itten at a time
when it was not yet dangerous to speak of the Bacchanalia.

23. The remarkable passage in the -Tarentilla- can have no
other meaning:--

-Quae ego in theatro hic meis probavi plausibus,
Ea non audere quemquam regem rumpere:
Quanto libertatem hanc hic superat servitus!-

24. The ideas of the modern Hellas on the point of slavery are
illustrated by the passage in Euripides (Ion, 854; comp. Helena,
728):--

--En gar ti tois douloisin alochunen pherei,
Tounoma ta d' alla panta ton eleutheron
Oudeis kakion doulos, ostis esthlos e.--

25. For instance, in the otherwise very graceful examination which in
the -Stichus- of Plautus the father and his daughters institute into
the qualities of a good wife, the irrelevant question--whether it is
better to marry a virgin or a widow--is inserted, merely in order that
it may be answered by a no less irrelevant and, in the mouth of the
interlocutrix, altogether absurd commonplace against women. But that
is a trifle compared with the following specimen. In Menander's
-Plocium- a husband bewails his troubles to his friend:--

--Echo d' epikleron Lamian ouk eireka soi
Tout'; eit' ap' ouchi; kurian tes oikias
Kai ton agron kai panton ant' ekeines
Echoumen, Apollon, os chalepon chalepotaton
Apasi d' argalea 'stin, ouk emoi mono,
Tio polu mallon thugatri.--pragm' amachon legeis'
Eu oida--

In the Latin edition of Caecilius, this conversation, so elegant in
its simplicity, is converted into the following uncouth dialogue:--

-Sed tua morosane uxor quaeso est?--Ua! rogas?--
Qui tandem?--Taedet rientionis, quae mihi
Ubi domum adveni ac sedi, extemplo savium
Dat jejuna anima.--Nil peccat de savio:
Ut devomas volt, quod foris polaveris.-

26. Even when the Romans built stone theatres, these had not the
sounding-apparatus by which the Greek architects supported the efforts
of the actors (Vitruv. v. 5, 8).

27. III. XIII. Increase of Amusements

28. The personal notices of Naevius are sadly confused. Seeing that
he fought in the first Punic war, he cannot have been born later than
495. Dramas, probably the first, were exhibited by him in 519 (Gell.
xii. 21. 45). That he had died as early as 550, as is usually
stated, was doubted by Varro (ap. Cic. Brut. 15, 60), and certainly
with reason; if it were true, he must have made his escape during the
Hannibalic war to the soil of the enemy. The sarcastic verses on
Scipio (p. 150) cannot have been written bef