Once or twice, as we shall see, he recalls the gesture or utterance of a great actor, but as a rule he is thinking of them as poetry rather than as plays.

It may be noted in this connexion that it was now becoming the fashion to write plays without any immediate intention of bringing them on the stage.

We read with astonishment in a letter of Cicero to his brother Quintus, then in Gaul, that the latter had taken to play-writing, and accomplished four tragedies in sixteen days, and this apparently in the course of the campaign.[503] One, the _Erigona_, was sent to his brother from Britain, and lost on the way.

We hear no more of these plays, and have no reason to suppose that they were worthy to survive.

No man of literary eminence in that day wrote plays for acting, and in fact the only person of note, so far as we know, who did so, was the younger Cornelius Balbus, son of the intimate friend and secretary of Caesar.
This man wrote one in Latin about his journey to his native town of Gades, had it put on the stage there, and shed tears during its performance.[504] When we hear of plays being written without being acted, and of tragedies being made the occasion of expressing political opinions, we may be pretty sure that the drama is in its nonage.