period of Latin literature that they ceased to exist. Plautus conceived
the plan of transporting to Rome Grecian comedies of the time of the new
comedy and of adapting them more or less to Latin morals. He possessed a
strong and brutal verve which did not lack power, and more than once
Moliere did him the honour of taking inspiration from him. Terence, after
him, the friend of Scipio the second Africanus, and perhaps in
collaboration with him, in a way widely different from that of Plautus so
far as type of talent, tender, gentle, romantic, sentimental, smiling
rather than witty, so far as can be judged directly inspired by Menander,
wrote comedies which are highly agreeable to read, but it is doubtful if
they could ever have been widely appreciated on the stage. However, the
Roman writers held him in great esteem, and at one epoch of our own
history, in the seventeenth century, he enjoyed remarkable and unanimous
appreciation.

L'ATELLANE.--To comedy strictly defined, whether it dealt with Romans or
Greeks, the Romans also added the atellane, which came to them from the
Etruscans (Atella, a city of Etruria) and which was a sort of farce with
stereotyped characters (the fat glutton, the lean glutton, the old miser
always baffled, etc.). Pomponius and Naevius endeavoured to raise this
popular recreation to a literary standard and succeeded. It then became a
thoroughly national characteristic. There was considerable analogy
between it and the modern popular Italian comedy, showing its Cassandras,
its Pantaloon, and its Harlequin, without it being possible to assert
that the Italian comedy proceeded from the atellane. The atellane enjoyed
much success in the second century before Christ. It was, however, ousted
by the mime, which was the kind of comic literature thoroughly national
at Rome. The mime was a farce of popular morals, particularly of the
lower classes; it was a portrayal of the dregs of society in their comic
aspects. It maintained its sway until the close of the Roman Empire