into action in the primitive
popular carnival, the comic dance or -satura-,(5) which beyond
doubt reached back to a period anterior to the separation of the
stocks. On such occasions song would never be wanting; and the
circumstances under which such pastimes were exhibited, chiefly
at public festivals and marriages, as well as the mainly practical
shape which they certainly assumed, naturally suggested that several
dancers, or sets of dancers, should take up reciprocal parts;
so that the singing thus came to be associated with a species of
acting, which of course was chiefly of a comical and often of a
licentious character. In this way there arose not merely alternative
chants, such as afterwards went by the name of Fescennine songs, but
also the elements of a popular comedy--which were in this instance
planted in a soil admirably adapted for their growth, as an acute
sense of the outward and the comic, and a delight in gesticulation
and masquerade have ever been leading traits of Italian character.

No remains have been preserved of these -incunabula- of the Roman
epos and drama. That the ancestral lays were traditional is
self-evident, and is abundantly demonstrated by the fact that they
were regularly recited by children; but even in the time of Cato
the Elder they had completely passed into oblivion. The comedies
again, if it be allowable so to name them, were at this period and
long afterwards altogether improvised. Consequently nothing of
this popular poetry and popular melody could be handed down but
the measure, the accompaniment of music and choral dancing, and
perhaps the masks.

Metre

Whether what we call metre existed in the earlier times is doubtful;
the litany of the Arval Brethren scarcely accommodates itself to
an outwardly fixed metrical system, and presents to us rather the
appearance of an animated recitation. On the other hand we find in
subsequent times a very ancient rhythm, the so-called Saturnian(6)
or Faunian metre, which is foreign to the Greeks, and may be
conjectured to have arisen contemporaneously with the oldest Latin
popular poetry. The following poem, belonging, it is true, to a
far later age, may give an idea of it:--

Quod re sua difeidens--aspere afleicta

Parens timens heic vovit--voto hoc soluto
___
Decuma facta poloucta--leibereis lubentis
____ _____
Donu danunt__hercolei--maxsume--mereto
_____
Semol te orant se voti--crebro