FullReads

6. THE LATIN COMEDY.

To omit nothing essential which concerns this part, we shall say a word of the Latin comedy. When the arts passed from Greece to Rome, comedy took its turn among the rest; but the Romans applied themselves only to the new species, without chorus or personal abuse; though, perhaps, they might have played some translations of the old or the middle comedy; for Pliny gives an account of one which was represented in his own time. But the Roman comedy, which was modelled upon the last species of the Greek, hath, nevertheless, its different ages, according as its authors were rough or polished. The pieces of Livius Andronicus[19], more ancient, and less refined than those of the writers who learned the art from him, may be said to compose the first age, or the old Roman comedy and tragedy. To him you must join Nevius, his contemporary, and Ennius, who lived some years after him. The second age comprises Pacuvius, Cecilius, Accius, and Plautus, unless it shall be thought better to reckon Plautus with Terence, to make the third and highest age of the Latin comedy, which may properly be called the new comedy, especially with regard to Terence, who was the friend of Lelius, and the faithful copier of Menander.

But the Romans, without troubling themselves with this order of succession, distinguished their comedies by the dresses[20] of the players. The robe, called praetexta, with large borders of purple, being the formal dress of magistrates in their dignity, and in the exercise of their office, the actors, who had this dress, gave its name to the comedy. This is the same with that called trabeata[21], from trabea, the dress of the consuls in peace, and the generals in triumph. The second species introduced the senators, not in great offices, but as private men; this was called togata, from toga. The last species was named tabernaria, from the tunick, or the common dress of the people, or rather from the mean houses which were painted on the scene. There is no need of mentioning the farces, which took their name and original from Atella, an ancient town of Campania, in Italy, because they differed from the low comedy only by greater licentiousness; nor of those which were called palliates, from the Greek, a cloak, in which the Greek characters were dressed upon the Roman stage, because that habit only distinguished the nation, not the dignity or character, like those which have been mentioned before. To say truth, these are but trifling distinctions; for, as we shall show in the following pages, comedy may be more usefully and judiciously distinguished by the general nature of its subjects. As to the Romans, whether they had, or had not, reason for these names, they have left us so little upon the subject, which is come down to us, that we need not trouble ourselves with a distinction which affords us no solid satisfaction. Plautus and Terence, the only authors of whom we are in possession, give us a fuller notion of the real nature of their comedy, with respect, at least, to their own times, than can be received from names and terms, from which we have no real exemplification.

7. THE GREEK COMEDY IS REDUCED ONLY TO ARISTOPHANES.

Not to go too far out of our way, let us return to Aristophanes, the only poet, in whom we can now find the Greek comedy. He is the single writer whom the violence of time has, in some degree, spared, after having buried in darkness, and almost in forgetfulness, so many great men, of whom we have nothing but the names and a few fragments, and such slight memorials, as are scarcely sufficient to defend them against the enemies of the honour of antiquity; yet these memorials are like the last glimmer of the setting sun, which scarce affords us a weak and fading light; yet from this glimmer we must endeavour to collect rays of sufficient strength to form a picture of the Greek comedy, approaching as near as possible to the truth.