c. 193 B.C.E.–c. 159 B.C.E.

Comic playwright

Hellenist and Humanist.

The Roman biographer and historian Suetonius in the first century C.E. wrote the life of Terence, and some of that biography was preserved by Aelius Donatus, a medieval commentator on the playwright's work. Even so, as with all ancient biography, it is impossible to determine the authenticity of all the details. He was born in Carthage around 193 B.C.E., which accounts for his cognomen (last name) "Afer," meaning "African." He may have come to Rome as the slave of one Terentius Lucanus, from whom he took his family name, Terence. Despite his humble and unpromising entrée into Rome, he became closely associated with the house of Scipio, one of Rome's premier families. Some contemporaries suggested that Scipio Aemilianus or Gaius Laelius, two members of that elite circle, composed Terence's plays themselves. The...