Can I suffer, that she, who has been brought up in the paths of modesty and virtue, should be exposed to want, and, perhaps, even to dishonour?
By the expression sinam coactum egestate ingenium immutarier? shall I suffer her innocence to be endangered by want? I am inclined to believe that Terence meant, the want of friends and protection, and not poverty, because we are told afterwards, (Act IV.) that Glycera was possessed of the property of Chrysis, which we are to imagine, from what Crito says concerning it, to have been something considerable. I believe egestate is often put for want of any kind. It may appear somewhat enigmatical, that Terence should speak of the liberal and virtuous education of Glycera, by such a person as Chrysis was said to have been; but it is a circumstance in no wise repugnant to the manners of the Greeks; as we see in the Eunuch in the instance of Thais and Pamphila.
I call upon you, then, by the pledge of this hand you now extend to me, and by the natural goodness of your disposition.
Quod ego te per hanc dextram oro, et ingenium tuum. Some read genium, by your genius, or by your good angel, and quote the following passage from Horace in support of this reading:
“Quod te per genium dextramque, deosque penates
Obsecro et obtestor.”
Epistles, B. I. E. 7. L. 94.
The difference, however, between the genius and the ingenium, is not very material; as the ingenium or disposition, was supposed by the ancients to be prompted by the genius, or tutelar spirit, who presided over and directed all the actions of mankind. Each person was thought to have a good and also an evil spirit, who never quitted its charge till death: the spirits attendant on the men were called by the Romans genii, and those belonging to the women were named junones. The Greeks considered these aërial beings as of a nature between that of gods and men: and that they communicated to the latter the will of the former by oracles, dreams, &c. Apuleius takes the genius to be the same as the lar and larva: but it is most probable, that the larvæ, lemures, and dæmones, were all used as names for what were termed the evil genii.
[NOTE 107.]
Be to her a friend, a guardian, a parent.