Roman Comedy
Its Hellenism a Necessary Result of the Law

Such were the foundations, and such the elements which shaped the growth, of Roman comedy.  Originality was in its case excluded not merely by want of aesthetic freedom, but in the first instance, probably, by its subjection to police control.  Among the considerable number of Latin comedies of this sort which are known to us, there is not one that did not announce itself as an imitation of a definite Greek model; the title was only complete when the names of the Greek piece and of its author were also given, and if, as occasionally happened, the “novelty” of a piece was disputed, the question was merely whether it had been previously translated.  Comedy laid the scene of its plot abroad not only frequently, but regularly and under the pressure of necessity; and that species of art derived its special name (-fabula palliata-) from the fact, that the scene was laid away from Rome, usually in Athens, and thai the -dramatis personae- were Greeks or at any rate not Romans.  The foreign costume is strictly carried out even in detail, especially in those things in which the uncultivated Roman was distinctly sensible of the contrast, Thus the names of Rome and the Romans are avoided, and, where they are referred to, they are called in good Greek “foreigners” (-barbari-); in like manner among the appellations of moneys and coins, that occur ever so frequently, there does not once appear a Roman coin.  We form a strange idea of men of so great and so versatile talents as Naevius and Plautus, if we refer such things to their free choice:  this strange and clumsy “exterritorial” character of Roman comedy was undoubtedly due to causes very different from aesthetic considerations.  The transference of such social relations, as are uniformly delineated in the new Attic comedy, to the Rome of the Hannibalic period would have been a direct outrage on its civic order and morality.  But, as the dramatic spectacles at this period were regularly given by the aediles and praetors who were entirely dependent on the senate, and even extraordinary festivals, funeral games for instance, could not take place without permission of the government; and as the Roman police, moreover, was not in the habit of standing on ceremony in any case, and least of all in dealing with the comedians; the reason is self-evident why this comedy, even after it was admitted as one of the Roman national amusements, might still bring no Roman upon the stage, and remained as it were banished to foreign lands.

Political Neutrality

The compilers were still more decidedly prohibited from naming any living person in terms either of praise or censure, as well as from any captious allusion to the circumstances of the times.  In the whole repertory of the Plautine and post-Plautine comedy, there is not, so far as we know, matter for a single action of damages.  In like manner—­if we leave out of view some wholly harmless jests—­we