Romans laughed at a rich variety of comic entertainments, some surviving today only in fragments: scurrilous Fescennine verse, coarse, improvisational farce (fabula Atellana), mime (fabula planipedia or riciniata), drama featuring Italian characters in Italian settings (fabula togata). They also enjoyed the fabula palliata (a play dressed in a Greek cloak), in other words, a play set in Greece featuring Greek characters in Greek costumes. Deriving from Menander (fourth century bc) and other Greek writers, this kind of play also became known as New Comedy, in contradistinction to Old Comedy, the satirical, political, fantastic, obscene, and profound romps of the earlier Aristophanes (fifth century bc). Both Greek and Roman New Comedy featured stock characters like the old man (senex), young girl (virgo), and clever slave (servus callidus); the action generally involved forbidden love affairs, misunderstandings, and confusions of identity.

The works of two playwrights – Plautus and Terence – largely constitute the extant corpus of Roman comedy. Inventive and exuberant, Plautus (c. 205–184 bc) emphasizes musical elements and verbal jokes. His twentyone surviving plays include a mythological travesty (Amphitruo), deceptions (Pseudolus, Epidicus), confusions of identity (Menaechmi, Casina), a revels (Stichus), and a moral fable (Captivi). The six surviving plays of Terence (c. 160 bc) thoughtfully adapt conventions to explore human relations.