Adelphoe


Adelphoe is a play by Roman playwright Terence, adapted partly from plays by Menander and Diphilus. It was first performed in 160 BC at the funeral games of Aemilius Paulus. Exploring the best form of child-rearing, the play inspired Molière's The School for Husbands.
Adelphoe is often considered Terence's masterpiece.

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, but is afraid of exposing his romantic interest due to the strict and cold education he's received from Demea. Therefore, Aeschinus, in order to help his brother, 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.
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 marry against his will and 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 real goodness nor from justice and goodness, but from flattery, indulgence, and largess, Micio."
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 is going to marry his loved one, Micio marries Sostrata and Aeschinus marries Pamphila, Sostrata's daughter.

Characters