About the end of the fourth century from the building of the city, when it was for the first time afflicted with a plague, the Senate having exhausted without effect their own superstitious ceremonies, and run over the whole round of supplications, decreed that _histrions_ or players should be summoned from Etruria, in order to appease the wrath of the gods by scenic representations. These chiefly exhibited rude dances and gesticulations, performed to the sound of the flute(70). There was no dialogue or song, but the pantomime did not consist merely of unmeaning gestures: It had a certain scope, and represented a connected plot or story(71); but what kind of action or story was represented, is utterly unknown. This whimsical sort of expiation seems to have attracted the fancy of the Roman youths, who imitated the Etruscan actors; but they improved on the entertainment, by rallying each other in extemporary and jocular lines. The Fescennine verses, originally employed in Etruria at the harvest-homes of the peasants, were about the same period applied by the Romans to marriage ceremonies and public diversions. There were also songs of triumph in a rude measure, which were sung by the soldiers at the ovations of their leaders. As early as the time of Romulus, when that chief returned triumphant to Rome after his victory over the Ceninenses and Antemnates, his soldiers followed him in military array, singing hymns in honour of their gods, and extemporary verses in praise of their commander(72). Of this description, too, were the Pæans, with which the victorious troops accompanied the chariot of Cincinnatus, after he subdued the Equi(73), and with which they celebrated a spirited enterprize of Cossus, a tribune of the soldiers(74). Sometimes these laudatory songs were seasoned with coarse jokes and camp jests, like those introduced at the triumph of C. Claudius, and of M. Livius(75).