His works were studied and learned by heart by the great Latin writers of the Renaissance, such as Erasmus and Melanchthon: and Casaubon, in his anxiety that his son should write a pure style, inculcates on him the constant study of Terence. Montaigne applies to him the phrase of Horace,—
Liquidus puroque simillimus amni.
He speaks of 'his fine expression, elegancy, and quaintness,' and adds, 'he does so possess the soul with his graces that we forget those of his fable[23].' It is among the French, the great masters of the prose of refined conversation, that his merits have been most appreciated in modern times. Sainte-Beuve, in his 'Nouveaux Lundis,' devotes to him two papers of delicate and admiring criticism. He quotes Fénelon and Addison, 'deux esprits polis et doux, de la même famille littéraire,' as expressing their admiration for the illimitable beauty and naturalness of one of his scenes. Fénelon is said to have preferred him even to Molière. Sainte-Beuve calls Terence the bond of union between Roman urbanity and the Atticism of the Greeks, and adds that it was in the seventeenth century, when French literature was most truly Attic, that he was most appreciated. M. Joubert is quoted[24] as applying to him the words 'Le miel Attique est sur ses lèvres; on croirait aisément qu'il naquit sur le mont Hymette.'
After the death of Terence the only writer of palliatae of any name was Sextus Turpilius, who died about the end of the second century b.c. No new element seems to have been contributed by him to the Roman Stage. After the decline of the Comoedia palliata, the Comoedia togata, which professed to represent the Roman and Italian life of the middle classes, first obtained popular favour. The principal writers of this branch of comedy were T. Quintius Atta and L. Afranius. The latter was regarded as the Roman Menander:—
Dicitur Afrani toga convenisse Menandro.
The admiration which he expressed for Terence, whom he regarded as the foremost of all the Roman comic poets, is in keeping with this criticism. From the testimony of Quintilian[25] we may infer that the change of scene from Athens to Rome and the provincial towns of Italy did not improve the morality of the Roman stage. A further decline both in intellectual interest and in moral tendency appeared in the resuscitation in a literary form of the Fabulae Atellanae, the chief writers of which were L. Pomponius and Novius. A still further degradation was witnessed in the later days of the Republic and under the Empire in the rise of the 'Mimus,' as a recognised branch of dramatic literature. If the influence of the comic stage, when its chief representatives were Plautus and Terence, is to be regarded as only of a mixed character, it is difficult to associate any idea of intellectual pleasure with the gross buffooneries of the Atellan farce, when it had passed from the spontaneous hilarity of primitive times into the conditions of an artistic performance, and still less with the 'mimi,' which were intended to gratify the lowest propensities of the spectators. The rapid degeneracy of the mass of the people from the characteristic virtues of the older Republic is testified as much by the popularity of such spectacles as by the passionate delight excited by the gladiatorial combats.
[1] 'In argumento Caecilius poscit palmam,' quoted from Varro.
[2] Ep. ad Attic. vii. 3; Brutus, 74.