Praetexta
or
Praetextāta (sc.
fabula). A class of
Roman tragedies, which found its materials not in the Greek myths, but, in the absence of
native legendary heroes, in ancient and contemporary Roman history. The name was derived from
the fact that the heroes wore the national dress, the
toga praetexta, the
official garb, edged with purple, of the Roman magistrates. Naevius introduced them, and,
following his example, the chief representatives of tragic art under the Republic, Ennius,
Pacuvius, and Attius, composed, in addition to tragedies imitated from Greek originals,
independent plays of this kind, which were, however, cast in the form they had borrowed from
the Greeks. We also hear of some plays of this class written by poets of imperial times. The
solitary example preserved to us is the tragedy of
Octavia, wrongly ascribed to
Seneca (q.v.), which, perhaps, may date from A.D.
1. See
Togata.