Although there is evidence of dramatic entertainment in Rome and other Italian towns from an early date, formal literary drama came to Rome only in the third century B.C., when in September of the year 240 at the ludi Romani there was performed a Latin play, translated from the Greek by Livius Andronicus, a semigraecus from Tarentum. Rome had just brought the First Punic War to a successful conclusion, and the ludi Romani of that year were celebrated on a grander scale to mark the nation's pride and joy at that success. The inclusion of a dramatic entertainment in the games is noteworthy, for it was to remain the Roman practice that the performance of plays, both comedies and tragedies, should take place on important public occasions—this is true no less of performances at funeral games (ludi funebres) than at the annual ludi scaenici. The fact that Andronicus presented Latin versions of Greek plays chosen from the repertory of New Comedy is also significant. A Roman audience, while recognising the unchanging human traits portrayed on the stage, could—like an English audience watching French farce (or even Molière)—observe with amused superiority the foibles and weaknesses of characters who were not Romans. Livius not only established the translation into Latin of Greek New Comedy as a new genre, the fabula palliata: in an important matter of technique he took a decisive step. The metres he chose were essentially those of Greek drama, modified to the needs of Latin, above all in the freedom with which he admitted long syllables where the Greek metrical scheme demanded a short. The example that Andronicus set in this respect was followed by all subsequent writers in the genre.

Within a quarter of a century war against Carthage was resumed and continued unbroken, for the most part on Italian soil, until Hannibal was defeated at Zama in 202 B.C. and the Carthaginians sued for peace, which was granted in the following year. The period of the Hannibalic war might seem to be scarcely conducive to the development of organised dramatic entertainment, but it was during this time that Plautus, another non-Roman (he was a native of Sarsina in Umbria) established himself as the foremost writer of the fabula palliata. Unlike Livius, Plautus confined himself to this one genre and, although many of the 130 or so plays attributed to him a century later were not genuine, his literary output was considerable; the twenty plays that survive, together with fragments of a twenty-first, may well be identical with the twenty-one plays whose authenticity Varro declared to be generally acknowledged, but Varro makes it clear that there were a number of other genuine plays. Only two of Plautus' plays can be firmly dated, the Stichus (200 B.C.) and Pseudolus (191), but internal evidence suggests that some at least of his plays were written before the end of the Second Punic War, and if, as a statement of Cicero seems to imply, Plautus was an old man when he wrote the Pseudolus, his earliest plays might go back to the first years of the war. The plays of Plautus are drawn from a wide range of Greek authors—Demophilus, Diphilus, Menander, and Philemon are attested—and they also show a wide range of plots and characters. But though their ultimate parentage is Greek, plot, language, and metre are handled with such freedom and self-assurance that the result cannot be regarded as mere translation. The extent to which Plautus departs from his Greek models seems to vary considerably from play to play, but at times his relationship to his models is certainly no closer than is Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors to its model, the Menaechmi of Plautus. From the viewpoint of a more sophisticated age Plautus might be justly criticised for insufficient attention to careful construction and artistic finish, but, whatever their shortcomings, his plays were a success. For into the carefully organised structure of Greek New Comedy Plautus infused just that degree of native vigour that a Roman audience required. The gusto that Plautus contributed to his plays is matched by the range and vividness of the characters and themes he encompassed. Major roles are given to such characters as the braggart soldier, the unsavoury leno, the dinner-seeking parasite, and the scheming slave, while the comic potential of scenes, and even whole plays, involving mistaken identity is fully exploited. In part this reproduces characteristics of the Greek originals—though the choice that Plautus made is itself indicative of the breadth of his interests—but in part too the Latin plays show a new emphasis that has been contributed by Plautus himself. Certainly the manner in which the role of the callidus seruus is emphasised is demonstrably the result of Plautine addition or alteration. The fact that the society that was being depicted was Greek may have made such comic exaggerations more acceptable to a Roman audience, but it should be remembered that the native Italian fabula Atellana had already accustomed them to grossly exaggerated stock characters.

The period of about twenty years that elapsed between the death of Plautus and the first play of Terence was bridged, in the realm of comedy, by Caecilius Statius, an Insubrian Gaul from Milan or nearby. Although only fragments of his plays survive, he is a writer of some importance. It is to him, not to Plautus, that a Republican critic, Volcacius Sedigitus, gives first place in a list of writers of Roman comedy, while Varro writes 'in argumentis Caecilius poscit palmam'. What survives of Caecilius does not allow us to make any judgements on his plots, but a chapter of Aulus Gellius (2.23) permits us to compare three passages (in total just over thirty lines) of Menander's #other char# with Caecilius' Latin version. The technique is very similar to that of Plautus. Instead of literal translation there is compression, addition, substitution; a monologue in iambic trimeters is converted into a polymetric monody. Alliteration and assonance are freely employed - not only in the polymetric section. The affinity that Caecilius shows with Plautus in language and style is all the more notable, since he markedly differs from him in some other respects. We know the titles of more than forty of his plays, and over a third of them are based on Menandrean originals, a significant increase over Plautus and a step in the direction of the later practice of Terence. It is probable that he did not adopt the practice of so-called contaminatio, which Plautus certainly used in some of his plays, for the praise that Varro gives him for his plots seems to imply that the structure of his plays closely adhered to that of their Greek originals.

Between Caecilius and Terence there are two direct links. Suetonius' life of Terence, which is quoted almost in its entirely by Donatus, records a touching incident. After Terence had written his first play, the Andria, he submitted it to the aediles, who were to be responsible for the conduct of the ludi at which Terence hoped his play might be produced. The aediles instructed him to take his manuscript and read it to Caecilius, who, presumably, would give the aediles an expert opinion on whether the play deserved to be produced. Terence found Caecilius at dinner, and, being himself poorly dressed, was asked to sit on a separate bench. But after he had read only a few lines, Caecilius asked him to join him at table as his guest, whereupon Terence read the rest of the play non sine magna Caecilii admiration. Since Caecilius died in 168 B.C. and the commonly accepted date for the production of the Andria is 166, the story may be apocryphal, but, if so, it is ben trovato, for there is a real sense in which the young poet, who was to draw four of his six plays from Menander, continues the tradition of Caecilius. Another link between Caecilius and Terence is certain. The second prologue of Terence's Hecyra is spoken by L. Ambivius Turpio, the actor-manager (and producer) of all Terence's plays. Now an old man, he recalls his younger days, when his vigorous efforts were needed to secure a hearing for Caecilius' plays in the face of attempts by adversaries to prevent the plays being performed. The unnamed aduorsarii are those professional rivals whose hostility to Terence is a recurring theme of his prologues. Professional jealousy might show itself in many ways, but its underlying cause was economic. The number of occasions on which comedies could be publicly performed was limited, and playwright and actor-manager had a common interest in having a play accepted, and in carrying through its successful performance. Certainly in the case of Terence, as probably in the case of Caecilius, at the outset of his career professional jealousy came from 'established' writers, who saw their livelihood and position threatened by a new and younger talent. The similarity of language of Hec. 21-3 (referring to Caecilius) and Ph. 16-18 (referring to Terence) is striking:

ita poetam [sc. Caecilium] restitui in locum
prope iam remmotum iniuria aduorsarium
ab studio atque ab labore atque arte musica.
(Hec. 21-3)

is sibi responsum hoc habeat, in medio omnibus
palmam esse positam qui artem tractent musicam.
ille ad famem hunc [sc. Terentium] a studio
   studuit reicere.
(Ph. 16-18)

In the case of Terence the battle was fought largely under the banner of literary and aesthetic principles, and it is possible that those who opposed Caecilius used similar tactics. But if this is so, our sources tell us nothing of it. What is clear is that ultimately Caecilius won both popular success in the theatre and the approval of qualified critics; so, in Volcacius Sedigitus' canon he was ranked higher than Plautus. And if there is any truth in the story of his meeting with Terence, the aediles must have referred Terence to him because they regarded him as the doyen of comic playwrights.

By the time that Terence began to write, the cultural climate had changed considerably from what it had been in Plautus' day. A number of factors in this change can be identified. In the period immediately after the end of the Second Punic War there was a continuing increase in the number of occasions on which dramatic performances were given. This affected both audience and playwrights. The former became more demanding and more sophisticated in their expectations, the latter were compelled not only to select their models with greater care, but also to consider how to handle those originals, particularly whether translation was to be freer or more literal. A decision on this problem might involve theoretical considerations, but an important factor was the fact that other forms of entertainment were available at the ludi; the prologues to the Hecyra tell how the competing attractions of tightrope walkers, boxers, and gladiators caused Terence's audience to vanish. Since the ludi were occasions for conspicuous display by those who gave them, they too had an interest in seeing that only such plays were chosen as would make a good impression on the audience at large. Such a consideration need not necessarily lead to an appeal to the lowest levels of taste, but the desire to avoid exhibiting a failure—ancient Roman audiences seem to have been as vocal in showing their disapproval as modern ones—must have influenced the choice of author and play. But there is one factor above all that affects the generation after Plautus' death: the increasing influence of Greek culture on Rome as a result of Rome's military and political involvement with Greece. That influence could be welcomed or opposed: it could not be ignored.

Two figures illustrate the opposing views. M. Porcius Cato ('Cato the Censor') denounced the luxury and moral enervation he observed in contemporary Rome, and proclaimed that Rome would be ruined by Greek culture and education. Cato, himself a nouus homo, was a particularly vigorous opponent of the philhellenic policy and sympathies of many of Rome's hereditary aristocracy, especially Scipio Africanus. This philhellenism was equally conspicuous in L. Aemilius Paullus, who brought to an end the war against Perseus, king of Macedon, by his victory at Pydna in 168 B.C.—the year of Caecilius' death. One result of the Roman victory in Greece was the deportation from Achaea of one thousand of its leading citizens, who included the historian Polybius. Polybius had the good fortune, though a hostage, to become the close friend of the sons of Aemilius Paullus, one of whom, after his adoption by the son of Scipio Africanus, bore the name of Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus. Associated with Scipio Aemilianus was a group of nobiles who are generally referred to as 'the Scipionic Circle'. These men shared a common interest in Greek culture, especially its literature and philosophy. Their interest in literature extended to its patronage, and Terence is the earliest writer to be linked with the names of Scipio and his friend, C. Laelius. From details concerning the life of Scipio Aemilianus, including those recorded by his contemporary and intimate friend, Polybius, we get the fullest picture of a philhellenic aristocrat of the time during which Terence wrote his plays. Our concern, however, is not with details of Scipio's life, but with him as an outstanding representative of philhellenism.

So, when Terence began writing, the prevailing taste among writers of the palliata was markedly different from what it had been in the days of Plautus. Terence was bound, in any case, to face opposition from established writers, since his success might endanger their livelihood. But it is clear from his prologues that they also took issue with him on the proper way to 'translate' Greek plays. It is important to gain some understanding of their respective views. Caecilius had taken a significant step in the direction of showing preference for Menander in his choice of Greek plays, but his manner of translating seems to have remained essentially Plautine. But after Plautus' death there had clearly been a definite move towards a theory of greater fidelity to the Greek original, and with the death of Caecilius the advocates of this type of translation might have hoped to come into their own. To the realisation of this hope Terence's advent posed a threat. Though at times he speaks of his adversaries in the plural, there is one, described by him as a maleuolus uetus poeta, to whom we can give a name, and about whose writing we have some detailed information. This is Luscius of Lanuvium, already an old man in 166 and, quite possibly, hoping to inherit Caecilius' position as the acknowledged leading writer of palliata.

The charges that were levelled against Terence are those of plagiarism (furtum 'literary theft'), the practice of contaminatio, feeble writing, and dependence on noble patronage. As regards the last charge, it was easy for the suspicion to arise—whether justified or not—that Terence's plays were not accepted for production simply on their merits. If production was linked to a public occasion, who could say what might be achieved if an aristocratic patron dropped a word in the ear of the officials who were to preside over the games? And when, as was the case with the Adelphoe, Terence was on friendly terms with the heirs responsible for giving the ludi funebres in memory of L. Aemilius Paullus, the choice of him as playwright must have seemed to many to have been prearranged. The allegations of plagiarism and contaminatio to some extent hang together, for the plagiarism which is complained of consists of incorporating into the Eunuchus and Adelphoe scenes taken from other Greek plays already translated into Latin, and it is to this combination of elements from different plays that the word contaminatio is traditionally applied. Behind these accusations lies the feeling that the integrity of the Greek original should be respected in translation, at least as far as the unitary nature of the plot was concerned. Whether Luscius also advocated close fidelity to the Greek cannot be demonstrated conclusively, since we possess at most three lines from his comedies. But it seems to be implied by Terence's jibe (Eun. 7-8) that Luscius bene uortendo et easdem scribendo male / ex Graecis bonis Latinas fecit non bonas, where bene uertere(apparently 'faithful translation') is said to produce bad plays.

Luscius' other objection is to Terence's style. In Ph. 4-5 Luscius has said (according to Terence) that in Terence's plays 'the language is thin and the writing slight' (tenui esse oratione et scriptura leul). To this Terence answers that at least he has never written a play in which a young man sees a deer in flight, pursued by hounds, and earnestly imploring his aid. Clearly Terence is describing a scene in one of Luscius' plays and criticising it on the ground that situation and language are out of keeping with the tone of comedy. What emerges from these exchanges is that Terence and Luscius have one thing in common: in keeping with the spirit of the times they both sought to provide Latin comedy that was more deeply hellenised than in preceding generations. But on the way in which that objective was to be achieved they differed radically. Luscius believed in the maximum fidelity to his Greek originals, but welcomed originals that gave scope for the melodramatic, including apparitions and semi-tragic incident: Terence was prepared to handle Greek originals with some freedom, but he selected those originals in such a way as to exclude themes that seemed inconsistent with his conception of comedy. In one vital respect we may be sure that Terence proved his superiority over his adversaries; refusing to adhere to a principle of over-exact translation, he had the genius to perfect a pure Latin style that was, not a replica, but a masterly equivalent of the Attic elegance of Menander. In the list of the 'top ten' Latin writers of comedy complied by Volcacius Sedigitus about 100 B.C. we may be surprised to find Terence placed only sixth. Luscius, however, fares still worse: he is placed last but one.

Terence chose his Greek models with great care. Not only did he confine his choice to Menander and a close follower of Menander, Apollodorus of Carystus, but—with the exception of the Hecyra (and to a lesser extent the Eunuchus)—he selected plays that were constructed basically on the same formula: a young man is in love with a girl, but is unable to marry her, either because, though freeborn, she is poor and therefore unacceptable as a daughter-in-law to his father, or because she is ostensibly a courtesan. The obstacles to marriage (of which parental disapproval is the commonest) are eventually overcome, often by the unexpected discovery that the girl is the eligible daughter of a near neighbour or relation. The way is thus open for the traditional 'happy ending'. To this central core of the play a complication is added by the fact that the young man has a friend (or brother) who is also involved in an unsuccessful love affair, though in his case the girl is mostly a practising courtesan, which puts a permanent liaison with her out of the question. Great ingenuity may be displayed in the way in which this subplot is interwoven with the main plot.

But though the young man's love affair is the pivot on which the plot turns, the relationship between him and the girl he loves is not normally depicted on the stage. However strange this may seem to a modern audience, it arises naturally from two circumstances affecting Greco-Roman dramatic production. Since the action that was depicted took place out of doors—the Greek and Roman theatre never showed a house interior—and since in Athens an unmarried girl of good family did not normally appear out of doors unattended, opportunities for the young lovers to appear together on the stage were almost non-existent. Instead, a large amount of the humour of Terence's plays comes from the conflict and the misunderstandings that arise within the family circle, especially between father and son. Though double plots of the kind just described were to be found among Menander's plays, they represent only one of the types of plot he uses, and it is clear that Terence must have had a conscious preference for plays with double plots, in which the relationship between father and son played a conspicuous part. Though the Hecyra, unlike the other five plays, does not have a double plot, problems of family relationships are at its centre; the young man, Pamphilus, has to contend with mother and father and both parents-in-law in his attempt to conceal what he believes to be his wife's guilty secret. The Eunuchus has a double plot involving the love affairs of two brothers, but here, contrary to Terence's practice elsewhere (and, apparently, greatly to the enjoyment of his Roman audience), the play evolves essentially from the relationship between the elder brother and a bona meretrix, Thais.

By selecting plays which gave him the opportunity to bring out certain facets of human character, particularly in the sphere of family relationships, Terence had chosen to concentrate on those aspects of Menander's writing that could most readily be understood by the Romans. In so doing Terence emphasised what was most universal and basic in its human appeal, and although we have no extended passage where Terence can be directly compared with his Greek original, a number of small points are noted in Donatus' commentary, which show Terence omitting or generalising details that are too localised to be immediately comprehensible to a Roman audience. In this process some loss of clarity and focus may arise, but it was largely this emphasis on the universal in human nature that gave Terence his appeal not only throughout the Middle Ages, but also among vernacular writers of comedy in the countries of western Europe after the Renaissance. A good illustration of this generalising process is shown by a passage from the opening scene of Terence's Hautontimorumenos, where good fortune has preserved two separate fragments that give us just over five consecutive lines of Menander's original. The speaker is Chremes, a senex,who is interested in everybody else's affairs, and who, consequently, fails to see what is going on under his own nose. It is he who, to justify poking his nose into other people's business, speaks Terence's most famous line: homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto (Ht. 77). Shortly before this he has found his neighbour, Menedemus, hard at work on the land—no sort of occupation for a prosperous Athenian gentleman. Wondering why his neighbour should behave in this strange way, he asks him (61-4):

nam pro deum atque hominum fidem quid uis
  tibi aut
quid quaeris? annos sexaginta natus es
aut plus eo, ut conicio; agrum in his regionibus
meliorem neque preti maioris nemo habet;

Menander's version is:

…('By Athene! You're out of your mind, though you're old enough to know better! For I reckon you're a good sixty years. And, by Zeus! you've got the finest estate in Halae - or at least one of t he three finest; and, best of all, there's no mortgage on it.')

It is in lines 63b-4 that Terence shows his generalising tendency most clearly. The reference to the deme of Halae is dropped, as having no significance to a Roman audience. So too the detail about mortgage is omitted, for the Romans did not have the Attic practice of marking mortgaged land with a pillar in situ. Two items, then, that locate the scene in time and place are dispensed with: Terence's sentence can refer to any time, anywhere. But Terence also drops the precise-pernickety …('or at least one of the three') of Menander, which so exactly hits off the fussiness of the busybody.

The omission of local colour and the restricted range of plots and characters he chose offer some justification to those who feel that, compared with Plautus, Terence is lacking in verve. But even in the sphere of structure and incident Terence is more than a Menander dimidiatus. From statements in his prologues and from information given by Donatus in his commentary on the plays it is clear that Terence felt it desirable or necessary to introduce elements that would appeal to a Roman audience. The introduction of Charinus and his slave into the Andria, which allows further scope for the elements of surprise and intrigue, for dramatic confrontation and comic misunderstanding, is evidence of this intention from the outset of Terence's career, as is also his conversion of the play's opening scene from Menandrean monologue to a dialogue between Simo and his freedman, Sosia. If he had been in any doubt about the need to make some concessions to Roman taste, the failure of his Hecyra would have brought it home to him. It is no accident that the play which won him his greatest success was the Eunuchus, for it is the only one of his plays in which a miles gloriosus appears, and we know from the prologue to the play that the figure of the miles, with his attendant parasitus, was introduced into the play by Terence from another play of Menander (the Kolax) by the process of contaminatio. And again in his last play, the Adelphoe, he incorporates a scene of knockabout comedy from Diphilus' Synapothnescontes. In it a leno, who, apart from the miles gloriosus, is the character in the fabula palliata most fitted to be the butt of ridicule, is subjected to a good deal of physical and verbal indignity. It is not difficult to imagine how such a scene would appeal to an audience that was ready to rush off to see boxers, tightrope walkers, and gladiators.

Terence, then, had an individual contribution to make to his craft. His own temperament as well as the literary tastes of his patrons led him to attempt a new and finer interpretation of the Hellenic spirit of his models, above all the Attic grace of Menander. If he avoided for the most part the robust humour of an earlier generation, he avoided also the arid literalness of a Luscius Lanuvinus. As he sought to combine Greek and Latin elements in his plays, the task of the modem reader must be to attempt to assess them as a Greco-Roman phenomenon. But to be able to do so we must be prepared to try to separate the Greek and Roman strands in that interwoven whole. Until recently scholars, convinced of the superiority of Greek New Comedy, and tending to regard the Latin plays as inferior imitations, generally used the plays of Terence only as an aid to reconstructing the missing Greek originals. To regard Terence's plays, instead, as in some sense new creations is not to imply that they are superior to their Greek models, but it does imply a shift of emphasis. It is worth trying to assess the merits of Terence's plays in their own right: to do so it is not only legitimate but necessary to employ all the evidence that our ever-increasing remains of New Comedy can afford.

In the Adelphoe Terence returns to a theme he had already handled in the Hautontimorumenos. In that play, as in the Adelphoe, there are two contrasting old men, each with a son of marriageable age. Menedemus (the 'Self-Tormentor' of the title) is overcome with remorse because his constant criticism of his son for associating with a freeborn but penniless girl has driven the boy to leave home: now the father is prepared to do anything to have his son back again. An inquisitive neighbour, Chremes, is only too ready to explain to him where he has gone wrong in dealing with his son, and when Menedemus' son returns home, Chremes is equally free with the advice he offers for the future. The plot becomes extremely complicated. Menedemus agrees to allow himself to become the victim of a deception, so that his son may obtain money from him without realising that his father is parting with it willingly. Chremes undertakes to assist in this deception, but is himself deceived into supporting his own son's affair with an expensive courtesan, whom he believes to be the mistress of Menedemus' son. When the truth comes out, Menedemus, who so far has been prepared to bow to Chremes' superior wisdom, realises (V i) that it is not he, but Chremes, who is the real fool (see esp. 874-8): Chremes, on the other hand, flies into a rage and shows exactly the same lack of self-control that he had earlier criticised in Menedemus. But Chremes' discomfiture does not last long. Before the play ends, he has reasserted his parental control by putting an end to his son's liaison with the courtesan and forcing him to agree to a respectable marriage. Although the contrasting characters of the senes in the Hautontimorumenos do not lack credibility, the action of the second half of the play is so contrived that it seems to spring more from the demands of the plot than from the free choice of the senes. Consequently their characters are somewhat lacking in depth, and the play's outcome is wholly conventional.

In the Adelphoe the relative importance of plot and character is reversed; the plot is basically simple, the characters more complex and interesting. Demea and Micio, both senes, are brothers. Demea has married and had two sons. The elder of these, Aeschinus, he has given to his brother to adopt, while he brings up Ctesipho, accustoming him (he believes!) to the hard and rigorous life of the country. Micio, by contrast, is an easy-going city bachelor, and he brings up his adopted son with a liberality that Demea regards as culpable indulgence. Unknown to his father, each young man is engaged in a love affair; Aeschinus loves a poor, fatherless girl, who, as the play begins, is about to bear his child, while Ctesipho is enamoured of a courtesan, the property of a slave-dealer (leno). But since the timid Ctesipho lives in dread of his domineering father, Aeschinus forcibly abducts the courtesan on his brother's behalf. When Demea hears of the abduction, he believes that Aeschinus has taken the girl for himself, and regards it as demonstrating the folly of Micio's failure to exercise adequate discipline over his adopted son. Subsequently Demea learns that Aeschinus has also seduced a freeborn girl, and when Micio, who by now knows that it is Ctesipho who is interested in the courtesan, takes the matter coolly, Demea is convinced that Micio has taken leave of his senses. Up to this point in the play - about three-quarters of the way through - the direction in which the plot has been moving is quite clear: one incident after another conspires to make Demea appear ridiculous. The climax is reached when (between 782 and 788) Demea learns that the courtesan is the amica of Ctesipho, not Aeschinus. After a scene (V iii) in which Micio with difficulty pacifies his brother, Demea performs a complete volte-face. Since his own way of bringing up his son has failed, he decides to outdo Micio in affability and generosity, hoping thereby to gain the affection that he has hitherto failed to win. In the final scenes of the play, Demea's new policy succeeds beyond expectation. Ironically, the generosity he now practises is mostly to be paid for by Micio, who has also to agree to marry his son's future mother-in-law. In the play's closing lines a bewildered Micio asks his brother what has caused this amazing change of heart. To this Demea replies that he has acted in this way to show how easy it is to win apparent affection by extravagant generosity and compliance with other people's wishes.

Demea's volte-face and the consequences that flow from it give a new impetus to the play and raise interesting and important questions for its interpretation, which will be considered shortly. But until the point where Demea announces his decision to alter his ways the basic simplicity of the plot allows ample room for the poet to develop the character of the play's main figures. As a result, even before Demea's volte-face, which would be bound to force the problems upon the attention of the audience, the conflicting views of Demea and Micio have been brought out with far greater clarity and dramatic effectiveness than those of Chremes and Menedemus in the Hautontimorumenos—indeed in that play there is little real conflict between the two senes, for until the dénouement in the fifth Act Menedemus readily accepts that Chremes 'knows best'. In the Adelphoe the conflict of views between Demea and Micio lies at the heart of the play. So the opening scenes (Micio's monologue and a dialogue between Micio and Demea) not only introduce us to the two brothers and launch the action of the play, but also clearly enunciate the opposing theories of education that the two brothers uphold. From the outset the audience is made curious to see which system of education is going to prove successful. Until the last act of the play it is Micio's system that shows the better results, but from that point onwards Demea's change of attitude seems to turn the play on its head, and Micio is reduced to a position where he can do nothing but say 'yes' to a series of increasingly outrageous demands. A startled audience can scarcely fail to ask what this sudden reversal means, and because the way in which young people are brought up, and the relationship between the generations are topics of continuing interest to civilised society, the Adelphoe has an interest and importance additional to its merits as comic entertainment.

When dramatists such as Moliére and Shadwell in the seventeenth century wrote plays based on the Adelphoe, the genial character of Micio claimed their sympathy, and the final humiliation that was inflicted on him in Terence's play was discarded or altered. The ending of the play was first critically discussed in the latter part of the eighteenth century by Lessing in a number of essays included in Hamburgische Dramaturgie. In the hundredth of these he wrote, 'Micio's final aberration is contrary to all probability, and must inevitably offend the more discriminating spectator.' Having diagnosed the problem Lessing offered his own solution. On Ad 938 Donatus' commentary says apud Menandrum senex de nuptiis non grauatur: ergo Terentius [euretikos] ( = 'by his own invention'), and Lessing interpreted this as meaning that in Menander's play Micio was 'not troubled' about a marriage, that is, did not marry. Thus, according to Lessing, the indignity of Micio's being forced to marry the elderly mother of his son's bride-to-be is to be ascribed to Terentian innovation. Though Lessing, in fact, misunderstands Donatus' grauatur ('makes difficulties'), he has put his finger on the crucial point from which any modern interpretation of the Adelphoe must start, namely, the attempt to establish how Terence's version differs from that of Menander.

Direct evidence of the text and contents of Menander's [Adelfoi] is confined to about a dozen fragments, totalling some twenty lines in all, with the addition of some further passages in Donatus' commentary where reference is made to Menander, but without quoting any Greek. Of these passages three are of special importance. Donatus … confirms that Micio professed satisfaction (presumably in a monologue) at being a bachelor; fr. 11 (= Ad. 866) guarantees that in Menander too Demea delivered a 'change of heart' monologue; lastly, Don. on Ad. 938 (quoted in the previous paragraph) establishes that in Menander's play Micio offers no opposition when it is proposed that he should marry the elderly widow, Sostrata.

But the limited direct evidence about Menander's play can be supplemented by the knowledge we gain about Menander from his other plays and from testimony about him. All Menander's plays are pervaded by an attitude of respect for moderation and good sense. At first reading this might seem to be no more than an expression of the common Greek ideal of … ('nothing to excess'). But there is another, more specific reason for the prominence given to this attitude in Menander. According to Diogenes Laertius, Menander was a pupil of Theophrastus, who succeeded Aristotle as head of the Peripatetic school of philosophy, and particularly developed its teaching in the field of ethics. The application of the Aristotelian theory of the golden mean to the analysis of character—an interest which Theophrastus continued in his brief (extant) work, the Characters—directly influenced Menander's thinking. The comic figure is, above all, one who deviates excessively in one direction or the other from the mean of right conduct. From c. 6 of Bk. 3 to the end of Bk. 4 of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle discusses a series of 'moral virtues' and their corresponding vices, in each case a vice of excess and a vice of defect (see 2.8.1). A number of these virtues and vices are of particular relevance to the comedies of Menander. Man is a social animal, and there is a general virtue concerned with social intercourse, to which the name … ('friendliness') is applicable. The man who carries friendliness too far is called 'obsequious' … or, if he has an ulterior motive, 'flatterer' … : or, if he is deficient in friendliness, he is 'surly' … and 'quarrelsome' … (4.6.9). It is noteworthy that the names for a man who is guilty of the vice of excess or the vice of deficiency corresponding to [friendliness] are, respectively, [flatterer] and [quarrelsome], for these are the titles of two of Menander's plays. Two other virtues (with their vices) are of still more direct relevance to the Adelphoe. Liberality is defined as 'observing the due mean in money matters'. The corresponding vice of deficiency is illiberality or meanness, that of excess is prodigality or profligacy. With regard to anger too it is possible for a man to show excess or deficiency or the true mean. Though Aristotle finds it difficult to put a name to these qualities, there is no doubt of their existence: in English it is only for the quality of excess that a precise word is available—'irascibility'—though 'lack of spirit', or, perhaps, 'spinelessness' might do to describe its opposite vice.

In the Adelphoe it is clear that surliness, quarrelsomeness, irascibility, and illiberality are qualities displayed by Demea until his change-of-heart monologue. In the succeeding scenes he switches to the opposite vices of excessive affability and prodigality, until the last dozen lines of the play, when he explains to Micio that his switch to the opposite extreme has been a deliberate charade designed to show his brother that he too had failed to hit the true mean. There can be little doubt that this is the impression that Terence leaves (and, presumably, intended to leave) with his audience; at the end of the play Demea has the upper hand, and Micio can do no more than acquiesce in whatever his brother proposes. But did Menander too end his play with the triumph of Demea and the discomfiture of Micio, or have we here a striking example of Terentian alteration and innovation? It is generally agreed that, if Menander's Micio came off 'second best' at the end of the play, there are likely to be indications in the first four acts that Micio's conduct is open to criticism as representing a deviation from the Aristotelian mean. Is this the case? Are we to regard Micio as friendly, or as obsequious? As gentle … , or lacking in spirit? As liberal, or as profligate? These questions do not admit of an easy answer, and scholars are divided in their opinions about them. But it is one of the features that give the Adelphoe its continuing interest that each new reader (or spectator) can and must make up his own mind on these issues. To do so requires a detailed study of Terence's play and it is in the commentary that such an investigation is best conducted. But attention may be drawn here to some of the general considerations that are likely to influence a decision.

The opening scene, in typical Menandrean fashion, does at least three things at once. It introduces us to Micio as an individualised personality, it begins the exposition of the plot, and it allows Micio to discourse on the different theories he and his brother have on the way to bring up their respective sons. One sentence is particularly revealing. In lines 65-7 Micio argues that a father's authority will be more effective if it is based on amicitia than if it is founded on uis. It is possible that amicitia here corresponds to the Greek [friendliness], which (as we have seen) is an Aristotelian virtue. But this does not necessarily mean that Menander (or Terence) intends us to approve of Micio, for 'the devil can cite Scripture', and Micio may be using good philosophical doctrine as a cloak for his own laziness. The following scene (I ii) between the two brothers gives us a first sample of Demea's irascibility. Unable to pacify him, Micio finally gets him to agree that each shall look after his own son, and not interfere with the way the other brings up his son. Demea departs for the forum, and Micio, left alone, reveals to the audience in a monologue that he is indeed concerned about the new report of Aeschinus' disorderly conduct; he too leaves for the forum, anxious to have a word with his son. It is important to note that at this point in Terence's play the audience does not yet know that Aeschinus' abduction of the 'music-girl' was undertaken on his brother's behalf; as a result it is likely to take a less favourable view of the success of Micio's educational principles than it would have done if it had known the true motive for Aeschinus' violent action. In Menander's play, on the other hand, it is generally agreed that the audience was put in possession of this vital information not later than the end of the first act.

The succeeding scenes (II i-iv), which introduce us to Aeschinus, Ctesipho, Syrus, and the leno from whom Aeschinus has abducted Ctesipho's amica, also pose problems, for they include the scene or scenes which Terence inserted in Menander's play from the Synapothnescontesof Diphilus. How far the introduction of an element of 'thug comedy' disturbs the ethos of Menander's play it is difficult to say, for it is likely that in Menander too the lenohad cause to complain with equal vigour of his rough handling by Aeschinus—even though that rough handling did not, in Menander, take place on the stage.

After two scenes (III i-ii) in which we learn of Aeschinus' own involvement with 'the girl next door' the next section of the play (to IV ii) belongs to Demea, who is on the stage for 200 of the next 230 lines. He is twice completely hood-winked by Syrus, who feigns admiration for the success which has attended Demea's system of bringing up his son. It is by no means certain, though it is possible, that these scenes are intended to convey the poet's condemnation of Demea's system of education; the outwitting of the father of the young man in love is a basic ingredient of many plays of the genre, and does not in itself imply disapproval of the values that the father seeks to uphold. It is more revealing to compare III iv, in which Demea meets with Hegio, and IV iii, in which Hegio meets Micio. Only a careful scrutiny of both scenes can show whether there is validity in Rieth's argument that the comparison shows greatly to Demea's disadvantage. At line 586 Demea is sent off on his second, and longer, wild goose chase. During his absence Micio and Aeschinus meet, and harmony is restored between them, after Micio has good-humouredly got a little of his own back on Aeschinus for his earlier deception of his father. At the end of the meeting Aeschinus, left alone on the stage, delivers a short panegyric (707-12) on Micio's generosity, and proclaims his intention never again to do anything that will incur his disapproval. Rieth [in his Die Kunst Menanders in den "Adelphen " des Terenz] takes this declaration at its face value, and accordingly believes that it is impossible that in the last scenes of Menander's play Aeschinus should aid and abet Demea in getting Micio to agree to do things that are contrary to his better judgement. Another interpretation is possible: Aeschinus' present good intentions towards Micio are simply forgotten when Demea offers him a course of action that is more to his liking.

When Demea, having been misdirected by Syrus, returns from his vain attempt to find his brother, there follow in quick succession (IV vii, V iii) two meetings between the two brothers. In the first Demea finds that Micio, far from being perturbed by Aeschinus' seduction of Pamphila, has agreed to their marriage. Since Demea still believes that the music-girl is Aeschinus' amica, he concludes that Micio must be out of his mind. Nevertheless, he abides by the agreement made by Micio and him in I ii that each father should look after his own son, and when Micio urges him to put on a cheerful face for Aeschinus' wedding, he utters no word of objection. When, after a brief interval, the brothers meet again, the storm has already broken: Demea has discovered his son, Ctesipho, with the music-girl inside Micio's house. To Demea's accusation that Micio has broken the compact between them that each should look after his own son only, Micio can offer no effective answer. His excuse, that it is right for friends to share and share alike, is feeble. Yet on a higher and more general plane Micio puts a good case. In deciding what is the best way to bring up a boy, Micio argues, account must be taken of his nature. A boy who has a generous nature (liberum ingenium atque animum (828-9)) can be allowed considerable freedom in his conduct. Aeschinus and Ctesipho, he is sure, have that basic character, and their actions should be judged accordingly. The fact that the argument is aristocratic, not egalitarian, does nothing to discredit the assumption that the view may derive from Menander, for the restrictive nature of Athenian citizenship in Menander's age tended to an élitist view of society. On the other hand, Micio's ability to expound wholesome philosophical doctrine is not proof that he had practised what he preaches. His insistence that Demea need not worry over the expense incurred by the peccadilloes of their sons is meant to allay what he believes to be Demea's chief anxiety, but it may possibly also reveal an inability to realise that Demea's concern is not only—or indeed primarily—financial. It is dramatically fitting that his rebuke of Demea, 'Old age makes men too keen on money', is turned against him by Demea in the penultimate scene of the play (833-4—953-4).

Demea's monologue in V iv (855-81) marks a crucial turning point in more ways than one, for not only does he resolve to alter his ways, spending instead of saving, and saying 'yes' to everyone: with his change of heart the roles that he and Micio play are dramatically altered. Hitherto Demea has, time after time, been the victim of his own misunderstanding or other people's deception—Syrus rightly says of him (548), primum ait se scire: is solus nescit omnia—whereas Micio, even if he does not control events, is quick to adjust to them, making the best of whatever fortune brings (cf. 739-41). But from V iv to the end of the play Demea, who is on the stage throughout, dictates events, and does so almost entirely at the expense of Micio, whose whole function henceforth seems to be to implement Demea's orders. Such at least is his role in Terence's play. Rieth argues that in Menander Micio could not have been humiliated in this way. There are, he believes, two specific arguments that support this general thesis:

1. There is a direct conflict between Demea's attitude in his monologue (V iv) and the explanation he gives for his actions at the very end of the play (986f.). In his monologue there is not the slightest hint that his change of heart is anything but a genuine resolve. But in 986f. he tells Micio that it was a pretence, adopted to teach his brother a lesson. Since it is alien to the convention of Greco-Roman drama that a character should deliver a monologue that deliberately deceives the audience about his motives, and since the essence of V iv seems to be guaranteed for Menander by fr. 11 (quoted in 866n.), it should follow that the explanation given in Ad. 986f. comes, not from Menander, but from Terence.

2. Donatus' comment on Ad. 938 (see p. 19 above) entitles us to look for Terentian addition in this part at least of V viii. Rieth's suggestion that 934 (better 933b)-46 comes from Terence may be near the truth, for it would eliminate precisely those lines where Micio offers strenuous opposition to the suggestion that he should marry. There is, it should be added, no evidence that any other passage in the final scene is not in essence derived from Menander.

   If (as Rieth argues) 934-46 and 984ff, are Terentian additions, and it is accepted that the final scene of Menander's play is fairly represented by Ad. 924-33+947-83, the sequence of events in Menander would be:

3. Demea (abetted by Aeschinus?) proposes that Micio should marry Sostrata; Micio accepts without demur.
4. Demea (abetted by Aeschinus?) proposes that Micio should grant Hegio the lease of a plot of land, rent-free. Since 953-4 picks up 833-4, it is highly probable that in Menander too Demea quoted Micio's own proverb against him, and did so because Micio was showing some reluctance to accept Demea's suggestion.
5. Demea proposes that Syrus should be set free 'for services rendered'. By now the situation is moving into the realm of the absurd, for though Syrus' services are enumerated as giving instruction in wine, women, and extravagant living (964-8), Micio after only a brief hesitation agrees to do as Demea suggests.
6. It is now Syrus' turn to ask for a favour - that his 'wife', Phrygia, also should be set free: her service was to have acted as wet-nurse to Micio's grandson! As Micio questions whether this merits the proposed reward, Demea for the only time offers to put his hand in his own pocket to meet the cost.
7. Lastly, Demea proposes that Syrus should receive a small loan. Very reluctantly, under pressure from Demea and Aeschinus, Micio promises to think about it later.

There can be no good reason to deny any of the above five incidents to the Menandrean original. On that assumption the Menandrean Micio was compelled to consent to a series of requests that become progressively more outrageous, and even if he yielded with a better grace than his Terentian counterpart, it is clear that in Menander's last act, as in Terence's, Micio fails to sustain the ideal of the Aristotelian mean. If this is the case, a final speech by Demea, explaining to his brother the error of his ways, would be by no means incompatible with what has gone before. On the other hand, there is nothing to prove that Menander's Demea did deliver such a speech. It is conceivable that the play ended rapidly after 982 with Micio saying, 'I'll think about that later: but now let us go inside to celebrate Aeschinus' wedding.' An ending on these lines would save Micio from total humiliation, and it would be in keeping with Menander's general pattern, that at the play's end a willing concord should be reestablished within the family. But there is not one whit of evidence that this is how Menander's play ended, and it should be pointed out that much of what Demea says in his final speech in Terence is sound Aristotelian doctrine. Thus, just as Micio at the beginning of the play had criticised Demea for straying from the mean (praeter aequomque et bonum) (64) in the direction of duritas, so now in 987-8 Demea accuses his brother of deviating ex aequo et bono in the direction of assentari, indulgere, largiri. In place of this excessive permissiveness Demea offers an alternative policy: he is prepared both to criticise and assist, as the occasion seems to demand. Aeschinus, who at 707-11 had been prepared to do all he could to show himself worthy of Micio's trust and generosity, immediately accepts Demea's offer. Since, however, the policy that Demea now offers is neither that of extreme severity nor extreme indulgence, the play, as it stands in Terence, ends on a note of moderation, which, as was observed earlier is both typically Menandrean and typically Peripatetic: so we are left with the impression that the desirable mean has hitherto not been achieved by either Demea or Micio.

Understanding of the Peripatetic ethical doctrines which influenced Menander's thinking can aid the interpretation of the Adelphoe, but it must be remembered that a play is not a philosophical treatise. Seneca's Stoicism, Racine's Jansenism, Brecht's Marxism are all relevant to the understanding of their plays, but any 'lesson' they may convey is incidental to their main aim, which is to be dramatically effective. Comedy, including that of Menander and Terence, is an artefact designed to throw light on the human condition, especially by making fun of human foibles and shortcomings. It is intrinsically improbable that that aim will be attained by introducing a character who personifies the author's own ideal of human excellence; indeed, when a character claims to have discovered the quintessence of human perfection, it is likely that he is riding for a fall. Such, probably, is the case with Micio in the Adelphoe. That his fine principles come unstuck is no condemnation of the principles themselves: it is the nature of human beings never fully to realise their ideals, and much of the humour of comedy comes from seeing the gulf that exists between what men profess and what they achieve.