In the _Andria_, which was Terence’s first play, he apparently reveals the first hesitating attempt at this mode of constructing comedies. He tells us in the preface that he used Menander’s _Andria_ in the main with suggestions from the _Perinthia_, and the Menandrian fragments of these two plays which can be identified in Terence are fairly well scattered through the _Andria_. Donatus states that the rôles of Charinus, Byrrhia, and Sosia were added by Terence. Charinus and Byrrhia are so involved in the action of five central scenes that Terence must have re-shaped the play very much in order to include these characters. Since in a recognition scene near the end the heroine turns out to be a citizen we now have a right to assume that Menander’s _Andria_ probably had a prologue revealing this fact. Terence omits the prologue and, therefore, the usual key. But he does not dare, as in the _Hecyra_, his next play, to rely upon his audience’s being patient until the recognition scene. In the middle of the second act (line 221) he drops the rather broad hint in a monologue: “they have set the story going that the girl is an Athenian.” That would be enough to prevent the spectators from following false leads. The _Andria_, therefore, seems to reveal Terence’s first attempt at constructing a play in which a deferred hint took the place of full preparation. One wonders whether the aged Caecilius, who helped Terence with this play, may have used the device before Terence and suggested it to him.