was laid away
from Rome, usually in Athens, and thai the -dramatis personae- were
Greeks or at any rate not Romans. The foreign costume is strictly
carried out even in detail, especially in those things in which the
uncultivated Roman was distinctly sensible of the contrast, Thus the
names of Rome and the Romans are avoided, and, where they are referred
to, they are called in good Greek "foreigners" (-barbari-); in like
manner among the appellations of moneys and coins, that occur ever
so frequently, there does not once appear a Roman coin. We form a
strange idea of men of so great and so versatile talents as Naevius
and Plautus, if we refer such things to their free choice: this
strange and clumsy "exterritorial" character of Roman comedy
was undoubtedly due to causes very different from aesthetic
considerations. The transference of such social relations, as are
uniformly delineated in the new Attic comedy, to the Rome of the
Hannibalic period would have been a direct outrage on its civic order
and morality. But, as the dramatic spectacles at this period were
regularly given by the aediles and praetors who were entirely
dependent on the senate, and even extraordinary festivals, funeral
games for instance, could not take place without permission of the
government; and as the Roman police, moreover, was not in the habit
of standing on ceremony in any case, and least of all in dealing with
the comedians; the reason is self-evident why this comedy, even after
it was admitted as one of the Roman national amusements, might still
bring no Roman upon the stage, and remained as it were banished to
foreign lands.

Political Neutrality

The compilers were still more decidedly prohibited from naming any
living person in terms either of praise or censure, as well as from
any captious allusion to the circumstances of the times. In the whole
repertory of the Plautine and post-Plautine comedy, there is not,
so far as we know, matter for a single action of damages. In like
manner--if we leave out of view some wholly harmless jests--we meet
hardly any trace of invectives levelled at communities (invectives
which, owing to the lively municipal spirit of the Italians, would
have been specially dangerous), except the significant scoff at the
unfortunate Capuans and Atellans (18) and, what is remarkable, various
sarcasms on the arrogance and the bad Latin of the Praenestines.(19)
In general no references to the events or circumstan