W. M. Lindsay, Syntax of Plautus

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The history of the Italic Verb is full of difficulty. The Passive in -r it shares with some other Indo-European languages; and from a consideration of these, as well as of the Italic Dialects, it would seem that this Passive was originally an Impersonal governing an Accusative Case. The Latin Passive, as far back as we can trace it, has Person-endings, and therefore must have followed that tendency which appears in the occasional change of an Impersonal to a Personal Verb in Early Latin (cf. Priscian 1, pp. 432, 561 H.), e.g.

• Aul. 491 “quo lubeant, nubant”,
• Trin. 211 “dum illud quod lubeant, sciant”,
• Stich. 51 (post Plautine?) “et me quidem haec condicio nunc non paenitet”,
• Ter. Andr. 481 “quae adsolent quaeque oportent”,
• Adelph. 754 “non te haec pudent?”,
• Pacuvius 31 “paenitebunt”,

and also in the curious phrase, Rud. 1241 “mihi istaec videtur praeda praedatum irier” (see below, 41). Like me veretur for classical Latin vereor (see above, II. 8) is mihi dolet, for doleo (see my note on Capt. 928) e.g. Men. 439 “mihi dolebit, non tibi, siquid ego stulte fecero”, Ter. Phorm. 162. But we see in Plautus a marked predilection for the 3 Singular Passive used impersonally, e.g.

• caletur (always in speaking of hot weather, while calet means ‘this or that thing is hot’);
• Pseud. 273 “A. quid agitur, Calidore? B. amatur atque egetur acriter”,
Pseud. 457 “A. quid agitur? B. statur hic ad hunc modum” (cf. Ter. Eun. 270),
• Pers. 17 “A. quid agitur? B. vivitur”,
• Pers. 386 “non tu nunc hominum mores vides, quoiusmodi hic cum mala fama facile nubitur?”,
• Pers. 448 “dum stas, reditum oportuit”,
• Ter. Hec. 457 “creditur” ‘I believe you,’

and the common phrase facere certumst ‘I have decided to do it;’ and this may be, in a way, a survival of the old Impersonal stage. Whether we find also survival of the primitive construction, the government of an Accusative Case by this 3 Singular Passive is not certain. I think that we do in lines like

Cas. 185 “pessumis me modis despicatur domi” (despicatur is Passive of despico; cf. v. 189),
• Mil. 24 “epityra estur insanum bene”,
• Mil. 254? “inducamus vera ut esse credat quae mentibitur”,
• Pseud. 817 “teritur sinapis scelera”,
• Pseud. 1261 “ubi mammia mammiculā opprimitur”,
• Ennius trag. 100 R. “incerte errat animus, praeterpropter vitam (alii: -ta) vivitur” ‘life is lived casually.’ (On vitam vivere, see II. 35）

The intermixture of Active and Passive Infinitive in a passage like Most. 959 is thoroughly Plautine: “triduom unum est haud intermissum hic esse et bibi,
scorta duci, pergraecari, fidicinas, tibicinas
ducere.

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