W. M. Lindsay, Syntax of Plautus

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Redundancy of expression, so marked a feature of Plautus' style, may be classed with these colloquialisms, for undoubtedly it reflects every-day speech. Like the repetition of the Antecedent is e.g.

• Pseud. 960 “hoc est sextum a porta proxumum angiportum; in id angiportum me devorti iusserat”,
• Rud. 1310 “ecquid meministi in vidulo qui periit quid ibi infuerit”,
• Bacch. 821 “tantist quantist fungus putidus”,
• Most. 527 “tu, ut occepisti, tantum quantum quis fuge”,
• Bacch. 767 “tam frictum ego illum reddam quam frictum est cicer”,
• Asin. 435 “neque eo esse servum in aedibus eri qui sit pluris quam illest”,
• Mil. 21 “peiuriorem hoc hominem si quis viderit, aut gloriarum pleniorem quam illĭc est”.

Pleonasms like

• “multi saepe” Mil. 885, etc.,
• “propere celeriter” Rud. 1323,
• “priusquam — prius” Pseud. 885,
• “postquam — post” Trin. 417,
• “una simul” Most. 1037 etc.,
• “universus totus” Trin. 171,
• omnis totus frag. 120,
• “hic hodie dies” Epid. 157 etc.,
• “ergo igitur” Trin. 756 etc.,
• “etiam quoque” Pseud. 122 etc.

occur on every page. (On nemo homo, see IV. 21 on the double Negative, VIII. 8 on magis with Comparative, III. 2 for statistics of Terence's use of Pleonasm, E. Johnston: de sermone Terentiano quaestiones duae. Königsberg, 1905). They evidently come direct from every-day talk, in which emphasis is sought by repetition and laboured statement, e.g.

Rud. 896 “ne quid significem quidpiam mulierculis” (cf. Vid. 67, Mil. 431; and see IV. 3 below),
• Amph. 159 “nec quisquam sit quin me omnes esse dignum deputent”,
• Pers. 53 “veterem atque antiquum quaestum maiorum meum servo atque obtineo et magna cum cura colo”.

Two different forms of expression are jumbled together in lines like Rud. 587 “praeter animi quam lubuit sententiam”, Epid. 625 “e tuis verbis meum futurum corium pulcrum praedicas.”

We have a two-sided remark apparently in Pseud. 1044 “Quid tu intus, quaeso, desedisti quam diu?”, like the exclamation in Ter. Heaut. 363 “persuadere illi, quae solet quos spernere!” A few may possibly be put down to the ‘non astrictus soccus’ of Plautus, e.g. the recurrence of ut (in different senses) in Mil. 70 sqq. or of arbitror in Stich. 82 sq. “quom nil quam ob rem id faciam meruisse arbitror. minime, nolo turbas; sed hoc mihi optumum factu esse arbitror”, or even of aio in

• Most. 1027 sq. “te velle uxorem aiebat tuo nato dare, ideo aedificare hic velle aiebat in tuis”,
• Rud. 561 sq. “nocte hac aiunt proxuma se iactatas atque eiectas hodie esse aiunt e mari”;

although this last does indeed seem to echo every-day talk (like our ‘says he, . . says he’). (For other examples of repetition, e.g. ut . . ut Capt. 248, mihi . . mihi Aul. 551, me . . me Curc. 577, Most. 202, see Rauterberg, Quaestiones Plautinae. Wilhelmshaven (progr.), 1883). The heaping up of Assonances like Capt. 358, “quod bonis bene fit beneficium”, is a deliberate rhetorical ornament which all the early Dramatists, except Terence, assume, and even Terence in his Prologues (see Leo: Analecta Plautina II. Göttingen, 1898).