In reviewing with more detail the three periods of dramatic progress at Rome, such as it was, we have to consider the origin and character of their comedy. The Greek works of Menander, Diphilus, and Apollodorus, formed a rich store of materials for Roman adoption, and were so employed with as much success as Plautus, Cæilius Statius, and Terence could command. Their standard was worldly prudence, resting on the dangerous ground of Epicurean philosophy; and therefore Roman comedy inculcated no virtue even so salutary as Stoicism, though it sometimes encouraged the benevolent affections. Creative imagination was a rare quality in the Roman mind; therefore, literature with them was not of a spontaneous growth. For a short period, it was the recreation of a few; but with the many it was never a valued delight. Even Cicero, the truest literary spirit of his nation, could recognize but one end and object in all study, namely, those sciences which render a man useful to his country. External utility and not internal impulse, was the final cause of Roman literature. In preceding nations poetry was the original and spontaneous production; but the earliest literary effort of the Romans was history, a dry record of facts, and not ideas. The first poetical form ever attempted by them was satire, and it is characteristic of the rude and coarse people among whom it had its origin. They loved strife, both physical and mental; with them was found little or no salutary intellectual exercise, except in legal conflicts and partisan debates. They were gladiators in the forum, as in the circus, and with rustic taste took equal delight in bandying sarcastic words or struggling in a wrestling match. The Romans were a stern, not an æsthetic people; they had a natural aptitude for satire, and that was the only literary merit they possessed. Yet even in this department, as Horace confessed, Lucilius, the founder of Roman satire, was a disciple of the Greek Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes. But the cynical humor and prompt extemporaneous gibe native to the progeny of a she-wolf eminently qualified them to excel in a walk wherein they were certainly most at home. Livius Andronicus, the first literary character at Rome, was a native of the Greek colony at Tarentum, born B.C. 240, and originally a slave. He probably came into that condition by the fortunes of war, and, like many others in the same circumstances, was employed as a tutor in the metropolis. To interest his cotemporaries in the ancient legends of Italy, he translated the Odyssey, in the old Saturnian measure, and also divers ancient hymns. By this means, the conquerors of the day were made to take a lively interest in Circe's fairy abode, within sight of a promontory of Latium, one of whose sons was Latinus, the patriarch of the Latin name.