The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 14: Lives of the Poets

Produced by Tapio Riikonen and David Widger
By C. Suetonius Tranquillus;
To which are added,
The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D.
revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M.
(531)
Terence Juvenal Persius Horace Lucan Pliny
While Terence plays the wanton with the great, and recommends himself to them by the meretricious ornaments of his person; while, with greedy ears, he drinks in the divine melody of Africanus's voice; while he thinks of being a 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 himself to Greece, where he met his end, dying at Strymphalos, a town in Arcadia. What availed him the friendship of Scipio, of Laelius, or of Furius, three of the most affluent nobles of that age? They did not even minister to his necessities so much as to provide him a hired house, to which his slave might return with the intelligence of his master's death.
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; Quorum opera in bello, in otio, in negotio, Suo quisque tempore usus est sine superbia.
————For this, Which malice tells that certain noble persons Assist the bard, and write in concert with him, That which they deem a heavy slander, he Esteems his greatest 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 meekly. Colman.
He appears to have protested against this imputation with less earnestness, because the notion was far from being disagreeable to Laelius and Scipio. It therefore gained ground, and prevailed in after-times.