Nevertheless, the old plays were being revived by men who were interested in high standards, and when a famous actor played a part he would draw large audiences. Aesopus and Roscius, the best actors of Cicero’s day, were in great demand and both grew rich at their profession. Though references to dramatic performances in Cicero’s day are casual, we hear of not a few. We know, for instance, that there were reproductions of Ennius’ plays a century after his death, and we find in the list his _Andromache_, _Telamo_, _Thyestes_, the _Alcumeo_, the _Iphigenia_ and the _Hector_. Of Pacuvius’ plays Cicero had seen the _Antiope_, the _Iliona_, and a play about Orestes which he describes as a favorite of the gallery. Accius was even more popular. Aesopus produced his _Atreus_ repeatedly. His _Eurysaces_ was given in 57 B.C., the _Clytemestra_ in 55, and the _Tereus_ in 44 after the authorities had suppressed the _Brutus_ because of its political significance. And there were many more. This success of the old plays—artificial though it may have been in some instances—shows that respectable audiences could still be reckoned on so long as the Republic lasted, and that the plays were attractive enough to justify the aediles in presenting them. With the Empire, however, the decline was rapid; the populace found the tragedies tedious, and when in Horace’s day a popular actor discovered a way of cutting the plays and presenting the more effective scenes in pantomime, with a lavish amount of music and a gorgeous setting, legitimate tragedy gave way to something resembling a Russian ballet. Old tragedies were cut and adapted for this new kind of presentation and new ones were written that consisted chiefly of scenarios and monologues. Even closet plays, like Seneca’s, were shaped into a succession of recitations in the hope that they might sell to the new industry. Literary tragedy, however, had come to its end at Rome. This process of decay was natural enough and was only to be expected, given the changes in Rome’s society and with them the decline of Roman ideals. But it is still somewhat of a riddle why at Rome as well as at Athens good playwrights ceased to write a hundred years before tragedy ceased to attract respectable audiences. It would seem as if the art of writing plays lost its stimulus even before the plays themselves ceased to please. The reason for this may well be that tragedy kept too long to its convention of interpreting sacred myths. The themes were outworn, and each myth had had every human interest exploited by the time that several writers had given it their several interpretations.