jugglers' feats; the improvised chants, which
were produced on these occasions, had neither dialogue nor plot.(5)
It was only now that the Romans looked around them for a real drama.
The Roman popular festivals were throughout under the influence of
the Greeks, whose talent for amusing and for killing time naturally
rendered them purveyors of pleasure for the Romans. Now no national
amusement was a greater favourite in Greece, and none was more varied,
than the theatre; it could not but speedily attract the attention of
those who provided the Roman festivals and their staff of assistants.
The earlier Roman stage-chant contained within it a dramatic germ
capable perhaps of development; but to develop the drama from that
germ required on the part of the poet and the public a genial power
of giving and receiving, such as was not to be found among the Romans
at all, and least of all at this period; and, had it been possible to
find it, the impatience of those entrusted with the amusement of the
multitude would hardly have allowed to the noble fruit peace and
leisure to ripen. In this case too there was an outward want, which
the nation was unable to satisfy; the Romans desired a theatre, but
the pieces were wanting.

Rise of a Roman Literature

On these elements Roman literature was based; and its defective
character was from the first and necessarily the result of such
an origin. All real art has its root in individual freedom and a
cheerful enjoyment of life, and the germs of such an art were not
wanting in Italy; but, when Roman training substituted for freedom
and joyousness the sense of belonging to the community and the
consciousness of duty, art was stifled and, instead of growing, could
not but pine away. The culminating point of Roman development was the
period which had no literature. It was not till Roman nationality
began to give way and Hellenico-cosmopolite tendencies began to
prevail, that literature made its appearance at Rome in their train.
Accordingly from the beginning, and by stringent internal necessity,
it took its stand on Greek ground and in broad antagonism to the
distinctively Roman national spirit. Roman poetry above all had its
immediate origin not from the inward impulse of the poets, but from
the outward demands of the school, which needed Latin manuals, and of
the stage, which needed Latin dramas. Now both institutions--the
school and the stage--were thoroughly anti-Roman and revolut