a lyric, epic, and dramatic art; and it is
of great importance, even in a historical point of view, to trace
this poetical development.

Drama
Theatre

Both as respects extent of production and influence over the public,
the drama stood at the head of the poetry thus developed in Rome. In
antiquity there was no permanent theatre with fixed admission-money;
in Greece as in Rome the drama made its appearance only as an element
in the annually-recurring or extraordinary amusements of the citizens.
Among the measures by which the government counteracted or imagined
that they counteracted that extension of the popular festivals which
they justly regarded with anxiety, they refused to permit the erection
of a stone building for a theatre.(10) Instead of this there was
erected for each festival a scaffolding of boards with a stage for
the actors (-proscaenium-, -pulpitum-) and a decorated background
(-scaena-); and in a semicircle in front of it was staked off the
space for the spectators (-cavea-), which was merely sloped without
steps or seats, so that, if the spectators had not chairs brought
along with them, they squatted, reclined, or stood.(11) The women
were probably separated at an early period, and were restricted to
the uppermost and worst places; otherwise there was no distinction of
places in law till 560, after which, as already mentioned,(12) the
lowest and best positions were reserved for the senators.

Audience

The audience was anything but genteel. The better classes, it is
true, did not keep aloof from the general recreations of the people;
the fathers of the city seem even to have been bound for decorum's
sake to appear on these occasions. But the very nature of a burgess
festival implied that, while slaves and probably foreigners also were
excluded, admittance free of charge was given to every burgess with
his wife and children;(13) and accordingly the body of spectators
cannot have differed much from what one sees in the present day at
public fireworks and -gratis- exhibitions. Naturally, therefore, the
proceedings were not too orderly; children cried, women talked and
shrieked, now and then a wench prepared to push her way to the stage;
the ushers had on these festivals anything but a holiday, and found
frequent occasion to confiscate a mantle or to ply the rod.

The introduction of the Greek drama increased the demands on the
dramatic staff, and there seems to have been no redundance in the