And yet so niggard of their bounty to him,
He had not even wherewithal to hire
A house in Rome to which a faithful slave
Might bring the tidings of his master’s death. Colman.
The patrons of Terence, however, never deserved the reproach of meanness. Nor could the comic poet have been very poor. He received large sums for his comedies; he had funds sufficient to reside for some time in Greece; and at his death he possessed gardens on the Appian Way twenty jugera in extent.
A mystery hangs over his death, which took place B. C. 158.[[210]] It is not known whether he died in Greece, or was lost at sea, together with all the comedies of Menander, which he had translated whilst in Greece, or whether, after embarking for Asia, he was, as Volcatius writes, never seen more:——
Ut Afer sex populo edidit comœdias
Iter hinc in Asiam fecit, navim cum semel
Conscendit visus nunquam est. Sic vitâ vacat.
One daughter married to a Roman knight survived him.