Heauton Timorumenos

Common card · No. 393698

Heauton Timorumenos (Ancient Greek: Ἑαυτὸν τιμωρούμενος, Heauton timōroumenos, The Self-Tormentor) is a play written in Latin by Terence (Latin: Publius Terentius Afer), a dramatist of the Roman Republic, in 163 BC; it was translated wholly or in part from an earlier Greek play by Menander. The play concerns two neighbours, Chremes and Menedemus, whose respective sons, Clitipho and Clinia, are in love with different girls, Bacchis and Antiphila respectively. By a series of deceptions, Chremes' wily slave Syrus dupes Chremes into paying money owed to Bacchis, who is a prostitute. The other girl, Antiphila, is discovered to be Chremes' long-lost daughter, whom he promises in marriage to Clinia. In his edition, A. J. Brothers calls this "the most neglected of the dramatist's six comedies". He adds: "Yet the Self-Tormentor, for all its occasional imperfections, in many ways shows Terence at his best; the plot is ingenious, complex, fast-moving, and extremely skilfully constructed, its characters...

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