Lucius Ambivius Turpio

Lucius Ambivius Turpio (often referred to simply as "Turpio") was a celebrated actor, stage manager, patron, promoter and entrepreneur in ancient Rome around the time of the playwright Terence, that is, around the 2nd century BC.[1][2] Formerly working with the playwright Caecilius Statius, and already known as a promoter of contemporary comic writers,[3] Turpio moved on to serve as the producer and lead actor in most if not all of Terence's plays.[4][5][6][7][8]

In some ways, Turpio served as Terence's metatheatrical mouthpiece on stage.[9] In several of his plays Terence began with a prologue to the audience explaining his method of playwriting, ostensibly spoken by an actor in a manner suggesting a close relationship with the playwright. In at least two plays—Heauton Timorumenos (The Self-Tormentor) and Hecyra (The Mother-in-Law)—this speaker in the prologue explicitly identifies himself as Turpio.[9][10]

The general scholarly opinion is that it was Turpio who purchased all of Terence's pieces after they were put up for sale,[3] and his acting troupe that was the primary performer of most of Terence's works.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Brown, Peter George McCarthy (1996), "Ambivius Turpio, Lucius", in Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Anthony, Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-521693-8
  2. ↑ Smith, William (1867). "Turpio". In William Smith. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 3. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 1193.
  3. 1 2 Slater, William J. (1996). Roman theater and society: E. Togo Salmon Conference papers I, Volume 1993. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. pp. 33–36. ISBN 0-472-10721-6.
  4. ↑ Didascaliae Terentianae
  5. ↑ Cicero, de Senectute 48
  6. ↑ Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus 20
  7. ↑ Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, Epistles i. 25, x. 2
  8. 1 2 Marshall, C.W. (2006). The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy. New York City: Cambridge University Press. pp. 85–86. ISBN 0-521-86161-6.
  9. 1 2 Sharrock, Alison (2009). Reading Roman Comedy: Poetics and Playfulness in Plautus and Terence. New York City: Cambridge University Press. pp. 65–66, 74–75. ISBN 0-521-76181-6.
  10. ↑ Pucci, Joseph (1998). The Full-Knowing Reader: Allusion and the Power of the Reader in the Western Literary Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 97–98. ISBN 0-300-07152-3.
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