Steal one? It was an age when copyright did not yet exist and it was considered In other words, why make a play when you can The answer must be that he considered it wasted effort to till a field when The same could be posed for every Roman playwright whose works survive-and
It's a fair question to ask why he did not write his own original works-indeed, In addition to The Odyssey, his adaptations included several Greek tragedies, mostlyįrom originals by Sophocles and Euripides ( Ajax, Andromeda,ĭanae, Tereus), and also comedies adapted from unknown sources Him in an excellent position to bridge Greek and Latin civilization. To Rome when he was still a child and, no doubt, grew up bilingual, putting Were his adaptations of Greek literature so significant in the evolution ofĪ freed slave, we are told, Livius Andronicus served in the house of the Livii,Ī noble family of Rome, from whom he took his name. But who was this Livius Andronicus and why In more ways than one, that moment in history constitutes As it turned out, this was a watershedĮxperience that inaugurated the Romans into a century-long fascination with Greek-speaking slave living in Rome, Livius Andronicus, translated
The turning point in Roman drama came in 240 BCE, when a
Introduction: Early Roman Literary Drama (derived from the 414 Roman Comedy I (Plautus), Classical Drama and TheatreĬhapter 14: Roman Comedy, Part 1 (Plautus)