comedies; while in the letters of Pliny[97] we meet with Vergilius
Romanus, a writer of comedies of 'the old style' and of _mimiambi_. He
possessed, so Pliny writes, 'vigour, pungency, and wit. He gave honour
to virtue and attacked vice.' It is to be feared that such a form of
comedy can hardly have been intended for the public stage, and that
Vergilius, like so many poets of his age, wrote for private performance
or recitation. These two writers are the only authors of legitimate
comedies known to us during the Silver Age. But both _fabulae palliatae_
and _togatae_, that is to say, comedies representing Greek and Roman
life respectively, continued to be acted on the public stage. The
_Incendium_[98] of Afranius, a _fabula togata_, was performed in the
reign of Nero, and the evidence of Quintilian[99] and Juvenal[100] shows
that _palliatae_ also continued to be performed. But true comedy had
been relegated to a back place and the Silver Age did nothing to modify
the dictum of Quintilian,[101] _in comoedia maxime claudicamus_.

As with comedy so with tragedy. Popular taste rejected the Graeco-Roman
tragedy as tedious, and it was replaced by a more sensuous and
sensational form of entertainment. The intenser passions and emotions
were not banished from the stage, but survived in the _salticae fabulae_
and a peculiar species of dramatic recitation. Infinitely debased as
were these substitutes for true drama, the forms assumed by the
decomposition of tragedy are yet curious and interesting. The first step
was the separation of the _cantica_ from the _diverbia._ Lyric scenes or
even important iambic monologues were taken from their setting and sung
as solos upon the stage.[102] It was found difficult to combine
effective singing with effective gesture and dancing, for music had
become more florid and exacting than in the days of Euripides. A second
actor appeared who supplied the gesture to illustrate the first actor's
song.[103] From this peculiar and to us ridiculous form of entertainment