Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/430

410 D E A M A [ROMAN. the Saturnian metre) it was left to the performers to Improvise, In course of time these plays also assumed a literary form, being written out at length by their authors ; but under the empire they were gradually absorbed in the pantomimes. rigin of The regular Roman drama, on the other hand, was of ie regular foreign (i.e., Greek) origin ; and its early history, at all nau events, attaches itself to more or less fixed dates. It begins with the year 240 B.C., when at the ludi Romani, held with unusual splendour after the first Punic war, the victory was, according to Macedonian precedent, celebrated by the first production of a tragedy and a comedy on the Roman stage. The author of both, who appeared in person as an actor, was Livius Andronicus (b. 278 or earlier), a native of the Greek city of Tarentum, where the Dionysiac festivals enjoyed high popularity. His models were in tragedy the later Greek tragedians and their revisions of the three great Attic masters, in comedy no doubt Menauder aud his school. These continued the examples of the regular Roman drama during the whole of its course, even when it resorted to native themes. listory of The nature of Roman tragedy admits of no doubt, Loaiau although our conclusions respecting its earlier progress are ag<*.} - on |y derived from analogy, from scattered notices especially of the titles of plays, and from such fragments mostly very brief as have come down to us. Of the known titles of the tragedies of Livius Andronicus, six belong to the Trojan cycle, and this preference consistently maintained itself among the tragedians of the "Trojugense ; " next iu popularity seem to have been the myths of the house of Tantalus, of the Pelopidae, and of the Argonauts. The distinctions drawn by later Roman writers between the styles of the tragic poets of the republican period must in general be taken on trust. The Campanian Cn. Nsevius (n. from 236) wrote comedies as well as tragedies, -so that the rigorous separation observed among the Greeks in the cultivation of the two dramatic species was at first neglected at Roins. His realistic tendency, displayed in that fond ness for political allusions which brought upon him the vengeance of a noble family (the Metelli) incapable of understanding a joke of this description, might perhape under more favourable circumstances have led him more fully to develop a new tragic species invented by him. But raitexta. thefabula prvetexta or pnetextata (from the purple-bordered robe worn by higher magistrates) was not destined to become the means of emancipating the Roman serious drama from the control of Greek examples. In design, it was national tragedy on historic subjects of patriotic interest which the Greeks had only treated in isolated instances ; and one might at first sight marvel why, after jNievius and his successors had produced skilful examples of the species, it should have failed to overshadow and outlast hi popularity a tragedy telling the oft-told foreign tales of Thebes and Mycenae, or even the pseudo-ancestral story of Troy. But it should not be forgotten to how great an extent so-called early Roman history consisted of the tradi tions of the gentes, and how little the party-life of later republican Rome lent itself to a dramatic treatment likely to be acceptable both to the nobility and to the multitude. As for the emperors, the last licence they would have per mitted to the theatre was a free popular treatment of the national history ; if Augustus prohibited the publication of a tragedy by his adoptive father on the subject of (Edipus, it was improbable that he or his successors should have sanctioned the performance of plays dealing with the earthly fortunes of Divus Julius himself, or with the story of Marias, or that of the Gracchi, or any of the other tragic themes of later republican or imperial history. The historic drama at Rome thus had no opportunity for a vigorous life, even could tragedy have severed its main course from the Greek literature of which it has been well called a " free-hand copy." The prcetextce of which we know .chiefly treat possibly here and there helped ta form 1 legends of a hoary antiquity, or celebrate battles chronicled in family or public records ; 2 and in the end the species died a natural death. 3 Q. Ennuis (239-163), the favourite poet of the great Eimiui families, was qualified by his Tarentine education, which nis suc taught the Oscan youth the Greek as well as the Latin " :ors> tongue (so that he boasted " three souls "), to become the literary exponent of the Hellenizing tendencies of his age of Roman society. Nearly half of the extant names of his tragedies belong to the Trojan cycle ; and Euripides was clearly his favourite source and model. M. Pacuvius (b. c. 229), like Ennius subject from his youth up to the influences of Greek civilization, and the first Roman dramatist who devoted himself exclusively to the tragic drama, was the least fertile of the chief Roman tragedians, but was regarded by the ancients as indisputably superior to Ennius. He again was generally (though not uniformly) held to have been surpassed by L. Aceius (b. 170), a learned scholar and prolific dramatist, of whose plays 50 titles and a very large number of fragments have been pre served. The plays of the three last-named poets maintained themselves on the stage till the close of the republic ; and Aceius was quoted by the emperor Tiberius. 4 Of the other tragic writers of the republic several were dilettanti such as the great orator and eminent politician C. Julius Strabo ; the cultivated officer Q. Tullius Cicero, who made an attempt, disapproved by his illustrious brother, to introduce the satyr-drama into the Roman theatre ; L. Cornelius Balbus, a Ctesarean partisan; and finally C. Julius Caesar himself. Tragedy continued to be cultivated under the earlier emperors ; and of one author, the famous and ill- fated L. Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.-6D A.D.), a series of works Senec has come down to us. In accordance with the character of their author s prose-work, they exhibit a strong predominance of the rhetorical element, and a pomposity of style far removed from that of the poets Sophocles and Euripides, from whom Seneca derived his themes. The metrification of his plays is very strict, aud they were doubt less intended for recitation, whether or not also designed for the stage. A few tragic poets are mentioned after Seneca, till about the reign of Domitian (81-96) the list comes to an end. The close of Roman tragic literature is obscurer than its beginning ; and, while there are traces of tragic performances at Rome as late as even the 6th century, we are ignorant how long the works of the old masters of Roman tragedy maintained themselves on the stage. It would obviously be an error to draw from the plays of Char; Seneca unfortunately the only examples of Roman tragedy ^ tici we possess conclusions as to the method and style of the tr ",! , earlier writers. In general, however, no important changes seem to have occurred in the progress of Roman tragic com position. The later Greek plays remained, so far as can be gathered, the models in treatment; and inasmuch as at Rome the single plays were performed by themselves, there was every inducement to make their action as full and compli cated as possible. The dialogue-scenes (deverbia) appear to have been largely interspersed with musical passages (cantica) ; but the effect of the latter must have suffered from the barbarous custom of having the songs sung by 1 Nrcvius, Liqnis (The Wolf); Romulus; Ennius, Sabinuc (The Saline Women); Aceius, Brutus. 8 Nrcvius, Clastidium { Marcellus 1) ; Enuius, Arnbracia; 1 acuvius, Paulus ; Aecius, sEneadie (DeciusT,. 3 Balbus s Her ( The Mission), an isolated play on an episode of tl.ij Pharsalian campaign, seems to have been composed for the mere pri vate delectation of its author and hero. Octavia, a late prcctexto. ascribed to Seneca, was certainly not written by him.

4 " Oderint dum metuant" Atreiis.