Note 176 — BOOK XXX
Evelyn S. (Evelyn Shirley) Shuckburgh translation
From Athenaeus, xiv. 4, p. 615. It seems to be part of some strictures of Polybius on the coarseness of the amusements of the Romans. This noisy and riotous scene in a theatre would strike a Greek as barbarous and revolting; and may remind us of the complaints of the noise and interruption to their actors so often found in the prologues to the plays of Plautus and Terence. Though the substance of this extract is doubtless from Polybius, Athenaeus has evidently told the anecdote in his own language.