PENULUS-PERSA-RUDENS-STICHUS.

115

payment of the price by a complaisant father. Notwithstanding the simplicity of the plot, the action is bustling and full of intrigue; and from a passage of Cicero,' it appears that this play and Truculentus were favourites with the author himself. The procurer in this comedy was one of the characters in which Roscius especially excelled.

xv. The Pœnulus derives its name from its romantic plot. A young Carthaginian slave is adopted by an old bachelor, who leaves him a good inheritance. He falls in love with a girl, a Carthaginian like himself, who had been kidnapped with her sister, and now belonged to a procurer. The arrival of the father leads to a discovery that they are free-born, and that they are the first cousins of the young man. Thus it comes to pass that the girls are rescued, and the lovers united. The most curious portion of this comedy is that in which Hanno, the father, is represented as talking Punic; and his words bear so close a resemblance to the Hebrew that commentators have expressed them in Hebrew characters, and rendered them, after a few emendations, capable of translation.3

XVI. The tricks played upon a procurer by a slave, aided by a Persian parasite, furnish the slender plot of the Persa.

XVII. The Rudens derives its name from the rope of a fishingnet, and, with the exception perhaps of the Captivi, is the most affecting and pleasing of all the twenty plays. The morality is pure, the sentiments elevated, the poetic justice complete. A female child has fallen into the hands of a procurer. Her lover in vain endeavours to ransom her, and being shipwrecked, the toys with which she played in infancy are lost in the waves, but are eventually brought to shore by the net of a fisherman. She is thus recognised by her father, and is married to her lover, whilst the procurer is utterly ruined by the loss of his property in the wreck.

XVIII. Stichus is the name of the slave on whom the intrigue of the play which bears this name mainly depends. The plot is very simple. Two brothers marry two sisters, and are ruined

De Sen. 50.

See Plaut. Ed. Var. pp. 1320 and 2095.

2 Act v. scene i.

by extravagant living; they determine therefore to go abroad and repair their fortunes. After they have been many years absent the ladies' father wishes them to marry again. They, however, steadily refuse, and their constancy is rewarded by the return of their husbands with large fortunes.

XIX. The Trinummus is a translation from the Thesaurus of the Greek comic poet Philemon.1 It derived its Latin title from the incident of the informer being bribed with three nummi.? An old merchant on leaving home places his son and daughter, together with a treasure which he has buried in his house, under the guardianship of his friend Callicles. The son squanders his father's property, and is even forced to sell his house, which Callicles purchases. Soon a young man of good family and fortune makes proposals for the daughter's hand, and Callicles is at a loss to know how to give her a dowry without saying something about the treasure. At length he hires a man to pretend that he has come from the absent father, and has brought one thousand pieces of gold. The return of the father interferes with the plan; but everything is explained, the daughter is married, and the son forgiven.

-xx. The Truculentus, although the moral picture which it presents is detestable, is remarkably clever, both for the variety of incidents and the graphic delineations of character which it contains. The artful courtesan who dupes and ruins her lovers; the three lovers themselves-one a man of the town, another an unpolished but generous rustic, the third a stupid and conceited soldier; and, lastly, the slave, whose rude sagacity and bluff hatred of courtesans expose him to the imputation of being actually savage (truculentus,) are powerfully drawn; but notwithstanding its merits, it is not a play which can possibly please the tastes and sentiments of modern times.

Plautus must not be dismissed without some notice of his prologues. The prologue of the Greek drama prepared the audience for the action of the play, by narrating all the previous events of the story which were necessary in order to understand the plot. That of the modern stage is an address of the 2 See act iv. scene ii.

1 See Prol. 18.

poet to the spectators, praying for indulgence, deprecating severe criticism, enlivened frequently by characteristic sketches and satirical observations on the manners and habits of the age. In these features it sometimes resembles the parabasis of the old Attic comedy. The prologues of Plautus united all these objects; and whilst they introduced the comedy, their amusing gayety was calculated to put the audience in good humour and secure their applause. The shrewd knowledge which the author displayed in them of the character of his fellow-countrymen claimed their sympathies, and called forth their prejudices in his favour; whilst their polish and finish must have been appreciated by an assembly whose attention had not begun to flag or to weary. Some are long pieces. That of the Amphitruo, which is the longest, extends to upwards of one hundred and fifty lines. That of the Trinummus takes the unusual form of a brief allegorical dialogue between Luxury and her daughter Poverty.

CHAPTER VII.

STATIUS COMPARED WITH MENANDER-CRITICISM OF CICERO-HYPOTHESES RESPECTING THE EARLY LIFE OF TERENCE-ANECDOTE RELATED BY DONATUSSTYLE AND MORALITY OF TERENCE-ANECDOTE OF HIM RELATED BY CORNELIUS NEPOS-HIS PECUNIARY CIRCUMSTANCES AND DEATH-PLOTS AND CRITICISM OF HIS COMEDIES-THE REMAINING COMIC POETS.

CECILIUS STATIUS.

BETWEEN Plautus and Terence flourished Cæcilius Statius, whom Volcatius, as well as Cicero,1 places at the head of the list of Roman comic poets. He was an emancipated slave, and was born at Milan. The time of his birth is unknown, but he died A. U. c. 586, and was therefore a contemporary of Ennius. He did not depart from the established custom of transferring the comedy of the Greek stage to that of Rome, and as far as a judgment can be formed from the titles of his forty-five comedies which are extant, they were all "Palliata." The collection of fragments remaining of his works is a large one, but they are not sufficiently long or connected to test the favourable opinion entertained by the critics of ancient times.

Aulus Gellius enables us to estimate the powers of C. Statius as a translator by a comparison of two passages taken from his "Plocius" with the original of Menander. The result is, that the usual fault of translations is too plainly manifest, namely, the loss of the spirit and vigour. "Our comedies," he remarks, "are written in an elegant and graceful style, and may be read with pleasure; but if compared with the Greek originals, they fall so far short that the arms of Glaucus could not have been more inferior to those of Diomede: the Greek is full of emotion, wit, and liveliness; the Latin dull and uninteresting." Cicero, Noct. Att. ii. 33.

' De Opt. Gen. Dic. i.

HYPOTHESES RESPECTING TERENCE.

119

likewise, and Varro have pronounced judgment upon his merits and demerits. The sum and substance of their criticisms appear to be that his excellencies consisted in the conduct of the plot,1 dignity, and in pathos,3 whilst his fault was not sufficient care in preserving the purity of the Latin style.

5

Cicero, though not without hesitation, assigns the palm to him amongst the writers of Latin comedy, as he awards that of epic poetry to Ennius, and that of tragedy to Pacuvius. He says, on the other hand," that the bad Latin of Cæcilius and Pacuvius formed exceptions to the usual style of their age, which was as commendable for its Latinity as for its innocence. And in a letter to Atticus," he writes: "I said, not as Cæcilius, Mane ut ex portu in Piræum, but as Terence, whose plays, on account of their elegant Latinity, were thought to have been written by C. Lælius, Heri aliquot adolescentuli coimus in Piræum." Horace," without stating his own opinion, gives, as that commonly received in his day, that Cæcilius is superior in dignity (gravitate,) Terence in skill (arte.)

The prologue of Terence's comedy of the Hecyra proves that the earlier plays of Cæcilius had a great struggle to achieve success. The actor who delivers it, an old favourite with the public, and probably the manager, apologizes for bringing forward a play which had been once rejected (exacta,) on the ground that by perseverance in a similar course he had caused the reception and approval of not one but many of the comedies of Cæcilius which had been unsuccessful, and adds, that of those which did succeed, some had a narrow escape.

P. TERENTIUS AFER.

P. Terentius Afer was a slave in the family of a Roman senator, P. Terentius Lucanus. His early history is involved in obscurity, but he is generally supposed to have been born A. U. C. 561. His cognomen, Afer, points to an African origin, for it was a common custom to distinguish slaves by an ethnical name. Whether there is any sufficient authority for the tradition that