THE
LIFE OF TERENCE,
Translated from the Latin
OF
CAIUS SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS[1].
Publius Terentius[2], born at Carthage, in Africa, was slave to Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator: who, justly appreciating his great abilities, gave him not only a polite education, but also his liberty in the earlier part of his life. He is supposed by some to have been made a prisoner of war: but Fenestella[3] refutes this opinion; as [4]Terence was born after the conclusion of the second Punic war, and died before the commencement of the third: neither, if he had been made a captive by the [5]Numidians, or Getulians, could he have fallen into the hands of the Romans, as there was no commerce between the Italians and Africans, before the destruction of Carthage.
Terence lived in the closest intimacy with many of the Roman nobility, but particularly with Scipio Africanus[6] and Caius Lælius[7], who were about his own age[8], though Fenestella makes Terence rather older than either of them. Portius[9] commemorates their friendship in the following verses:
Dum lasciviam nobilium; et fucosas laudes petit:
Dum Africani vocem divinam inhiat avidis auribus:
Dum ad Furium se cœnitare et Lælium pulchrum putat:
Dum se amari ab hisce credit, crebro in Albanum rapi