3. _M_ and _D_ were syncopated in the middle of words: thus enimvero became en’vero; quidem and modo qu’en and mo’o, circumventus, circ’ventus. 4. Conversely _d_ was added to me, te, and se, when followed by a vowel, as Reliquit med homo, &c., and in Plautus, med erga. Observations of such principles as these enable us to reduce all the metres of Terence, and nearly all of Plautus, to iambic and trochaic, especially to iambic senarii and trochaic tetrameters. Many of those which defy the attempt have become, by the injudicious treatment of transcribers or commentators, wrongly arranged: for example, one of four lines in the Andria of Terence, which has always proved a difficulty, might be thus arranged:— Innā | tă cuī | quām tānt’ | ūt siēt | vēcōr | dĭa; instead of the usual unmanageable form— Tanta vecordia innata cuiquam ut siet. _Andr._ iv. 1. Volcatius Sedigitus, a critic and grammarian, assigns an order of merit to the authors of Roman comedy in the following passage:— Multos incertos certare hanc rem vidimus Palmam poetæ comico cui deferant. Eum, me judice, errorem dissolvam tibi; Ut contra si quis sentiat, nihil sentiat. Cæcilio palmam Statio do comico. Plautus secundus facile exsuperat cæteros. Dein Nævius qui servet pretium, tertius est. Si erit, quod quarto dabitur Licinio. Post insequi Licinium facio Atilium. In sexto sequitur hos loco Terentius. Turpilius septimum, Trabea octavum obtinet; Nono loco esse facile facio Luscium. Decimum addo causa antiquitatis Ennium. _Volc. Sedig. ap. Gel._ lib. xv. 24. However correct this judgment may be, Plautus is the oldest, if not the most celebrated of those who have not as yet been mentioned. PLAUTUS. T. Maccius Plautus was a contemporary of Ennius, for it is generally supposed that he was born twelve years later,[173] and died fifteen years earlier[174] than the founder of the new school of Latin poetry. The flourishing period, therefore, of both coincide. He was a native of Sarsina, in Umbria, but was very young when he removed to Rome. Very little is known respecting his life; but it is universally admitted that he was of humble origin, and owing to the prevalence of this tradition we find _Plautinæ prosapiæ homo_, used as a proverbial expression. The numerous examples in his comedies of vulgar taste and low humour are in favour of this supposition.