Problems of Adaptation in the Eunuchus of Terence

Zusammenfassung

The relationship of Terence’s Eunuchus to its Greek originals has been much discussed. The play was subjected to detailed analysis by a succession of German scholars in the earlier part of this century; these analyses disagreed in detail but they all envisaged considerable modification by Terence of the Eunouchos of Menander which was his main model. In 1959 Walther Ludwig published a major article which patiently demolished these earlier analyses and argued that on the contrary Terence followed the outline of Menander’s Eunouchos very closely, apart from certain clearly defined embellishments taken from Menander’s Kolax and apart from the ending of the play: Ludwig thought that Terence’s ending destroyed the unity of the play and had been added by Terence for comic effect. In general Ludwig’s arguments have been accepted (he himself offered some modifications in a Nachtrag published in 1973), but it cannot be said that the whole question of Terentian adaptation has been solved. It is the aim of this paper to survey the ground again to see whether Ludwig’s conclusions still stand and to examine what solid progress has been made since the publication of his article.¹