made his last appearance on the stage.[117] Of the part played by the
chorus and of the structure of the librettos we know nothing; they may
have been purely episodic and isolated or may, as in the _salticae
fabulae,_ have been loosely strung together into the form of an
ill-constructed play. That they were sometimes written in Greek is known
from the fact that the line quoted by Suetonius from the _Oedipus in
Exile_ mentioned above is in that language. Of the writers of this
debased and bastard offspring of drama we know nothing save that Nero,
who was passionately fond of appearing in them, seems also to have
written them. (Suet. Ner. 39.)

The tragic stage had indeed sunk low, when it served almost entirely for
exhibitions such as these. Nevertheless tragedy had not ceased to exist
even if it had ceased to hold the stage.[118] Varius and Ovid had won
fame in the Augustan age by their Thyestes and Medea, and the
post-Augustan decadence was not without its tragedians. One only is
mentioned by Quintilian in his survey of Roman poetry, Pomponius
Secundus. Of him he says (x. 1. 98), 'Of the tragedians whom I myself
have seen, Pomponius Secundus is by far the most eminent; a writer whom
the oldest men of the day thought not quite tragic enough, but
acknowledged that he excelled in learning and elegance of style.'
Pomponius was a man of great distinction.[119] His friendship for Aelius
Gallus, the son of Sejanus, had brought him into disgrace with Tiberius,
but he recovered his position under Claudius. He attained to the
consulship, and commanded with distinction in a war against the Chatti
in A.D. 50. Of his writings we know but very little. Of his plays
nothing is left save a brief fragment[120] from a play entitled
_Aeneas_; whether it dealt with the deeds of Aeneas in his native land
or in the land of his adoption is uncertain, though it is on the whole
probable that the scene was Italian and that the drama was therefore a