Abstract

It is sometimes assumed too rigorously that what distinguishes the language of Terence from that of Plautus is its modernity; that antiquated forms and expressions, common enough in the older dramatist , were all but completely absent in the younger . On this assumption a faulty Terence line is due simply to mistranscription, and the method of emendation is the same as would be employed on any MS. incorrectly copied in Carolingian times from an archetype now lost