lace in Attica, were
not yet heard of in Rome--the Romans at this time appear to have
simply applauded or hissed as we now do, and to have brought forward
only a single piece for exhibition each day.(16) Under such
circumstances, where art worked for daily wages and the artist instead
of receiving due honour was subjected to disgrace, the new national
theatre of the Romans could not present any development either
original or even at all artistic; and, while the noble rivalry of
the noblest Athenians had called into life the Attic drama, the Roman
drama taken as a whole could be nothing but a spoiled copy of its
predecessor, in which the only wonder is that it has been able to
display so much grace and wit in the details.

That only one piece was produced each day we infer from the fact,
that the spectators come from home at the beginning of the piece
(Poen. 10), and return home after its close (Epid. Pseud. Rud. Stich.
Truc. ap. fin.). They went, as these passages show, to the theatre
after the second breakfast, and were at home again for the midday
meal; the performance thus lasted, according to our reckoning, from
about noon till half-past two o'clock, and a piece of Plautus, with
music in the intervals between the acts, might probably occupy nearly
that length of time (comp. Horat. Ep. ii. i, 189). The passage, in
which Tacitus (Ann. xiv. 20) makes the spectators spend "whole days"
in the theatre, refers to the state of matters at a later period.

Comedy

In the dramatic world comedy greatly preponderated over tragedy; the
spectators knit their brows, when instead of the expected comedy a
tragedy began. Thus it happened that, while this period exhibits
poets who devoted themselves specially to comedy, such as Plautus
and Caecilius, it presents none who cultivated tragedy alone; and
among the dramas of this epoch known to us by name there occur three
comedies for one tragedy. Of course the Roman comic poets, or rather
translators, laid hands in the first instance on the pieces which had
possession of the Hellenic stage at the time; and thus they found
themselves exclusively(17) confined to the range of the newer Attic
comedy, and chiefly to its best-known poets, Philemon of Soli in
Cilicia (394?-492) and Menander of Athens (412-462). This comedy came
to be of so great importance as regards the development not only of
Roman literature, but even of the nation at large, that even history
has reason to pause and