ionary.
The gaping and staring idleness of the theatre was an abomination to
the sober earnestness and the spirit of activity which animated the
Roman of the olden type; and--inasmuch as it was the deepest and
noblest conception lying at the root of the Roman commonwealth, that
within the circle of Roman burgesses there should be neither master
nor slave, neither millionnaire nor beggar, but that above all a like
faith and a like culture should characterize all Romans--the school
and the necessarily exclusive school-culture were far more dangerous
still, and were in fact utterly destructive of the sense of equality.
The school and the theatre became the most effective levers in the
hands of the new spirit of the age, and all the more so that they used
the Latin tongue. Men might perhaps speak and write Greek and yet not
cease to be Romans; but in this case they accustomed themselves to
speak in the Roman language, while the whole inward being and life
were Greek. It is not one of the most pleasing, but it is one of the
most remarkable and in a historical point of view most instructive,
facts in this brilliant era of Roman conservatism, that during its
course Hellenism struck root in the whole field of intellect not
immediately political, and that the -maitre de plaisir- of the
great public and the schoolmaster in close alliance created
a Roman literature.

Livius Andronicus

In the very earliest Roman author the later development appears, as it
were, in embryo. The Greek Andronikos (from before 482, till after
547), afterwards as a Roman burgess called Lucius(6) Livius
Andronicus, came to Rome at an early age in 482 among the other
captives taken at Tarentum(7) and passed into the possession of the
conqueror of Sena(8) Marcus Livius Salinator (consul 535, 547). He
was employed as a slave, partly in acting and copying texts, partly in
giving instruction in the Latin and Greek languages, which he taught
both to the children of his master and to other boys of wealthy
parents in and out of the house. He distinguished himself so much in
this way that his master gave him freedom, and even the authorities,
who not unfrequently availed themselves of his services--commissioning
him, for instance, to prepare a thanksgiving-chant after the fortunate
turn taken by the Hannibalic war in 547--out of regard for him
conceded to the guild of poets and actors a place for their common
worship in the temple of Minerva on the Aventi