Didascaliae are a compilation of production notices for several stage works of

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

. This incomplete record was probably compiled some time around the 1st century BC, and contains notes on the ''Stichus'' and ''Pseudolus'' of

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus ( ; 254 – 184 BC) was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by Livius Andro ...

(in Manuscript A) and all the plays of

Terence Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as Terence (), was a playwright during the Roman Republic. He was the author of six Roman comedy, comedies based on Greek comedy, Greek originals by Menander or Apollodorus of Carystus. A ...

(in the manuscript and in the commentary by

Aelius Donatus Aelius Donatus (; fl. mid-fourth century AD) was a Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric. He once taught Jerome, an early Christian Church father who is most known for his translation of the Bible into Latin, known as the Latin Vulgate. N ...

), after which they were sometimes called ''Didascaliae Terentianae''. The notes contain information about the first performance of the works, games that were played there, the plays' directors and producers (such as

Lucius Ambivius Turpio Lucius Ambivius Turpio (often referred to simply as "Turpio") was an actor, stage manager, patron, promoter and entrepreneur in ancient Rome around the time of the playwright Terence Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as T ...

), musical composers, the nature of the musical score, the

Roman consul The consuls were the highest elected public officials of the Roman Republic ( to 27 BC). Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the ''cursus honorum''an ascending sequence of public offices to which politicians aspire ...

s that year, ''etcetera''. In some cases, details about subsequent revivals are also preserved.Jocelyn, H.D. CQ 1980, 387 ff

References

{{reflist Ancient Roman theatre 1st-century BC books in Latin