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The Amphitruo is somewhat difficult to class; if, as has been suggested above, it be assigned to the old comedy, it will be a Palliata. Horace speaks of Plautus as a follower of Epicharmus, and his plots were frequently taken from mythological subjects.
According to this view we shall have to recognize in the -fabula togata-the comedy which laid its plot in Latium, as the -fabula palliata- had its plot in Greece; the transference of the scene of action to a foreign land is common to both, and the comic writer is wholly forbidden to bring on the stage the city or the burgesses of Rome.
A single entire Mime, which time unfortunately has denied us, would have thrown more light on this question than all the confused notices of grammarians, and all the conjectures of modern scholars. The regular Comedy of the Romans was, for the most part, palliata, that is, it appeared in a Grecian costume, and represented Grecian manners.
We find, accordingly, that the earlier masters Andronicus, Naevius, Ennius all wrote comedies as well as tragedies, of the type known as palliata, or "dressed in the Greek mantle," that is to say, freely translated or adapted from Greek originals. After Ennius, this still continued to be the more usual type; but the development of technical skill now results in two important changes.
The writers of comedy become, on the whole and broadly speaking, distinct from the writers of tragedy; and alongside of the palliata springs up the togata, or comedy of Italian dress, persons, and manners. As this latter form of Latin comedy has perished, with the exception of trifling fragments, it may be dismissed here in few words. Its life was comprised in less than a century.
But there can be no doubt that Plautus and Terence fully represent the strength and weakness of the Latin palliata. Together with the eleven plays of Aristophanes, they have been in fact, since the beginning of the Middle Ages, the sole representatives of ancient, and the sole models for modern comedy.
According to this view we shall have to recognize in the -fabula togata-the comedy which laid its plot in Latium, as the -fabula palliata- had its plot in Greece; the transference of the scene of action to a foreign land is common to both, and the comic writer is wholly forbidden to bring on the stage the city or the burgesses of Rome.
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