Adelphoe is a play by Roman playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

 Terence

Terence

Publius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic, of North African descent. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on,...

, adopted partly from plays by Menander

Menander

Menander , Greek dramatist, the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy, was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of Demosthenes De Chersoneso...

 and Diphilus

Diphilus

Diphilus, of Sinope, was a poet of the new Attic comedy and contemporary of Menander . Most of his plays were written and acted at Athens, but he led a wandering life, and died at Smyrna....

. It explores the best form of child-rearing. It was first performed in 160 BC

160 BC

Year 160 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Gallus and Cethegus...

 at the funeral games of Aemilius Paulus.

Plot

Demea, father to Aeschinus and Ctesipho, decides to separate his children and raises Ctesipho while allowing his brother Micio to raise Aeschinus. Demea is a strict authoritarian father, and Micio is permissive and democratic. Ctesipho falls in love and Aeschinus decides to steal the girl away, accepting all blame for the affair. Demea and Micio spar over who did a better job at raising their sons. At the end of the play, Ctesipho marries the music girl and Aeschinus marries Pamphila.

Characters

• Demea - Micio's brother and father of Aeschinus and Ctesipho, raised Ctesipho
• Micio - Demea's brother and adopted father of Aeschinus
• Aeschinus - son of Demea, raised by Micio
• Ctesipho - son of Demea raised by Demea
• Canthara - Sostrata's servant
• Geta - Sostrata's slave
• Hegio - old man
• Pamphila - daughter of Sostrata
• Music girl
• Dromo - Demea's slave
• Sostrata - woman who lives next to Micio and widow
• Parmeno - a slave

External links

• The play's Latin text at The Latin Library.com.
• The play translated into English on Perseus
• Review in BMCR of 2010 translation by David Christenson