[Sidenote: Terence and Plautus compared.] The plays of Terence are written in a style far more advanced, more refined, and more artistic than those of Plautus, but they show much less originality, wit, and vigor. Plautus wrote at a time when Greek culture was already known to the Romans, but when it was less thoroughly appreciated than later, and he wrote not for any one class of Romans, but for the people. The language of Plautus is therefore the language of every-day life as it was spoken by the average Roman; his wit is of the kind that appealed to ordinary men, and his plays have much action, that the common man might enjoy them. Plautus took Greek plays and made them over to suit the average Roman. The position of Terence was different. In his day a cultivated class of Romans existed, who knew Greek literature well, who admired and loved Greek culture, but were none the less patriotic Romans. These men wished to introduce all that was best in Greece into Rome. So far as literature was concerned, they wished to make Latin literature as much like Greek literature as possible, and therefore encouraged imitation rather than originality, purity and grace of language rather than vigor of thought or expression. These were the men among whom Terence lived, and whose taste influenced him most. His plays contain few indications that they are written for a Roman audience (except, of course, that they are written in Latin), but are Greek in their refinement of language, gentle humor, and polished excellence of detail. There is less variety of metre than in the plays of Plautus, as, indeed, there is less variety of any kind, for Terence relies for his effect, not upon variety, but upon finished elegance. He is the earliest Latin author who tries to equal the Greeks in stylistic refinement, and few of those who came after him were as successful as he. Many of the qualities of the style of Terence are lost in translation; but something of the air of ease, naturalness, and good humor that pervades his plays is seen in the short scene in the Phormio, in which Demipho asks Nausistrata, the wife of Chremes, to persuade Phanium to marry Phormio.[9]