This project is a reexamination of Terence’s comedies as creative literature, rather thangeneric plays produced via a combination of mechanical translation of Greek sources and a perfunctory use of Plautine features. It is not possible to establish with certainty the full extent to which Terence adapts Greek source material. Nevertheless, I consider the plays in their entirety as Terence’s and assign all responsibility for the final form of their construction to the playwright: Terence is not a mere translator. Hutcheon stresses the importance of context in adaptation, she rightfully argues that “context conditions meaning.”1 The process of adaptation presents an opportunity for the insertion of contemporary relevant social and political material into the play and therefore political interpretations naturally occur. My interpretations of Terentian allusions owe to Hinds who argues that the very act of recognizing an allusion confirms its existence.2 This study is the first to offer in-depth analyses of multiple stock character types in Terence’s comedies, discussed both in the broad contexts of the Greek and Roman comic traditions as well as in their specific manifestations throughout the Terentian corpus. In it, I examine comic texts for information about the identities of “stock” character types in Terence alongside the types of social identities they might relate or respond to. 1 2012. 2 1998: 10.