Comedy underwent a development not unlike that of tragedy. It also had its origin in the coarse buffoonery common at the rustic festivals which celebrated the vintage. Introduced into Athens from the neighbouring Megara early in the sixth century B.C., it did not receive recognition from the state until the middle of the fifth century. The comedy of the closing years of that century is inseparably connected with the name of Aristophanes, who combined merciless political satire with exquisite poetry. In the fourth century B.C. a great change came over comedy at Athens. The later plays of Aristophanes mark the beginning of the comedy of manners, which took the place of the old political comedy. The master of this new comedy was Menander. Through Roman translations and adaptations of Menander and his fellow poets by Plautus and Terence, comes the comedy of Molière and modern Europe. The theatre, in which these ancient plays were performed, was of slow development. The grassy slopes of a hill, bordering on a circular dancing-place (_orchestra_), satisfied the earliest audiences. Later on, a definite place was set apart for theatrical performances, and a wooden structure erected for the actors. It was not until the fourth century that permanent stone seats were laid down in the Theatre of Dionysos at Athens, although performances had been given there for more than a century. =Roman Drama.=--The drama at first met with a determined opposition from Romans of the old school as a new-fangled thing from Greece. The taste of the people, also, was not inclined to favour so cultured an amusement as the drama. The Romans preferred to see a fight between men or beasts rather than to listen to a play, and on one occasion, when listening to a play of Terence, they rushed pell-mell from the theatre, because a rumour arose that a combat of gladiators was going to take place.[12] The more important Roman comedies were adapted from the New Comedy of the Greeks. These adaptations are familiar to us from the surviving plays of Plautus (254-184 B.C.) and Terence (ca. 185-159 B.C.). Actors at Rome had long to be content with temporary wooden structures, which were pulled down when the performances were over. A permanent theatre was not erected in Rome till 55 B.C. The objects illustrating the ancient drama can conveniently be divided into (_a_) representations of scenes from plays, and (_b_) figures of actors and masks.