The chief of those railers, and the arch-enemy of Terence, was the Luscius Lanuvinus to whom Volcatius in his list of poets assigns the ninth place;――and the same person whom Donatus designates by the name of Lucius Lavinius. Luscius was not singular in this imputation against our author. Valgius and others seem to consider Terence but the mere nominal author of the six pieces which bear his name. That Scipio and Lælius assisted him with their advice, is highly probable, and his vanity might feel flattered by the insertion among his own writings, of short passages of their composition; but when we call to mind, that Africanus and his friend, two persons of the most refined delicacy and taste, distinguished by their friendship, and selected as a companion in their hours of retirement and relaxation, a freedman! a man whose rank was infinitely inferior to their own; we must naturally suppose that those eminent persons courted the society of Terence, as admirers of his extraordinary genius, and elevation of sentiment. As they could not have become thoroughly acquainted with our author’s engaging qualifications, but from his dramatic compositions, it is most probable that the ANDRIAN at least, was published, before he was honoured with the intimacy of either Scipio, Lælius, or Furius. Indeed there can be but little doubt that the success of this play, (which he wrote when he was too little known, perhaps, to receive assistance from any one,) was the means of drawing him from the obscurity of his low rank, and of obtaining the notice and approbation of the great men of his age, and their patronage for his future productions. NOTE 21. _Quintus Memmius._ The oration alluded to by Suetonius was written by Memmius to defend himself against a charge of bribery. The Memmii were a plebeian family, though several of them attained to the highest dignities. Quintus was nearly related to the Caius Memmius who was assassinated by Lucius Apuleius Saturninus: and is supposed to have been the son of the Memmius to whom Lucretius dedicated his celebrated poem, “_De Rerum naturâ_.” _Vide_ Cicero in Catilin. and Florus, B. 3., c. 16. NOTE 22. _Cornelius Nepos._ Cornelius Nepos, a celebrated biographer of the Augustan age, was born on the banks of the Po, which he quitted in his youth; and, attracted by the splendour and pleasures of a gallant and polite court, removed to Rome, where his talents and taste for literature procured him the friendship of Cicero, and many other eminent persons. Of all his much-admired writings nothing remains but his “_Lives of the most illustrious Greeks and Romans_.” NOTE 23. _Puteoli._