. In general, the main features of the
_palliatae_, which were divided into five acts, are those of the New
Comedy of Athens, like which they had no chorus; for purposes of
explanation from author to audience the prologue sufficed; the Roman
versions were probably terser than their originals, which they often
altered by the process called _contamination_.

Togatae.

The _togatae_, in the wider sense of the term, included all Roman plays
of native origin--among the rest, the _praetextae_, in contradistinction
to which and to the transient species of the _trabeatae_ (from the dress
of the knights) the comedies dealing with the life of the lower classes
were afterwards called _tabernariae_ (from _taberna_, a shop), a name
suited by some of their extant titles,[84] while others point to the
treatment of provincial scenes.[85] The _togata_, which was necessarily
more realistic than the _palliata_, and doubtless fresher as well as
coarser in tone, flourished in Roman literature between 170 and 80 B.C.
In this species Titinius, all whose plays bear Latin titles and were
_tabernariae_, was succeeded by the more refined L. Afranius, who,
though still choosing natural subjects, seems to have treated them in
the spirit of Menander. His plays continued to be performed under the
empire, though with an admixture of elements derived from that lower
species, the pantomime, to which they also were in the end to succumb.
The Romans likewise adopted the burlesque kind of comedy called from its
inventor _Rhinthonica_, and by other names (see above). But with them,
the general course of the drama, which with the Greeks lost itself in
the sand, could not fail to be merged into the flood.

The Roman theatre.

The end of Roman dramatic literature was dilettantism and criticism; the
end of the Roman drama was spectacle and show, buffoonery and sensual
allurement. It was for this that the theatre had passed through all its
early troubles, when the political puritanism of the old school had
upheld the martial games of the circus against the enervating influence
of the stage. In those days the guardians of Roman virtue had sought to
diminish the attractions of the theatre by insisting upon its remaining
as uncomfortable as possible; but as was usual at Rome, the privileges
of the upper orders were at last extended to the population at large,
though a separation of classes continued to be characteristic of a Roman
audience. The first pe