This circumstance is so much the more extraordinary, as a play was seldom exhibited on the Roman stage oftener than on four or five occasions, before it was laid aside; and new pieces were usually provided for every festival: with what enthusiastic applause then, must the Eunuch have been received, when the audience with the loudest acclamations, called for a second representation of this admirable comedy on the same day! It is necessary to explain that the actors had sufficient time to repeat their performance, as dramatic entertainments were usually frequented by the Romans, not in the evening as among the moderns, but in the course of the day, and generally previous to the hour of their principal repast.
[NOTE 18.]
Eight thousand sesterces.
Eight thousand sesterces were equal to 64l. 11s. 8d. sterling. The Romans reckoned their money by sesterces: the sestertius, which was a brass coin, worth 1. d. 3 qrs. ¾, must not be confounded with the sestertium, which was no coin, but money of account, and equal in value to one thousand sesterces.
[NOTE 19.]
Varro.
Marcus Terentius Varro was born at Rome in the year of the city 632; at the time of the sedition of Caius Gracchus. Varro was the intimate friend of Pompey: and obtaining the consulship in the year 680, had the mortification to find the efforts of himself and his colleague, inadequate to suppress the insurrection of Spartacus, whose successes at the head of the rebellious gladiators, alarmed all Rome. The military occupations of Varro did not prevent his close attention to literature: his writings were very voluminous; and those of them which remain are deservedly in high estimation.
[NOTE 20.]
And as for what those malicious railers say, who assert that certain noble persons assist the poet.
The chief of those railers, and the arch-enemy of Terence, was the Luscius Lanuvinus to whom Volcatius in his list of poets assigns the ninth place;—and the same person whom Donatus designates by the name of Lucius Lavinius. Luscius was not singular in this imputation against our author. Valgius and others seem to consider Terence but the mere nominal author of the six pieces which bear his name. That Scipio and Lælius assisted him with their advice, is highly probable, and his vanity might feel flattered by the insertion among his own writings, of short passages of their composition; but when we call to mind, that Africanus and his friend, two persons of the most refined delicacy and taste, distinguished by their friendship, and selected as a companion in their hours of retirement and relaxation, a freedman! a man whose rank was infinitely inferior to their own; we must naturally suppose that those eminent persons courted the society of Terence, as admirers of his extraordinary genius, and elevation of sentiment. As they could not have become thoroughly acquainted with our author’s engaging qualifications, but from his dramatic compositions, it is most probable that the Andrian at least, was published, before he was honoured with the intimacy of either Scipio, Lælius, or Furius. Indeed there can be but little doubt that the success of this play, (which he wrote when he was too little known, perhaps, to receive assistance from any one,) was the means of drawing him from the obscurity of his low rank, and of obtaining the notice and approbation of the great men of his age, and their patronage for his future productions.
[NOTE 21.]
Quintus Memmius.
The oration alluded to by Suetonius was written by Memmius to defend himself against a charge of bribery. The Memmii were a plebeian family, though several of them attained to the highest dignities. Quintus was nearly related to the Caius Memmius who was assassinated by Lucius Apuleius Saturninus: and is supposed to have been the son of the Memmius to whom Lucretius dedicated his celebrated poem, “De Rerum naturâ.” Vide Cicero in Catilin. and Florus, B. 3., c. 16.
[NOTE 22.]
Cornelius Nepos.