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The Woman of Andros by Terence was produced at Rome during the spring
festival of the Great Mother in 166 BC. Simo and his freed slave Sosia
explain the situation and praise the character of Pamphilus, the son of
Simo. Sosia comments that the way to win friends these days is to agree with
everything, because the truth is unpopular. This is to be the wedding day of
Pamphilus and Philumena, the daughter of Chremes; but Simo has learned that
his son is in love with Glycerium, who is believed to be the sister of the
late courtesan from Andros. Learning of this, Chremes has withdrawn his
consent from the marriage. The slave Davos finds that Glycerium is having a
baby that Pamphilus is going to acknowledge as his. Meanwhile Charinus is in
love with Philumena and wants to marry her; but his slave advises him that
if he can't have what he wants, he should want what he can have. Davos
suggests that Pamphilus pretend he is going to marry Philumena so as not to
disappoint his father, because Chremes is calling off the wedding anyway.
When Simo persuades Chremes to allow the wedding, Davos gets in trouble.
When Simo learns his son is in love with Glycerium, Chremes advises him that
fathers should not be too hard on their children whatever their faults. A
passing stranger reveals that Glycerium is also the daughter of Chremes, and
the play ends happily with a pending double wedding of the two sisters.
At the first performance of Terence's The Mother-In-Law in 165 BC the
audience was distracted by tight-rope walkers and a boxing match, and five
years later its failure was blamed on news of a gladiator show; but the same
year it was finally completed successfully. Pamphilus, in love with the
courtesan Bacchis, agreed to marry Philumena but refused to have sexual
relations with her for two months. He has just returned from a business
trip; but his wife has gone back to her parents' house, blaming her
mother-in-law, but really because she is pregnant. She had been raped and
had her mother's ring stolen before her marriage, and her mother now intends
to expose the child. No one can get the couple re-united until Bacchis tells
the father of Pamphilus that she has had not relations with his son since
his wedding. He asks her to tell this to Philumena and her mother, who
identifies the ring Pamphilus gave Bacchis, bringing the realization that
Pamphilus is the father of Philumena's child. Pamphilus is happily re-united
with his wife and does not bother to tell his father what usually occurs in
the final scenes of comedies. This father does not consider it a vice for
his son to keep a mistress even while he is married; though he is not told
about his son's rape, no one else seems to be bothered much by that violent
act when it is discovered the woman turned out to be his future wife.
The Self-Tormentor by Terence was first performed in 163 BC and has a
plot so complicated that the slave Syrus can fool the two fathers by telling
them the truth, because it is so unusual they fear he is trying to trick
them. Chremes, the father of Clitipho, makes the wonderful humanist
statement that being human he is concerned about anything human
[see this extract]. He says to
the father of Clinia, Menedemus, who is tormenting himself with hard work
because he drove his son into the army, that if he is right, Chremes will
imitate him; but if he is wrong, he will try to get him to mend his ways.
What bothered Menedemus was that his son fell in love and was living with
Antiphila, the daughter of a woman of humble means.
Clinia has returned from Asia and is in the house of Clitipho with Bacchis, a courtesan beloved by Clitipho but who is pretending to be Clinia's mistress while Antiphila pretends to be her maid. A comic problem is that Clitipho cannot keep his hands off Bacchis which threatens to expose the ruse. Syrus claims it is against his principles to tell lies but without doing so is able to get Menedemus to be duped into giving money for his son and Chremes a dowry when it is discovered that Antiphila is his daughter, because both fathers really want to help their children. Chremes, who years ago had his wife give away their daughter to be exposed, is now happy to have a daughter to give to his friend's son in marriage. In fact to teach his son a lesson, he plans to give all his wealth as a dowry; this stimulates Clitipho to agree to marry another woman of his choice, not the courtesan Bacchis. Thus the value of noble birth is affirmed, and the courtesan is denigrated.
The Eunuch produced in 161 BC was Terence's most popular play and
earned him 8,000 sesterces, the most ever paid for a Roman comedy. In his
prologue Terence wrote that he aimed to please as many and hurt as few
honest people as possible, but he continued to criticize his rival Luscius
Lanuvinus, whom he blamed for first attacking him. The courtesan Thais has a
16-year-old girl named Pamphila, who had been stolen from Attica and given
to her mother to raise until she died. The brother of Thais sold the girl,
but her soldier friend Thasos bought Pamphila as a present for Thais. Now
Thais asks her lover Phaedria for two days to make sure she gets the girl
from Thasos, who has a parasite skilled in saying what the proud soldier
likes to hear. Phaedria's slave Parmeno is to deliver a eunuch to Thais as a
gift; but Phaedria's younger brother Chaerea has fallen in love with
Pamphila and dresses up as the eunuch to be admitted into the house, where
he rapes the beautiful girl when she is sleeping. Pamphila's brother Chremes
comes along to prove that she is free-born; he provokes the jealousy of the
soldier Thasos, who tries to storm the house of Thais. Only the servant
Pythias seems upset by the rape, and she tries to get back at Parmeno for
setting it up by telling him that they plan to execute the punishment for
adultery on Chaerea which is castration; but instead he is allowed to marry
Pamphila, while Thais puts herself under the patronage of Phaedria, who is
persuaded by the parasite to share her with the generous Thasos.
Phormio was produced later the same year at the Roman games. The
slave Geta explains that Phaedria, the son of Chremes, has fallen in love
with a flute girl and needs 3,000 drachmas to buy her, because the pimp is
about to sell her. While Demipho was away, his son Antipho was able to marry
a young woman Phanium having no dowry, because the adventurer Phormio forced
him to do so in a legal case as the closest relative of an orphan. When the
avaricious Demipho returns, he tries to end his son's marriage by paying
Phormio 3,000 to marry Phanium, Phormio getting the money for Phaedria. When
Chremes learns that Phanium is his daughter by a second wife he had in
Lemnos, he and Demipho try to keep it a secret; but Geta overhears them,
enabling Phormio to blackmail Chremes into giving him the 3,000 even though
he is not marrying Phanium now. As Phormio tells the wife of Chremes, she
concludes that if her husband had two wives surely their son can have a
mistress; she happily invites Phormio for dinner. Terence brought the stock
characters and situations to life so well that Moliere adapted this play in
Les Fourberies de Scapin.
The Brothers was produced in 160 BC and contrasts the strict
parenting of Demea with the indulgence of his bachelor brother Micio, who is
raising Demea's son Aeschinus. Micio allows Aeschinus a free rein so that he
will not have to hide his misdeeds nor be restrained by fear; he believes in
training his son to choose the right course freely by being a father but not
a tyrant. Demea complains that Micio has spoiled Aeschinus, who has just
broken into a house and carried off a girl. The pimp tries to get her back
but reluctantly agrees to sell her to Aeschinus for what he paid for her.
Ctesipho is afraid of his father Demea finding out, and so Aeschines has
done all of this for him and even taken them into his house. The mother of
Aeschinus' girl-friend Pamphila, who is about to have his baby, finds out he
has bought another girl and gets very upset. When Demea learns of this
pregnant woman, he becomes even more contemptuous of his brother's failure
as a father. Ironically he believes he is the first to know of these wrongs
when he really has no clue of the truth, because his son is afraid of
him.
Micio at first scares Aeschinus by telling him Pamphila must by law marry her next of kin, but then he makes his adopted son very happy by approving his marriage to her. Micio answers Demea's charges about morality by saying that older people tend to think too much of money. Then in a stunning reversal Demea says he has learned that affability and forbearance are better than black looks, and tired of money-grubbing and admiring the parental rewards of his brother, he suddenly becomes generous, tells the servant to break a hole between the houses to make it easier for the pregnant woman, approves of both marriages, urges Micio to marry Pamphila's mother, gives property to their relative, frees his slave, and buys the freedom of his former slave's wife; the point he says finally is to prove that what people thought was Micio's good nature is really weakness, indulgence, and extravagance. He is willing to let his sons squander their fortune and is ready to give advice if asked. Thus Terence reveals the value of liberal education with a cautionary note.
Source of this text: the (very large: 130kb!) page about Plautus, Terence, and Cicero by Sanderson Beck.
<=== General page about Terentius
Jos van Geffen --
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