exercise tact to avoid offending the patrician powers, as the imprisonment
of Naevius indicates. Mommsen has an apt summary:[55] "Under such
circumstances, where art worked for daily wages and the artist instead of
receiving due honour was subjected to disgrace, the new national theatre
of the Romans could not present any development either original or even at
all artistic."

[Sidenote: The Actor] This brief discussion of the relation between public
and playwright will suffice for our purposes. In the course of it we have
insensibly encroached upon the next topic: the relation of public and
actor. Who after all is the chief factor in the success or failure of a
drama, in spite of the oft misquoted adage, "The play's the thing?" The
actor! The actor, who can mouth and tear a passion to tatters, or swing a
piece of trumpery into popular favor by the brute force of his dash and
personality. That this was true in Plautus' day, no less than in our own,
is plainly indicated by the personal allusion inserted in the _Bac._
(214-5):

Etiam Epidicum, quam ego fabulam aeque ac me ipsum amo,
Nullam aeque invitus specto, _si agit Pellio_.

The servile status of the ancient actor is an index to the energy of his
performance, if to nothing else. Failure meant a beating, success a drink
at least.[56] Augustus humanely abrogated the whipping of actors, but an
attempt was made in Tiberius' time to renew the practice.[57] On the other
hand, there seem to have been prizes awarded to successful actors,[58] as
well as to the poet;[59] but this practice surely arose after Plautus'
lifetime. At any rate, whatever was the nature of the reward, in his day
the large emoluments won by Roscius and other popular favorites were
impossible.[60] The effort demanded by the elaborate education of the