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We therefore defer noticing them until our account of that period. There still remain the fabulae Atellanae, so called from Atella, an Oscan town of Campania, and often mentioned as Osci Ludi. These were more honourable than the other kinds, inasmuch as they were performed by the young nobles, wearing masks, and giving the reins to their power of improvisation.
From these rustic festivals originated the Satyr, or Satirical Drama, as did its Italian prototype, the Fabulae Atellanae or, Laudi Osci.
These were borrowed from the Osci, and were always acted by the Roman youth. Tacitus speaks of Atellanae Comedies written in the spirit and language of the Osci having been acted in his time. It is thought that the Etruscans possessed histories, poems, and dramas, and, if these, then certainly they knew the Pantomimic Art, out of which, in all probability, their dramatic entertainments grew.
The original inhabitants of Campa'nia, were the Auso'nes and Op'ici or Osci, the most ancient of the native Italian tribes. The Tyrrhenian Pelas'gi made several settlements on the coast, and are supposed to have founded Cap'ua. The Etruscans were afterwards masters of the country, but their dominion was of brief duration, and left no trace behind.
When the Greek drama was brought into Rome by Livius Andronicus, the Fabulae Atellanae, or Laudi Osci derived from the town of Atella, in Campania, between Capua and Naples was still employed to furnish the Interludes, and just in a similar way as the Satyra Extemporal Interludes supplied the Grecian stage.
Which kind of amusement, received from the Osci, the young kept to themselves, nor did they suffer it to be debased by regular players. Hence it remains an established usage that the actors of the Atellan farces are neither degraded from their tribe, and may serve in the army, as if having no connexion with the profession of the stage.
It cannot, however, have been the Ligures, a branch of the great Iberian family, who were totally ignorant of culture, and to whom the builders of the most ancient of the TERREMARES were certainly superior; nor can it have been the Etruscans, for all relics of that race, which are moreover easily recognizable, were found quite apart from the deep deposits containing the TERREMARES. Many indications point to the conclusion that when the Celts came down into Italy their knowledge of metallurgy was already more advanced than that of the builders of the TERREMARES. We are therefore disposed to think with Heilbig, that the TERREMARECOLLI were the Itali, of Arian race, who were the ancestors of the Sabini, Umbri, Osci, and Latins.
But more particularly they were joined to the "Atellane" fables, says Casaubon; which were plays invented by the Osci.
The histriones, however, whom for this purpose they summoned from Etruria, were merely dancers, who probably did not attempt any pantomimic dances, but endeavoured to delight their audience by the agility of their movements. Their oldest spoken plays, the Fabulae Atellanae, the Romans borrowed from the Osci, the aboriginal inhabitants of Italy.
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