CATENA CLASSICORUM EDITED BY THE REV. ARTHUR HOLMES M.A. SENIOR FELLOW AND DEAN OF CLARE COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE AND AND THE REV. CHARLES BIGG D.D. PRINCIPAL OF BRIGHTON COLLEGE AND LATE SENIOR STUDENT AND TUTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH OXFORD P. TERENTII AFRI COMOEDIAE EDITED BY T. L. PAPILLON M.A. INTRODUCTION TO THE EUNUCHUS. THE Eunuchus was acted B.C. 162 at the Megalesia, and was so popular as to be repeated. The poet received 8000 sesterces from the Aediles, more (as we are told in the Didascalia) than had ever been received for one play. It was deservedly the most popular of Terence's comedies: for though its leading incident is objectionable to modern ideas, the details of the action are worked out, and the characters delineated with greater delicacy and humour than in any other of his extant plays. The characters of the Parasite (Act II. Sc. 2) and of Thraso, the Braggadocio (corresponding to the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus), are drawn with a humour worthy of the true "Plautini sales,” and (in the former case especially) with a pleasing variety from the somewhat hackneyed ideal of Plautus. Donatus' criticism on the play is "in hac Terentius delectat facetiis, prodest exemplis, et vitia hominum paulo mordacius quam in ceteris carpit. Exempla autem morum hic tria praecipue ponuntur, urbani scilicet, parasitici, et militaris." The plot is as follows: Pamphila, the daughter of an Athenian citizen, kidnapped in infancy, became the property of a courtezan at Rhodes, with whose daughter Thais she was brought up as a younger sister. Thais moved to Athens and there lived with a soldier named Thraso; who after a time went away to Caria, and on his return bought Pamphila at Rhodes from the uncle of Thais, and brought her to Athens as a present for Thais. Meanwhile Thais had a new lover, |