This thesis investigates Hecyra at the points where gender and violence intersect. These intersections are frequent and provide a heuristic device for interpreting the relationships between characters, and the relationship of the text to its audience. The term “violence,” broadly construed, has been divided into three primary categories within this paper, each of these categories receiving its own chapter. The first chapter handles the verbal abuse between married couples in the play, the second looks carefully at the language used to describe the sexual assault at the play’s center, and the third looks at military language used by a meretrix at the beginning of the play. In every instance, Terence uses these violent interactions to place himself at odds with the conventions of comedy, using the genre’s familiar architecture to create something entirely new.