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. pp. 1193. http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/3526.html. 
  3. ^ a b 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. http://books.google.com/books?id=PpKop1jpJnwC&dq=terence+turpio&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
  4. ^ Didascaliae Terentianae
  5. ^ Cicero, de Senectute 14
  6. ^ Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus 14
  7. ^ Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, Epistles i. 25, x. 2
  8. ^ a b 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. http://books.google.com/books?id=nCk80mad--MC&dq=terence+turpio&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
  9. ^ a b 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. http://books.google.com/books?id=cB9itIyijdUC&dq=terence+turpio&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
  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. http://books.google.com/books?id=0c8weM9ItAQC&dq=terence+turpio&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).