periods of taste and literature. The popularity of Livius increasing from these performances, as well as from a propitiatory hymn he had composed, and which had been followed by great public success, a building was assigned to him on the Aventine hill. This edifice was partly converted into a theatre, and was also inhabited by a troop of players, for whom Livius wrote his pieces, and frequently acted along with them(118). It has been disputed whether the first drama represented by Livius Andronicus at Rome was a tragedy or comedy(119). However this may be, it appears from the names which have been preserved of his plays, that he wrote both tragedies and comedies. These titles, which have been collected by Fabricius and other writers, are, _Achilles_, _Adonis_, _Ægisthus_, _Ajax_, _Andromeda_, _Antiopa_, _Centauri_, _Equus Trojanus_, _Helena_, _Hermione_, _Ino_, _Lydius_, _Protesilaodamia_, _Serenus_, _Tereus_, _Teucer_, _Virgo_(120). Such names also evince that most of his dramas were translated or imitated from the works of his countrymen of Magna Græcia, or from the great tragedians of Greece. Thus, Æschylus wrote a tragedy on the subject of Ægisthus: There is still an Ajax of Sophocles extant, and he is known to have written an Andromeda: Stobæus mentions the Antiopa of Euripides: Four Greek dramatists, Sophocles, Euripides, Anaxandrides, and Philæterus, composed tragedies on the subject of Tereus; and Epicharmus, as well as others, chose for their comedies the story of the Syrens. Little, however, except the titles, remains to us, from the dramas of Livius. The longest passage we possess in connection, extends only to four lines. It forms part of a hymn to Diana, recited by the chorus, in the tragedy of _Ino_, and contains an animated exhortation to a person about to proceed to the chase:— “Et jam purpureo suras include cothurno, Baltheus et revocet volucres in pectore sinus; Pressaque jam gravida crepitent tibi terga pharetra: Dirige odorisequos ad cæca cubilia canes(121).” This passage testifies the vast improvement effected by Livius on the Latin Tongue; and indeed the polish of the language and metrical correctness of these hexameter lines, have of late led to a suspicion that they are not the production of a period so ancient as the age of Livius(122), or at least that they have been modernised by some later hand. With this earliest offspring of the Latin muse, it may be curious to compare a production from her last age of decrepitude. Nemesianus, in his _Cynegeticon_, has closely imitated this passage while exhorting Diana to prepare for the chase: “Sume habitus, arcumque manu; pictamque pharetram Suspende ex humeris; sint aurea tela, sagittæ; Candida puniceis aptentur crura cothurnis: Sit chlamys aurato multum subtemine lusa, Corrugesque sinus gemmatis baltheus artet Nexibus ——”