[26] The extreme case is the _Amphitruo_ of Plautus with its two Amphitryos and two Sosias. In _Menæchmi_ the servants are doubled; in _Bacchides_, the courtesans. [27] Greenough’s translation of the argument, prefacing Morgan’s translation of the play. [28] Plutarch, _Mor._, De gloria Atheniensium, 347 F. [29] Michaut (139) cites Evanthius _De Fabula_ IV. 4 and Donatus. _Statarius_ seems to be used, in the prologue to the _Adelphi_ and in a passage cited by Michaut from Cicero’s _Brutus_ xxx. 116, of acting. Knapp cites the prologue to the _Self-tormentor_. [30] “Qui sim, cur ad vos veniam paucis eloquar,” prol. to _Bacchides_; and the play opens with both ladies together on the stage, so that there can be no mistake. Terence, who devotes his prologue usually to rebuttal of detraction, sometimes devotes his whole first act to exposition. II. NARRATIVE A. THE _ÆNEID_ (1). _Epic_ Epic is now often divided into “primitive,” “authentic,” or “popular” epic, such as the _Iliad_, and “artistic,” or “literary” epic, such as the _Æneid_. Of the former the great example is Homer. The _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ remain, for us as for the ancients, supreme. Meantime the western European nations emerging in the early middle age expressed themselves in epics of original native force: the _Roland_, the _Beowulf_, the _Nibelungenlied_, and some of the Norse sagas. To put these beside Homer is to become aware of specific differences within a general likeness. Homer is both more ample and more finished. Primitive he certainly is not in any sense now recognized by anthropology. Even the word popular has for us implications quite inapplicable to the circulation of his day. The classification of certain epics as primitive, authentic, or popular is based on the idea that these are characteristically communal, expressing more the emotions of a whole homogeneous community, less those of the individual poet. It has even been held[1] that such epic began in aggregation of tribal lays, and that even the form in which it has come down to us is less the creation of any individual than the final artistic shaping of successive anonymous versions. The theory of communal composition, in this literal and extreme sense, has been sharply challenged. Without denying the use of traditional material and form, one may remain convinced that the _Iliad_ or the _Odyssey_ is the work of a single man, whom we may as well continue to call Homer, and that he was not merely the mouthpiece of a community, but a conscious and skilful artist. That his art was not wasted on his community, that this community was far from primitive, there is ample evidence in the remains of its other arts.