2. Vowels and even consonants were slurred over; hence Liberius became Lib’rius; Adolescens, Ad’lescens; Vehemens, Vemens; Voluptas, V’luptas (like the French voila, v’la;) meum, eum, suum, siet, fuit, Deos, ego, ille, tace, became monosyllables; and facio, sequere, &c., dissyllables.
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