SOURCE: An introduction to Terence: The Self-Tormentor, edited and translated by A. J. Brothers, Aris & Phillips Ltd, 1988, pp. 1-26.

In the excerpt below, Brothers provides an overview of The Self-Tormentor, discussing its relationship to its Greek source, its plot, and its characterization.

It has long been part of scholarly practice to attempt to understand the relationship of the Roman comedies to their lost Greek originals, and to try to pinpoint the additions, omissions and alternations of the Roman dramatists and recover the original Greek form—to play, in fact, 'hunt the New Comedy' with the text of a Terence (or Plautus) play. Though this type of activity has its limitations, particularly if carried out to the exclusion of other studies, it is nevertheless not merely legitimate but interesting and valuable.

Such investigations are always difficult, because we have so little to go on. With [Terence's The Self-Tormentor], the...