Note 7 — Chapter VII

As his art is purely dramatic and also imitative, for any further knowledge of his character and circumstances we have to rely on his prologues in which he speaks in his own person. They give the impression of a man of frank and ingenuous nature, with a high idea of his art, very sensitive to criticism, and proud, though not ostentatiously so, of the favour he enjoyed with the best men of his time. The tone of all his prologues is apologetic. In this respect, as well as in his relation to his patrons, he reminds us of the tone of some of the Satires of Horace. But there is a robuster force both of defence and of offence in the son of the Venusian freedman than in the young Phoenician freedman. In nearly all his prologues he defends himself against the malevolence and detraction of an old poet, 'malevolus vetus poeta,' whose name is said to have been Luscius Lavinius, or Lanuvinus. The chief charge which his detractor brings against him is that of contaminatio, the combining in one play of scenes out of different Greek plays. Terence justifies his practice by that of the older poets, Naevius, Plautus, Ennius, whose careless freedom he follows in preference to the dull pedantry of his detractor7. He recriminates on his adversary as one who, by his literal adherence to his original, had turned good Greek plays into bad Latin ones. He justifies himself from the charge of plagiarising from Plautus and Naevius8. In another passage he contrasts his own quiet treatment of his subjects with the sensational extravagance of other play-wrights9. He meets the charge of receiving assistance in the composition of his plays by claiming, as a great honour, the favour which he enjoyed with those who deservedly were the favourites of the Roman people10.