“Usus me genuit, mater peperit Memoria: Sophiam vocant me Graii; vos Sapientiam.”
The following lines from the _Vopiscum_ have also been frequently quoted:
“Si possent homines delinimentis capi, Omnes haberent nunc amatores anus. Ætas, et corpus tenerum, et morigeratio, Hæc sunt venena formosarum mulierum(293).”
also a follower of Menander, was the contemporary and enemy of Terence, who, in his prologues, has satirized his injudicious translations from the Greek—
“Qui bene, vertendo et eas describendo male, Ex Græcis bonis, Latinas fecit non bonas(294).”
In particular, we learn from the prologue to the _Phormio_, that he was fond of bringing on the stage frantic youths, committing all those excesses of folly and distraction which are supposed to be produced by violent love. Donatus has afforded us an account of the plot of his _Phasma_, which was taken from Menander. A lady, who, before marriage, had a daughter, the fruit of a secret amour with a person now living in a house adjacent to her husband’s, made an opening in the wall of her own dwelling, in order to communicate with that in which her former paramour and daughter resided. That this entrance might appear a consecrated spot to her husband’s family, she decked it with garlands, and shaded it with branches of trees. To this passage she daily repaired as if to pay her devotions, but in fact, to procure interviews with her illegitimate daughter. Her husband also had, by a former wife, a son, who dwelt in his father’s house, and who, having one day accidentally peeped through the aperture, beheld the girl; and, as she was possessed of almost supernatural beauty, he was struck with awe, as at the sight of a Spirit or divinity, whence the play received the name of _Phasma_. The young man, discovering at length that she is a mortal, conceives for her a violent passion, and is finally united to her, with the consent of his father, and to the great satisfaction of the mother. There is another play of Menander, which has also been closely imitated by Luscius Lavinius. Plautus, we have seen, borrowed his _Trinummus_ from the _Thesaurus_ of Philemon. But Menander also wrote a _Thesaurus_, which has been copied by Lavinius. An old man, by his last will, had commanded, that, ten years after his death, his son should carry libations to the monument under which he was to be interred. The youth, having squandered his fortune, sold the ground on which this monument stood to an old miser. At the end of ten years, the prodigal sent a servant to the tomb with due offerings, according to the injunctions of his deceased father. The servant applied to the new proprietor to assist him in opening the monument, in which they discovered a hoard of gold. The miserly owner of the soil seized the treasure, and retained it on pretence of having deposited it there for safety during a period of public commotion. It is claimed, however, by the young man, who goes to law with him; and the plot of the comedy chiefly consists in the progress of the suit(295)—the dramatic management of which has been ridiculed by Terence, in the prologue to the _Eunuchus_, since, contrary to the custom and rules of all courts of justice, the author had introduced the defendant pleading his title to the treasure before the plaintiff had explained his pretensions, and entered on the grounds of his demand. Part of the old Scotch ballad, The Heir of Linne, has a curious resemblance to the plot of this play of Luscius Lavinius.