ns himself at the theatre
not with the piece, but only with its artistic representation.
Moreover the Roman histrionic art oscillated in its different spheres,
just like the French, between the cottage and the drawing-room.
It was nothing unusual for the Roman dancing-girls to throw off
at the finale the upper robe and to give a dance in undress
for the benefit of the public; but on the other hand in the eyes
of the Roman Talma the supreme law of his art was, not the truth
of nature, but symmetry.

Metrical Annals

In recitative poetry metrical annals after the model of those
of Ennius seem not to have been wanting; but they were perhaps
sufficiently criticised by that graceful vow of his mistress
of which Catullus sings--that the worst of the bad heroic poems
should be presented as a sacrifice to holy Venus, if she would only
bring back her lover from his vile political poetry to her arms.

Lucretius

Indeed in the whole field of recitative poetry at this epoch
the older national-Roman tendency is represented only by a single work
of note, which, however, is altogether one of the most important
poetical products of Roman literature. It is the didactic poem
of Titus Lucretius Carus (655-699) "Concerning the Nature of Things,"
whose author, belonging to the best circles of Roman society,
but taking no part in public life whether from weakness of health
or from disinclination, died in the prime of manhood shortly before
the outbreak of the civil war. As a poet he attached himself
decidedly to Ennius and thereby to the classical Greek literature.
Indignantly he turns away from the "hollow Hellenism" of his time,
and professes himself with his whole soul and heart to be the scholar
of the "chaste Greeks," as indeed even the sacred earnestness
of Thucydides has found no unworthy echo in one of the best-known
sections of this Roman poem. As Ennius draws his wisdom
from Epicharmus and Euhemerus, so Lucretius borrows the form
of his representation from Empedocles, "the most glorious
treasure of the richly gifted Sicilian isle"; and, as to the matter,
gathers "all the golden words together from the rolls of Epicurus,"
"who outshines other wise men as the sun obscures the stars."
Like Ennius, Lucretius disdains the mythological lore with which
poetry was overloaded by Alexandrinism, and requires nothing
from his reader but a knowledge of the legends generally current.(16)
In spite of the modern purism which rejected for