Part 12 (1/2)

II LUCIUS PLOTIUS GALLUS Of him Marcus Tullius Cicero thus writes to Marcus titinnius 908: ”I remean to teach Latin; and as great numbers flocked to his school, so that all ere er to take lessons froreat trouble to me that I too was not allowed to do so I was prevented, however, by the decided opinion (527) of , who considered that it was best to cultivate the genius by the study of Greek” This sae, was pointed at by M Caelius, in a speech which he was forced tosupplied his accuser, Atracinus 909, withhis name, he says that such a rhetorician was like barley bread 910 compared to a wheaten loaf,-windy, chaffy, and coarse

III LUCIUS OCTACILIUS PILITUS is said to have been a slave, and, according to the old custo been presented with his freedo, he drew up for his patron the act of accusation in a cause he was prosecuting After that, becoave instructions to Cneius Pompey the Great, and composed an account of his actions, as well as of those of his father, being the first freed to the opinion of Cornelius Nepos 912, who ventured to write history, which before his tihest ranks in society

IV About this ti a false accusation, opened a school of instruction, in which he taught, austus On one occasion Caius Canutius jeered the to the party of the consul Isauricus 914 in his administration of the republic; upon which he replied, that he would rather be the disciple of Isauricus, than of Epidius, the false accuser This Epidius claimed to be descended from Epidius Nuncio, who, as (528) ancient traditions assert, fell into the fountain of the river Sarnus 915 when the strea afterwards found, was reckoned a the number of the Gods

V sexTUS CLODIUS, a native of Sicily, a professor both of Greek and Latin eloquence, had bad eyes and a facetious tongue It was a saying of his, that he lost a pair of eyes from his intimacy with Mark Antony, the triu in one of her cheeks, he said that ”she tempted the point of his style;” 917 nor did Antony think any the worse of him for the joke, but quite enjoyed it; and soon afterwards, when Antony was consul 918, he even es him with in his Philippics 919 ”You patronize,” he said, ”a master of the schools for the sake of his buffoonery, andhim to cut his jokes on any one he pleased; a witty s of such as you and your companions But listen, Conscript Fathers, while I tell you what reas given to this rhetorician, and let the wounds of the republic be laid bare to view You assigned two thousand acres of the Leontine territory 920 to sextus Clodius, the rhetorician, and not content with that, exonerated the estate froance of the grant, how little wisdom is displayed in your acts”

VI CAIUS ALBUTIUS SILUS, of Novara 921, while, in the execution (529) of the office of edile in his native place, he was sitting for the aded by the feet froainst whonation at this usage, he ate of the town, and proceeded to Roed, with Plancus the orator 922, whose practice it was, before he made a speech in public, to set up soument The office was undertaken by Albutius with such success, that he silenced Plancus, who did not venture to put hi him into notice, he collected an audience of his own, and it was his custo; but as he warmed with the subject, he stood up, and made his peroration in that posture His declamations were of different kinds; soht not be thought to savour too much of the schools, he curtailed them of all ornament, and used only fa ehest i the peroration only

In the end, he gave up practising in the forum, partly from shame, partly from fear For, in a certain trial before the court of the One Hundred 923, having lashed the defendant as a man void of natural affection for his parents, he called upon hiure of speech, ”to swear by the ashes of his father andhi upon it, he lost his cause, and was much blamed At another time, on a trial forto defend the culprit, he worked himself up to such a pitch of vehemence, that in a crowded court, who loudly applauded hi all the efforts of the lictor to maintain order, he broke out into a laer of being again reduced, he said, into (530) the for to the statue of Marcus Brutus, which stood in the Forum, he invoked him as ”the founder and vindicator of the liberties of the people” For this he narrowly escaped a prosecution Suffering, at an advanced period of life, fro the people together in a public asseth, explaining the reasons which induced hi from food

END OF THE LIVES OF GRAMMARIANS AND RHETORICIANS

LIVES OF THE POETS

(531)

THE LIFE OF TERENCE

Publius Terentius Afer, a native of Carthage, was a slave, at Rome, of the senator Terentius Lucanus, who, struck by his abilities and handsoave him not only a liberal education in his youth, but his freedom when he arrived at years of maturity Some say that he was a captive taken in war, but this, as Fenestella 925 informs us, could by no means have been the case, since both his birth and death took place in the interval between the termination of the second Punic war and the co that he had been taken prisoner by the Numidian or Getulian tribes, could he have fallen into the hands of a Roeneral, as there was no commercial intercourse between the Italians and Africans until after the fall of Carthage 927 Terence lived in great fah station, and especially with Scipio Africanus, and Caius Delius, whose favour he is even supposed to have purchased by the foulestthat Terence was older than either of them Cornelius Nepos, however, (532) infore; and Porcias inti passage:- ”While Terence plays the wanton with the great, and recommends himself to thereedy ears, he drinks in the divinea constant guest at the table of Furius, and the handsome Laelius; while he thinks that he is fondly loved by them, and often invited to Albanum for his youthful beauty, he finds himself stripped of his property, and reduced to the lowest state of indigence Then, withdrawing from the world, he betook hi at Strymphalos, a town in Arcadia What availed him the friendshi+p of Scipio, of Laelius, or of Furius, three of the e? They did not even minister to his necessities so ht return with the intelligence of his master's death”

He wrote co to be perforiven by the aediles 928, he was co been introduced while Caecilius was at supper, and beingof the play seated on a low stool near the greata few verses, he was invited to take his place at table, and, having supped with his host, went through the rest to his great delight This play and five others were received by the public with sih Volcatius, in his enumeration of the these”

The Eunuch was even acted twice the same day 931, and earned more money than any comedy, whoever was the writer, had (533) ever done before, naht thousand sesterces 932; besides which, a certain sum accrued to the author for the title But Varro prefers the opening of The Adelphi 933 to that of Menander It is very commonly reported that Terence was assisted in his works by Laelius and Scipio 934, hoave some currency to this report hiainst it, except in a light way; as in the prologue to The Adelphi: Nam quod isti dicunt malevoli, homines nohiles Hunc adjutare, assidueque una scribere; Quod illi maledictun vehemens existimant, Eam laudem hic ducit maximam: cum illis placet, Qui vobis universis et populo placent; Quoruotio, Suo quisque tempore usus est sine superbia

----For this, Which malice tells that certain noble persons assist the bard, and write in concert with hireatest praise: that he can please Those who in war, in peace, as counsellors, Have rendered you the dearest services, And ever borne their faculties so ainst this imputation with less earnestness, because the notion was far froained ground, and prevailed in after-times

Quintus Memmius, in his speech in his own defence, says ”Publius Africanus, who borrowed froht it on the stage in his name” Nepos tells us he found in some book that C Laelius, when he was on some occasion at Puteoli, on the calends [the first] of March, 935 being requested by his wife to rise early, (534) begged her not to suffer hiaged in writing withhi, he repeated the verses which are found in the Heautontimoroumenos: Satis pol proterve ue Syrus's impudent pretences- Santra 936 is of opinion that if Terence required any assistance in his compositions 937, he would not have had recourse to Scipio and Laelius, ere then very young men, but rather to Sulpicius Gallus 938, an accomplished scholar, who had been the first to introduce his plays at the gaiven by the consuls; or to Q Fabius Labeo, or Marcus Popilius 939, both men of consular rank, as well as poets It was for this reason that, in alluding to the assistance he had received, he did not speak of his coadjutors as very young men, but as persons of whose services the people had full experience in peace, in war, and in the adiven his comedies to the world, at a time when he had not passed his thirty-fifth year, in order to avoid suspicion, as he found others publishi+ng their works under his name, or else to make himself acquainted with the modes of life and habits of the Greeks, for the purpose of exhibiting them in his plays, he withdrew froives this account of his death: Sed ut Afer sei populo dedit comoedias, Iter hic in Asiam fecit Navem cum semel Conscendit, visus nunquam est Sic vita vacat

(535) When Afer had produced six plays for the entertainment of the people, He embarked for Asia; but froain Thus he ended his life

Q Consentius reports that he perished at sea on his voyage back froht plays, of which he had made a version from Menander 940, were lost with him Others say that he died at Sty the consulshi+p of Cn Cornelius Dolabella and Marcus Fulvius nobilior 941, worn out with a severe illness, and with grief and regret for the loss of his baggage, which he had sent forward in a shi+p that recked, and contained the last new plays he had written

In person, Terence is reported to have been rather short and slender, with a dark cohter, as afterwards arden ground 942, on the Appian Way, at the Villa of Mars I, therefore, wonder the more how Porcius could have written the verses, ----nihil Publius Scipio profuit, nihil et Laelius, nihil Furius, Tres per ideitabant nobiles facillime

Eorum ille opera ne domum quidem habuit conductitiam Saltem ut esset, quo referret obitum domini servulus 943 Afranius places hi, in his Compitalia, Terentio non similem dices quempiam

Terence's equal cannot soon be found

On the other hand, Volcatius reckons him inferior not only (536) to Naevius, Plautus, and Caecilius, but also to Licinius Cicero pays hih compliment, in his Limo- Tu quoque, qui solus lecto sermone, Terenti, Conversum expressumque Latina voce Menandrum In medio populi sedatis vocibus offers, Quidquid come loquens, ac omnia dulcia dicens

”You, only, Terence, translated into Latin, and clothed in choice language the plays of Menander, and brought the upon hushed applause- Grace marked each line, and every period charmed”