[93] Curculio, 337, etc.
[94] Cp. the proverbial 'taking the breeches off a Highlander,' and the lines in one of Burns' earliest songs—
'And then there's something in her gait
Gars ony dress look weel.'
CHAPTER VII.
Terence and the Comic Poets subsequent to Plautus.
The names of five or six comic dramatists are known, who fill the space of eighteen years between the death of Plautus and the representation of the earliest play of Terence, the 'Andria.' From one of these, Aquilius, some verses are quoted, which Varro did not hesitate to attribute to Plautus, and which Gellius characterises as 'Plautinissimi.' They are the words of a parasite, complaining of the invention of sun-dials as inconveniently retarding the dinner hour. Among these writers the most famous was Caecilius Statius, an Insubrian Gaul, first a slave, and afterwards a freedman of a member of the Caecilian house. He is said to have lived on terms of great intimacy with Ennius. His poetic career very nearly coincides with that of the epic and tragic poet, and he only survived him by one year. Some Roman critics ranked him above even Plautus as a comic poet. The line of Horace—
Vincere Caecilius gravitate, Terentius arte—
probably indicates the ground of their preference. He is said also to have been careful in the construction of his plots[1]. Cicero, who often quotes from him, speaks of him as having written a bad style[2]. He is also mentioned among those poets who 'powerfully moved the feelings.'