SOURCE: "Terence" in The Comic Theatre of Greece and Rome, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1977, pp. 135-47.

Sandbach is a well-known English classicist. In the following essay, he explores Terence's plays in the light of their Greek models, asserting that, while in some ways Terence did "enrich"Menander's comedies, his style has been "too equable, [lacking the ebb and flow which gives life to the Greek poet's writing and enables him to mirror every kind of emotion."]

Publius Terentius Afer was believed by later Romans to have been born at Carthage, brought to Rome as a slave, and given a liberal education by his owner, Terentius Lucanus, who soon set him free. They may have had good reason for this belief, or the story may have grown from his name. Afer means a member of the dark native races of North Africa; an African would be a slave...