, in order to relish such a piece, a
man must be in the habit of holding revels and of giving and receiving
blows in an intrigue. The man knew his trade: if, therefore, the
Roman burgesses gradually acquired a taste for these Greek comedies,
we see at what a price it was bought. It is a reproach to the Roman
government not that it did so little in behalf of this poetry, but
that it tolerated it at all Vice no doubt is powerful even without a
pulpit; but that is no excuse for erecting a pulpit to proclaim it.
To debar the Hellenic comedy from immediate contact with the persons
and institutions of Rome, was a subterfuge rather than a serious means
of defence. In fact, comedy would probably have been much less
injurious morally, had they allowed it to have a more free course,
so that the calling of the poet might have been ennobled and a Roman
poetry in some measure independent might have been developed; for
poetry is also a moral power, and, if it inflicts deep wounds, it can
do much to heal them. As it was, in this field also the government
did too little and too much; the political neutrality and moral
hypocrisy of its stage-police contributed their part to the fearfully
rapid breaking up of the Roman nation.

National Comedy
Titinius

But, while the government did not allow the Roman comedian to depict
the state of things in his native city or to bring his fellow-citizens
on the stage, a national Latin comedy was not absolutely precluded
from springing up; for the Roman burgesses at this period were not yet
identified with the Latin nation, and the poet was at liberty to lay
the plot of his pieces in the Italian towns of Latin rights just as
in Athens or Massilia. In this way, in fact, the Latin original
comedy arose (-fabula togata- (35)): the earliest known composer
of such pieces, Titinius, flourished probably about the close of
this period.(36)

This comedy was also based on the new Attic intrigue-piece; it was
not translation, however, but imitation; the scene of the piece lay
in Italy, and the actors appeared in the national dress,(37) the
-toga-. Here the Latin life and doings were brought out with peculiar
freshness. The pieces delineate the civil life of the middle-sized
towns of Latium; the very titles, such as -Psaltria- or -Ferentinatis-
, -Tibicina-, -Iurisperita-, -Fullones-, indicate this; and many
particular incidents, such as that of the townsman who has his shoes
made after the model of th