Romans at their agrarian festivals under the name of _Fescennina_ [FESCENNINA]. It was 123 years after the first introduction of these scenic performances before the improvement was introduced of having a regular plot. This advance was made by Livius Andronicus, a native of Magna Graecia, in B.C. 240. His pieces, which were both tragedies and comedies, were merely adaptations of Greek dramas. The representation of regular plays of this sort was now left to those who were histriones by profession, and who were very commonly either foreigners or slaves; the free-born youth of Rome confined their own scenic performances to the older, irregular farces, which long maintained their ground, and were subsequently called _exodia_. [EXODIA; SATURA.] Livius, as was common at that time, was himself an actor in his own pieces. The first imitator of the dramatic works of Livius Andronicus was Cn. Naevius, a native of Campania. He composed both tragedies and comedies, which were either translations or imitations of those of Greek writers. The most distinguished successors of Naevius were Plautus, who chiefly imitated Epicharmus, and Terence, whose materials were drawn mostly from Menander, Diphilus, Philemon, and Apollodorus. The comedy of the Romans was throughout but an imitation of that of the Greeks, and chiefly of the new comedy. Where the characters were ostensibly Greek, and the scene laid in Athens or some other Greek town, the comedies were termed _palliatae_. All the comedies of Terence and Plautus belong to this class. When the story and characters were Roman, the plays were called _togatae_. But the fabulae togatae were in fact little else than Greek comedies clothed in a Latin dress.