III. XIV. National Comedy

8. External circumstances also, it may be presumed, co-operated in
bringing about this change. After all the Italian communities had
obtained the Roman franchise in consequence of the Social war, it
was no longer allowable to transfer the scene of a comedy to any
such community, and the poet had either to keep to general ground
or to choose places that had fallen into ruin or were situated
abroad. Certainly this circumstance, which was taken into account
even in the production of the older comedies, exercised an
unfavourable effect on the national comedy.

9. I. XV. Masks

10. With these names there has been associated from ancient times
a series of errors. The utter mistake of Greek reporters, that
these farces were played at Rome in the Oscan language, is now with
justice universally rejected; but it is, on a closer consideration,
little short of impossible to bring these pieces, which are laid in
the midst of Latin town and country life, into relation with the
national Oscan character at all. The appellation of "Atellan play"
is to be explained in another way. The Latin farce with its fixed
characters and standing jests needed a permanent scenery: the fool-
world everywhere seeks for itself a local habitation. Of course
under the Roman stage-police none of the Roman communities, or of
the Latin communities allied with Rome, could be taken for this
purpose, although it was allowable to transfer the -togatae- to
these. But Atella, which, although destroyed de jure along with
Capua in 543 (III. VI. Capua Capitulates, III. VI. In Italy),
continued practically to subsist as a village inhabited by Roman
farmers, was adapted in every respect for the purpose. This conjecture
is changed into certainty by our observing that several of these farces
are laid in other communities within the domain of the Latin tongue,
which existed no longer at all, or no longer at any rate in the eye
of the law-such as the -Campani- of Pomponius and perhaps also his
-Adelphi- and his -Quinquatria- in Capua, and the -Milites Pometinenses-
of Novius in Suessa Pometia--while no existing community was subjected
to similar maltreatment. The real home of these pieces was
therefore Latium, their poetical stage was the Latinized Oscan
land; with the Oscan nation they have no connection. The statement
that a piece of Naevius (d. after 550) was for want of proper
actors performed by "Atellan players" and was th