Terence (195 - 159 B.C) was one of Julius Caesar's favourite authors. Some of his phrases have passed into the language of every nation.

Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto. Is a philanthropic ejaculation often to be found even in the modern newspaper; it means: "I am a man and nothing human is beneath my notice." We often see the words, Quot homines, tot sententiae, meaning, "So many men, so many opinions." They occur in a play of Terence. One of the characters asks for advice. Advance, says one; Retire, says another; Deliberate, says a third; and Quot homines, tot sententiae exclaims the baffled inquirer.

Terence was not Roman. He hailed from Africa as a slave, and became the property of a Roman senator who gave him a good education and introduced him into the best Roman society. HE was handsome, scholarly, charming. He felt that Plautaus was a little vulgar, and disdained to write in the language of the street. HE dealt with the same rather coarse themes as Plautus did, in the language of the street. He dealt with the same coarse themes as Plautus, but his manner was altogether different: less boisterous, less rollicking, less slipshod. It was his boast that his plays were "pure discourse".

HE complains that the Romans preferred a tightrope acrobat or a gladiator to fine literature; and he often produced plays, which were a failure. On one occasion a play of his had scarcely begun when nearly the whole audience rose and made vigorously for the exits: a rumour had spread that there was a boxing match, or something of the kind, across the way.

Such an artist was Terence that success never satisfied him, and in 160bc. He went to Athens to study the Greeks in their own land. But for him, the end was at hand. In 159 he died either by shipwreck on his way home,or of disease in a Greek city - nobody knows which.