Reference edition:

Rufini Antiochensis Commentaria in metra terentiana et de compositione et de numeris oratorum, edizione critica a cura di P. D'Alessandro, Hildesheim - Zürich - New York 2004 (Collectanea Grammatica Latina 3), 21-38.

The Commentaria in metra Terentiana collect fragments from grammatici and commentators, organized without respect for chronology, who argued that Latin dramatic texts - esp. Plautus and Terence - are composed  in verse (p. 19.19-20 d’A.: mensuram hoc est μέτρον esse in fabulis Terentii et Plauti et ceterorum comicorum et tragicorum).  Rufinus reports the citations mechanically, mostly introduced by simple formulae (Diomedes sic, Charisius sic); only in a few cases are these enriched by further citations (e.g. Asper in commentario Terentii) or accompanied by appropriate authorial quotation. Varro is the author cited most frequently - from Rufinus we have three fragments of his De sermone Latino ad Marcellum - but we also find reference to the auctoritas of Cicero, Quintilian, and Caper. To Caesius Bassus, a metricologus of the Neronian period whom Rufinus cites explicitly, we can probably attach other references such as Varro’s theory on the structure of the iambic septenarius (d’Alessandro 2001).  For some meters we also find sections of the work in the verses of Terentius Maurus. The names of recent grammatici are more numerous: Charisius, Diomedes, Victorinus, Servius. The references Rufinus makes to lost works and authors who are only rarely attested are particularly important, e.g. Scaurus and Sisenna (two commentators on Plautus) and Asper and Evantius (authors of a commentary on Terence). To the last of these, on the basis of Rufinus alone, we are able to attribute the treatise De fabula, which is transmitted anonymously together with the introductory section of Donatus’ Commentarii on Terence (Cupaiolo 1992: 7-11).

Rufinus’ text is transmitted by 28 manuscripts, of which at least seven can be dated to the 9^th c.; these also contain the Institutiones of Priscian and/or his three short works Ad Symmachum that treat similar themes (de figuris numerum, de arte metrica, and de rhetorica).  Seven other mss., meanwhile, are codices descripti.  Halm’s partial and “provisional” 1863 edition (treating only the second part of the work = 575-85: Versus Rufini V. C. litteratoris de compositione et de metris oratorum) was based on three codices: Paris. Lat. 7496 and 7501 (collated for him by Keil), and Monac. Lat. 18375.  Keil produced a complete edition in 1874 (GL 6: 547-78) that was based on four testimonia: the two BnF manuscripts mentioned above, as well as Paris. Lat. 7498 and Vat. Reg. Lat. 733.  In contrast with these, Paolo d’Alessandro’s edition in the CGL is based on a complete review of the manuscript tradition.  He identifies two subarchetypes, α and β. The first of these is represented directly by four older testimonia and two later ones; the other, which better preserves traces of Greek passages, is divided between Paris Lat. 7501 (9^th c.) and the majority of manuscripts, collected as family γ, from which the humanistic editions derive.  One text stands apart from the two subarchetypes: ms. Einsiedlensis 339 (2^nd half of the 9^th c.); this is considered the testimony closest to the archetype, and contains lectiones singulares.  A different manuscript—Palat. Lat. 1741 (probably 15^th c.)—includes some corrected readings and a different recension that may also go back to an older codex that is no longer extant.  The archetype must have contained various errors, some of which were corrected in the humanistic period.  There are at least three loci desperati, one of which has invited numerous interventions by philologists (p. 20.3 d’A. = 565 K.: †sacerdos qui et domatus†); this is located in the final list of auctores who argued dramatic works were written in verse, with a majority of scholars inserting the names Plotius Sacerdos and Aelius Donatus into the corrupted text.

Rufinus’ work was published for the first time in 1470, in the editio princeps of Priscian that Vindelino da Spira produced at Venice.  [A. Lagioia; tr. C. L. Caterine].