C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Epigram on Terentius

By Julius Cæsar (100–44 B.C.)

[This sole fragment of literary criticism from the Dictator’s hand is preserved in the Suetonian life of Terence. Two of Cæsar’s brief but masterly letters to Cicero will be quoted under the latter name.]

YOU, moreover, although you are but the half of Menander,

Lover of diction pure, with the first have a place—and with reason.

Would that vigor as well to your gentle writing were added.

So your comic force would in equal glory have rivaled

Even the Greeks themselves, though now you ignobly are vanquished.

Truly I sorrow and grieve that you lack this only, O Terence!

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