Note 39 — II

We may observe exactly the same in Plautus: a multitude of Greek words are used by him, which the Latin language did not want, and therefore refused to take up; thus ‘clepta’, ‘zamia’ (ζημία), ‘danista’, ‘harpagare’, ‘apolactizare’, ‘nauclerus’, ‘strategus’, ‘morologus’, ‘phylaca’, ‘malacus’, ‘sycophantia’, ‘euscheme’ (εὐσχήμως), ‘dulice’ (δουλικῶς), [so ‘scymnus’ by Lucretius], none of which, I believe, are employed except by him; ‘mastigias’ and ‘techna’ appear also in Terence. Yet only experience could show that they were superfluous; and at the epoch of Latin literature in which Plautus lived, it was well done to put them on trial.