At Rome, as elsewhere, the drama had proved to be a fairly accurate barometer not of the culture of the educated classes but of the populace. Nothing in the form of official censorship had at any time exercised any serious effect upon the theater. The praetors and aediles were not to blame for what happened. They had placed good plays on the stage as long as could be expected at the risk of offending the masses. Time and again, relying upon their convictions as to the worth of a comedy, they had staged plays that had failed; they were willing to pay very high salaries, partly out of their own purses, to great actors like Aesopus and Roscius who tried to revive the best plays and to win back to the theater an intelligent group of listeners; they had set aside reserved seats first for the senators and later for the knights in order to secure good audiences for literary productions of a high order. Nevertheless the drama declined. What the people demanded had in the end to be provided. Individual criticism probably served its purpose to some extent, but could not prevent the ebb. Men like Cicero ridiculed the cheap entertainments and refused to attend them, they went out of their way to encourage the better plays, and they did everything in public speeches, in their essays, and in their social functions to show their appreciation of serious actors like Roscius and Aesopus. Young poets like Asinius Pollio and Varius Rufus filed away at poetic dramas that were published for library shelves but never reached the stage. Critics like Horace wrote to prove that what the populace greeted at every change as a new and remarkable advance was nothing but a new step downward. And down it went. The drama in some form remained a necessity for the populace and they kept it at their level. The intelligent, who had in themselves, their companions and their libraries their own means of entertainment, deserted the theater which had grown unendurable to them. FOOTNOTES [1] Horace, _Epist._ I, 13: he mentions Pyrrha’s posture on the stage. [2] Terence, _Hecyra_, 15-20. [3] See Wessner, _Aemilius Asper_. E.g., the refusal of Charinus to win his love by unworthy threats (317), and Pamphilus’ refusal to take credit for a deed which he says a gentleman could not fail to perform (330). It should also be noticed that in the _Perinthia_ Menander had a scene of brutal slave-torturing which Terence took the liberty of eliminating. [4] Cf. especially Leo, _Plaut. Forsch._ chap. IV; Legrand, _Daos_, 490 ff.; Michaut, _Plaute_, II, 116 ff.; Wilamowitz, _Menander, Das Schiedsgericht_, 142 ff. A part of this chapter has appeared in the _Am. Jour. Phil._, 1928, 309. [5] One may add that if he was more explicit than one would think necessary he was perhaps giving aid to the many strangers that came to the theater in his day.