Adelphoe (also Adelphoi and Adelphi; from, Brothers) is a play by Roman playwright Terence, adapted mostly from a play of the same name by Menander, with the addition of a scene from Diphilus. It was first performed in 160 BC at the funeral games of Aemilius Paulus. Adelphoe, like all of Terence's works, survives complete. It was Terence's last play and is often considered his masterpiece. Exploring the best form of child-rearing, the play inspired Molière's The School for Husbands.

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 with a slave-girl musician, but is afraid of exposing his romantic interest due to the strict education he's received from Demea. Therefore, Aeschinus, in order to help his brother, decides to steal the girl away from the slave-dealer Sannio, accepting all blame for the affair. Demea and Micio spar over who did a better job at raising their sons. After a long monologue comparing his methods with his brother's, Demea decides to emulate his brother's urbanity and openhandedness as a means of critique. In the last hundred lines of the play, Demea gives away a great deal of money and a large estate, convinces his brother to free two of his slaves, and then finally delivers a closing speech decrying all such liberality: "I will tell you: I did it to show you that what they think is your good nature and pleasantness did not happen from a true life, nor from justice and goodness, but from flattery, indulgence, and largess, Micio" (lines 985–988). He then offers to his sons that he will be their strict father if they so desire him to be, but if they prefer to stay with Micio, they can. Both boys choose to submit to Demea, with Micio's approval. At the end of the play, Ctesipho keeps his loved one, Aeschinus celebrates his marriage to Pamphila, Sostrata's daughter, and Micio is made to marry Sostrata.

Characters

The main characters in terms of number of lines spoken or sung are: Ctesipho, Sostrata, and Canthara sing all their lines. The three old men Demea, Micio, and Hegio speak most of theirs, in iambic senarii, singing only occasionally.

Metrical structure

Terence's plays are traditionally divided into five acts. However, it is not thought that these divisions go back to Terence's time. Also, the acts themselves do not always match the structure of the plays, which is more clearly shown by the variation in metres. In both Plautus and Terence's plays the usual pattern is to begin each section with iambic senarii (which were spoken without music), then a scene of music in various metres, and finally a scene in trochaic septenarii, which were apparently recited to the accompaniment of tibiae (a pair of reed pipes). In his book The Music of Roman Comedy, Moore calls this the "ABC succession", where A = iambic senarii, B = other metres, C = trochaic septenarii. In the Adelphi the ABC pattern is less evident than it is in some other plays. The pattern is: According to Moore, in this play (Terence's last) Terence shows a mastery of metre, moving from one metre to another to express mood and emotion as required. The abbreviation ia6 = iambic senarii, tr7 = trochaic septenarii, ia8 = iambic octonarii, tr8 = trochaic octonarii. Unusually for Terence, the play contains one short polymetric song (lines 610–617) with an irregular mixture of choriambic, wilamowitzianus, and other metres.

Prologue

Aeschinus's behaviour causes alarm

Sostrata is distressed

Syrus keeps Demea from finding Ctesipho

Aeschinus determines to apologise

Micio teases Aeschinus

Demea finds Ctesipho misbehaving

Demea takes charge

Classical Tradition

Henry Fielding in Tom Jones (1749, Book XIV, ch. VIII) models Mr Nightingale and his brother after Terence’s Adelphoe. Fielding writes: “They had always differed in their sentiments concerning the education of their children … For young Nightingale was his uncle’s godson, and had lived more with him than with his father.” Again in Book XVIII, ch. XIII: “These brothers lived in a constant state of contention about the government of their children, both heartily despising the method which each other took.”