Tenebræ conduplicantur, noctisque et nimbûm occæcat nigror;
Flamma inter nubes coruscat, cœlum tonitru contremit,
Grando, mista imbri largifluo, subita turbine præcipitans cadit;
Undique omnes venti erumpunt, sævi existunt turbines,
Fervet æstu Pelagus.” ——
Such lines, however, as these, it must be confessed, are more appropriate in epic, or descriptive poetry, than in tragedy.
It does not appear that the tragedies of Pacuvius had much success or popularity in his own age. He was obliged to have recourse for his subjects to foreign mythology and unknown history. Iphigenia and Orestes were always more or less strangers to a Roman audience, and the whole drama in which these and similar personages figured, never attained in Rome to a healthy and perfect existence. Comedy, on the other hand, addressed itself to the feelings of all. There were prodigal sons, avaricious fathers, and rapacious courtezans, in Rome as well as in Greece[340]. But it requires a certain cultivation of mind and tenderness of heart to enjoy the representation of a regular tragedy. The plebeians thronged to the theatre for the sake of merriment, and the patricians were still too much occupied with the projects of their own ambition, to weep over the woes of Antigone or Electra.
Pacuvius, accordingly, had fewer imitators than Plautus. Indeed, for a long period he had none of much note, except