In these various tracts, it was maintained by the Abbé, that unity of time was most strictly preserved in the _Heautontimorumenos_, as a less period than twelve hours was supposed to pass during the representation, the longest space to which, by the rules of the drama, it could be legitimately prolonged. Of course he adduces arguments and citations, tending to restrict, as far as possible, the period of the dramatic action. In the third scene of the second act, it is said _vesperascit_, and in the first scene of the third act, _Luciscit hoc jam_. Now the Abbé, giving to the term _vesperascit_ the signification, “It is already night,” was of opinion, that the action commenced as late as seven or eight in the evening, when Menedemus returned to Athens from his farm; that the scene of the drama is supposed to pass during the Pithœgia, or festivals of Bacchus, held in April, at which season not more than nine hours intervened between twilight and dawn; that the festival continued the whole night, and that none of the characters went to bed, so that the continuity of action was no more broken than the unity of time. Menage, on the other hand, contended that at least fifteen hours must be granted to the dramatic action, but that this extension implied no violation of the dramatic unities, which, according to the precepts of Aristotle, would not have been broken, even if twenty-four hours had been allotted. He successfully shews, however, that fifteen hours, at least, must be allowed. According to him, the play opens early in the evening, while Menedemus is yet labouring in his field. The festivals were in February; and he proves, from a minute examination, that the incidents which follow after it is declared that _luciscit_, must have occupied fully three hours. Some of the characters, he thinks, retired to rest, but no void was thereby left in the action, as the two lovers, Bacchis, and the slaves, sat up arranging their amorous stratagems. Madame Dacier adopted the opinion of Aubignac, which she fortified by reference to a wood engraving in a very ancient MS. in the Royal Library, which represents Menedemus as having quitted his work in the fields, and as bearing away his implements of husbandry. The poet being perhaps aware that the action of this comedy was exceptionable, and that the dramatic unities were not preserved in the most rigid sense of the term, has apparently exerted himself to compensate for these deficiencies by the introduction of many beautiful moral maxims: and by that purity of style, which distinguishes all his productions, but which shines, perhaps, most brightly in the _Heautontimorumenos_.