ROMAN DRAMA Early Dramatists.—The art of the drama was at Rome a res peregrina, and, according to Livy (vii. 2), took its rise from the performances of the Etruscan ludii who were summoned to Rome in 364 B.C. to avert by their dancing and playing the wrath of the gods who had sent a plague. Livy is, no doubt, following the accepted antiquarian view of contemporary scholars, such as Varro, and too much reliance must not be placed upon his details; but that Roman drama came under Etruscan influence at an early stage is proved by the Etruscan origin of the words hister (player), and (probably) persona (a player's mask). Rome had been in contact with the Italian Greeks much earlier than the middle of the 4th century and must have been aware through them of the existence of dramatic exhibitions; and the "Fescen nine verses" were germs out of which the art of dramatic repre sentation might have been developed. Further, the Oscan town of Atella from an early time had possessed (possibly under Greek influence) a rude native drama, afterwards developed at Rome into a distinctive form under the name of the fabula Atellana. Under the combined influence of the Etruscan ludii and the rude jesting of the Fescennine verses there developed (according to Livy) a form of drama called the satura, with full musical ac companiment by a flute and an appropriate style of acting : but the details of the development are obscure and the very exist ence of the dramatic satura is doubtful.
It was not till the Punic Wars that Rome possessed a regular drama. Livius Andronicus, a Greek captured at Tarentum and afterwards a schoolmaster at Rome, translated a Greek tragedy and comedy for production at the Roman games of 240 B.C. The titles of nine tragedies and three comedies of his survive ; the skill with which Greek metres are handled in his extant fragments, and the success with which the Latin language is adapted to their use, are so remarkable as to cause hesitation in accepting the cur rent view that he was absolutely the pioneer of verse translation from the Greek. His contemporary Cn. Naevius inclined more towards comedy than tragedy; we have the titles of 34 comedies of his as against seven tragedies : he was the first to choose as subjects for tragedies traditional Roman legends (e.g., Romulus) or contemporary events such as the battle of Clastidium (222 B.C.) : this type of tragedy was known as fabula praetextata. The fragments of his comedies contain references to contemporary life and manners worked into the framework of his Greek origi nal: one of his most famous comedies was the Tarentilla, which turned upon the adventures of two young men detected by their fathers living with two girls in Tarentum and haled back to respectability. Naevius thus pointed the way for the later type of comedy which found its subject matter in Roman (or Italian) life, the f abula togata. The work of the two pioneers was con tinued by Q. Ennius who was born in Calabria in 239 and lived till 169 B.C. We know by name only two comedies of his, but there are fragments of 22 tragedies, and two fabulae praetextatae. He seems to have been especially attracted by Euripides: his translation of the Medea was famous and his Andromache in Captivity was well known and appreciated as late as the time of Cicero.
Plautus and Terence.—After Ennius no one attempted both branches of the drama ; indeed the practice had already been abandoned by his elder contemporary T. Maccius Plautus, a na tive of Sarsina in Umbria, whose dramatic career began during the later years of the Second Punic War. Plautus confined him self to comedy, and is the great representative of the fabula palliata, the comedy translated or adapted from the Greek mas ters of the Middle or New Comedy, Menander, Philemon, Di philus and their fellows. Of the poet himself we know next to nothing: the only certain dates in his career are those of his death (184 B.e.) and of the production of the Stichus (200 B.C.) and the Pseudolus (1 91 B.c.) . The name Plautus may be a nick name ("flat-foot"), and Maccius may be derived from the name of one of the stock characters in the Tabula Atellana (v. infra) in which he may have appeared during his youth. The details of his life given by later writers are either inventions or infer ences, or modelled upon stories in Greek biographies. The twenty complete comedies which we possess along with the Vidularia, extant only in fragments, were all that Varro recognized as gen uine out of the 13o attributed to Plautus in his day (hence known as the fabulae Varronianae). Besides these we have insignificant fragments of 32 of the plays rejected by Varro. Of the pro logues to the extant plays some are certainly (and all may be) post-Plautine.
Though Plautus invariably adapted a Greek original he pre served his independence, fitting in upon occasion scenes from other plays where they served his purpose (a method known to subsequent critics as contaminatio) : he introduced quite freely allusions to Roman legal procedure, manners and customs ; he abandoned the previous convention with regard to the metres of dialogue ; his boisterous humour breaks through the artistic restraint imposed by tradition upon his Greek masters. One of the greatest masters of the Latin language, Plautus riots and gambols in dialogues in which everything is sacrificed to the desire to raise a laugh : but the nimbleness and suppleness of his diction are extraordinary. His high spirits and his mastery of dialogue remained unique in Roman comedy.
Plautus's younger contemporary, Statius Caecilius, who died in 168 was by some later critics regarded as the chief of Roman comedians. Mastery of plot and grauitas were regarded as his principal merits ; following the advice of his friend Ennius he avoided contaminatio. His chief model was Menander, to whom he owed the plots of i6 out of his 42 known comedies, and his fragments show that (in spite of Cicero's mains latinitatis auctor est) he had caught something of Menander's happy brevity. A new movement which roused the hostility of the dominant school of comedy was represented by P. Terentius Afer, who, coming to Rome from Carthage as a slave, became a literary friend of Scipio and his circle and died at an early age in 1S9 B.C. Of Ter ence's six plays the first (the Andria) was produced in 166 B.e., and the last (the Adelphi) in 16o B.C. Terence avoided the boister ous mirth of his predecessors, and lacks the rich vocabulary of Plautus : he excelled in the portrayal of character : his style is choice and correct without formality : he avoids the anachronisms and carelessness of Plautus, and simplifies his medium by confining himself practically to two metres and by omitting the lyrical pas sages in irregular verse known as cantica. His prologues wage war upon the popular taste and the views of his critics. Without the strength and vigour of Plautus, Terence is superior to him in dramatic construction and deftness of phrase, and became the acknowledged model of cultivated Latin speech. After Terence the comedy modelled upon Greek originals declined ; amid a num ber of writers Sextus Turpilius who died in 103 B.C., alone deserves mention. He represents the extreme reaction from the fine cor rectness of Terence to the vocabulary of the crowd. But the public taste was turning to other forms of comedy, though palliatae continued to be produced and earlier plays were re vived and imitated. It is to this period that many of the plays afterwards attributed to Plautus can be assigned, including (per haps) the Asinaria.
Later Developments.—Roman tragedy after Ennius was con tinued by his nephew and pupil M. Pacuvius, born at Brundisium about the beginning of the Second Punic War. He was regarded down to the time of Quintilian as the chief Roman tragedian, though Cicero finds fault with his style. We possess fragments of one praetextata and 13 tragedies modelled on the Greek. His plays continued to be performed till the first century A.D., the most famous being the Teucer, the Antiopa and the Niptra, parts of which Cicero preferred to Sophocles's play on the same sub ject. Pacuvius's metre conformed closely to Greek models, and he was noted for his copious, flowing style and his love for com pounds, and unusual grammatical forms. His technical compe tence was contrasted by later critics with the spirited and lofty genius of L. Accius (born 17o B.e.), whom Ovid seems to have rated higher than Pacuvius. Fragments survive of 43 of his tragedies and of two praetextatae. His plays cover the whole of Greek mythology and his favourite master is Sophocles. His first tragedy, the Atreus, was produced in 139 and, though Pacu vius, to whom it was read, found it somewhat harsh and immature in spite of its stately and sonorous style, it remained a favourite acting piece. His style shows the influence of rhetoric, and he provided models for more than one of Seneca's plays. Quintilian considered him a master of dialectic.
By the last century B.C. the comedy borrowed from Greece was supplanted by the fabula togata, the subject of which was the life of country towns and obscure people. Its chief writers were the plebeian Titinius, a younger contemporary of Terence. T. Quinctius Atta (d. 77 B.c.) and L. Afranius (b. about i 5o B.c.). The last brought the togatae to the highest finish and his plays were popular till the Augustan Age. Sulla's predilection for the fabula Atellana gave it a vogue during the same century. These farces originally dealt with stock characters (Maccus, the simpleton, Pappus, the old fellow, Dossennus, hunchback, etc.), but later were assimilated to the fabula togata. The same cen tury witnessed the rise of the mimus, which by the time of Cicero had ousted the Atellana as an exodium. The principal writers of these, generally licentious, plays were Dec. Laberius and his contemporary Publilius Syrus, a liberated slave from Antioch ; the fame of the latter rests mainly on the collections, dating from the second century A.D., of sententiae or pithy say ings from his works.
During this century the tragedies of the earlier masters were frequently reproduced, but there was no tragedian of repute until the reign of Nero, when Seneca composed his tragedies, whether for the theatre or not is uncertain. He borrowed freely from his predecessors, Greek and Latin, and produced nine tragedies, in which plot and character were subordinated to declamation and expositions of Stoic morality: but as models of tragic composition they long exercised great influence. The praetextata entitled Octavia which is included in the list of his plays is of later date.
Production of Plays.—The early Roman drama laboured under great restrictions: plays were produced only at the great festivals, such as the ludi Romani, the Megalesia, etc., or at funerals, triumphs and dedications of temples. The theatre was a temporary structure of wood and for long no seats were per mitted. An attempt in 154 B.C. to build a stone theatre was pre vented by the consul Scipio Nasica: Pompey's stone theatre was not built till S5 B.C. : though wooden seats for the spectators had been provided a century before. There were three stock changes of scene, and the only music was provided by a flute player (tibicen). At first authors acted in their own plays but later a manager (such as Ambivius Turpio who produced for Terence) with a troupe of actors (grex) brought out the play, engaging their services to the magistrate who had charge of the festival. These actors were generally slaves, though the Atellan farces were for long produced by freeborn citizens : in course of time (however) great actors like Roscius and Aesopus had a certain social position, though the actor in a mime (planipes) was despised until Imperial times.
the ordinary lexica and histories of litera ture, the following may be consulted: Ribbeck (0.) Scaeas. Rom. Poesis Fragm. (Leipzig, 1871) ; Die Rom. Tragddie (Leipzig, 1875) ; Legrand (F.) Daos (Paris, 191o) ; Michaut (G.) Histoire de la Conredie romaine iii. (Paris, 1912) ; Dieterich (A.) Pulcinella (Leipzig, 1897) ; Leo (F.) Plautinische Forschungen (Berlin, 1895) ; Frankel (F.) Plautin isches im Plautus (Berlin, 1912) ; Reich (H.) Der Mimus (Berlin, 1903) ; Norwood (G.) The Art of Terence (Oxford, 1923) ; Hermann (L.) Le Theatre de Seneque (Paris, 1924). See also CLASSICS ; LATIN LITERATURE ; THEATRE. (R. M. HE.)