Lucius Ambivius Turpio (often referred to simply as "Turpio") was an actor, stage manager, patron, promoter and entrepreneur in

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 ...

around the time of the playwright

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 ...

, that is, around the 2nd century BC. Formerly working with the playwright Caecilius Statius, and already known as a promoter of contemporary comic writers, Turpio moved on to serve as the producer and lead actor in most if not all of Terence's plays.

Career

In some ways, Turpio served as Terence's metatheatrical mouthpiece on stage. 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. The general scholarly opinion is that it was Turpio who purchased all of Terence's pieces after they were put up for sale, and his acting troupe that was the primary performer of most of Terence's works.

References

* 2nd-century BC Romans Ancient Roman actors Ancient Roman theatre practitioners Ancient Roman businesspeople {{Italy-stage-actor-stub