Saturn reigned in Italy, they were also called Fescennine, from Fescennia, a town in the same country, where they were first practised. The actors, with a gross and rustic kind of raillery, reproached each other with their failings; and at the same time were nothing sparing of it to their audience. Somewhat of this custom was afterwards retained in the Saturnalia, or feasts of Saturn, celebrated in December; at least all kind of freedom in speech was then allowed to slaves, even against their masters; and we are not without some imitation of it in our Christmas gambols. Soldiers also used those Fescennine verses, after measure and numbers had been added to them, at the triumph[Pg 53] of their generals: of which we have an example, in the triumph of Julius Cæsar over Gaul, in these expressions: Cæsar Gallias subegit, Nicomedes Cæsarem. Ecce Cæsar nunc triumphat, qui subegit Gallias: Nicomedes non triumphat, qui subegit Cæsarem. The vapours of wine made those first satirical poets amongst the Romans; which, says Dacier, we cannot better represent, than by imagining a company of clowns on a holiday, dancing lubberly, and upbraiding one another, in extempore doggrel, with their defects and vices, and the stories that were told of them in bake houses and barbers' shops. [Pg 53] When they began to be somewhat better bred, and were entering, as I may say, into the first rudiments of civil conversation, they left these hedge-notes for another sort of poem, somewhat polished, which was also full of pleasant raillery, but without any mixture of obscenity. This sort of poetry appeared under the name of satire, because of its variety; and this satire was adorned with compositions of music, and with dances; but lascivious postures were banished from it. In the Tuscan language, says Livy, the word hister signifies a player; and therefore those actors, which were first brought from Etruria to Rome, on occasion of a pestilence, when the Romans were admonished to avert the anger of the Gods by plays, in the year ab urbe condita CCCXC.,—those actors, I say, were therefore called histriones; and that name has since remained, not only to actors Roman born, but to all others of every nation. They played not the former extempore stuff of Fescennine verses, or clownish jests; but what they acted was a kind of civil, cleanly farce, with music and dances, and motions that were proper to the subject. CCCXC. In this condition Livius Andronicus found the stage, when he attempted first, instead of farces, to[Pg 54] supply it with a nobler entertainment of tragedies and comedies. This man was
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