17.  The scanty use made of what is called the middle Attic comedy does not require notice in a historical point of view, since it was nothing but the Menandrian comedy in a less developed form.  There is no trace of any employment of the older comedy.  The Roman tragi-comedy—­after the type of the -Amphitruo- of Plautus—­was no doubt styled by the Roman literary historians -fabula Rhinthonica-; but the newer Attic comedians also composed such parodies, and it is difficult to see why the Ionians should have resorted for their translations to Rhinthon and the older writers rather than to those who were nearer to their own times.

18.  III.  Vi In Italy

19.  Bacch. 24; Trin. 609; True. iii. 2, 23.  Naevius also, who in fact was generally less scrupulous, ridicules the Praenestines and Lanuvini (Com. 21, Ribb.).  There are indications more than once of a certain variance between the Praenestines and Romans (Liv. xxiii. 20, xlii. i); and the executions in the time of Pyrrhus (ii. 18) as well as the catastrophe in that of Sulla, were certainly connected with this variance. —­Innocent jokes, such as Capt. 160, 881, of course passed uncensured. —­The compliment paid to Massilia in Cas. v. 4., i, deserves notice.

20.  Thus the prologue of the -Cistellaria- concludes with the following words, which may have a place here as the only contemporary mention of the Hannibalic war in the literature that has come down to us:—­

-Haec res sic gesta est.  Bene valete, et vincite
Virtute vera, quod fecistis antidhac;
Servate vostros socios, veteres et novos;
Augete auxilia vostris iustis legibus;
Perdite perduelles:  parite laudem et lauream
Ut vobis victi Poeni poenas sufferant.-

The fourth line (-augete auxilia vostris iustis Iegibus-) has reference to the supplementary payments imposed on the negligent Latin colonies in 550 (Liv. xxix. 15; see ii. 350).

21.  III.  XIII.  Increase of Amusements

22.  For this reason we can hardly be too cautious in assuming allusions on the part of Plautus to the events of the times.  Recent investigation has set aside many instances of mistaken acuteness of this sort; but might not even the reference to the Bacchanalia, which is found in Cas. v. 4, 11 (Ritschl, Parerg. 1. 192), have been expected to incur censure?  We might even reverse the case and infer from the notices of the festival of Bacchus in the -Casina-, and some other pieces (Amph. 703; Aul. iii. i, 3; Bacch. 53, 371; Mil.  Glor. 1016; and especially Men. 836), that these were written at a time when it was not yet dangerous to speak of the Bacchanalia.

23.  The remarkable passage in the -Tarentilla- can have no other meaning:—­

-Quae ego in theatro hic meis probavi plausibus, Ea non audere quemquam regem rumpere:  Quanto libertatem hanc hic superat servitus!-

24.  The ideas of the modern Hellas on the point of slavery are illustrated by the passage in Euripides (Ion, 854; comp.  Helena, 728):—­