The Comedies of Terence

Six plays survive complete from Terence, and all six appear here in Henry Thomas Riley’s literal prose translation: Andria, Eunuchus, Heautontimorumenos, Adelphi, Hecyra and Phormio. Terence built each one from Greek New Comedy, four after Menander and two after Apollodorus of Carystus, and stocked them with the devices the form ran on: young men in love with unsuitable girls, fathers blocking the match, slaves inventing schemes, and girls who turn out to be freeborn citizens. Set beside Plautus, the other Roman comic playwright whose work survives in quantity, the humor is quieter and the family arguments sound closer to real speech. Adelphi, in which two brothers raise two boys by opposite methods, still works as an argument about how to bring up a child. Riley’s notes run with each play.