Book 3
3
My master Favorinus too, when I was reading the Nervularia of Plautus, and he had heard this line of the comedy: Fr. v. 100 Götz; translation by Thornton and Warner. Old, wheezing, physicky, mere foundered hags With dry, parched, painted hides, shrivell'd and shrunk, delighted with the wit of the archaic words that describe the ugly defects of harlots, cried: By heaven! just this one verse is enough to convince one that the play is Plautine.
3
I myself too a little while ago, when reading the Fretum—that is the name of a comedy which some think is not Plautine—had no manner of doubt that it was by Plautus and in fact of all his plays the most authentic. From it I copied these two lines, Fr. v. 76, Götz. with the intention of looking up the story of the Arretine oracle: Nothing is known of this oracle. The inferior manuscripts and earlier editors read Arictini and interpreted it as that of Jupiter Ammon, because that god is sometimes represented as a ram (aries), or with a ram's head. According to Bicheler, Thes. Ling. Lat. ii. 636. 9, the reference is to a person, not to the town of Arretium. Text and meaning are most uncertain.
