The Standardisation of ‘Classical Latin’: The Case of Terence's Text

Abstract This short piece aims to provide further evidence supporting two of Adams's main claims: (1) the situation of late Republican Latin cannot be isolated from other diachronic varieties, and (for the purpose of my analysis) earlier Latin in particular, as regards both the absence of systematic standardisation and the presence of sporadic and idiosyncratic standardisation efforts; (2) manuscript traditions of literary authors are unreliable, due to extensive linguistic regularisation, which also contributed to foster the construct of a standardised ‘classical Latin’. The evidence I will provide comes from the textual tradition of Terence, a key figure in the history of the standardisation of Latin, in various ways. This is not a systematic study, but rather a methodological overview, focusing on selected orthographic and morphological phenomena.