The following comparison of the two great Roman comic poets by a French critic is a just one:——
“Ce poète (Térence) a beaucoup plus d’art, mais il me semble que l’autre a plus d’esprit. Terence fait beaucoup plus parler qu’agir; l’autre fait plus agir que parler: et c’est le véritable caractère de la comédie, qui est beaucoup plus dans l’action que dans le discours. Cette vivacité me paroît donner encore un grand avantage à Plaute; c’est que ses intrigues sont bien variées, et ont toujours quelque chose qui surprend agréablement; au lieu que le théâtre semble languir quelquefois dans Térence, à qui la vivacité de l’action et les nœuds des incidens et des intrigues manquent manifestement.”
If Terence was inferior to Plautus in life and bustle and intrigue, and in the powerful delineation of national character, he is superior in elegance of language and refinement of taste; he far more rarely offends against decency, and he substitutes delicacy of sentiment for vulgarity. The justness of his reflections more than compensates for the absence of his predecessor’s humour: he touches the heart as well as gratifies the intellect.
If he was deficient in vis comica, it is only the defect which Cæsar attributed to Roman comedy generally; and Cicero, who thought that Roman wit was even more piquant than Attic salt itself, paid him a merited compliment in the following line:——
Quicquid come loquens atque omnia dulcia dicens.
It has been objected to Terence that he superabounds in soliloquies;[[228]] but it is not surprising that he should have delighted in them, since no author ever surpassed him in narrative. His natural and unaffected simplicity renders him the best possible teller of a story: he never indulges in a display of forced wit or in attempts at epigrammatic sharpness; there are no superfluous touches, although his pictures are enlivened by sufficient minuteness; his moral lessons are conveyed in familiar proverb-like suggestions, not in dull and pedantic dogmatism.
The remaining comic poets will require but brief notice. L. Afranius was a contemporary of Terence, and flourished about B. C. 150. His comedies were all of the lowest class of fabulæ togatæ (tabernariæ;) and he was generally allowed by the critics to possess great skill in accommodating the Greek comedy to the representation of Roman manners:——
Dicitur Afrani toga convenisse Menandro.
Hor. Ep. II. i. 57.
His style was short and eloquent (perargutus et disertus,)[[229]] but he was a man of low tastes and profligate morals;[[230]] and, therefore, although, from living amidst the scenes of vulgar vice which he delighted to paint, his characters were true to nature, they were revolting and disgusting. His immorality, probably, as much as his talent, caused him to continue a favourite under the most corrupt times of the empire. Fragments and titles of many of his comedies have been preserved.