It is said that the patrons of Terence assisted him in the composition of his comedies, or, at least, corrected their language and style, and embellished them by the insertion of scenes and passages. An anecdote is related by Cornelius Nepos,[[208]] which, if true, at once proves the point. He says that Lælius was at his villa near Puteoli during the festival of the Matronalia. On this holiday the power of the Roman ladies was absolute. Lælius was ordered by his wife to come to supper early. He excused himself on the ground that he was occupied, and begged not to be disturbed. When he appeared in the supper-room, he said he had never been so well satisfied with his compositions. He was asked for a specimen of what he had written, and immediately repeated a scene in the “Self-Tormentor”[[209]] of Terence. Terence, however, gently refutes this story in the prologue to the “Adelphi,” and gives it a positive contradiction in the prologue to the comedy in which the passage occurs. Perhaps he may at first have permitted the report to be credited for the sake of paying a compliment to his patron.
There is a tradition that he lived and died in poverty, and this tale is perpetuated in the following lines by Porcius Licinius:——
Nil Publius
Scipio profuit, nihil ei Lælius, nil Furius,
Tres per idem tempus qui agitabant nobiles facillume,
Eorum ille opere ne domum quidem habuit conductitium
Saltem ut esset quo referret obitum domini servulus.
Nothing did Publius Scipio profit him;
Nothing did Lælius, nothing Furius;
At once the three great patrons of our bard.