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122-728: The Libyan Sea ( Latin : Libycum Mare ; Arabic : البحر الليبي ; Greek : Λιβυκό πέλαγος ) is the portion of the Mediterranean Sea north of the African coast of ancient Libya , i.e. Cyrenaica , and Marmarica (the coast of what is now eastern Libya and western Egypt , between Tobruk and Alexandria ). The region of the Libyan Sea located south of Crete is also known as the South Cretan Sea ( Νότιο Κρητικό Πέλαγος ). The term Libyan Sea (Mare Libycum)

244-541: A denarius , a coin containing a much larger quantity of silver, so that the price paid for the Eunuchus was really 32,000 sesterces. When he was about the age of 25 (or, according to some manuscripts, 35), Terence travelled to Greece or Asia and never returned. Suetonius' sources disagree about the motive and destination of Terence's voyage, as well as about whether he died of illness in Greece, or died by shipwreck on

366-536: A Simplicity and an elegance, that makes him proper to be accurately studied, as A Model." This was declined, as John Quincy believed his teacher would not like him to have a translation "because when I shall translate him he would desire that I might do it without help." John Quincy eventually read the Andria over three evenings in February 1786, and was not impressed with the pace of his Harvard class, which finished

488-858: A Terentian performance in the 9th century (possibly earlier). Beatus Rhenanus writes that Erasmus , gifted in his youth with a tenacious memory, held Terence's comedies as closely as his fingers and toes. In the De ratione studii (1511), a central text for European curricula, Erasmus wrote, "among Latin authors, who is more useful for learning to speak than Terence? He is pure, concise, and near to everyday conversation, and pleasant to youth as well for his genre of plot." Martin Luther wrote that "I love Terence" and considered his comedies useful not only to help schoolboys improve their language skills, but also to teach them about society, because Terence "saw how it goes with people"; even if there were some "obscene" passages in

610-427: A better text than Σ, which has a number of changes designed perhaps to make Terence easier to read in schools. Both A and the now lost Σ are believed to be derived from an even earlier archetype known as Φ ( phi ), the date of which is unknown. In addition to these manuscripts there are also certain commentaries, glossaries, and quotations in ancient writers and grammarians which sometimes assist editors in establishing

732-434: A core school author while other Republican authors were displaced from the curriculum by Vergil and other Augustan poets. By the late 4th Century AD, Terence had become one of the four main canonical school authors (the others being Cicero , Sallust , and Vergil ), canonised in a celebrated work by Arusianus Messius , and later referred to by Cassiodorus as "Messius' quadriga ." St Jerome , St Augustine of Hippo , and

854-737: A daughter who later married a Roman knight, and was said to have left 20 acres of gardens on the Appian Way, a report contradicted by another of Suetonius' sources who says that Terence died poor. Ancient biographers' reports that Terence was born in Africa may be an inference from his name and not independent biographical information. His cognomen Afer ("the [North] African") may indicate that Terence hailed from ancient Libya . However, such names did not necessarily denote origin, and there were Romans who had this cognomen who were not Africans, such as Domitius Afer . It has often been asserted on

976-404: A detrimental influence on students' morals, but praised his father's project, writing, "You have indeed skimmed the cream of Terence and sent it to my boys—I trust they will preserve it and that it will aid them in drawing all the solid benefit from the amanuensis of Laelius and Scipio, which he can afford to their future lives." When Adams sent his grandson Charles Francis Adams his excerpts from

1098-743: A few in German , Dutch , Norwegian , Danish and Swedish . Latin is still spoken in Vatican City, a city-state situated in Rome that is the seat of the Catholic Church . The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part, in substantial works or in fragments to be analyzed in philology . They are in part the subject matter of the field of classics . Their works were published in manuscript form before

1220-427: A man entering a brothel disguised as a lover in order to win a woman to repentance and a life of continence. Robert Talbot reads Hrotsvit's plays as a Christian allegorisation of Terence designed to rehabilitate the comedies themselves, as Hrotsvit's reconfiguration of the genre to demonstrate the superiority of heavenly love to earthly love will enable readers to read Terence in a new way, with their minds directed from

1342-605: A manuscript that is now in the Laurentian Library . The first printed edition of Terence appeared in Strasbourg in 1470, while the first certain post-antique performance of one of Terence's plays, Andria , took place in Florence in 1476. There is evidence, however, that Terence was performed much earlier. The short dialogue Terentius et delusor was probably written to be performed as an introduction to

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1464-404: A month-long project to go through the plays excerpting approximately 140 passages that he considered illustrative of human nature as it is the same in all ages and countries, adding translations and comments explaining the moral lessons his grandsons should draw from the texts. John Quincy believed the manners and plots of Terence's plays were too remote from modern life for there to be a danger of

1586-562: A new Classical Latin arose, a conscious creation of the orators, poets, historians and other literate men, who wrote the great works of classical literature , which were taught in grammar and rhetoric schools. Today's instructional grammars trace their roots to such schools , which served as a sort of informal language academy dedicated to maintaining and perpetuating educated speech. Philological analysis of Archaic Latin works, such as those of Plautus , which contain fragments of everyday speech, gives evidence of an informal register of

1708-458: A pair of young men in love (in the Hecyra there is only one young man, who is already married, but who suspects his wife of infidelity). In all the plays there are two girls involved, one a citizen woman, the other a prostitute. In four of the plays a recognition ( anagnorisis or anagnorismos ) occurs which proves that one of the girls is the long-lost daughter of a respectable citizen, thus making

1830-552: A place as one of the four authors taught to all grammar pupils in the Western Roman Empire , and retained a central place in the European school curriculum until the 19th Century, exercising a formative influence on authors such as William Shakespeare and Molière . The manuscripts of Terence's plays contain didascaliae , or production notices, recording the dates, occasions, and personnel of early productions of

1952-503: A practice adopted from Greek paedagogy, and Terence was a rich source of such sententiae. Scores of Terentian maxims enjoyed such currency in late antiquity that they often lost nominal association with their author, with those who quoted Terence qualifying his words as a common proverb. Through the Middle Ages, Terence was frequently quoted as an authority on human nature and the mores of men, without regard for which character spoke

2074-476: A remarkable unity in phonological forms and developments, bolstered by the stabilising influence of their common Christian (Roman Catholic) culture. It was not until the Muslim conquest of Spain in 711, cutting off communications between the major Romance regions, that the languages began to diverge seriously. The spoken Latin that would later become Romanian diverged somewhat more from the other varieties, as it

2196-466: A rival poet as "old" ( Hau. 23), that Terence was young when he wrote his plays in the 160s. Suetonius' statement that Terence died at about the age of 25 in 159 BC would imply that he was born in 184 BC, the same year as the death of Plautus , and was only 18 years old when he produced his first play. The variant reading that Terence was in his 30s when he died suggests instead that he was born ten years earlier in 194, which would appear to be supported by

2318-539: A separate, shorter work on the same subject which in some manuscripts begins with the heading De comoedia. Friedrich Lindenbrog  [ de ] was able to identify the De fabula as the work of an earlier commentator on Terence named Evanthius (probably identical with the grammarian Evanthius said in Jerome's Chronicon to have died at Constantinople in AD 358) because the grammarian Rufinus of Antioch (5th cent. AD), in

2440-709: A small number of Latin services held in the Anglican church. These include an annual service in Oxford, delivered with a Latin sermon; a relic from the period when Latin was the normal spoken language of the university. In the Western world, many organizations, governments and schools use Latin for their mottos due to its association with formality, tradition, and the roots of Western culture . Canada's motto A mari usque ad mare ("from sea to sea") and most provincial mottos are also in Latin. The Canadian Victoria Cross

2562-411: A style of play-writing that Terence considered old-fashioned rather than to advanced age. Terence's judgement of Luscius' work is that "by translating them well and writing them badly, he has made good Greek plays into Latin ones that aren't good" ( Eu. 7–8), and that Luscius' theatrical successes were due more to the efforts of the actors than of the author. ( Ph. 9–11) According to Suetonius, Terence

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2684-455: A suspiciously similar story is told about the tragedians Accius and Pacuvius ; and Jerome 's statement that Caecilius died the year after Ennius implies that Caecilius died two years before Andria was produced. However, Thomas Carney argues that Jerome's dating of Caecilius' death is not above suspicion, and besides, a delay of several years between this meeting and production is entirely plausible, as Caecilius may have been impressed by

2806-630: A typical schoolboy at the age of 9 would begin to memorise a great part, if not all, of Terence. A quote from the Eunuchus in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew is not taken direct from the play, but quoted in a form in which it is found in William Lily 's Latin Grammar and Nicholas Udall 's Floures for Latine spekynge, with the syntax adapted to form an independent sentence. However,

2928-412: A woman is taken by the girl who triumphs by resisting all advances (or a prostitute who abandons her former life), and a happy ending lies not in the consummation of the young couple's marriage, but in a figurative marriage to Christ. Whereas in the Eunuchus, Chaerea entered a courtesan's home disguised as a eunuch to gain access to his beloved, two of Hrotsvit's plays ( Abraham and Paphnutius ) feature

3050-624: A work On the Metres of Terence, quotes the De fabula and ascribes it to Evanthius. Evanthius' work is otherwise lost. The De comoedia has continued to be considered the work of Donatus. The manuscripts of Terence can be divided into two main groups. One group has just one representative, the Codex Bembinus (known as A), dating to the 4th or early 5th century AD, and kept in the Vatican library. This book, written in rustic capitals,

3172-411: Is Veritas ("truth"). Veritas was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn, and the mother of Virtue. Switzerland has adopted the country's Latin short name Helvetia on coins and stamps, since there is no room to use all of the nation's four official languages . For a similar reason, it adopted the international vehicle and internet code CH , which stands for Confoederatio Helvetica ,

3294-523: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Greece location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Latin language Latin ( lingua Latina , pronounced [ˈlɪŋɡʷa ɫaˈtiːna] , or Latinum [ɫaˈtiːnʊ̃] ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages . Latin was originally spoken by

3416-420: Is a kind of written Latin used in the 3rd to 6th centuries. This began to diverge from Classical forms at a faster pace. It is characterised by greater use of prepositions, and word order that is closer to modern Romance languages, for example, while grammatically retaining more or less the same formal rules as Classical Latin. Ultimately, Latin diverged into a distinct written form, where the commonly spoken form

3538-640: Is a reversal of the original phrase Non terrae plus ultra ("No land further beyond", "No further!"). According to legend , this phrase was inscribed as a warning on the Pillars of Hercules , the rocks on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar and the western end of the known, Mediterranean world. Charles adopted the motto following the discovery of the New World by Columbus, and it also has metaphorical suggestions of taking risks and striving for excellence. In

3660-534: Is attributed to one Eugraphius, of whom nothing is known but his authorship of this commentary. Donatus' commentary on the Heauton timorumenos is lacking, but his references to this play in his commentary on other parts of the corpus and Eugraphius' commentary help to make up the gap. In its extant form, Donatus' commentary is prefaced by Suetonius' Vita Terenti, a short essay on the genre of comedy and its differences from tragedy now commonly called De fabula, and

3782-660: Is highly fusional , with classes of inflections for case , number , person , gender , tense , mood , voice , and aspect . The Latin alphabet is directly derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets . Latin remains the official language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church at the Vatican City . The church continues to adapt concepts from modern languages to Ecclesiastical Latin of

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3904-406: Is improbable that Terence worked at such a rate after having previously finished less than one play a year, and some editors delete the number, supposing that the numeral CVIII is simply a double copying of the preposition CVM, subsequently rationalised as a number. Terence was said to have been of "moderate height, slender, and of dark complexion." Suetonius' description of Terence's complexion

4026-437: Is known of this individual. They date from the 9th century onwards and are written in minuscule letters. This group can be subdivided into three classes. The first class, known as γ ( gamma ), dates to the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries and includes manuscripts P (Parisinus), C (Vaticanus), and possibly F (Ambrosianus), and E (Riccardianus) among others. They have the plays in the order An., Eu., Hau., Ad., Hec., Ph. . Manuscript C

4148-406: Is likely an inference from his supposed African origin, and his description of the poet's physique may have originated as a metaphor for the "lightness" of his verse style, just as the poet Philitas of Cos was said to have weighted his shoes with lead lest he blow away in the wind. Likenesses of Terence found in medieval manuscripts have no authenticity. Suetonius says that Terence was survived by

4270-689: Is modelled after the British Victoria Cross which has the inscription "For Valour". Because Canada is officially bilingual, the Canadian medal has replaced the English inscription with the Latin Pro Valore . Spain's motto Plus ultra , meaning "even further", or figuratively "Further!", is also Latin in origin. It is taken from the personal motto of Charles V , Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain (as Charles I), and

4392-461: Is one of the earliest surviving manuscripts of any Latin writer. It has the plays in the order An., Eu., Hau., Ph., Hec., Ad. Three small fragments of similar antiquity survive as well. Approximately 650 manuscripts exist of later date. These are often known as the "Calliopian" manuscripts, based on subscriptions to the plays found in several of the earlier manuscripts indicating the text had been corrected by someone named Calliopius; nothing further

4514-1011: Is taught at many high schools, especially in Europe and the Americas. It is most common in British public schools and grammar schools, the Italian liceo classico and liceo scientifico , the German Humanistisches Gymnasium and the Dutch gymnasium . Occasionally, some media outlets, targeting enthusiasts, broadcast in Latin. Notable examples include Radio Bremen in Germany, YLE radio in Finland (the Nuntii Latini broadcast from 1989 until it

4636-402: Is the famous Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3868 , which has illustrations which seem to be copied from originals dating in style to the mid-third century. Another group, known as δ ( delta ), has the plays in alphabetical order: An., Ad., Eu., Ph. (=F), Hau., Hec. This consists of 3 or 4 10th-century manuscripts: D (Victorianus), G (Decurtatus), p (Parisinus), and perhaps also L (Lipsiensis). All

4758-543: The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL). Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same: volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance and relevant information. The reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy . About 270,000 inscriptions are known. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. In

4880-514: The Confessions about his school days, he quotes the scene from the Eunuchus where Chaerea recounts how he and Pamphila looked together at a painting of Zeus intruding in the home of Danaë , after which Chaerea, emboldened by the example of the pagan god, took the opportunity to rape Pamphila. Augustine argues that it is not necessary for students to be exposed to such "vileness" ( turpitudo ) merely to learn vocabulary and eloquence. In

5002-588: The Adelphoe. According to the didascaliae, each of Terence's plays was originally produced by the acting company of Lucius Ambivius Turpio , and musical accompaniment for each of the plays was provided by a tibicen named Flaccus, a slave in the service of a certain Claudius. The traditional and generally accepted chronology of the plays established according to the didascaliae is as follows: The didascalia for each play also identifies its position in

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5124-528: The Holy See , the primary language of its public journal , the Acta Apostolicae Sedis , and the working language of the Roman Rota . Vatican City is also home to the world's only automatic teller machine that gives instructions in Latin. In the pontifical universities postgraduate courses of Canon law are taught in Latin, and papers are written in the same language. There are

5246-502: The Late Latin period, language changes reflecting spoken (non-classical) norms tend to be found in greater quantities in texts. As it was free to develop on its own, there is no reason to suppose that the speech was uniform either diachronically or geographically. On the contrary, Romanised European populations developed their own dialects of the language, which eventually led to the differentiation of Romance languages . Late Latin

5368-770: The Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio ), the lower Tiber area around Rome , Italy. Through the expansion of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire . By the late Roman Republic , Old Latin had evolved into standardized Classical Latin . Vulgar Latin refers to the less prestigious colloquial registers , attested in inscriptions and some literary works such as those of

5490-607: The Middle Ages as a working and literary language from the 9th century to the Renaissance , which then developed a classicizing form, called Renaissance Latin . This was the basis for Neo-Latin which evolved during the early modern period . In these periods Latin was used productively and generally taught to be written and spoken, at least until the late seventeenth century, when spoken skills began to erode. It then became increasingly taught only to be read. Latin grammar

5612-574: The Middle Ages , borrowing from Latin occurred from ecclesiastical usage established by Saint Augustine of Canterbury in the 6th century or indirectly after the Norman Conquest , through the Anglo-Norman language . From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed " inkhorn terms ", as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by

5734-666: The Phormio, he remarked, "in these Plays of Terence ... Are not the Slaves Superior Beings to the Citizens? Every Smart Expression; every brilliant Image, every Moral Sentiment is in the Mouth of a Slave." In 1834, when Charles read the works of Terence, copying in his grandfather's comments and making other notes, he responded, "In returning to answer these questions, I must disagree with the sentiment. I cannot overlook

5856-475: The Vita attributes the claim to Q. Cosconius that Terence died by shipwreck while returning from Greece "cum C et VIII fabulis conversis a Menandro," an expression interpreted by some to refer to 108 new plays that Terence had adapted from Menander, but by Carney as "108 stories dramatised by Menander," who is credited with having written exactly this number of plays. If this number refers to new Terentian plays, it

5978-442: The aediles , they bade him first read it to Caecilius . Terence, shabbily dressed, went to the older poet's house when he was dining, and when Caecilius had heard only a few lines, he invited the young man to join him for the meal. The historicity of this meeting has been doubted on the grounds that it is improbable Terence, with his aristocratic patrons, would have been unable to dress himself decently for such an important interview;

6100-407: The common language of international communication , science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the early 19th century, by which time modern languages had supplanted it in common academic and political usage. Late Latin is the literary language from the 3rd century AD onward. No longer spoken as a native language, Medieval Latin was used across Western and Catholic Europe during

6222-457: The unity of time or other ancient dramatic conventions, it has been argued that Terence's influence on Hrotsvit is superficial, and the only similarity between them is that they each wrote six plays. Hrotsvit's indebtedness to Terence lies rather in situations and subject matter, transposed to invert the Terentian plot and its values; the place of the Terentian hero who successfully pursues

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6344-420: The 10th Century, Hrotsvit of Gandersheim wrote six plays based on the lives of Christian saints, on the model of the six comedies of Terence. In a preface explaining her purpose in writing, Hrotsvit takes up Augustine's critique of the moral influence of the comedies, saying that many Christians attracted by Terence's style find themselves corrupted by his subject matter, and she has undertaken to write works in

6466-425: The 2nd Century BC, Terence had been established as a literary "classic" and a standard school text. Cicero (born 106 BC) recalls that when he was a boy, his education in rhetoric included an assignment to recount Simo's narrative from the first scene of the Andria in his own words. Throughout the imperial period, Terence was second only to Vergil as the most widely known and read of Latin poets, and he remained

6588-637: The British Crown. The motto is featured on all presently minted coinage and has been featured in most coinage throughout the nation's history. Several states of the United States have Latin mottos , such as: Many military organizations today have Latin mottos, such as: Some law governing bodies in the Philippines have Latin mottos, such as: Some colleges and universities have adopted Latin mottos, for example Harvard University 's motto

6710-703: The Germanic and Slavic nations. It became useful for international communication between the member states of the Holy Roman Empire and its allies. Without the institutions of the Roman Empire that had supported its uniformity, Medieval Latin was much more liberal in its linguistic cohesion: for example, in classical Latin sum and eram are used as auxiliary verbs in the perfect and pluperfect passive, which are compound tenses. Medieval Latin might use fui and fueram instead. Furthermore,

6832-599: The Grinch Stole Christmas! , The Cat in the Hat , and a book of fairy tales, " fabulae mirabiles ", are intended to garner popular interest in the language. Additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissner's Latin Phrasebook . Some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series,

6954-474: The Italiote Greek population enslaved by Hannibal, as this would explain his proficiency in Latin and Greek. F. H. Sandbach notes that in the modern world, it is rare, but not entirely unknown, for an author to achieve literary distinction in a second language. Terence's date of birth is uncertain, though Sesto Prete infers from Terence's characterisation of himself as a "new" writer ( Eu. 43), and of

7076-630: The Latin language. Contemporary Latin is more often studied to be read rather than spoken or actively used. Latin has greatly influenced the English language , along with a large number of others, and historically contributed many words to the English lexicon , particularly after the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest . Latin and Ancient Greek roots are heavily used in English vocabulary in theology ,

7198-527: The Libu and Meshwesh tribes, as recorded by Greek and Roman sources. The modern usage of "Libyan Sea" continues this tradition and is commonly found in maps and travel literature. About 350,000 km2. The southern coastline of Crete which borders the Libyan Sea includes the Asterousia Mountains and Mesara Plain ; this area is the locus of considerable ancient Bronze Age settlement including

7320-671: The Roman calendar ran some two and a half months ahead of the Sun in the 160s, Terence's plays that premiered at the Megalensia, though officially scheduled in April, would actually have premiered in late January. There was no permanent theatre in Rome until the construction of the Theatre of Pompey in 55 BC, and Terence's plays would have been performed on temporary wooden stages constructed for

7442-409: The United States the unofficial national motto until 1956 was E pluribus unum meaning "Out of many, one". The motto continues to be featured on the Great Seal . It also appears on the flags and seals of both houses of congress and the flags of the states of Michigan, North Dakota, New York, and Wisconsin. The motto's 13 letters symbolically represent the original Thirteen Colonies which revolted from

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7564-447: The University of Kentucky, the University of Oxford and also Princeton University. There are many websites and forums maintained in Latin by enthusiasts. The Latin Misplaced Pages has more than 130,000 articles. Italian , French , Portuguese , Spanish , Romanian , Catalan , Romansh , Sardinian and other Romance languages are direct descendants of Latin. There are also many Latin borrowings in English and Albanian , as well as

7686-453: The author and then forgotten, but some useful ones survived, such as 'imbibe' and 'extrapolate'. Many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French . Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and Dutch vocabularies. Those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Terence According to ancient authors, Terence

7808-467: The basis of the name that Terence was of Berber descent, as the Romans distinguished between Berbers, called Afri in Latin, and Carthaginians, called Poeni. However, lexicographic evidence does not support the validity of this distinction during Terence's lifetime. If Terence was born as a slave in Carthage, it is possible his mother was an ethnic Italian brought there as a war captive by Hannibal . Carney argues that Terence must have been born from

7930-535: The beginning of the Renaissance . Petrarch for example saw Latin as a literary version of the spoken language. Medieval Latin is the written Latin in use during that portion of the post-classical period when no corresponding Latin vernacular existed, that is from around 700 to 1500 AD. The spoken language had developed into the various Romance languages; however, in the educated and official world, Latin continued without its natural spoken base. Moreover, this Latin spread into lands that had never spoken Latin, such as

8052-425: The benefit of those who do not understand Latin. There are also songs written with Latin lyrics . The libretto for the opera-oratorio Oedipus rex by Igor Stravinsky is in Latin. Parts of Carl Orff 's Carmina Burana are written in Latin. Enya has recorded several tracks with Latin lyrics. The continued instruction of Latin is seen by some as a highly valuable component of a liberal arts education. Latin

8174-496: The characters of Menedemus and Chremes, of Micio and Demea which contain more moral sentiment than all the Slaves in the six Plays." American playwright Thornton Wilder based his novel The Woman of Andros on Terence's Andria . Due to his cognomen Afer, Terence has long been identified with Africa and heralded as the first poet of the African diaspora by generations of writers, including Juan Latino , Alexandre Dumas , Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou . Phyllis Wheatley ,

8296-400: The comedies, Luther insisted that they were no less appropriate for young people to read without censorship than the Bible, which "contains amatory things everywhere." The indexes of the Weimar edition of Martin Luther's works note nearly 200 references to Terence and his plays. The preservation of Terence through the church enabled his work to influence much of later Western drama. Two of

8418-430: The comic playwrights Plautus and Terence and the author Petronius . While often called a "dead language" , Latin did not undergo language death . By the 6th to 9th centuries, natural language change eventually resulted in Latin as a vernacular language evolving into distinct Romance languages in the large areas where it had come to be natively spoken. However, even after the fall of Western Rome , Latin remained

8540-425: The consuls in 106 BC, which would be the last attested production of Terence before the Renaissance, though the consuls of 141 BC had similar names. The Greek plays which provided the Roman comedians with their material typically had a prologue which either preceded the play, or interrupted the first act after one or two scenes. In the plays of Plautus, the prologue usually, but not invariably, provides exposition of

8662-454: The corpus by chronological order. The didascaliae state that Eunuchus was the second play ( facta II ), and Heauton timorumenos was the third ( facta III ), testimony seemingly contradicted by the dates of production, as well as by Donatus' statement that the Eunuchus was "published third" ( edita tertium ). Some scholars have explained the discrepancy by positing an unsuccessful production of Eunuchus in 165 or 164 BC, or by interpreting

8784-465: The country's full Latin name. Some film and television in ancient settings, such as Sebastiane , The Passion of the Christ and Barbarians (2020 TV series) , have been made with dialogue in Latin. Occasionally, Latin dialogue is used because of its association with religion or philosophy, in such film/television series as The Exorcist and Lost (" Jughead "). Subtitles are usually shown for

8906-493: The darkest ages of learning," a remark approved by E. K. Chambers , but Paul Theiner takes issue with this, suggesting that it is more appropriate to attribute "a charmed life" to authors who survived the Middle Ages by chance in a few manuscripts found in isolated libraries, whereas the broad and constant popularity of Terence "rendered elfin administrations quite unnecessary." Roman students learning to write would regularly be assigned to copy edifying sententiae, or "maxims,"

9028-503: The decline in written Latin output. Despite having no native speakers, Latin is still used for a variety of purposes in the contemporary world. The largest organisation that retains Latin in official and quasi-official contexts is the Catholic Church . The Catholic Church required that Mass be carried out in Latin until the Second Vatican Council of 1962–1965 , which permitted the use of the vernacular . Latin remains

9150-568: The development of European culture, religion and science. The vast majority of written Latin belongs to this period, but its full extent is unknown. The Renaissance reinforced the position of Latin as a spoken and written language by the scholarship by the Renaissance humanists . Petrarch and others began to change their usage of Latin as they explored the texts of the Classical Latin world. Skills of textual criticism evolved to create much more accurate versions of extant texts through

9272-409: The earliest English comedies, the 16th-century Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's Needle , are thought to parody Terence's plays. Montaigne and Molière cite and imitate him. Based on what is known about a typical curriculum at a grammar school such as William Shakespeare went to, it may be considered certain that Shakespeare must have studied Terence as a boy. In Shakespeare's day,

9394-413: The earliest extant Latin literary works, such as the comedies of Plautus and Terence . The Latin alphabet was devised from the Etruscan alphabet . The writing later changed from what was initially either a right-to-left or a boustrophedon script to what ultimately became a strictly left-to-right script. During the late republic and into the first years of the empire, from about 75 BC to AD 200,

9516-445: The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and some important texts were rediscovered. Comprehensive versions of authors' works were published by Isaac Casaubon , Joseph Scaliger and others. Nevertheless, despite the careful work of Petrarch, Politian and others, first the demand for manuscripts, and then the rush to bring works into print, led to the circulation of inaccurate copies for several centuries following. Neo-Latin literature

9638-524: The first published African-American poet, asked why the Muses had inspired "one alone of Afric's sable race." Thomas Jefferson , on the other hand, in an attempt to prove that African-Americans were naturally incapable of poetry, claimed that Terence had been "of the race of whites." Two of his plays were produced in Denver with black actors. Questions as to whether Terence received assistance in writing or

9760-401: The foundations for his art. Terence's plays were a standard part of the Latin curriculum of the neoclassical period. In a letter prescribing a course of education for his nephew Peter Carr , Thomas Jefferson listed Terence among classical poets Carr already had read or would read at school. Jefferson copied four extracts from the Andria into his literary commonplace book , seemingly in

9882-546: The history of Latin, and the kind of informal Latin that had begun to move away from the written language significantly in the post-Imperial period, that led ultimately to the Romance languages . During the Classical period, informal language was rarely written, so philologists have been left with only individual words and phrases cited by classical authors, inscriptions such as Curse tablets and those found as graffiti . In

10004-591: The indebtedness of the character of Armado in Love's Labour's Lost to Thraso in the Eunuchus points to Shakespeare's familiarity with the play as a whole. Chaerea's exultation upon coming out of Thais' house after the rape, declaring himself content to die in that blissful moment, also seems to be echoed in Othello II.1 and The Merry Wives of Windsor III.3. Shakespeare's encounter with Terence in grammar school introduced him to comedy and scenic structure, laying

10126-703: The invention of printing and are now published in carefully annotated printed editions, such as the Loeb Classical Library , published by Harvard University Press , or the Oxford Classical Texts , published by Oxford University Press . Latin translations of modern literature such as: The Hobbit , Treasure Island , Robinson Crusoe , Paddington Bear , Winnie the Pooh , The Adventures of Tintin , Asterix , Harry Potter , Le Petit Prince , Max and Moritz , How

10248-704: The language of the Roman Rite . The Tridentine Mass (also known as the Extraordinary Form or Traditional Latin Mass) is celebrated in Latin. Although the Mass of Paul VI (also known as the Ordinary Form or the Novus Ordo) is usually celebrated in the local vernacular language, it can be and often is said in Latin, in part or in whole, especially at multilingual gatherings. It is the official language of

10370-405: The language, Vulgar Latin (termed sermo vulgi , "the speech of the masses", by Cicero ). Some linguists, particularly in the nineteenth century, believed this to be a separate language, existing more or less in parallel with the literary or educated Latin, but this is now widely dismissed. The term 'Vulgar Latin' remains difficult to define, referring both to informal speech at any time within

10492-454: The late 1760s and 1770s, and the presence of three different editions of Terence in the carefully selected second Monticello library is a clear indication that Terence formed a part of Jefferson's retirement reading. In 1781, John Adams offered his son John Quincy Adams a copy of Anne Dacier 's edition of Terence with a parallel French translation, writing, "Terence is remarkable, for good Morals, good Taste and good Latin—his Language has

10614-456: The line or the original dramatic context, as long as the quotation was sententious in itself when separated from the rest of the play. Augustine was a lifelong admirer of Terence's observations on the human condition, and 38 quotations from 28 distinct passages of Terence have been identified in Augustine's works. Notwithstanding his respect for Terence's moralising, when Augustine writes in

10736-431: The meanings of many words were changed and new words were introduced, often under influence from the vernacular. Identifiable individual styles of classically incorrect Latin prevail. Renaissance Latin, 1300 to 1500, and the classicised Latin that followed through to the present are often grouped together as Neo-Latin , or New Latin, which have in recent decades become a focus of renewed study , given their importance for

10858-692: The narrative given by Suetonius' sources is often construed as conjecture based on the play texts and didascaliae. In the 2nd Century BC, plays were regular features of four annual Roman festivals: the Ludi Romani (September), the Ludi Plebeii (November), the Ludi Apollinares (July), and the Ludi Megalenses (April); plays would also be staged at votive games, triumphs , and the more elaborate aristocratic funerals. Because

10980-582: The notes in order to reconstitute the commentary as a separate book, incorporating extraneous material in the process, assigning notes to verses where they did not originally belong, or including material that had been otherwise changed in the course of transmission. Citations from Donatus' commentary which are not found in the extant redaction occur in Priscian and in scholia to the Codex Bembinus and Codex Victorianus. Another ancient commentary

11102-455: The novice playwright's work even while the discussion showed Terence the need for revision. R. C. Flickinger argues that the reported state of Terence's clothing shows that he had not yet become acquainted with his rich and influential patrons at the time of this meeting, and it was precisely Caecilius' death shortly thereafter, and the consequent loss of his support, which caused a two-year delay in production. All six of Terence's plays pleased

11224-435: The numbering in reference to the order of composition rather than the order of production. The didascalic numbering, seemingly discounting the unsuccessful productions of Hecyra, reckons it the fifth play. The didascaliae also appear to record some information about revival performances at least as late as the 140s. Patrick Tansey has argued that the didascalia to Phormio in the codex Bembinus contains garbled names of

11346-458: The occasion. The limited space available would probably have accommodated an audience of less than 2,000 persons at a given performance. Admission was free to the entire population, seemingly on a first-come-first-served basis, except for the reservation of seats for members of the Senate after 194 BC; descriptions of 2nd Century theatre audiences refer to the presence of women, children, slaves, and

11468-534: The original reading. The best known of these is the Commentum Terenti , a commentary by the 4th-century grammarian Aelius Donatus , which is often helpful, although the part dealing with the Heauton Timorumenos is missing. At a relatively early date, Terence's play texts began to circulate as literary works for a reading public, as opposed to scripts for the use of actors. By the end of

11590-434: The people; the Eunuchus earned 8,000 nummi, the highest price that had ever been paid for a comedy at Rome, and was acted twice in the same day. Donatus, who appears to understand that Terence himself received this entire amount, interprets the price that Suetonius says was paid for the Eunuchus as 8,000 sesterces . However, Dwora Gilula argues that the term nummus, inscribed on the title page in 161 BC, would refer to

11712-545: The play three months later. He recorded in his diary that "The Play is interesting, and many of the Sentiments are fine", and though he found the plot highly improbable, "the Critic can never find Perfection, and the person that is willing to be pleased with what he reads, is happier than he who is always looking for faults." In 1816, John Quincy's son George Washington Adams performed in a school production of Andria in

11834-574: The plays, and identifying the author of the Greek original. Other traditional information about the life of Terence derives from the Vita Terenti, a biography preserved in Aelius Donatus ' commentary, and attributed by him to Suetonius . However, it is not likely that Terence's contemporaries would have considered a dramatist important enough to write down his biography for posterity, and

11956-474: The plot; Terence abandons the traditional expository function of the prologue entirely and uses it to provide a different kind of entertainment centring on replies to criticism of his work. Terence particularly refers the "slanders" he has suffered to a certain "old" and "spiteful" poet. Because Terence says this man was the translator of Menander's Phasma and Thesaurus ( Eu. 9–10), Donatus (or an earlier commentator from whom Donatus gleaned this information)

12078-471: The pupils of a "grammarian" friend of St Sidonius Apollinaris were all set to read the Eunuchus in school, and in another of his letters, Sidonius describes reading the Hecyra together with his son at home. Terence was one of the few canonical classical authors to maintain a continuous presence in medieval literacy, and the large number of surviving manuscripts bears witness to his great popularity. Adolphus Ward said that Terence led "a charmed life in

12200-468: The remaining manuscripts belong to the "mixed" group and contain readings copied from both γ and δ, and so are of little value in establishing the text. It is thought that the γ group and the δ group go back to two archetypes, both now lost, called Γ ( Gamma ) and Δ ( Delta ), and that both of these were copied from a single archetype, also now lost, known as Σ ( sigma ). According to A. J. Brothers, manuscript A, although it contains some errors, generally has

12322-401: The return voyage. Suetonius places Terence's death "in the consulship of Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella and Marcus Fulvius Nobilior," i.e., in 159 BC. It is possible that the fateful voyage to Greece was a speculative explanation of why he wrote so few plays inferred from Terence's complaint in Eunuchus 41–3 about the limited materials at his disposal. As transmitted in the manuscript tradition,

12444-562: The role of the old man Crito, to the relief of the family, who had worried he might be given a less "respectable" part. George's grandmother Abigail Adams , having read the play, took exception to "the manners and morals". Grandfather John, after rereading all six of Terence's comedies, also expressed apprehension about whether they were fit to be taught or exhibited to impressionable youths, who lacked sufficient life experience to recognise certain characters and their deeds as morally repugnant and react appropriately. Accordingly, Adams undertook

12566-460: The same genre so that the literary form once used "to describe the shameless acts of licentious women" might be repurposed to glorify the chastity of holy virgins. As Terence's subject matter is trivial while Hrotsvit's is important, his plays are in verse while hers are in prose, her plays are written in the same style as other medieval literature and lack verbal reminiscences of Terence apart from some oaths and interjections, and she does not respect

12688-421: The sciences , medicine , and law . A number of phases of the language have been recognized, each distinguished by subtle differences in vocabulary, usage, spelling, and syntax. There are no hard and fast rules of classification; different scholars emphasize different features. As a result, the list has variants, as well as alternative names. In addition to the historical phases, Ecclesiastical Latin refers to

12810-791: The sinful content to a higher Christian meaning. Hrotsvit did not exercise a significant influence on European literature before her works were rediscovered and printed in 1501. In the Divine Comedy , Dante 's guide Vergil tells him that Terence is in Limbo among the virtuous pagans ( Purg. XXII, 94–105), and shows him Thais, the character from the Eunuchus, in the eighth circle of hell where flatterers are punished. ( Inf. XVIII, 133–5) It has been claimed that Dante did not know Terence directly, and his references to Terence are derived from citations in Cicero or medieval florilegia. However, Terence

12932-626: The sites of Kommos , Hagia Triada and Phaistos . Not counting Crete, other islands in the Libyan Sea are Gavdos , Gavdopoula , Koufonisi , and Chrysi . To the east is the Levantine Sea , to the north the Ionian Sea , and to the west the Strait of Sicily . In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion about the maritime boundaries in the region. 34°00′N 24°24′E  /  34.000°N 24.400°E  / 34.000; 24.400 This Libya location article

13054-437: The statement attributed to Fenestella that Terence was older than Scipio and Laelius. Jerome 's Chronicon places Terence's death in 158 BC. Like Plautus , Terence adapted Greek plays from the late phases of Attic comedy . Unlike Plautus though, Terence's way of writing his comedies was more in a simple conversational Latin, pleasant and direct, while less visually humorous to watch. Five of Terence's plays are about

13176-578: The styles used by the writers of the Roman Catholic Church from late antiquity onward, as well as by Protestant scholars. The earliest known form of Latin is Old Latin, also called Archaic or Early Latin, which was spoken from the Roman Kingdom , traditionally founded in 753 BC, through the later part of the Roman Republic , up to 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin . It is attested both in inscriptions and in some of

13298-525: The urban poor. In Greek New Comedy, from which the Roman comic tradition derived, actors wore masks which were conventionally associated with stock character types. Ancient authors make conflicting statements on whether Roman actors also wore masks in the time of Terence. For a time, Christian Hoffer's 1877 dissertation On the Use of Masks in Publius Terentius' Comedies won universal acceptance for

13420-402: The view that masks were not worn at the original performances of the plays of Terence. However, most more recent authorities consider it highly likely that Roman actors of Terence's time did wear masks when performing this kind of play, and "hard to believe" or even "inconceivable" that they did not. Donatus states that the actors wore masks in the original productions of the Eunuchus and

13542-492: The way free for her marriage. Terence's six plays are: Saint Jerome mentions in Contra Rufinum I.16 that "my teacher Donatus " had written a commentary on the comedies of Terence. Donatus' commentary does not survive in the form in which he originally wrote it. It is commonly believed that an unknown medieval scribe, using two or more manuscripts of Terence containing marginal notes excerpted from Donatus, copied

13664-422: The written form of Latin was increasingly standardized into a fixed form, the spoken forms began to diverge more greatly. Currently, the five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish , Portuguese , French , Italian , and Romanian . Despite dialectal variation, which is found in any widespread language, the languages of Spain, France, Portugal, and Italy have retained

13786-475: Was able to identify him as Luscius Lanuvinus, although no names are used in the prologues. Nothing survives of Luscius' work save two lines of the Thesaurus quoted by Donatus, nor is anything known about Luscius independently of Terence's prologues except that Volcacius Sedigitus rated Luscius the ninth-best Latin comic poet (and Terence the sixth-best). Terence's description of Luscius as "old" may refer to

13908-783: Was also used as a convenient medium for translations of important works first written in a vernacular, such as those of Descartes . Latin education underwent a process of reform to classicise written and spoken Latin. Schooling remained largely Latin medium until approximately 1700. Until the end of the 17th century, the majority of books and almost all diplomatic documents were written in Latin. Afterwards, most diplomatic documents were written in French (a Romance language ) and later native or other languages. Education methods gradually shifted towards written Latin, and eventually concentrating solely on reading skills. The decline of Latin education took several centuries and proceeded much more slowly than

14030-616: Was born in Carthage and was brought to Rome as a slave, where he gained an education and his freedom; around the age of 25, Terence is said to have made a voyage to the east in search of inspiration for his plays, where he died either of disease in Greece, or by shipwreck on the return voyage. However, Terence's traditional biography is often thought to consist of speculation by ancient scholars who lived too long after Terence to have access to reliable facts about his life. Terence's plays quickly became standard school texts. He ultimately secured

14152-435: Was born in Carthage . He came to Rome as a slave in the household of an otherwise unknown senator named P. Terentius Lucanus, who educated him and freed him because of his talent and good looks. Terence then took the nomen "Terentius" from his patron. Possibly winning noblemen's favour by his youthful beauty, Terence became a member of the so-called Scipionic Circle . When Terence offered his first play, Andria, to

14274-491: Was extensive and prolific, but less well known or understood today. Works covered poetry, prose stories and early novels, occasional pieces and collections of letters, to name a few. Famous and well regarded writers included Petrarch, Erasmus, Salutati , Celtis , George Buchanan and Thomas More . Non fiction works were long produced in many subjects, including the sciences, law, philosophy, historiography and theology. Famous examples include Isaac Newton 's Principia . Latin

14396-503: Was largely separated from the unifying influences in the western part of the Empire. Spoken Latin began to diverge into distinct languages by the 9th century at the latest, when the earliest extant Romance writings begin to appear. They were, throughout the period, confined to everyday speech, as Medieval Latin was used for writing. For many Italians using Latin, though, there was no complete separation between Italian and Latin, even into

14518-457: Was one of the most commonly read authors in the 14th Century, and Joseph Russo argues that considering the access Dante would have had to manuscripts of Terence and the desire he would have had to read Terence, the logical conclusion is that "Dante must have known Terence." Renaissance humanists delighted in Terence. Giovanni Boccaccio copied out in his own hand all of Terence's comedies in

14640-458: Was perceived as a separate language, for instance early French or Italian dialects, that could be transcribed differently. It took some time for these to be viewed as wholly different from Latin however. After the Western Roman Empire fell in 476 and Germanic kingdoms took its place, the Germanic people adopted Latin as a language more suitable for legal and other, more formal uses. While

14762-482: Was shut down in June 2019), and Vatican Radio & Television, all of which broadcast news segments and other material in Latin. A variety of organisations, as well as informal Latin 'circuli' ('circles'), have been founded in more recent times to support the use of spoken Latin. Moreover, a number of university classics departments have begun incorporating communicative pedagogies in their Latin courses. These include

14884-561: Was used by ancient geographers to describe the part of the Mediterranean Sea south of Crete, between Cyrene and Alexandria. It referred to the region of "Libya" in antiquity, which encompassed much of North Africa west of the Nile River. The name "Libya" (Greek: Λιβύη, Libyē) originally referred to a broader area than the modern country of Libya. In ancient times, "Libya" described the lands and peoples of North Africa, such as

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