Eventually and inevitably the study of a Roman comedy leads to the question of its relationship to the Greek model and to the nature of the original play. In recent years Terence's Adelphoe has stimulated numerous publications on the Menandrian comedy and on the changes which were made by the Latin dramatist. Greatest attention has been paid to the ending of the Greek play. This article, however, will examine the first two ‘acts’ of the Terentian comedy and will offer a (...) reconstruction of its primary model that differs from those that have been proposed in the major studies on this problem. (shrink)

Eventually and inevitably the study of a Roman comedy leads to the question of its relationship to the Greek model and to the nature of the original play. In recent years Terence's Adelphoe has stimulated numerous publications on the Menandrian comedy and on the changes which were made by the Latin dramatist. Greatest attention has been paid to the ending of the Greek play. This article, however, will examine the first two ‘acts’ of the Terentian comedy and will offer a (...) reconstruction of its primary model that differs from those that have been proposed in the major studies on this problem. (shrink)

There is an almost overwhelming mass of material available to the scholar who wishes to investigate the history of the text of Terence's plays. The manuscripts themselves number over 450 and of these over 100 belong to the period 800-c. 1300. No one, however, has undertaken a comprehensive recension of even the older group of medieval manuscripts. One reason for this is that the extent to which contamination has occurred makes classification extremely difficult, another is that it is unlikely that (...) the laborious task of examining and studying so many manuscripts will produce much new evidence for the text itself. Many of the corruptions which survive in the plays probably arose at an early stage in the tradition and prior to the archetype of the manuscripts which have been used by past editors. Any marked advance in the constitution of the text would seem to depend on the discovery of a manuscript which belonged to a different tradition. (shrink)

There is an almost overwhelming mass of material available to the scholar who wishes to investigate the history of the text of Terence's plays. The manuscripts themselves number over 450 and of these over 100 belong to the period 800-c. 1300. No one, however, has undertaken a comprehensive recension of even the older group of medieval manuscripts. One reason for this is that the extent to which contamination has occurred makes classification extremely difficult, another is that it is unlikely that (...) the laborious task of examining and studying so many manuscripts will produce much new evidence for the text itself. Many of the corruptions which survive in the plays probably arose at an early stage in the tradition and prior to the archetype of the manuscripts which have been used by past editors. Any marked advance in the constitution of the text would seem to depend on the discovery of a manuscript which belonged to a different tradition. (shrink)

In these lines Micio criticizes the way in which his brother Demea rears his son and implies comparison with his own method. Two types of imperium are contrasted, ‘imperium ’ and ‘illud quod amicitia adiungitur’. It is the latter phrase which will be discussed here. If this meant ‘si imperium tibi amicitia adiungas’, there would be no difficulty: cf. Cic. Mur. 41 ‘benevolentiam adiungit lenitate audiendi’; Sext. Rose. 116 ‘auxilium sibi se putat adiunxisse.’ The acquisition of imperium, however, is not (...) relevant here; Micio is talking of the imperium that a man has qua father and the point at issue is the manner in which each man administers this imperium. (shrink)

In these lines Micio criticizes the way in which his brother Demea rears his son and implies comparison with his own method. Two types of imperium are contrasted, ‘imperium ’ and ‘illud quod amicitia adiungitur’. It is the latter phrase which will be discussed here. If this meant ‘si imperium tibi amicitia adiungas’, there would be no difficulty: cf. Cic. Mur. 41 ‘benevolentiam adiungit lenitate audiendi’; Sext. Rose. 116 ‘auxilium sibi se putat adiunxisse.’ The acquisition of imperium, however, is not (...) relevant here; Micio is talking of the imperium that a man has qua father and the point at issue is the manner in which each man administers this imperium. (shrink)

Some of the more difficult archetypal corruptions to detect are those that occurred, not when a scribe was mindlessly copying what was before him, but when he was paying some attention to the sense of his text and departed from his exemplar by wrongly anticipating how the sequence of thought would develop. The resulting text may give sense, even though it does not reflect what the author wrote. It is suggested here that such a process led to corruption at Seneca, (...) Thyestes 33 and Lucan, B.C. 2.279. In the former what was originally the subject of a verb has been transformed into the object; in the latter, the reverse has occurred. (shrink)

Some of the more difficult archetypal corruptions to detect are those that occurred, not when a scribe was mindlessly copying what was before him, but when he was paying some attention to the sense of his text and departed from his exemplar by wrongly anticipating how the sequence of thought would develop. The resulting text may give sense, even though it does not reflect what the author wrote. It is suggested here that such a process led to corruption at Seneca, (...) Thyestes 33 and Lucan, B.C. 2.279. In the former what was originally the subject of a verb has been transformed into the object; in the latter, the reverse has occurred. (shrink)