What Plautus may have wanted in originality, he made up for by industry, there being still extant twenty of his plays, and he was, according to some, the author of one hundred pieces.
The mantle of Plautus--supposing the dramatist to have died with a coat to his back--may be said to have fallen on Terentius Afer, or Terence. He is believed to have been born at Carthage, and to have been the slave of a Roman senator; for his biographers--who, by the way, were writers themselves--will not hazard the supposition that one of their own order could have been the son of a gentleman. Terentius, however, got into what is usually termed the best society, which had the usual effect of the "best society" on a literary man; for it took what it could never compensate him for--his time; it led him into idle and extravagant habits, and thus brought him, where it will inevitably leave him, if it once gets him there--to ruin. His fashionable friends carried their patronage so far, as to tax his reputation as well as his means, and even claimed a share in the credit of his writings, declaring the best part of them to be their own, though they suffered Terentius to affix his name to them.
Scipio Africanus, who stands convicted of fraud and embezzlement in a former chapter,[60] had the effrontery to say, or allow it to be said, that he had written portions of the plays in question, or, at least, contributed some of the jokes; but we have nothing to support the claim, except the fact that he might, perhaps, have made a pun, as he is known to have picked the public pocket. The following anecdote, related by his biographer, Donatus, or Suetonius--for the learned are at issue, and have long been stumbling over the two styles--may afford some idea of the treatment to which authors were submitted in the age we are writing of. Having completed his play of "Andria," Terence was desirous of getting it licensed, and applied to the Ædiles, who referred him to Cæcilius, for an opinion on the manuscript. The critic being at dinner, desired the dramatist to take a seat on a low stool, and read his piece, so that Cæcilius might, at the same time, swallow his meal, and digest the new comedy. Terence had read but a few verses, when the critic declared he could not continue selfishly putting good things into his own mouth, while so many good things were coming from the mouth of his visitor. He was requested to put the comedy away until after the dinner, which he was invited to share; and, having done so, the play was finished over a glass or two of wine, which increased the enthusiasm with which the author read, and the critic listened. Both were delighted with each other. Their better acquaintance was drunk; success to the comedy was drunk; their healths were drunk together; and, ultimately, Cæcilius and Terence were drunk separately as well as jointly, before the termination of the evening.