independence (210), the _Atellanae_ had been transplanted to Rome. Here
the heavy father or husband (_pappus_), the ass-eared glutton
(_maccus_), the full-cheeked, voracious chatterbox (_bucco_), and the
wily sharper (_dorsenus_) became accepted comic types, and, with others
of a similar kind, were handed down, to reappear in the modern Italian
drama. In these characters lay the essence of the _Atellanae_: their
plots were extremely simple; the dialogue (perhaps interspersed with
songs in the Saturnian metre) was left to the performers to improvise.
In course of time these plays assumed a literary form, being elaborated
as after-pieces by Lucius Pomponius of Bononia, Novius and other
authors; but under the Empire they were gradually absorbed in the
pantomimes.

Origin of the regular Roman drama.

The regular, as distinct from the popular, Roman drama, on the other
hand, was of foreign (i.e. Greek) origin; and its early history, at all
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, its victorious conclusion was, in accordance
with 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, we may feel sure, Menander and his school. Greek
examples continued to dominate the regular Roman drama during the whole
of its course, even when it resorted to native themes.

History of Roman tragedy.

Praetexta.

The main features of Roman tragedy admit of no doubt, although our
conclusions respecting its earlier progress are only 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 "Trojugenae"; next in 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