By this means composing for the stage was raised into a liberal art; and we accordingly find men of the highest aristocratic circles, such as Lucius Caesar (aedile in 664, 667), engaged in writing for the Roman stage and proud of sitting in the Roman "poet's club" by the side of the ancestorless Accius.

Art gains in sympathy and honour; but the enthusiasm has departed in life and in literature.

The fearless self-confidence, which makes the poet a poet, and which is very decidedly apparent in Plautus especially, is found in none of those that follow; the Epigoni of the men that fought with Hannibal are correct, but feeble.
Tragedy Pacuvius Let us first glance at the Roman dramatic literature and the stage itself.

Tragedy has now for the first time her specialists; the tragic poets of this epoch do not, like those of the preceding, cultivate comedy and epos side by side.

The appreciation of this branch of art among the writing and reading circles was evidently on the increase, but tragic poetry itself hardly improved.