The prologues prefixed to nearly all the plays are interesting from their fidelity to the Greek custom, whereas those of Terence are more personal, and so resemble the modern prologue. In the former we see the arch insinuating pleasantry of Plautus employed for the purpose of ingratiating himself with the spectators, a result which, we may be sure, he finds little difficulty in achieving. Among the other plays, the _Poenulus_ possesses for the philologist this special attraction, that it contains a Phoenician passage, which, though rather carelessly transliterated, is the longest fragment we possess of that important Semitic language. [16] All the Plautine plays belong to the _Palliatae_, i.e. those of which the entire surroundings are Greek, the name being taken from the _Pallium_ or Greek cloak worn by the actors. There was, however, in the Italian towns a species of comedy founded on Greek models but national in dress, manners, and tone, known as _Comoedia Togata_, of which Titinius was the greatest master. The _Amphitruo_ is somewhat difficult to class; if, as has been suggested above, it be assigned to the old comedy, it will be a _Palliata_. If, as others think, it be rather a specimen of the _Hilaro- tragodia_ [17] or _Rhinthonica_ (so called from Rhinthon of Tarentum), it would form the only existing specimen of another class, called by the Greeks _Italikae komodia_. Horace speaks of Plautus as a follower of Epicharmus, and his plots were frequently taken from mythological subjects. With regard, however, to the other plays of Plautus, as well as those of Caecilius, Trabea, Licinius Imbrex, Luscius Lavinius, Terence and Turpilius, there is no ground for supposing that they departed from the regular treatment of palliatae. [18] Plautus is a complete master of the Latin language in its more colloquial forms. Whatever he wishes to say he finds no difficulty in expressing without the least shadow of obscurity. His full, flowing style, his inexhaustible wealth of words, the pliancy which in his skilful hands is given to the comparatively rude instrument with which he works, are remarkable in the highest degree. In the invention of new words, and the fertility of his combinations, [19] he reminds us of Shakespeare, and far exceeds any other Latin author. But perhaps this faculty is not so much absent from subsequent writers as kept in check by them. They felt that Latin gained more by terse arrangement and exact fitness in the choice of existing terms, than by coining new ones after the Greek manner. Plautus represents a tendency, which, after him, steadily declines; Lucretius is more sparing of new compounds than Ennius, Virgil than Lucretius, and after Virgil the age of creating them had ceased.