Page:Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett - Comparative Literature (1886).djvu/218

 solemn despotism of patria potestas, nor above all the Roman matron, wife, or daughter, in their perpetual tutelage, possessed that kind of freedom which was required by the drama of individualised life. The Roman drama, tragedy and comedy alike, had to wear Athenian livery in order to get out of associations which met dramatic freedom at every turn with the cold status of patrician life.

Thus the clan spirit in Athens and Rome affected the beginnings of Athenian and Roman literatures very differently. Not strong enough in Athens to keep the city divided into hostile camps, yet strong enough to remain the inner life of traditional morality, it sets Athenian genius on fire by its conflict with individualised ideas pouring in from all parts of Greece, and required by the rapidly altering conditions of Athenian social life. Too strong in Rome to allow even physical, much less intellectual, freedom, it stops the progress of Roman unity and literature alike, and forces the founders of the Roman drama to seek in Greece the social and personal characteristics their art requires.