During the whole long period of the popularity of
the drama the government had never consented to the erection of a
permanent theatre after the Greek fashion; though it was impossible to
prohibit the production of plays adapted from the Greek, there seems
to have been some strange scruple felt about giving Rome this outward
token of a Greek city. Temporary stages were erected in the Forum
or the circus, the audience at first standing, but afterwards
accommodated with seats in a _cavea_ of wood erected for the occasion.
The whole show, including play, actors, and pipe-players[505] to
accompany the voices where necessary, was contracted for, like all
such undertakings,[506] on each occasion of Ludi scaenici being
produced. At last, in the year 154 B.C., the censors had actually
set about the building of a theatre, apparently of stone, when the
reactionary Scipio Nasica, acting under the influence of a temporary
anti-Greek movement, persuaded the senate to put a stop to this
symptom of degeneracy, and to pass a decree that no seats were in
future to be provided, "ut scilicet remissioni animorum standi
virilitas propria Romanae gentis iuncta esset.
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