Realistic tragedy is of course a thing of slow growth, or perhaps we should say that a nation fits itself slowly for the reception of it. Comedy paves the way somewhat. When the great may not be laughed at, it is well that comedy should present the foibles and deformities of the common man, if it be merely for ridicule. Slaves served the purpose of comedy for Menander and Plautus, though they were careful not to compromise the dignity of their art by giving title rôles to such humble fellows. Yet as a matter of fact the study of mean subjects contributed directly and very largely to the understanding of the ordinary character as material for tragedy. Shakespeare’s portraiture of Shylock, for example, carried him so far that modern critics do not know where comedy ends and tragedy begins. In the _Andria_, the _Hecyra_, and the _Heauton_ of Terence the emotion shifts more than once from laughter to deep sympathy. But something more was needed than the dramatist’s study of the man of the street. Human society must itself change. It is not an accident that genuine realistic tragedy failed to find its fully accepted place upon the stage till the nineteenth century, in a word not till thoroughgoing democracy, by preaching the equality of men, had persuaded us of the dignity of the mere human being, and through the prose novel taught the man on the street to concern himself with his fellows as worthy themes of art. That was a stage of democratic realism which Rome did not reach while the literary art was still creative. And therein probably lies the final explanation of the slow failure of Roman tragedy. FOOTNOTES [1] _Am. Jour. Phil._, 1927, 105. [2] Livius and Naevius were both very fond of the septenarii; the iambic tetrameter appears in the tragic fragments of Naevius once; cretics are found in the _Equos Trojanus_, and bacchiacs apparently in Naevius’ _Danae_ and in his _Lycurgus_. Fraenkel, _Hermes_ (1927), 357 ff., has shown that the trochaic septenarius (quadratus) was an old Latin meter. We need not, however, assume with him that it was derived from the Greek. As a marching rhythm it is too natural to require explanation. The assumption of an Indo-European _Urvers_ needs to be exiled from our books. Song and dance are very old. [3] See _Cambridge Ancient History_, VII, 644. [4] See Duckett, _Studies in Ennius_, 56, who revises the views of Leo, _De Tragoedia Romana_ (Göttingen, 1910). [5] For a strophic system in Ennius, see Crusius, _Philologus_, Supp. XXI, 114. [6] _Gram. Lat. Keil_, VI, 77, 7; Vollmer, _Röm. Metrik_, in Gercke’s _Einleitung_, I, 8, p. 6; however among the preserved fragments of Pacuvius there are several anapaests that resemble those of Ennius. [7] Ennius, ed. Vahlen, _Scaenica_, 272. [8] See _Am. Jour. Phil._ 1913, 326. [9] Leo, _Die plautinischen Cantica_ (1897). [10] Fraenkel, _Plautinisches im Plautus_ (1922), criticized by Immisch, _Sitz. Heid. Akad._ 1923.