ezzo of a
comic character interjected into a drama. The _saturae_ contained an
Etruscan element, but atellans were entirely Etruscan. They were comic
and grotesque, and got their name from Atella (i.e. Aversa or Santo
Arpino) in Campania. They could be played by persons who did not on that
account lose their places in their tribes or their right to serve in the
legion. No personalities at all were allowed on the Roman stage.
Cynicism and obscenity characterized the Oscan style.[2011] In 55 B.C.
the younger Cato was present at the Floralia. The populace hesitated to
call, in his presence, for the stripping of the _mimae_. He left in
order not to hinder the celebration from taking its usual course.[2012]
Valerius Maximus[2013] says that the pantomime was brought to Rome from
Etruria, the Etruscans having brought it from their old home in Lydia.
We see from the epigrams in the first book of Martial that at the Roman
theater in the first century of the Christian era incidents of the Roman
mythology were made into dramas and represented in pantomime.

+624. Gladiatorial exhibitions.+ The gladiatorial exhibitions are
supposed to have been of Etruscan origin in the form of funeral games.
Games to rejoice the ghosts, sacrifices of prisoners, a chance given to
a prisoner to fight for his life, are steps of a development of which we
find many examples. The Romans showed the pitilessness and inhumanity of
their mores in the development they gave to the gladiatorial
exhibitions. "Campanian hosts used to entertain their guests at dinner
with them in the days before the Second Punic War. It was in Campanian
towns that in the first century was displayed most glaringly the not
unusual combination of cruelty and voluptuousness."[2014] Some murmurs
of dissent arose from the philosophers of the first and second centuries
of the Christian era,--Plutarch, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius,[2015]--but at
that time the popular sentiment had not faltered at all in its love and
zeal for the gladiatorial shows and beast contests on account of any
doubt whether the exhibitions were "right." Tertullian, at the end of
the second century, wrote a tract, _Ad Nationes_, in which he criticised
the theater, and also another, _De Spectaculis_, against the public
entertainments. Although the latter is chiefly controversial against
heathen and heathenism, it contains direct and noble arguments against
the games of the arena on account of their inhumanity. He says tha