Page:The Tragic Drama of the Greeks (1896).djvu/15

.] contain various features which are not strictly Oriental, but recall the characteristics of the Greek theatre.

When we turn to the nations of the west the case is still clearer. The Roman drama in its regular form was a mere exotic borrowed directly from the Greek. Before this importation the native genius of the Italians had produced, it is true, certain farcial entertainments, such as the Mimi and the Atellanae. But these rude mixtures of song, pantomime, and extempore raillery and repartee, bore little resemblance to plays in the strict sense of the word.

Through the agency of the Romans the memory of the classical drama was handed down to mediaeval times, and so gave birth to the various national theatres of modern Europe. For many centuries, indeed, during the confusion caused by the inroads of the barbarians, and the downfall of the Western Empire, all theatrical performances were abandoned. But the tradition never entirely disappeared. The class of actors, though their regular occupation was gone, still continued to survive in a degenerate condition, as 'ioculatores' or wandering players and minstrels, and kept alive some faint reminiscence of the dramatic art. At the same time among the learned ecclesiastics there were always a few who possessed an acquaintance with the productions of the Roman stage. Copies of Plautus and Terence, preserved in monasteries and religious houses, found occasional readers and admirers, and were sometimes used as models for composition by the monks and nuns. When, therefore, towards the close of the Middle Ages the clergy began to exhibit their Mysteries and Miracle Plays, and thus laid the foundations of the modern drama, these spectacles were not altogether an original conception of their own. The idea of representing the events of Scripture in dramatic form was derived from classical example by two separate lines of tradition, one professional, and due to the