'The most instructive component of W.'s commentary is the copious material he has assembled from other Plautine plays to illustrate the lexical, syntactical and stylistic phenomena of the Persa text. (...) Wilamowitz (...) located the original of the Latin play in the period of the 'middle' comedy and found here the source of its many singularities. W.'s introduction is largely taken up with an effort to demolish Wilamowitz's theory. The singularities of the play are used to support a dating of the original to the period after the flowering of the 'new' comdey. What reminded Wilamowitz of the 'old' Attic comedy spurs in W. speculation about Hellenistic farce. (...). W's discussion of the the stock situations and characters of ancient comdey is intelligent and will be of interest however little one accepts his belief in the possibiblity of tracing genetic relationships between motifs or his view of the Persa as a close version of a nearly contemporary Attic piece. (H.D. JOCELYN in The Classical Review (New Series), 1983, pp.196-97). 'W. has done us a service. He provides a useful introduction to the problems of Persa, a challenging text, and a commentary that will put future literary discussion on a firmer philological base. Readers may regret that his work is not better, but they will not be sorry to have it.' (SANDER M. GOLDBERG in Classical Philology, 1984.p.250). From the library of the late Prof. W. Geoffrey Arnott.