About the work
Adelphoe is Terence's last play and, in the view of many scholars, his most accomplished. It follows Menander's comedy of the same name for the most part, with one scene in Act 2 added from Diphilus's Synapothnescontes. It premiered in 160 BC at the funeral games for Lucius Aemilius Paullus, staged by his sons, among them Scipio Aemilianus.
Plot
The brothers Micio and Demea have divided Demea's two sons between them: Micio raises Aeschinus indulgently in the city, while Demea raises the other son, Ctesipho, strictly in the country. When Aeschinus helps the frightened Ctesipho rescue a music-girl from a slave-dealer, while himself suspected of abandoning a neighbour's daughter, both misunderstandings resolve: Aeschinus marries the neighbour's daughter, Ctesipho keeps the music-girl, and Demea mockingly forces his brother into similarly costly generosity.
Cultural significance
The contrast between the two styles of upbringing is regarded as Terence's most nuanced character study and influenced Molière's 'The School for Husbands' as well as, more indirectly, Henry Fielding's novel 'Tom Jones'.