_fabula praetexta_. Whether his plays were performed on the public stage
is not quite clear. Tacitus tells us of riots in the theatre in A.D.
44,[121] when 'poems' by Pomponius were being recited on the stage. But
the words used by the historian (_is carmina scaenae dabat_) point
rather to the recitation of a dramatic solo than to a complete tragedy
of the orthodox type. Pomponius, dramatist and philologist,[122] remains
a mere name for us.

Another distinguished writer of plays was Curiatius Maternus, a
well-known orator; it is in his house that Tacitus places the scene of
the _Dialogus_, and he is the chief character of the conversation. He
had written his first tragedy under Nero,[123] and at the time of the
_Dialogus_ (A.D. 79-81) his _Cato_--a _fabula praetexta_--was the talk
of Rome.[124] He had written another historical drama on the ancestor of
Nero, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the persistent foe of Julius Caesar, who
perished on the field of Pharsalia.[125] He had also written plays on
the more hackneyed themes of Medea and Thyestes.[126] He had all the
opportunities and all the requisite gifts for a successful public
career, but his heart was with the Muses, and he resolved to quit public
life and to devote himself wholly to poetry, for there, in his
estimation, the truest fame was to be found.[127] Here our knowledge
ends. Of the details of his life we are as ignorant as of his plays.

A few other names of tragic poets are known to us. Paccius wrote an
_Alcithoe_,[128] Faustus a _Thebais_ and a _Tereus_,[129] Rubrenus Lappa
an _Atreus_,[130] while Scaevus Memor,[131] victor at the Agon
Capitolinus and brother of Turnus the satirist, wrote a _Hercules_ and a
_Hecuba_ or _Troades_.[132] Martial (xi. 9) styles him the 'glory of the
Roman buskin', but he too is but the shadow of an empty name. The
tragedies of the age are lost to us, all save the tragedies of the