quam or et for "than"?

Latin Learning Latin
1

Should quam be more appropriate instead of the first et below?

Instead of:
Tu es mendax peior, mi amice, et Plauto et Terentio!

This:
Tu es mendax peior, mi amice, quam Plauto et Terentio!

I understand that “et” can be used as “than” as well.

Also, “et Plauto et Terentio!”, was translated as "than both Plautus and Terence! " seems like a stretch to add the word “both” in the translation. Don’t tell me that you can translate a single “et” into “than both” cause this will surely throw me for a loop.

As you can tell, I am scraching my head…

2

Et… et… is what means “both… and…”.

The “than” comes from the Ablative of Comparison.

This:
Tu es mendax peior, mi amice, quam Plauto et Terentio!

This is redundant, as you should either choose quam or Ablative of Comparison. Your two choices are:

1.) …et Plauto et Terentio!
2.) …quam et Plautus et Terentius!

The et has nothing to do with “than”; the “both…and…” statement was grammatically entirely separate from the comparison.

3

OK. I re-read my dictionary again. Looks like I made a mistake when I was reading the definition of “et.”

Thanks.