to be
8550-703: The Macedonian dynasty in 867 marked the end of the period of political and religious turmoil and introduced a new golden age of the empire. While the talented generals such as Nicephorus Phocas expanded the frontiers, the Macedonian emperors (such as Leo the Wise and Constantine VII ) presided over the cultural flowering in Constantinople, known as the Macedonian Renaissance . The enlightened Macedonian rulers scorned
8721-847: The Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees in part of what today is Catalonia , reconquering Girona in 785 and Barcelona in 801. The Umayyads in Hispania proclaimed themselves caliphs in 929. Climatic conditions in Western Europe began to improve after 700. In that year, the two major powers in western Europe were the Franks in Gaul and the Lombards in Italy. The Lombards had been thoroughly Romanized, and their kingdom
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#17328490062388892-432: The Moors (mostly Berbers and some Arabs ) invaded the Christian Visigothic Kingdom in the year 711, under their Berber leader Tariq ibn Ziyad . They landed at Gibraltar on 30 April and worked their way northward. Tariq's forces were joined the next year by those of his superior, Musa ibn Nusair . During the eight-year campaign most of the Iberian Peninsula was brought under Muslim rule—except for small areas in
9063-429: The Phormio, he remarked, "in these Plays of Terence ... Are not the Slaves Superior Beings to the Citizens? Every Smart Expression; every brilliant Image, every Moral Sentiment is in the Mouth of a Slave." In 1834, when Charles read the works of Terence, copying in his grandfather's comments and making other notes, he responded, "In returning to answer these questions, I must disagree with the sentiment. I cannot overlook
9234-454: The Plague of Justinian . The Emperor himself was afflicted, and within the span of less than a year, an estimated 200,000 Constantinopolites—two out of every five city residents—had died of the disease. Justinian's successors Maurice and Heraclius confronted invasions by the Avar and Slavic tribes. After the devastations by the Slavs and the Avars, large areas of the Balkans became depopulated. In 626 Constantinople, by far
9405-564: The Po River had been wiped out in the years after the end of the Western Roman Empire, between the 5th and 8th centuries, new political and social infrastructure began to develop. Much of this was initially Germanic and pagan. Arian Christian missionaries had been spreading Arian Christianity throughout northern Europe, though by 700 the religion of northern Europeans was largely a mix of Germanic paganism , Christianized paganism, and Arian Christianity. Chalcedonian Christianity had barely started to spread in northern Europe by this time. Through
9576-415: The Poenulus does not seem to be from The Carthaginian , nor the Mostellaria from The Apparition , in spite of the similarity of titles. Caecilius Statius , Luscius Lanuvinus, Turpilius and Atilius also imitated Menander. He was further credited with the authorship of some epigrams of doubtful authenticity; the letters addressed to Ptolemy Soter and the discourses in prose on various subjects mentioned by
9747-481: The Rashidun Caliphate , who entered Roman Syria and Roman Mesopotamia . The Byzantines and neighbouring Persian Sasanids had been severely weakened by a long succession of Byzantine–Sasanian wars , especially the climactic Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 . Under Umar , the second Caliph, the Muslims decisively conquered Syria and Mesopotamia , as well as Roman Palestine , Roman Egypt , parts of Asia Minor and Roman North Africa , while they entirely toppled
9918-417: The Suda are probably spurious. Most of Menander's work did not survive the Middle Ages, except as short fragments. Federico da Montefeltro 's library at Urbino reputedly had "tutte le opere" , a complete works, but its existence has been questioned and there are no traces after Cesare Borgia 's capture of the city and the transfer of the library to the Vatican. Until the end of the 19th century, all that
10089-425: The Vita attributes the claim to Q. Cosconius that Terence died by shipwreck while returning from Greece "cum C et VIII fabulis conversis a Menandro," an expression interpreted by some to refer to 108 new plays that Terence had adapted from Menander, but by Carney as "108 stories dramatised by Menander," who is credited with having written exactly this number of plays. If this number refers to new Terentian plays, it
10260-442: The aediles , they bade him first read it to Caecilius . Terence, shabbily dressed, went to the older poet's house when he was dining, and when Caecilius had heard only a few lines, he invited the young man to join him for the meal. The historicity of this meeting has been doubted on the grounds that it is improbable Terence, with his aristocratic patrons, would have been unable to dress himself decently for such an important interview;
10431-419: The arrival of Christian missionaries in 597 . The Lombards, who first entered Italy in 568 under Alboin , carved out a state in the north, with its capital at Pavia . At first, they were unable to conquer the Exarchate of Ravenna , the Ducatus Romanus , and Calabria and Apulia . The next two hundred years were occupied in trying to conquer these territories from the Byzantine Empire. The Lombard state
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#173284900623810602-500: The decline of the Western Roman Empire , and preceding the High Middle Ages ( c. 11th to 14th centuries). The alternative term late antiquity , for the early part of the period, emphasizes elements of continuity with the Roman Empire , while Early Middle Ages is used to emphasize developments characteristic of the earlier medieval period. The period saw a continuation of trends evident since late classical antiquity , including population decline , especially in urban centres,
10773-400: The unity of time or other ancient dramatic conventions, it has been argued that Terence's influence on Hrotsvit is superficial, and the only similarity between them is that they each wrote six plays. Hrotsvit's indebtedness to Terence lies rather in situations and subject matter, transposed to invert the Terentian plot and its values; the place of the Terentian hero who successfully pursues
10944-420: The 10th Century, Hrotsvit of Gandersheim wrote six plays based on the lives of Christian saints, on the model of the six comedies of Terence. In a preface explaining her purpose in writing, Hrotsvit takes up Augustine's critique of the moral influence of the comedies, saying that many Christians attracted by Terence's style find themselves corrupted by his subject matter, and she has undertaken to write works in
11115-425: The 2nd Century BC, Terence had been established as a literary "classic" and a standard school text. Cicero (born 106 BC) recalls that when he was a boy, his education in rhetoric included an assignment to recount Simo's narrative from the first scene of the Andria in his own words. Throughout the imperial period, Terence was second only to Vergil as the most widely known and read of Latin poets, and he remained
11286-453: The 3rd century as from the first. Estimates of the population of the Roman Empire during the period from 150 to 400 suggest a fall from 65 million to 50 million, a decline of more than 20 percent. Some scholars have connected this de-population to the Dark Ages Cold Period (300–700), when a decrease in global temperatures impaired agricultural yields. Early in the 3rd century Germanic peoples migrated south from Scandinavia and reached
11457-450: The 6th century, but then lost their trading links. Administrative, educational and military infrastructure quickly vanished, and the loss of the established cursus honorum led to the collapse of the schools and to a rise of illiteracy even among the leadership. The careers of Cassiodorus (died c. 585 ) at the beginning of this period and of Alcuin of York (died 804) at its close were founded alike on their valued literacy. For
11628-407: The 7th century the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate conquered the southern part of the Roman territory. Many of the listed trends reversed later in the period. In 800, the title of Emperor was revived in Western Europe with Charlemagne , whose Carolingian Empire greatly affected later European social structure and history. Europe experienced a return to systematic agriculture in
11799-422: The 8th century was out, the Farmer's Law signalled the resurrection of agricultural technologies in the Roman Empire. As the 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica noted, "the technological base of Byzantine society was more advanced than that of contemporary western Europe: iron tools could be found in the villages; water mills dotted the landscape; and field-sown beans provided a diet rich in protein". The ascension of
11970-408: The Anglo-Saxons in the sixth century, with 597 given as the traditional date for its large-scale adoption. Western Britain ( Wales ), eastern and northern Scotland ( Pictland ) and the Scottish highlands and isles continued their separate evolution. The Irish descended and Irish-influenced people of western Scotland were Christian from the fifth century onward, the Picts adopted Christianity in
12141-409: The Early Middle Ages, reducing the sprawling city to groups of inhabited buildings interspersed among large areas of ruins and vegetation. The death of Theodosius I in 395 was followed by the division of the empire between his two sons. The Western Roman Empire disintegrated into a mosaic of warring Germanic kingdoms in the 5th century, effectively making the Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople
12312-590: The German church, with the result that, within a century, the German church was the strongest church in western Europe. Yet despite this, Charles Martel refused to overthrow the Frankish king. His son, Pepin the Short, inherited his power, and used it to further expand Frankish influence. Unlike his father, however, Pepin decided to seize the Frankish kingship. Given how strongly Frankish culture held to its principle of inheritance, few would support him if he attempted to overthrow
12483-515: The Italiote Greek population enslaved by Hannibal, as this would explain his proficiency in Latin and Greek. F. H. Sandbach notes that in the modern world, it is rare, but not entirely unknown, for an author to achieve literary distinction in a second language. Terence's date of birth is uncertain, though Sesto Prete infers from Terence's characterisation of himself as a "new" writer ( Eu. 43), and of
12654-517: The Latin iacta alea est , a mistranslation by Suetonius , 121 AD. According to Plutarch , the actual phrase used by Julius Caesar at the crossing of the Rubicon was a quote in Greek from Menander's play Arrhephoros , with the different meaning "Let the die be cast!". See discussion at " the die is cast " and " Alea iacta est ". He [Caesar] declared in Greek with loud voice to those who were present 'Let
12825-532: The Roman Empire, including Rome and the Italian peninsula itself, but he also codified Roman law (with his codification remaining in force in many areas of Europe until the 19th century) and commissioned the building of the largest and most architecturally advanced edifice of the Early Middle Ages, the Hagia Sophia . However, his reign also saw the outbreak of a bubonic plague pandemic , now known retroactively as
12996-648: The Roman calendar ran some two and a half months ahead of the Sun in the 160s, Terence's plays that premiered at the Megalensia, though officially scheduled in April, would actually have premiered in late January. There was no permanent theatre in Rome until the construction of the Theatre of Pompey in 55 BC, and Terence's plays would have been performed on temporary wooden stages constructed for
13167-523: The Roman empire were a mixture of Roman Christian , Arian Christian , Nestorian Christian , and pagan . The Germanic peoples knew little of cities, money, or writing, and were mostly pagan, though they were increasingly converting to Arianism , a non-trinitarian form of Christianity that considers God the Son to have been created by, and thus inferior to, God the Father, rather than the two being co-eternal , which
13338-600: The Roman military writer Ammianus Marcellinus . The core army of the Eastern Roman Empire was destroyed, Valens was killed, and the Goths were freed to lay waste to the Balkans , including the armories along the Danube. As Edward Gibbon comments, "The Romans, who so coolly and so concisely mention the acts of justice which were exercised by the legions, reserve their compassion and their eloquence for their own sufferings, when
13509-867: The Sasanids. In the mid 7th century, following the Muslim conquest of Persia , Islam penetrated into the Caucasus region, of which parts would later permanently become part of Russia . This expansion of Islam continued under Umar's successors and then the Umayyad Caliphate , which conquered the rest of Mediterranean North Africa and most of the Iberian Peninsula . Over the next centuries Muslim forces were able to take further European territory, including Cyprus , Malta , Septimania , Crete , and Sicily and parts of southern Italy . The Muslim conquest of Hispania began when
13680-449: The age of 25, Terence is said to have made a voyage to the east in search of inspiration for his plays, where he died either of disease in Greece, or by shipwreck on the return voyage. However, Terence's traditional biography is often thought to consist of speculation by ancient scholars who lived too long after Terence to have access to reliable facts about his life. Terence's plays quickly became standard school texts. He ultimately secured
13851-567: The basis of the name that Terence was of Berber descent, as the Romans distinguished between Berbers, called Afri in Latin, and Carthaginians, called Poeni. However, lexicographic evidence does not support the validity of this distinction during Terence's lifetime. If Terence was born as a slave in Carthage, it is possible his mother was an ethnic Italian brought there as a war captive by Hannibal . Carney argues that Terence must have been born from
14022-472: The better dramatist, and, according to Aulus Gellius , used to ask Philemon: "Don't you feel ashamed whenever you gain a victory over me?" According to Caecilius of Calacte ( Porphyry in Eusebius , Praeparatio evangelica ) Menander was accused of plagiarism , as his The Superstitious Man was taken from The Augur of Antiphanes , but reworkings and variations on a theme of this sort were commonplace and so
14193-458: The characteristic findings of smallpox. Waves of epidemics wiped out large rural populations. Most of the details about the epidemics are lost, probably due to the scarcity of surviving written records. For almost a thousand years, Rome was the most politically important, richest and largest city in Europe. Around 100 AD, it had a population of about 450,000, and declined to a mere 20,000 during
14364-595: The characters of Menedemus and Chremes, of Micio and Demea which contain more moral sentiment than all the Slaves in the six Plays." American playwright Thornton Wilder based his novel The Woman of Andros on Terence's Andria . Due to his cognomen Afer, Terence has long been identified with Africa and heralded as the first poet of the African diaspora by generations of writers, including Juan Latino , Alexandre Dumas , Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou . Phyllis Wheatley ,
14535-455: The charge is a complicated one. How long complete copies of his plays survived is unclear, although 23 of them, with commentary by Michael Psellus , were said to still have been available in Constantinople in the 11th century. He is praised by Plutarch ( Comparison of Menander and Aristophanes ) and Quintilian ( Institutio Oratoria ), who accepted the tradition that he was the author of
14706-418: The city of Rome and for three days fire and slaughter ensued as bodies filled the streets, palaces were stripped of their valuables, and the invaders interrogated and tortured those citizens thought to have hidden wealth. As newly converted Christians, the Goths respected church property, but those who found sanctuary in the Vatican and in other churches were the fortunate few. The Goths and Vandals were only
14877-496: The comedies, Luther insisted that they were no less appropriate for young people to read without censorship than the Bible, which "contains amatory things everywhere." The indexes of the Weimar edition of Martin Luther's works note nearly 200 references to Terence and his plays. The preservation of Terence through the church enabled his work to influence much of later Western drama. Two of
15048-479: The consuls in 106 BC, which would be the last attested production of Terence before the Renaissance, though the consuls of 141 BC had similar names. The Greek plays which provided the Roman comedians with their material typically had a prologue which either preceded the play, or interrupted the first act after one or two scenes. In the plays of Plautus, the prologue usually, but not invariably, provides exposition of
15219-454: The corpus by chronological order. The didascaliae state that Eunuchus was the second play ( facta II ), and Heauton timorumenos was the third ( facta III ), testimony seemingly contradicted by the dates of production, as well as by Donatus' statement that the Eunuchus was "published third" ( edita tertium ). Some scholars have explained the discrepancy by positing an unsuccessful production of Eunuchus in 165 or 164 BC, or by interpreting
15390-618: The culture and the imperial traditions of the Eastern Roman Empire attracted its northern neighbours—Slavs, Bulgars, and Khazars—to Constantinople , in search of either pillage or enlightenment. The movement of the Germanic tribes to the south triggered the great migration of the Slavs , who occupied the vacated territories. In the 7th century, they moved westward to the Elbe , southward to the Danube and eastward to
15561-489: The culture of the newcomers, their warband loyalties, the remnants of classical culture, and Christian influences, produced a new model for society, based in part on feudal obligations . The centralized administrative systems of the Romans did not withstand the changes, and the institutional support for chattel slavery largely disappeared. The Anglo-Saxons in England had also started to convert from Anglo-Saxon polytheism after
15732-493: The darkest ages of learning," a remark approved by E. K. Chambers , but Paul Theiner takes issue with this, suggesting that it is more appropriate to attribute "a charmed life" to authors who survived the Middle Ages by chance in a few manuscripts found in isolated libraries, whereas the broad and constant popularity of Terence "rendered elfin administrations quite unnecessary." Roman students learning to write would regularly be assigned to copy edifying sententiae, or "maxims,"
15903-711: The decisive victory at Ongala in 680 the armies of the Bulgars and Slavs advanced to the south of the Balkan mountains, defeating again the Byzantines who were then forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty which acknowledged the establishment of the First Bulgarian Empire on the borders of the Empire. To counter these threats a new system of administration was introduced. The regional civil and military administration were combined in
16074-478: The die be cast' and led the army across. ( Plutarch , Life of Pompey , 60.2.9) Lewis and Short , citing Casaubon and Ruhnk, suggest that the text of Suetonius should read Jacta alea esto , which they translate as "Let the die be cast!", or "Let the game be ventured!". This matches Plutarch's third-person perfect passive imperative ἀνερρίφθω κύβος ( anerrhiphtho kybos ). According to Gregory Hayes' Translation of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Menander
16245-460: The die is cast " or "the die has been cast", from the mis-translated Latin " iacta alea est " (itself better-known in the order " Alea iacta est "); a correct translation is "let the die be cast" (meaning "let the game be ventured"). The Greek form was famously quoted by Julius Caesar upon committing his army to civil war by crossing the River Rubicon . The popular form "the die is cast" is from
16416-431: The difficult art of shooting composite recurve bows from horseback. The Goths sought refuge in Roman territory (376), agreeing to enter the Empire as unarmed settlers. However many bribed the Danube border-guards into allowing them to bring their weapons. The discipline and organization of a Roman legion made it a superb fighting unit. The Romans preferred infantry to cavalry because infantry could be trained to retain
16587-409: The earliest English comedies, the 16th-century Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's Needle , are thought to parody Terence's plays. Montaigne and Molière cite and imitate him. Based on what is known about a typical curriculum at a grammar school such as William Shakespeare went to, it may be considered certain that Shakespeare must have studied Terence as a boy. In Shakespeare's day,
16758-418: The effect of weakening the power of the king as his kingdom grew, since the result was that the land became controlled not just by more princes and vassals, but by multiple layers of vassals. This also allowed his nobles to attempt to build their own power base, though given the strict salic tradition of hereditary kingship, few would ever consider overthrowing the king. This increasingly fragmented arrangement
16929-537: The end of the century. Roman Britain was in a state of political and economic collapse at the time of the Roman departure c. 400. A series of settlements (traditionally referred to as an invasion) by Germanic peoples began in the early fifth century, and by the sixth century the island would consist of many small kingdoms engaged in ongoing warfare with each other. The Germanic kingdoms are now collectively referred to as Anglo-Saxons . Christianity began to take hold among
17100-605: The face of the pretensions of both the Western and Eastern Empires. In the 9th century, the Muslims conquered Sicily . The cities on the Tyrrhenian Sea departed from Byzantine allegiance. Various states owing various nominal allegiances fought constantly over territory until events came to a head in the early 11th century with the coming of the Normans , who conquered the whole of the south by
17271-500: The first of many bands of peoples that flooded Western Europe in the absence of administrative governance. Some lived only for war and pillage and disdained Roman ways. Other peoples had been in prolonged contact with the Roman civilization, and were, to a certain degree, romanized. "A poor Roman plays the Goth, a rich Goth the Roman," said King Theoderic of the Ostrogoths. The subjects of
17442-516: The first published African-American poet, asked why the Muses had inspired "one alone of Afric's sable race." Thomas Jefferson , on the other hand, in an attempt to prove that African-Americans were naturally incapable of poetry, claimed that Terence had been "of the race of whites." Two of his plays were produced in Denver with black actors. Questions as to whether Terence received assistance in writing or
17613-521: The form of the feudal system , which adopted such innovations as three-field planting and the heavy plough. Barbarian migration stabilized in much of Europe , although the Viking expansion greatly affected Northern Europe . Starting in the 2nd century, various indicators of Roman civilization began to decline, including urbanization , seaborne commerce, and population. Archaeologists have identified only 40 percent as many Mediterranean shipwrecks from
17784-471: The formation in combat, while cavalry tended to scatter when faced with opposition. While a barbarian army could be raised and inspired by the promise of plunder, the legions required a central government and taxation to pay for salaries, constant training, equipment, and food. The decline in agricultural and economic activity reduced the empire's taxable income and thus its ability to maintain a professional army to defend itself from external threats. In
17955-591: The former Roman provinces in Gaul, and Clovis I converted to Christianity following his victory over the Alemanni at the Battle of Tolbiac (496), laying the foundation of the Frankish Empire , the dominant state of early medieval Western Christendom . The Frankish kingdom grew through a complex development of conquest, patronage, and alliance building. Due to salic custom , inheritance rights were absolute, and all land
18126-419: The formerly Roman area, there was another 20 per cent decline in population between 400 and 600, or a one-third decline for 150–600. In the 8th century, the volume of trade reached its lowest level. The very small number of shipwrecks found that dated from the 8th century supports this (which represents less than 2 per cent of the number of shipwrecks dated from the 1st century). There was also reforestation and
18297-401: The foundations for his art. Terence's plays were a standard part of the Latin curriculum of the neoclassical period. In a letter prescribing a course of education for his nephew Peter Carr , Thomas Jefferson listed Terence among classical poets Carr already had read or would read at school. Jefferson copied four extracts from the Andria into his literary commonplace book , seemingly in
18468-532: The glory, Eastern Emperor Valens ordered an attack on the Therving infantry under Fritigern without waiting for Western Emperor Gratian , who was on the way with reinforcements. While the Romans were fully engaged, the Greuthung cavalry arrived. Only one-third of the Roman army managed to escape. This represented the most shattering defeat that the Romans had suffered since the Battle of Cannae (216 BC), according to
18639-646: The great excitement of Classicists , it was announced that a single play by Menander, Dyskolos , had finally been rediscovered in the Bodmer Papyri intact enough to be performed. Menander was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of Demosthenes De Chersoneso . He presumably derived his taste for comic drama from his uncle Alexis . He
18810-468: The hands of a general, or strategos. A theme , which formerly denoted a subdivision of the Byzantine army, came to refer to a region governed by a strategos. The reform led to the emergence of great landed families which controlled the regional military and often pressed their claims to the throne (see Bardas Phocas and Bardas Sklerus for characteristic examples). By the early 8th century, notwithstanding
18981-581: The indebtedness of the character of Armado in Love's Labour's Lost to Thraso in the Eunuchus points to Shakespeare's familiarity with the play as a whole. Chaerea's exultation upon coming out of Thais' house after the rape, declaring himself content to die in that blissful moment, also seems to be echoed in Othello II.1 and The Merry Wives of Windsor III.3. Shakespeare's encounter with Terence in grammar school introduced him to comedy and scenic structure, laying
19152-644: The king. Instead, he sought the assistance of Pope Zachary , who was himself newly vulnerable due to fallout with the Byzantine Emperor over the Iconoclastic Controversy . Pepin agreed to support the pope and to give him land (the Donation of Pepin , which created the Papal States ) in exchange for being consecrated as the new Frankish king. Given that Pepin's claim to the kingship was now based on an authority higher than Frankish custom, no resistance
19323-504: The largest city of early medieval Europe, withstood a combined siege by Avars and Persians. Within several decades, Heraclius completed a holy war against the Persians, taking their capital and having a Sassanid monarch assassinated. Yet Heraclius lived to see his spectacular success undone by the Muslim conquests of Syria , three Palaestina provinces , Egypt , and North Africa which was considerably facilitated by religious disunity and
19494-707: The last king of a united empire, Charles the Fat , died in 887, which resulted in a permanent split of the empire into West Francia and East Francia . West Francia would be ruled by Carolingians until 987 and East Francia until 911, after which time the partition of the empire into France and Germany was complete. Around 800 there was a return to systematic agriculture in the form of the open field , or strip, system. A manor would have several fields, each subdivided into 1-acre (4,000 m ) strips of land. An acre measured one "furlong" of 220 yards by one "chain" of 22 yards (that is, about 200 m by 20 m). A furlong (from "furrow long")
19665-454: The late 1760s and 1770s, and the presence of three different editions of Terence in the carefully selected second Monticello library is a clear indication that Terence formed a part of Jefferson's retirement reading. In 1781, John Adams offered his son John Quincy Adams a copy of Anne Dacier 's edition of Terence with a parallel French translation, writing, "Terence is remarkable, for good Morals, good Taste and good Latin—his Language has
19836-574: The leadership of Alfred the Great and his descendants, Wessex would at first survive, then coexist with, and eventually conquer the Danes. It would then establish the Kingdom of England and rule until the establishment of an Anglo-Danish kingdom under Cnut , and then again until the Norman Invasion of 1066. Viking raids and invasion were no less dramatic for the north. Their defeat of the Picts in 839 led to
20007-451: The line or the original dramatic context, as long as the quotation was sententious in itself when separated from the rest of the play. Augustine was a lifelong admirer of Terence's observations on the human condition, and 38 quotations from 28 distinct passages of Terence have been identified in Augustine's works. Notwithstanding his respect for Terence's moralising, when Augustine writes in
20178-665: The narrative given by Suetonius' sources is often construed as conjecture based on the play texts and didascaliae. In the 2nd Century BC, plays were regular features of four annual Roman festivals: the Ludi Romani (September), the Ludi Plebeii (November), the Ludi Apollinares (July), and the Ludi Megalenses (April); plays would also be staged at votive games, triumphs , and the more elaborate aristocratic funerals. Because
20349-604: The ninth century under the descendants of Merfyn Frych of Gwynedd , establishing a hierarchy that would last until the Norman invasion of Wales in 1081. The first Viking raids on Britain began before 800, increasing in scope and destructiveness over time. In 865 a large, well-organized Danish Viking army (called the Great Heathen Army ) attempted a conquest, breaking or diminishing Anglo-Saxon power everywhere but in Wessex. Under
20520-557: The north-northwest ( Asturias ) and largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees . This territory, under the Arab name Al-Andalus , became part of the expanding Umayyad empire. The unsuccessful second siege of Constantinople (717) weakened the Umayyad dynasty and reduced their prestige. After their success in overrunning Iberia, the conquerors moved northeast across the Pyrenees. They were defeated by
20691-570: The notes in order to reconstitute the commentary as a separate book, incorporating extraneous material in the process, assigning notes to verses where they did not originally belong, or including material that had been otherwise changed in the course of transmission. Citations from Donatus' commentary which are not found in the extant redaction occur in Priscian and in scholia to the Codex Bembinus and Codex Victorianus. Another ancient commentary
20862-455: The novice playwright's work even while the discussion showed Terence the need for revision. R. C. Flickinger argues that the reported state of Terence's clothing shows that he had not yet become acquainted with his rich and influential patrons at the time of this meeting, and it was precisely Caecilius' death shortly thereafter, and the consequent loss of his support, which caused a two-year delay in production. All six of Terence's plays pleased
21033-435: The numbering in reference to the order of composition rather than the order of production. The didascalic numbering, seemingly discounting the unsuccessful productions of Hecyra, reckons it the fifth play. The didascaliae also appear to record some information about revival performances at least as late as the 140s. Patrick Tansey has argued that the didascalia to Phormio in the codex Bembinus contains garbled names of
21204-454: The occasion. The limited space available would probably have accommodated an audience of less than 2,000 persons at a given performance. Admission was free to the entire population, seemingly on a first-come-first-served basis, except for the reservation of seats for members of the Senate after 194 BC; descriptions of 2nd Century theatre audiences refer to the presence of women, children, slaves, and
21375-517: The original reading. The best known of these is the Commentum Terenti , a commentary by the 4th-century grammarian Aelius Donatus , which is often helpful, although the part dealing with the Heauton Timorumenos is missing. At a relatively early date, Terence's play texts began to circulate as literary works for a reading public, as opposed to scripts for the use of actors. By the end of
21546-445: The ox by the horse after the introduction of the padded horse collar in the 12th century. Because the system required a major rearrangement of real estate and of the social order, it took until the 11th century before it came into general use. The heavy wheeled plough was introduced in the late 10th century. It required greater animal power and promoted the use of teams of oxen. Illuminated manuscripts depict two-wheeled ploughs with both
21717-434: The people; the Eunuchus earned 8,000 nummi, the highest price that had ever been paid for a comedy at Rome, and was acted twice in the same day. Donatus, who appears to understand that Terence himself received this entire amount, interprets the price that Suetonius says was paid for the Eunuchus as 8,000 sesterces . However, Dwora Gilula argues that the term nummus, inscribed on the title page in 161 BC, would refer to
21888-828: The period roughly between the late 8th and mid-11th centuries in Scandinavia and Britain , following the Germanic Iron Age (and the Vendel Age in Sweden). During this period, the Vikings , Scandinavian warriors and traders raided and explored most parts of Europe , south-western Asia , northern Africa , and north-eastern North America . Terence Publius Terentius Afer ( / t ə ˈ r ɛ n ʃ i ə s , - ʃ ə s / ; c. 195/185 – c. 159 BC ), better known in English as Terence ( / ˈ t ɛr ə n s / ),
22059-535: The play three months later. He recorded in his diary that "The Play is interesting, and many of the Sentiments are fine", and though he found the plot highly improbable, "the Critic can never find Perfection, and the person that is willing to be pleased with what he reads, is happier than he who is always looking for faults." In 1816, John Quincy's son George Washington Adams performed in a school production of Andria in
22230-509: The plays, and identifying the author of the Greek original. Other traditional information about the life of Terence derives from the Vita Terenti, a biography preserved in Aelius Donatus ' commentary, and attributed by him to Suetonius . However, it is not likely that Terence's contemporaries would have considered a dramatist important enough to write down his biography for posterity, and
22401-474: The plot; Terence abandons the traditional expository function of the prologue entirely and uses it to provide a different kind of entertainment centring on replies to criticism of his work. Terence particularly refers the "slanders" he has suffered to a certain "old" and "spiteful" poet. Because Terence says this man was the translator of Menander's Phasma and Thesaurus ( Eu. 9–10), Donatus (or an earlier commentator from whom Donatus gleaned this information)
22572-664: The practice of simony , local princes typically auctioned off ecclesiastical offices, causing priests and bishops to function as though they were yet another noble under the patronage of the prince. In contrast, a network of monasteries had sprung up as monks sought separation from the world. These monasteries remained independent from local princes, and as such constituted the "church" for most northern Europeans during this time. Being independent from local princes, they increasingly stood out as centres of learning, of scholarship, and as religious centres where individuals could receive spiritual or monetary assistance. The interaction between
22743-516: The proliferation of heretical movements (notably Monophysitism and Nestorianism ) in the areas converted to Islam. Although Heraclius's successors managed to salvage Constantinople from two Arab sieges (in 674–77 and 717), the empire of the 8th and early 9th century was rocked by the great Iconoclastic Controversy , punctuated by dynastic struggles between various factions at court. The Bulgar and Slavic tribes profited from these disorders and invaded Illyria , Thrace and even Greece . After
22914-402: The provinces were invaded and desolated by the arms of the successful Barbarians." The empire lacked the resources, and perhaps the will, to reconstruct the professional mobile army destroyed at Adrianople, so it had to rely on barbarian armies to fight for it. The Eastern Roman Empire succeeded in buying off the Goths with tribute. The Western Roman Empire proved less fortunate. Stilicho ,
23085-471: The pupils of a "grammarian" friend of St Sidonius Apollinaris were all set to read the Eunuchus in school, and in another of his letters, Sidonius describes reading the Hecyra together with his son at home. Terence was one of the few canonical classical authors to maintain a continuous presence in medieval literacy, and the large number of surviving manuscripts bears witness to his great popularity. Adolphus Ward said that Terence led "a charmed life in
23256-468: The remaining manuscripts belong to the "mixed" group and contain readings copied from both γ and δ, and so are of little value in establishing the text. It is thought that the γ group and the δ group go back to two archetypes, both now lost, called Γ ( Gamma ) and Δ ( Delta ), and that both of these were copied from a single archetype, also now lost, known as Σ ( sigma ). According to A. J. Brothers, manuscript A, although it contains some errors, generally has
23427-401: The return voyage. Suetonius places Terence's death "in the consulship of Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella and Marcus Fulvius Nobilior," i.e., in 159 BC. It is possible that the fateful voyage to Greece was a speculative explanation of why he wrote so few plays inferred from Terence's complaint in Eunuchus 41–3 about the limited materials at his disposal. As transmitted in the manuscript tradition,
23598-562: The role of the old man Crito, to the relief of the family, who had worried he might be given a less "respectable" part. George's grandmother Abigail Adams , having read the play, took exception to "the manners and morals". Grandfather John, after rereading all six of Terence's comedies, also expressed apprehension about whether they were fit to be taught or exhibited to impressionable youths, who lacked sufficient life experience to recognise certain characters and their deeds as morally repugnant and react appropriately. Accordingly, Adams undertook
23769-479: The rulers of Western Europe as illiterate barbarians and maintained a nominal claim to rule over the West. Although this fiction had been exploded with the coronation of Charlemagne in Rome (800), the Byzantine rulers did not treat their Western counterparts as equals. Generally, they had little interest in political and economic developments in the barbarian (from their point of view) West. Against this economic background
23940-460: The same genre so that the literary form once used "to describe the shameless acts of licentious women" might be repurposed to glorify the chastity of holy virgins. As Terence's subject matter is trivial while Hrotsvit's is important, his plays are in verse while hers are in prose, her plays are written in the same style as other medieval literature and lack verbal reminiscences of Terence apart from some oaths and interjections, and she does not respect
24111-423: The shrinking territory of the empire, Constantinople remained the largest and the wealthiest city west of China , comparable only to Sassanid Ctesiphon , and later Abbasid Baghdad . The population of the imperial capital fluctuated between 300,000 and 400,000 as the emperors undertook measures to restrain its growth. The only other large Christian cities were Rome (50,000) and Thessalonica (30,000). Even before
24282-776: The sinful content to a higher Christian meaning. Hrotsvit did not exercise a significant influence on European literature before her works were rediscovered and printed in 1501. In the Divine Comedy , Dante 's guide Vergil tells him that Terence is in Limbo among the virtuous pagans ( Purg. XXII, 94–105), and shows him Thais, the character from the Eunuchus, in the eighth circle of hell where flatterers are punished. ( Inf. XVIII, 133–5) It has been claimed that Dante did not know Terence directly, and his references to Terence are derived from citations in Cicero or medieval florilegia. However, Terence
24453-437: The sixth century under the influence of Columba , and the Welsh had been Christian since the Roman era. The Kingdom of Northumbria was the pre-eminent power c. 600–700, absorbing several weaker Anglo-Saxon and Brythonic kingdoms, while Mercia held a similar status c. 700–800. Wessex would absorb all of the kingdoms in the south, both Anglo-Saxon and Briton. In Wales consolidation of power would not begin until
24624-590: The speeches published under the name of the Attic orator Charisius . An admirer and imitator of Euripides , Menander resembles him in his keen observation of practical life, his analysis of the emotions, and his fondness for moral maxims, many of which became proverbial: "The property of friends is common," "Whom the gods love die young," "Evil communications corrupt good manners" (from the Thaïs , quoted in 1 Corinthians 15 :33). These maxims (chiefly monostichs) were afterwards collected, and, with additions from other sources, were edited as Menander's One-Verse Maxims ,
24795-437: The statement attributed to Fenestella that Terence was older than Scipio and Laelius. Jerome 's Chronicon places Terence's death in 158 BC. Like Plautus , Terence adapted Greek plays from the late phases of Attic comedy . Unlike Plautus though, Terence's way of writing his comedies was more in a simple conversational Latin, pleasant and direct, while less visually humorous to watch. Five of Terence's plays are about
24966-412: The third was fallow. Compared to the earlier two-field system, a three-field system allowed for significantly more land to be put under cultivation. Even more important, the system allowed for two harvests a year, reducing the risk that a single crop failure will lead to famine. Three-field agriculture created a surplus of oats that could be used to feed horses. This surplus allowed for the replacement of
25137-424: The time of his death; the OCT edition of Harry Sandbach , published in 1972 and updated in 1990, remains in print. Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period ), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages , is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Middle Ages of European history , following
25308-421: The trade routes between Europe and the Orient, which made the Empire the richest polity in Medieval Europe. Making use of their sophisticated warfare and superior diplomacy, the Byzantines managed to fend off assaults by the migrating barbarians. Their dreams of subduing the Western potentates briefly materialized during the reign of Justinian I in 527–565. Not only did Justinian restore some western territories to
25479-408: The urban poor. In Greek New Comedy, from which the Roman comic tradition derived, actors wore masks which were conventionally associated with stock character types. Ancient authors make conflicting statements on whether Roman actors also wore masks in the time of Terence. For a time, Christian Hoffer's 1877 dissertation On the Use of Masks in Publius Terentius' Comedies won universal acceptance for
25650-402: The view that masks were not worn at the original performances of the plays of Terence. However, most more recent authorities consider it highly likely that Roman actors of Terence's time did wear masks when performing this kind of play, and "hard to believe" or even "inconceivable" that they did not. Donatus states that the actors wore masks in the original productions of the Eunuchus and
25821-429: The way free for her marriage. Terence's six plays are: Saint Jerome mentions in Contra Rufinum I.16 that "my teacher Donatus " had written a commentary on the comedies of Terence. Donatus' commentary does not survive in the form in which he originally wrote it. It is commonly believed that an unknown medieval scribe, using two or more manuscripts of Terence containing marginal notes excerpted from Donatus, copied
25992-424: The western empire's half-Vandal military commander, stripped the Rhine frontier of troops to fend off invasions of Italy by the Visigoths in 402–03 and by other Goths in 406–07. Fleeing before the advance of the Huns , the Vandals , Suebi , and Alans launched an attack across the frozen Rhine near Mainz ; on 31 December 406, the frontier gave way and these tribes surged into Roman Gaul . There soon followed
26163-480: The world. Some historians such as Josiah C. Russell (1958) have suggested a total European population loss of 50 to 60 per cent between 541 and 700. After the year 750, major epidemic diseases did not appear again in Europe until the Black Death of the 14th century. The disease smallpox , which was eradicated in the late 20th century, did not definitively enter Western Europe until about 581 when Bishop Gregory of Tours provided an eyewitness account that describes
26334-402: Was divided equally among the sons of a dead land holder. This meant that, when the king granted a prince land in reward for service, that prince and all of his descendants had an irrevocable right to that land that no future king could undo. Likewise, those princes (and their sons) could sublet their land to their own vassals, who could in turn sublet the land to lower sub-vassals. This all had
26505-400: Was a playwright during the Roman Republic . He was the author of six comedies based on Greek originals by Menander or Apollodorus of Carystus . All six of Terence's plays survive complete and were originally produced between 166–160 BC. According to ancient authors, Terence was born in Carthage and was brought to Rome as a slave, where he gained an education and his freedom; around
26676-419: Was able to identify him as Luscius Lanuvinus, although no names are used in the prologues. Nothing survives of Luscius' work save two lines of the Thesaurus quoted by Donatus, nor is anything known about Luscius independently of Terence's prologues except that Volcacius Sedigitus rated Luscius the ninth-best Latin comic poet (and Terence the sixth-best). Terence's description of Luscius as "old" may refer to
26847-633: Was almost entirely displaced by the migrations. Whereas the peoples of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal continued to speak the dialects of Vulgar Latin that today constitute the Romance languages , the language of the smaller Roman-era population of what is now England disappeared with barely a trace in the territories settled by the Anglo-Saxons, although the Brittanic kingdoms of the west remained Brythonic speakers. The new peoples greatly altered established society, including law, culture, religion, and patterns of property ownership. The pax Romana had provided safe conditions for trade and manufacture, and
27018-435: Was born in Carthage . He came to Rome as a slave in the household of an otherwise unknown senator named P. Terentius Lucanus, who educated him and freed him because of his talent and good looks. Terence then took the nomen "Terentius" from his patron. Possibly winning noblemen's favour by his youthful beauty, Terence became a member of the so-called Scipionic Circle . When Terence offered his first play, Andria, to
27189-627: Was bound to serve his superior in return for the latter's protection. This made for confusion of territorial sovereignty since allegiances were subject to change over time and were sometimes mutually contradictory. Feudalism allowed the state to provide a degree of public safety despite the continued absence of bureaucracy and written records. Manors became largely self-sufficient, and the volume of trade along long-distance routes and in market towns declined during this period, though never ceased entirely. Roman roads decayed and long-distance trade depended more heavily on water transport. The Viking Age spans
27360-426: Was composed in poor Latin in 643: the Edictum Rothari . It was primarily the codification of the oral legal tradition of the people. The Lombard state was well-organized and stabilized by the end of the long reign of Liutprand (717–744), but its collapse was sudden. Unsupported by the dukes, King Desiderius was defeated and forced to surrender his kingdom to Charlemagne in 774. The Lombard kingdom ended and
27531-421: Was considered to be the distance an ox could plough before taking a rest; the strip shape of the acre field also reflected the difficulty in turning early heavy ploughs. In the idealized form of the system, each family got thirty such strips of land. The three-field system of crop rotation was first developed in the 9th century: wheat or rye was planted in one field, the second field had a nitrogen-fixing crop, and
27702-418: Was crowned "Roman Emperor" by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, 800. Upon Charlemagne's death, his empire had united much of modern-day France, western Germany and northern Italy. The years after his death illustrated how Germanic his empire remained. Rather than an orderly succession, his empire was divided in accordance with Frankish inheritance custom, which resulted in instability that plagued his empire until
27873-462: Was found as filling for two more mummy cases; this proved to be drawn from the same manuscript as the discovery in 1906, which had clearly been thoroughly recycled. Other papyrus fragments continue to be discovered and published. In 2003, a palimpsest manuscript, in Syriac writing of the 9th century, was found where the reused parchment comes from a very expensive 4th-century Greek manuscript of works by Menander. The surviving leaves contain parts of
28044-473: Was highlighted by Charles Martel , who as Mayor of the Palace was effectively the strongest prince in the kingdom. His accomplishments were highlighted, not just by his famous defeat of invading Muslims at the Battle of Tours , which is typically considered the battle that saved Europe from Muslim conquest, but by the fact that he greatly expanded Frankish influence. It was under his patronage that Boniface expanded Frankish influence into Germany by rebuilding
28215-424: Was known of Menander were fragments quoted by other authors and collected by Augustus Meineke (1855) and Theodor Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta (1888). These consist of some 1650 verses or parts of verses, in addition to a considerable number of words quoted from Menander by ancient lexicographers. This situation changed abruptly in 1907, with the discovery of the Cairo Codex , which contained large parts of
28386-432: Was offered to Pepin. With this, the Merovingian line of kings ended, and the Carolingian line began. Pepin's son Charlemagne continued in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He further expanded and consolidated the Frankish kingdom (now commonly called the Carolingian Empire ). His reign also saw a cultural rebirth, commonly called the Carolingian Renaissance . Though the exact reasons are unclear, Charlemagne
28557-419: Was often fast and dramatic as it became unsafe to travel or carry goods over any distance; there was a consequent collapse in trade and manufacture for export. Major industries that depended on trade, such as large-scale pottery manufacture, vanished almost overnight in places like Britain. Tintagel in Cornwall , as well as several other centres, managed to obtain supplies of Mediterranean luxury goods well into
28728-402: Was one of the most commonly read authors in the 14th Century, and Joseph Russo argues that considering the access Dante would have had to manuscripts of Terence and the desire he would have had to read Terence, the logical conclusion is that "Dante must have known Terence." Renaissance humanists delighted in Terence. Giovanni Boccaccio copied out in his own hand all of Terence's comedies in
28899-438: Was relatively Romanized, at least when compared to the Germanic kingdoms in northern Europe. It was highly decentralized at first, with the territorial dukes having practical sovereignty in their duchies, especially in the southern duchies of Spoleto and Benevento . For a decade following the death of Cleph in 575, the Lombards did not even elect a king; this period is called the Rule of the Dukes . The first written legal code
29070-406: Was stable and well developed. The Franks, in contrast, were barely any different from their barbarian Germanic ancestors. The Kingdom of the Franks was weak and divided. Impossible to guess at the time, but by the end of the century, the Lombardic kingdom would be extinct, while the Frankish kingdom would have nearly reassembled the Western Roman Empire. Though much of Roman civilization north of
29241-405: Was the friend, associate, and perhaps pupil of Theophrastus , and was on intimate terms with the Athenian dictator Demetrius of Phalerum . He also enjoyed the patronage of Ptolemy Soter , the son of Lagus , who invited him to his court. But Menander, preferring the independence of his villa in the Piraeus and the company of his mistress Glycera , refused. According to the note of a scholiast on
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