A native of Magna Græcia, was the first who attempted to establish at Rome a regular theatre, or to connect a dramatic fable, free from the mummeries, the _ballet_, and the melodrama of the ancient satires(108). Tiraboschi asserts, that when his country was finally subdued by the Romans, in 482, Livius was made captive and brought to Rome(109). It is generally believed that he there became the slave, and afterwards the freedman of Livius Salinator, from whom he derived one of his names: these facts, however, do not seem to rest on any authority more ancient than the Eusebian Chronicle(110). The precise period of his death is uncertain; but in Cicero’s Dialogue _De Senectute_, Cato is introduced saying, that he had seen old Livius while he was himself a youth(111). Now Cato was born in 519, and since the period of youth among the Romans was considered as commencing at fifteen, it may be presumed that the existence of Livius was at least protracted till the year 534 of the city. It has been frequently said, that he lived till the year 546(112), because Livy(113) mentions that a hymn composed by this ancient poet was publicly sung in that year, to avert the disasters threatened by an alarming prodigy; but the historian does not declare that it was written for the occasion, or even recently before. The earliest play of Livius was represented in 513 or 514, about a year after the termination of the first Punic war. Osannus, a modern German author, has written a learned and chronological dissertation on the question, in which of these years the first Roman play was performed(114); but it is extremely difficult for us to come to any satisfactory conclusion on a subject which, even in the time of Cicero, was one of doubt and controversy(115). Like Thespis, and other dramatists in the commencement of the theatrical art, Livius was an actor, and for a considerable time the sole performer in his own pieces. Afterwards, however, his voice failing, in consequence of the audience insisting on a repetition of favourite passages, he introduced a boy who relieved him, by declaiming in concert with the flute, while he himself executed the corresponding gesticulations in the monologues, and in the parts where high exertion was required, employing his own voice only in the conversational and less elevated scenes(116). It was observed that his action grew more lively and animated, because he exerted his whole strength in gesticulating, while another had the care and trouble of pronouncing. “Hence,” continues Livy, “the practice arose of reciting those passages which required much modulation of the voice, to the gesture and action of the comedian. Thenceforth the custom so far prevailed, that the comedians never pronounced anything except the verses of the dialogues(117):” And this system, which one should think must have completely destroyed the theatric illusion, continued, under certain modifications, to subsist on the Roman stage during the most refined