household-government inculcated by Cato, just as
we recognize the Catonian opposition to women in the never-ending
disparagement of wives. Among the jokes of their own invention, with
which the Roman editors deemed it proper to season the elegant Attic
dialogue, several are almost incredibly unmeaning and barbarous.(25)

Metrical Treatment

So far as concerns metrical treatment on the other hand, the flexible
and sounding verse on the whole does all honour to the composers. The
fact that the iambic trimeters, which predominated in the originals
and were alone suitable to their moderate conversational tone, were
very frequently replaced in the Latin edition by iambic or trochaic
tetrameters, is to be attributed not so much to any want of skill
on the part of the editors who knew well how to handle the trimeter,
as to the uncultivated taste of the Roman public which was pleased
with the sonorous magnificence of the long verse even where it was
not appropriate.

Scenic Arrangements

Lastly, the arrangements for the production of the pieces on the stage
bore the like stamp of indifference to aesthetic requirements on the
part of the managers and the public. The stage of the Greeks--which
on account of the extent of the theatre and from the performances
taking place by day made no pretension to acting properly so called,
employed men to represent female characters, and absolutely required
an artificial strengthening of the voice of the actor--was entirely
dependent, in a scenic as well as acoustic point of view, on the use
of facial and resonant masks. These were well known also in Rome; in
amateur performances the players appeared without exception masked.
But the actors who were to perform the Greek comedies in Rome were
not supplied with the masks--beyond doubt much more artificial--that
were necessary for them; a circumstance which, apart from all else in
connection with the defective acoustic arrangements of the stage,(26)
not only compelled the actor to exert his voice unduly, but drove
Livius to the highly inartistic but inevitable expedient of having
the portions which were to be sung performed by a singer not belonging
to the staff of actors, and accompanied by the mere dumb show of the
actor within whose part they fell. As little were the givers of the
Roman festivals disposed to put themselves to material expense for
decorations and machinery. The Attic stage regularly presented a
street with houses in