The last class of dramatic poets whom we shall mention in the first period are the writers of _Atellanae_. These entertainments originated at the little town of Atella, now St Arpino, between Capua and Naples in the Oscan territory, and were at first composed in the Oscan dialect. Their earliest cultivation at Rome seems to date not long after 360 B.C., in which year the Etruscan histriones were first imported into Rome. The novelty of this amusement attracted the Roman youths, and they began to imitate both the Etruscan dancers and the Oscan performers, who had introduced the Atellane fables into Rome. After the libellous freedom of speech in which they at first indulged had been restrained by law, the Atellanae seem to have established themselves as a privileged form of pleasantry, in which the young nobles could, without incurring the disgrace of removal from their tribe or incapacity for military service, indulge their readiness of speech and impromptu dramatic talent. [1] During rather more than two centuries this custom continued, the performance consisting of detached scenes without any particular connection, but full of jocularity, and employing a fixed set of characters. The language used may have been the Oscan, but, considering the fact that a knowledge of that dialect was not universal at Rome, [2] it was more probably the popular or plebeian Latin interspersed with Oscan elements. No progress towards a literary form is observable until the time of Sulla, but they continued to receive a countenance from the authorities that was not accorded to other forms of the drama. We find, for example, that when theatrical representations were interdicted, an exception was made in their favour. [3] Though coarse and often obscene, they were considered as consistent with gentlemanly behaviour; thus Cicero, in a well-known passage in one of his letters, [4] contrasts them with the Mimes, _secundum Oenomaum Accii non, ut olim solebat, Atellanam, sed, ut nunc fit, mimum introduxisti_; and Valerius Maximus implies that they did not carry their humour to extravagant lengths, [5] but tempered it with Italian severity. From the few fragments that remain to us we should be inclined to form a different opinion, and to suspect that national partiality in contrasting them with the Graecized form of the Mimi kept itself blind to their more glaring faults. The characters that oftenest reappear in them are Maccus, Bucco, and Pappus; the first of these is prefixed to the special title, _e.g. Maccus miles, Maccus virgo_. He seems to have been a personage with an immense head, who, corresponding to our clown or harlequin, came in for many hard knocks, but was a general favourite. Pappus took the place of pantaloon, and was the general butt.