prologus

• Lit., a preface or introduction to a play, a prologue, Ter. Phorm. 14: in prologis scribundis operā abutitur, id. And. 5: in Hydriae (Menandri) prologo, Quint. 11, 3, 91: in prologo Adelphorum, Suet. Vit. Ter. 2.—
• II Transf., the player who delivers the prologue: oratorem esse voluit me, non prologum, Ter. Heaut. 11; id. Hec. 1 (prō-, v. Wagn. ad Ter. Heaut. 11).

• , πρόλογος, a preface to a play, prologue: Nullum invenire prologum, T.—One who recites a prologue, T.

(πρόλογος). A technical term applied to that part of a Greek drama which precedes the entrance of the first chorus. From the time of Euripides it came to mean a monologue containing a narrative of the facts introductory to the main action, and this is the meaning which the word possessed in the language of Roman comedy. It is thus opposed to ἐπίλογος, the concluding part of the play. Aristotle compares the prologue to the prelude in a piece of music (Rhet. iii. 14, 1). The word is also applied to the actor who speaks the Prologue. In some plays there are two speakers of this sort— e. g. in the Alcestis of Euripides and the Trinummus of Plautus. Terence uses the Prologue as a means of personal communication on the part of the author to the public and as a vehicle for replying to adverse criticism (e. g. in the Andria). (See Liebig, De Prologis Terentianis et Plautinis [Görlitz, 1859].) The tables of contents prefixed to the divisions of books are also called prologi, as those of the lost history of Pompeius Trogus. See Hallberg, De Trogo Pompeio (Paris, 1869).