Fabula palliata

[4] As in all Roman drama, the actors wore masks that easily identified which of the stock characters they represented.

They were often more tame versions of their Greek counterpart that featured family problems, political criticisms and Roman sensibilities.

Roman plays' main deviations from the Greek source material are the absence of a chorus and a willingness to have more than three characters on stage simultaneously.

[1] Knowledge of the genre comes from a 1st-century BC literary critic named Volcacius Sedigitus, of whom nothing is known except his report in Aulus Gellius.

Of the writers whose works have survived at all Sedigitus identifies as well Naevius, Plautus, Ennius, Caecilius and Terence as contributors to the genre.