SOURCE: "Methods of Composition" in The Nature of Roman Comedy: A Study in Popular Entertainment, Princeton University Press, 1952, pp. 177-208.

In the following excerpt from his highly-regarded study of Roman comedy, Duckworth explains the notion of contaminatio (imitation of earlier authors) as it applies to Terence.

In Homeric scholarship the Higher Critics have used repetitions and contradictions as a means of distinguishing Homeric passages from those which they believed to be earlier traditional material or later additions; so also in the study of Roman comedy scholars have attempted to separate the Roman elements from the Greek and have sought in repetitions and inconsistencies arguments to support various theories of composition. During the past half century they have endeavored particularly to prove that many of the plays of Plautus were composed by contamination, which they believe provides the most satisfactory explanation of the difficulties in the plays .… [Contaminatio is...