Fabula

Fabula, generic Latin name for a play, under which many different types of drama were grouped. Among them were:1. The Atellana, short impromptu entertainment popular in early Roman times. As the surviving titles show, these sketches were intended to amuse the crowd on market days and holidays—The Farmer, The Vine-Gatherers, The Woodpile, The She-Goat—and were acted by a few stock characters—Bucco (the fat-faced Fool), Dossennus (the Hunchback), Maccus (the Idiot), Manducus (the Glutton), Pappus (the Old Man)—who all figure in the 1st-century BC works of two authors, Pomponius and Novius. They were responsible for a short period of popularity for the written, as opposed to the extempore, Atellan farces, which gave way eventually to the equally vulgar but more sophisticated mime.2. The Palliata, play translated into Latin from the Greek; from pallium, a Greek cloak. An alternative name for such plays was crepidata, from crepida, a Greek shoe always worn with the pallium. Writers of such plays include Terence and Plautus.3. The Praetexta, original play in Latin on a theme taken from Roman legend or contemporary history; from toga praetextata, the purple-bordered toga worn by magistrates.4. The Togata, Latin comedy based on incidents of contemporary daily life in Roman towns; from toga, the long garment worn by a Roman citizen. Its alternative name was tabernaria, from taberna, a poor man's house. The cast of a togata was smaller, and the plot simpler, less restrained by social conventions, and more overtly sexual, than in the imported palliata.