roduced good and bad pieces without selection; that they were
subject and subordinate both to the police and to the public; that
they were as indifferent to aesthetical requirements as their
audience, and to please the latter, lowered the originals to a
farcical and vulgar tone--are objections which apply rather to the
whole manufacture of translations than to the individual remodeller.
On the other hand we may regard as characteristic of Plautus, the
masterly handling of the language and of the varied rhythms, a rare
skill in adjusting and working the situation for dramatic effect,
the almost always clever and often excellent dialogue, and, above all,
a broad and fresh humour, which produces an irresistible comic effect
with its happy jokes, its rich vocabulary of nicknames, its whimsical
coinage of words, its pungent, often mimic, descriptions and
situations--excellences, in which we seem to recognize the former
actor. Undoubtedly the editor even in these respects retained what
was successful in the originals rather than furnished contributions
of his own. Those portions of the pieces which can with certainty
be traced to the translator are, to say the least, mediocre; but they
enable us to understand why Plautus became and remained the true
popular poet of Rome and the true centre of the Roman stage, and
why even after the passing away of the Roman world the theatre has
repeatedly reverted to his plays.

Caecilius

Still less are we able to form a special opinion as to the third
and last--for though Ennius wrote comedies, he did so altogether
unsuccessfully--comedian of note in this epoch, Statins Caecilius. He
resembled Plautus in his position in life and his profession. Born in
Cisalpine Gaul in the district of Mediolanum, he was brought among the
Insubrian prisoners of war(33) to Rome, and earned a livelihood, first
as a slave, afterwards as a freedman, by remodelling Greek comedies
for the theatre down to his probably early death (586). His language
was not pure, as was to be expected from his origin; on the other
hand, he directed his efforts, as we have already said,(34) to a more
artistic construction of the plot. His pieces experienced but a dull
reception from his contemporaries, and the public of later times laid
aside Caecilius for Plautus and Terence; and, if nevertheless the
critics of the true literary age of Rome--the Varronian and Augustan
epoch--assigned to Caecilius the first place among the