The Character of Bacchis in Terence's Heautontimorumenos

Abstract

Most readers of Terence have viewed the hetaera Bacchis in Heautontimorumenos as a stereotypical wicked prostitute, a greedy, hardnosed businesswoman, in short, Terence's only mercenary courtesan. Yet at least one passage in the play, namely Bacchis' speech in lines 381-95, does not quite fit into this negative picture of her character.2 Scholars who have noticed this, most recently Lefevre and Brothers, usually evaluate this alleged inconsistency in her portrayal as a dramaturgical flaw on the part of Terence. Moreover, they assume that the Roman playwright inserted this scene into the original Greek plot.3 In this essay I suggest that Bacchis is not the money-grabbing, hardnosed hooker she is usually seen as, although she is clearly a prostitute struggling to make a living. She might even be subsumed under the term good hetaerae, as defined in a much-discussed passage in Plutarch's Table Talks which deals with the suitability of Menander's comedies for recital at symposia: