Ecce Caesar nunc triumphat,
qui subegit Gallias; Nicomedes non triumphat, qui subegit Caesarem.
The vapours of wine made those first satirical poets amongst the
Romans, which, says Dacier, we cannot better represent than by
imagining a company of clowns on a holiday dancing lubberly and
upbraiding one another in extempore doggerel with their defects and
vices, and the stories that were told of them in bake-houses and
barbers' shops.
When they began to be somewhat better bred, and were entering, as I
may say, into the first rudiments of civil conversation, they left
these hedge-notes for another sort of poem, somewhat polished, which
was also full of pleasant raillery, but without any mixture of
obscenity. This sort of poetry appeared under the name of "satire"
because of its variety; and this satire was adorned with
compositions of music, and with dances; but lascivious postures were
banished from it. In the Tuscan language, says Livy, the word
hister signifies a player; and therefore those actors which were
first brought from Etruria to Rome on occasion of a pestilence, when
the Romans were admonished to avert the anger of the gods by plays
(in the year ab urbe condita CCCXC.
Pages:
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90