of the tragic poet with
special reference to him; that the latest poetic and plastic art in
Attica as it were originated from him (for the new Attic comedy did
nothing but transfer Euripides into a comic form, and the school of
painters which we meet with in the designs of the later vases derived
its subjects no longer from the old epics, but from the Euripidean
tragedy); and lastly that, the more the old Hellas gave place to the
new Hellenism, the more the fame and influence of the poet increased,
and Greek life abroad, in Egypt as well as in Rome, was directly or
indirectly moulded in the main by Euripides.

Roman Tragedy

The Hellenism of Euripides flowed to Rome through very various
channels, and probably produced a speedier and deeper effect there
by indirect means than in the form of direct translation. The tragic
drama in Rome was not exactly later in its rise than the comic;(39)
but the far greater expense of putting a tragedy on the stage--which
was undoubtedly felt as a consideration of moment, at least during the
Hannibalic war--as well as the nature of the audience(40) retarded the
development of tragedy. In the comedies of Plautus the allusions to
tragedies are not very frequent, and most references of this kind may
have been taken from the originals. The first and only influential
tragedian of this epoch was the younger contemporary of Naevius
and Plautus, Quintus Ennius (515-585), whose pieces were already
travestied by contemporary comic writers, and were exhibited and
declaimed by posterity down to the days of the empire.

The tragic drama of the Romans is far less known to us than the comic:
on the whole the same features, which have been noticed in the case of
comedy, are presented by tragedy also. The dramatic stock, in like
manner, was mainly formed by translations of Greek pieces. The
preference was given to subjects derived from the siege of Troy and
the legends immediately connected with it, evidently because this
cycle of myths alone was familiar to the Roman public through
instruction at school; by their side incidents of striking horror
predominate, such as matricide or infanticide in the -Eumenides-,
the -Alcmaeon-, the -Cresphontes-, the -Melanippe-, the -Medea-, and
the immolation of virgins in the -Polyxena-, the -Erechthides-, the
-Andromeda-, the -Iphigenia- --we cannot avoid recalling the fact,
that the public for which these tragedies were prepared was in the
habit of witnessi