and fresh humour, which produces an irresistible comic effect with its happy jokes, its rich vocabulary of nicknames, its whimsical coinage of words, its pungent, often mimic, descriptions and situations—­excellences, in which we seem to recognize the former actor.  Undoubtedly the editor even in these respects retained what was successful in the originals rather than furnished contributions of his own.  Those portions of the pieces which can with certainty be traced to the translator are, to say the least, mediocre; but they enable us to understand why Plautus became and remained the true popular poet of Rome and the true centre of the Roman stage, and why even after the passing away of the Roman world the theatre has repeatedly reverted to his plays.

Caecilius

Still less are we able to form a special opinion as to the third and last—­for though Ennius wrote comedies, he did so altogether unsuccessfully—­comedian of note in this epoch, Statins Caecilius.  He resembled Plautus in his position in life and his profession.  Born in Cisalpine Gaul in the district of Mediolanum, he was brought among the Insubrian prisoners of war(33) to Rome, and earned a livelihood, first as a slave, afterwards as a freedman, by remodelling Greek comedies for the theatre down to his probably early death (586).  His language was not pure, as was to be expected from his origin; on the other hand, he directed his efforts, as we have already said,(34) to a more artistic construction of the plot.  His pieces experienced but a dull reception from his contemporaries, and the public of later times laid aside Caecilius for Plautus and Terence; and, if nevertheless the critics of the true literary age of Rome—­the Varronian and Augustan epoch—­assigned to Caecilius the first place among the Roman editors of Greek comedies, this verdict appears due to the mediocrity of the connoisseur gladly preferring a kindred spirit of mediocrity in the poet to any special features of excellence.  These art-critics probably took Caecilius under their wing, simply because he was more regular than Plautus and more vigorous than Terence; notwithstanding which he may very well have been far inferior to both.

Moral Result

If therefore the literary historian, while fully acknowledging the very respectable talents of the Roman comedians, cannot recognize in their mere stock of translations a product either artistically important or artistically pure, the judgment of history respecting its moral aspects must necessarily be far more severe.  The Greek comedy which formed its basis was morally so far a matter of indifference, as it was simply on the same level of corruption with its audience; but the Roman drama was, at this epoch when men were wavering between the old austerity and the new corruption, the academy at once of Hellenism and of vice.  This Attico-Roman comedy, with its prostitution of body and soul usurping the name of love—­equally immoral in shamelessness and in sentimentality—­with its offensive and unnatural generosity, with its uniform glorification of a life of debauchery, with its mixture of rustic coarseness and foreign refinement, was one continuous lesson of Romano-Hellenic demoralization, and was felt as such.  A proof of this is preserved in the epilogue of the -Captivi- of Plautus:—­