After the death of Terence the only writer of _palliatae_ of any name was Sextus Turpilius, who died about the end of the second century B.C. No new element seems to have been contributed by him to the Roman Stage. After the decline of the Comoedia palliata, the Comoedia togata, which professed to represent the Roman and Italian life of the middle classes, first obtained popular favour. The principal writers of this branch of comedy were T. Quintius Atta and L. Afranius. The latter was regarded as the Roman Menander:-- Dicitur Afrani toga convenisse Menandro. The admiration which he expressed for Terence, whom he regarded as the foremost of all the Roman comic poets, is in keeping with this criticism. From the testimony of Quintilian[25] we may infer that the change of scene from Athens to Rome and the provincial towns of Italy did not improve the morality of the Roman stage. A further decline both in intellectual interest and in moral tendency appeared in the resuscitation in a literary form of the Fabulae Atellanae, the chief writers of which were L. Pomponius and Novius. A still further degradation was witnessed in the later days of the Republic and under the Empire in the rise of the 'Mimus,' as a recognised branch of dramatic literature. If the influence of the comic stage, when its chief representatives were Plautus and Terence, is to be regarded as only of a mixed character, it is difficult to associate any idea of intellectual pleasure with the gross buffooneries of the Atellan farce, when it had passed from the spontaneous hilarity of primitive times into the conditions of an artistic performance, and still less with the 'mimi,' which were intended to gratify the lowest propensities of the spectators. The rapid degeneracy of the mass of the people from the characteristic virtues of the older Republic is testified as much by the popularity of such spectacles as by the passionate delight excited by the gladiatorial combats. [Footnote 1: 'In argumento Caecilius poscit palmam,' quoted from Varro.] [Footnote 2: Ep. ad Attic. vii. 3; Brutus, 74.] [Footnote 3: Cf. Mommsen, vol. ii. p. 435, English Translation.] [Footnote 4: 'Consulari utroque ac poeta.' Life of Terence, by Suetonius.] [Footnote 5: Cf. Prologue to the Hecyra.] [Footnote 6: Ritschl reads 'ingressus,' which would make him a year younger.] [Footnote 7: Prol. Andria, l. 20.] [Footnote 8: Eunuchus, Prologue, l. 22, etc.] [Footnote 9: Prol. to Phormio, l. 5, etc.] [Footnote 10: Prol. Adelph. 15-21.] [Footnote 11: The Phormio is taken from Apollodorus.] [Footnote 12: We have one or two Latin puns. Such as the play of words in _amentium_ and _amantium_, _verba_ and _verbera_; one or two cases of alliteration and asyndeton, e.g.-- Hic est victus, vetus, veternosus senex,-- and Profundat, perdat, pereat, etc.;