Terence was a North African who came to Rome where he wrote influential comedies.
Terence, who died either at sea or in Greece in about 159 B.C., was born about 195 B.C. in Carthage (Northern Africa).
He was brought from northern Africa to Rome as a slave, by Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator. He was then freed, and named ‘Terence’ after his patron, and ‘Afer’ after his place of birth. Terence, who was a member of the Scipionic circle (the literary group that formed around Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus), became a Roman playwright basing his comedy on the Greek New Comedy of Menander.
New comedy was the forerunner of the "modern" European comedy of manners (written by Molière, Congreve, Sheridan, Goldsmith, and Wilde). Earlier English writers, including Shakespeare and Chaucer, also show the influence of Terence.
Production notices for his plays provide us with approximate dates for when Terence wrote his comedies:
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* Andria - 166 BC
* Hecyra (The Mother-in-Law) - 165 BC
* Heauton timoroumenos (The Self-Tormentor) - 163 BC
* Eunuchus (The Eunuch) - 161 BC
* Phormio - 161 BC
* Adelphi (The Brothers) - 160 BC.
Our main sources for information on Terence are the prologues to his plays, the production notices, biographical material written centuries later by Suetonius, and commentary written by Aelius Donatus, a fourth century grammarian.
"As the saying is, I have got a wolf by the ears." Phormio. Act iii. Sc. 2, 21. (506.)
The plays of Terence were more refined and less farcical than those of Plautus, for which reason Terence was less popular. There was also controversy about the techniques of Terence during his lifetime. He was accused of contaminating the (borrowed, Greek) material and of having had assistance in the creation of his plays. [See Terence for specific information on "contaminatio".]
