The Roman Drama.—While in the later and more developed stages of Roman literature the plastic influence of Greece is everywhere perceptible, in the earlier days there were original elements, devoid of polish indeed, but possessing the rude vigor that distinguished the nation. There was a sort of drama, for instance, native to Italy. It appeared in its primitive guise in the Fescennine[41] dialogues—metrical songs accompanied with rustic dances—which were long the delight of the mirth-loving Italian country-folk. When, however, the improvised jests and satires of these entertainments opened the door to malicious personal abuse, it was found necessary to prohibit libellous verses by law.
The merry songs called Saturæ (from the satura lanx, dish of various fruits offered to the gods) were brought upon the Roman stage in the fourth century B.C. A flute accompaniment and Etruscan actors, who through ignorance of the Roman language merely played the part of dancers and pantomimists, rendered the Saturæ highly attractive. At a later period, these medleys formed the afterpieces to regular dramas.
From the Oscan town Atella in Campa’nia, the so-called Atellane Fables derived their name—pieces with simple plots, that pictured ancient village-life in Italy, with its inevitable characters of the chatterbox, the sharper, and the long-eared glutton. It was no disgrace for young nobles, appropriately masked, to improvise the dialogue of the Atellane Fable, or sing the songs in Saturnian verse.
The regular Roman drama was a copy of the Greek, and first saw the light at the grand celebration over the downfall of Carthage, when (240 B.C.) a real tragedy and comedy were represented. Their author was
Livius Andronicus (about 285-204 B.C.), who fell into the hands of the Romans when his native city, Tarentum in southern Italy, submitted to their arms. Brought to their capital as a slave, he succeeded in obtaining his liberty and opened a school for his support. The wants of his pupils led him to translate Homer’s Odyssey into Latin; he thus not only provided the Roman schools with a text-book which held its place for centuries, but inspired the people generally with a strong desire to become acquainted with the Greek masterpieces, and gave a spur to the development of a national literature.
Andronicus was no less successful as a literary caterer, when he put upon the Roman stage his Latin versions of certain Greek plays; yet, though the public relished higher and more dignified dramatic performances than the Fescennines and Saturæ, they loved the latter too much to dispense with them entirely. The vulgar off-hand humor of the amateur actors in these performances was long exceedingly popular.
Andronicus had a rough theatre assigned him on the Aventine Mount. In accordance with the fashion of his day, he played entire parts without assistance, until an injury to his voice obliged him to delegate the recitative passages to a boy, who sung them to the accompaniment of the flute, while he made the appropriate gestures. Thus originated a custom which thereafter prevailed at Rome,—that of having two actors, one to declaim and the other to gesticulate.
Livius Andronicus kindled the first spark of literary ambition in Rome, and paved the way for her future progress in letters. He enjoyed the respect of his contemporaries, and was honored by succeeding generations, though Cicero pronounced his plays unworthy of a second reading. If we except a few doubtful lines, posterity knows his dramas only by their titles.
Cneius Nævius (269-204 B.C.), a Campanian by birth, after serving in the First Punic War, took up his residence at Rome and there made dramatic literature his profession. His first play was represented about 235 B.C.
The Greek dramatists furnished Nævius with the material for his tragedies and comedies, in the latter of which—better adapted to his genius, and therefore more original—he particularly excelled. Closing his eyes to the danger of satirizing the patrician houses, he fearlessly revived the personal attack of Aristophanes in his ridicule of Scipio and the Metelli. His lampoons directed against the latter cost him dear. The verse of the poet,—“It is fate, not merit, that has made the Metelli always consuls of Rome,”—stung them to the quick, and they procured his imprisonment. Nævius employed the time in writing comedies; and after his liberation, nowise daunted by his previous bad fortune, he let fly his shafts at the nobility as recklessly as ever. Rome could no longer tolerate him, and sent him forth from her gates to die in exile.