Roman editors
of Greek comedies, this verdict appears due to the mediocrity of the
connoisseur gladly preferring a kindred spirit of mediocrity in the
poet to any special features of excellence. These art-critics
probably took Caecilius under their wing, simply because he was more
regular than Plautus and more vigorous than Terence; notwithstanding
which he may very well have been far inferior to both.

Moral Result

If therefore the literary historian, while fully acknowledging the
very respectable talents of the Roman comedians, cannot recognize
in their mere stock of translations a product either artistically
important or artistically pure, the judgment of history respecting its
moral aspects must necessarily be far more severe. The Greek comedy
which formed its basis was morally so far a matter of indifference, as
it was simply on the same level of corruption with its audience; but
the Roman drama was, at this epoch when men were wavering between the
old austerity and the new corruption, the academy at once of Hellenism
and of vice. This Attico-Roman comedy, with its prostitution of body
and soul usurping the name of love--equally immoral in shamelessness
and in sentimentality--with its offensive and unnatural generosity,
with its uniform glorification of a life of debauchery, with its
mixture of rustic coarseness and foreign refinement, was one
continuous lesson of Romano-Hellenic demoralization, and was felt
as such. A proof of this is preserved in the epilogue of the
-Captivi- of Plautus:--

-Spectators, ad pudicos mores facta haec fabulast.
Neque in hoc subigitationes sunt neque ulla amatio
Nec pueri suppositio nec argenti circumductio,
Neque ubi amans adulescens scortum liberet clam suum patrem.
Huius modi paucas poetae reperiunt comoedias,
Ubi boni meliores fiant. Nunc vos, si vobis placet,
Et si placuimus neque odio fuimus, signum hoc mittite;
Qui pudicitiae esse voltis praemium, plausum date!-

We see here the opinion entertained regarding the Greek comedy by
the party of moral reform; and it may be added, that even in those
rarities, moral comedies, the morality was of a character only adapted
to ridicule innocence more surely. Who can doubt that these dramas
gave a practical impulse to corruption? When Alexander the Great
derived no pleasure from a comedy of this sort which its author read
before him, the poet excused himself by saying that the fault lay not
with him, but with the king; that