Andronicus, which were imitations of the Greek, were also imitations of their railleries, and reflections on particular persons. For, if this be granted me, which is a most probable supposition, it is easy to infer, that the first light which was given to the Roman theatrical satire, was from the plays of Livius Andronicus; which will be more manifestly discovered, when I come to speak of Ennius. In the meantime I will return to Dacier.

CCCCCXIV.

[Pg 55]

The people, says he, ran in crowds to these new entertainments of Andronicus, as to pieces which were more noble in their kind, and more perfect than their former satires, which for some time they neglected and abandoned. But not long after, they took them up again, and then they joined them to their comedies; playing them at the end of every drama, as the French continue at this[Pg 56] day to act their farces, in the nature of a separate entertainment from their tragedies. But more particularly they were joined to the Atellane fables, says Casaubon; which were plays invented by the Osci. Those fables, says Valerius Maximus, out of Livy, were tempered with the Italian severity, and free from any note of infamy, or obsceneness; and, as an old commentator of Juvenal affirms, the Exodiarii, which were singers and dancers, entered to entertain the people with light songs, and mimical gestures, that they might not go away oppressed with melancholy, from those serious pieces of the theatre. So that the ancient satire of the Romans was in extempore reproaches; the next was farce, which was brought from Tuscany; to that succeeded the plays of Andronicus, from the old comedy of the Grecians; and out of all these sprung two several branches of new Roman satire, like different scions from the same root, which I shall prove with as much brevity as the subject will allow.

[Pg 56]

A year after Andronicus had opened the Roman stage with his new dramas, Ennius was born; who, when he was grown to man's estate, having seriously considered the genius of the people, and how eagerly they followed the first satires, thought it would be worth his pains to refine upon the project, and to write Satires, not to be acted on the theatre, but read. He preserved the ground-work of their pleasantry, their venom, and their raillery on particular persons, and general vices; and by this means, avoiding the danger of any ill success in a public representation, he hoped to be as well received in the cabinet, as Andronicus had been upon the stage. The event was answerable to his expectation. He made 

 Prev. P 35/510 next