sentences:  The earlier play influenced Webster's treatment.Beyond the 1576 play, the classical tale was available to Webster and his contemporaries in a variety of forms.Apart from the original "Ab Urbe condita" of Livy, it appears in "The Romance of the Rose," and the "Confessio Amantis" of John Gower, and The Physician's Tale in "The Canterbury Tales" of Geoffrey Chaucer.