remaining give no distinct impression, but they are not
inconsistent with what the Roman critics of art remark regarding
him. His numerous national comedies were in their construction
thoroughly formed on the model of the Greek intrigue-piece; only,
as was natural in imitation, they were simpler and shorter. In the
details also he borrowed what pleased him partly from Menander,
partly from the older national literature. But of the Latin local
tints, which are so distinctly marked in Titinius the creator of
this species of art, we find not much in Afranius;(8) his subjects
retain a very general character, and may well have been throughout
imitations of particular Greek comedies with merely an alteration
of costume. A polished eclecticism and adroitness in composition--
literary allusions not unfrequently occur--are characteristic of
him as of Terence: the moral tendency too, in which his pieces
approximated to the drama, their inoffensive tenor in a police
point of view, their purity of language are common to him with the
latter. Afranius is sufficiently indicated as of a kindred spirit
with Menander and Terence by the judgment of posterity that he wore
the -toga- as Menander would have worn it had he been an Italian,
and by his own expression that to his mind Terence surpassed
all other poets.

Atellanae

The farce appeared afresh at this period in the field of Roman
literature. It was in itself very old:(9) long before Rome arose,
the merry youths of Latium may have improvised on festal occasions
in the masks once for all established for particular characters.
These pastimes obtained a fixed local background in the Latin
"asylum of fools," for which they selected the formerly Oscan
town of Atella, which was destroyed in the Hannibalic war and
was thereby handed over to comic use; thenceforth the name of
"Oscan plays" or "plays of Atella" was commonly used for these
exhibitions.(10) But these pleasantries had nothing to do with
the stage(11) and with literature; they were performed by amateurs
where and when they pleased, and the text was not written or at any
rate was not published. It was not until the present period that
the Atellan piece was handed over to actors properly so called,(12)
and was employed, like the Greek satyric drama, as an afterpiece
particularly after tragedies; a change which naturally suggested
the extension of literary activity to that field. Whether this
authorship developed itsel