that then existed, the
so-called Saturnian.(5) No distinct plot lay at the basis of the
chants, and as little do they appear to have been in the form of
dialogue. We must conceive of them as resembling those monotonous
--sometimes improvised, sometimes recited--ballads and -tarantelle-,
such as one may still hear in the Roman hostelries. Songs of this sort
accordingly early came upon the public stage, and certainly formed the
first nucleus of the Roman theatre. But not only were these beginnings
of the drama in Rome, as everywhere, modest and humble; they were, in
a remarkable manner, accounted from the very outset disreputable.
The Twelve Tables denounced evil and worthless song-singing, imposing
severe penalties not only upon incantations but even on lampoons
composed against a fellow-citizen or recited before his door, and
forbidding the employment of wailing-women at funerals. But far more
severely, than by such legal restrictions, the incipient exercise of
art was affected by the moral anathema, which was denounced against
these frivolous and paid trades by the narrowminded earnestness of
the Roman character. "The trade of a poet," says Cato, "in former
times was not respected; if any one occupied himself with it or was a
hanger-on at banquets, he was called an idler." But now any one who
practised dancing, music, or ballad-singing for money was visited
with a double stigma, in consequence of the more and more confirmed
disapproval of gaining a livelihood by services rendered for
remuneration. While accordingly the taking part in the masked
farces with stereotyped characters, that formed the usual native
amusement,(6) was looked upon as an innocent youthful frolic, the
appearing on a public stage for money and without a mask was
considered as directly infamous, and the singer and poet were in
this respect placed quite on a level with the rope-dancer and the
harlequin. Persons of this stamp were regularly pronounced by the
censors(7) incapable of serving in the burgess-army and of voting
in the burgess-assembly. Moreover, not only was the direction of the
stage regarded as pertaining to the province of the city police--a
fact significant enough even in itself--but the police was probably,
even at this period, invested with arbitrary powers of an
extraordinary character against professional stage-artists. Not only
did the police magistrates sit in judgment on the performance after
its conclusion--on which