Terence (c.186-159 B.C.) was the leading Latin comic poet of his day. Although his plays owe much to Greek sources, they are original in their subtlety of plot, development of character, and economy of dialogue, and have had a lasting influence on the history of western drama. The Eunuch has a double plot involv- ing two brothers, one of whom has to disguise himself as a eunuch to get near his beloved. In The Mother- in-Law a young man is distressed to find that his newly married wife is already pregnant. Perhaps the finest of the three is The Brothers, which discusses the perennial problem of how best to bring up the young.
The cover shows a Graeco-Roman portrait of a young man, National Gallery, London