ted at an early period, and were restricted to
the uppermost and worst places; otherwise there was no distinction of
places in law till 560, after which, as already mentioned,(12) the
lowest and best positions were reserved for the senators.

Audience

The audience was anything but genteel. The better classes, it is
true, did not keep aloof from the general recreations of the people;
the fathers of the city seem even to have been bound for decorum's
sake to appear on these occasions. But the very nature of a burgess
festival implied that, while slaves and probably foreigners also were
excluded, admittance free of charge was given to every burgess with
his wife and children;(13) and accordingly the body of spectators
cannot have differed much from what one sees in the present day at
public fireworks and -gratis- exhibitions. Naturally, therefore, the
proceedings were not too orderly; children cried, women talked and
shrieked, now and then a wench prepared to push her way to the stage;
the ushers had on these festivals anything but a holiday, and found
frequent occasion to confiscate a mantle or to ply the rod.

The introduction of the Greek drama increased the demands on the
dramatic staff, and there seems to have been no redundance in the
supply of capable actors: on one occasion for want of actors a piece
of Naevius had to be performed by amateurs. But this produced no
change in the position of the artist; the poet or, as he was at this
time called, the "writer," the actor, and the composer not only
belonged still, as formerly, to the class of workers for hire in
itself little esteemed,(14) but were still, as formerly, placed in
the most marked way under the ban of public opinion, and subjected
to police maltreatment.(15) Of course all reputable persons kept
aloof from such an occupation. The manager of the company (-dominus
gregis-, -factionis-, also -choragus-), who was ordinarily also the
chief actor, was generally a freedman, and its members were ordinarily
his slaves; the composers, whose names have reached us, were all of
them non-free. The remuneration was not merely small--a -honorarium-
of 8000 sesterces (80 pounds) given to a dramatist is described
shortly after the close of this period as unusually high--but was,
moreover, only paid by the magistrates providing the festival, if the
piece was not a failure. With the payment the matter ended; poetical
competitions and honorary prizes, such as took p