Early Beginnings. The wellspring of Western drama, of course, was ancient Greece. From the start, Roman writers were fascinated by Greek tragedy and comedy, and they not only zealously translated these into Latin, but eventually began writing original plays of their own, based on these models. We know, for example, that Livius Andronicus (circa 284-204 B.C.E.) wrote both tragedies and comedies, and Titus Livius (known as Livy) tells us that he was the first Roman playwright to use actual plots for his onstage presentations. Gnaeus Naevius (circa 265-190 B.C.E.) not only based some of his Latin-language comedies on Greek originals (the so-called fabulae paliiatae), but also was the first Roman to write serious plays on topics drawn from Roman history (fabulae praetextae). It appears that he may also have written fabulae togatae, low comedies on Roman life. Another genre of low...