upy nearly
that length of time (comp. Horat. Ep. ii. i, 189). The passage, in
which Tacitus (Ann. xiv. 20) makes the spectators spend "whole days"
in the theatre, refers to the state of matters at a later period.

Comedy

In the dramatic world comedy greatly preponderated over tragedy; the
spectators knit their brows, when instead of the expected comedy a
tragedy began. Thus it happened that, while this period exhibits
poets who devoted themselves specially to comedy, such as Plautus
and Caecilius, it presents none who cultivated tragedy alone; and
among the dramas of this epoch known to us by name there occur three
comedies for one tragedy. Of course the Roman comic poets, or rather
translators, laid hands in the first instance on the pieces which had
possession of the Hellenic stage at the time; and thus they found
themselves exclusively(17) confined to the range of the newer Attic
comedy, and chiefly to its best-known poets, Philemon of Soli in
Cilicia (394?-492) and Menander of Athens (412-462). This comedy came
to be of so great importance as regards the development not only of
Roman literature, but even of the nation at large, that even history
has reason to pause and consider it.

Character of the Newer Attic Comedy

The pieces are of tiresome monotony. Almost without exception the
plot turns on helping a young man, at the expense either of his father
or of some -leno-, to obtain possession of a sweetheart of undoubted
charms and of very doubtful morals. The path to success in love
regularly lies through some sort of pecuniary fraud; and the crafty
servant, who provides the needful sum and performs the requisite
swindling while the lover is mourning over his amatory and pecuniary
distresses, is the real mainspring of the piece. There is no want of
the due accompaniment of reflections on the joys and sorrows of love,
of tearful parting scenes, of lovers who in the anguish of their
hearts threaten to do themselves a mischief; love or rather amorous
intrigue was, as the old critics of art say, the very life-breath of
the Menandrian poetry. Marriage forms, at least with Menander, the
inevitable finale; on which occasion, for the greater edification
and satisfaction of the spectators, the virtue of the heroine usually
comes forth almost if not wholly untarnished, and the heroine herself
proves to be the lost daughter of some rich man and so in every
respect an eligible match. Along with these love-pieces