Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/431

411 KOMAN.] DRAMA 411 a boy placed in front of the llute-player (cantor}, while the actor accompanied them with gesticulations. The chorus (unlike the Greek) stood on the stage itself and seems occasionally at least to have taken part in the action. But the whole of the musical element can hardly have attained to so full a development as among the Greeks. The divisions of the action appear at first to have been three; from the addition of prologue and epilogue may have arisen the invention (probably due in tragedy to Varro) of the fixed number of five acts. In style, such influence as the genius of Roman literature could exercise must have been in the direction of the rhetorical and the pathetic ; a sur plus of energy on the one hand, and a defect of poetic rich ness on the other, can hardly have failed to characterize thesD, as they did all the other productions of earlier Roman poetry. [istory of In Roman comedy two different kinds respectively toman called palliata and toyata from the names of dress were jmedy. distinguished, the former treating Greek subjects and imitating Greek originals, the latter professing a native alliata. character. The palliata sought its originals especially in New Attic comedy ; and its authors, as they advanced in refinement of style, became more and more dependent upon their models, and unwilling to gratify the coarser tastes of the public by local allusions or gross seasonings. But that kind of comedy which shrinks from the rude breath of popular applause usually has in the end to give way to less squeamish rivals ; and thus, after the species had been cultivated for about a century (c. 250-150 B.C.), palliata; ceased to be composed except for the amusement of small circles, though the works of the most successful authors, Plautus and Terence, kept the stage even after the estab lishment of the empire. Among the earlier writers of palliatce were the tragic poets Andronicus, Nsevius, and Ennius, but they were alike surpassed by T. Maccius lautus. Piautus (254-184), nearly all of whose comedies esteemed genuine by Varro not less than 20 in number have been preserved. He was exclusively a comic poet, and though he borrowed his plots from the Greeks from Diphilus and Philemon apparently in preference to the more refined Menander there was in him a genuinely national as well as a genuinely popular element. Of the extent of his originality it is impossible to judge ; probably it lies in his elaboration of character and the comic details of his dialogue rather than in his plots. Modern comedy is indebted to him in all these points ; and in consequence of this fact, as well as of the attention his text has for linguistic reasons received from scholarship both ancient and modern, his merits have met with their full share of recognition. Statins Csecilius (an Insubrian brought to Rome as a captive c. 200) stands midway between Plautus ?erence. and Terence, but no plays of his remain. P. Terentius Afer (c. 185-159) was, as his cognomen implies, a native of Carthage, of whose conqueror he enjoyed the patronage. His six extant comedies seem to be tolerably close render ings of their Greek originals, nearly all of which were plays of Menander. It was the good fortune of the works of Terence to be preserved in an exceptionally large number of MSS. in the monastic libraries of the Middle Ages, and thus (as will be seen) to become a main link between the ancient and the Christian drama. As a dramatist he is distinguished by correctness of style rather than by variety in his plots or vivacity in his characters ; his chief merit and at the same time the quality which has rendered him so suitable for modern imitation is to be sought in the polite ease of his dialogue. In general, the characteristics of the palliatce, which were divided into five acts, are those of the New Comedy of Athens, like which they had no chorus ; for purposes of explanation from author to audience the prologue sufficed ; the Roman versions were probably terser than their originals, which they often altered by the process called contamination. The togata;, in the wider sense of the term, included all Togati Roman plays of native origin among the rest the prcetextce, in contradistinction to which and to the transient species of the trabeatce (from the dress of the knights) the comedies dealing with the life of the lower classes were afterwards called tabernarice (from taberna, a shop), a name suited by some of their extant titles, 1 .while others point to the treatment of provincial scenes. 2 The toyata, which was necessarily more realistic than the palliata, and doubt less fresher as well as coarser in tone, flourished in Roman literature between 170 and 80 B.C. In this species Titinius, all whose plays bear Latin titles and were tabernarice, was succeeded by the more refined L. Afranius, who, though still choosing national subjects, seems to have treated them in the spirit of Menander. His plays continued to be per formed under the empire, though with an admixture of elements derived from that lower species, the pantomime, to which they also were in the end to succumb. The Romans likewise adopted the burlesque kind of comedy called from its inventor Rhinthonica, and by other names (cf. ante). The end of Roman dramatic literature was dilettantism The and criticism ; the end of the Roman drama was spectacle Roma and show, buffoonery and sensual allurement. It was for * this that the theatre had passed through all its early troubles, when the political puritanism of the old school had upheld the martial games of the circus against the enervating influence of the stage. In those days the guardians of Roman virtue had sought to diminish the attractions of the theatre by insisting upon its remaining as uncomfortable as possible ; but as was usual at Rome, the privileges of the upper orders were at last extended to the population at large, though a separation of classes continued to be characteristic of a Roman audience. The first permanent theatre erected at Rome was that of Gn. Pompeius (55 B.C.), which contained nearly 18,000 seats; but even of this the portion allotted to the performers (sccena) was of wood; nor was it till the reign of Tiberius (22 A.D.) that, after being burnt down, the edifice was rebuilt in stone. See THEATRE. Though a species of amateur literary censorship, intro duced by Pompeius, became customary in the Augustan age, in general the drama s laws at Rome were given by the drama s patrons in other words, the production of plays was a matter of private speculation. The exhibitions were contracted for with the officials charged with the superintendence of public amusements (curatores ludoruin) ; the actors were slaves trained for the art, mostly natives of Actoi Southern Italy or Greece. Many of them rose to reputation and wealth, purchased their freedom, and themselves became directors of companies ; but though Sulla might make a knight of Roscius, and Caesar and his friends defy ancient prejudice, the stigma of civil disability (infamia) continued to adhere to the profession. The actor s art was carried on at Rome under conditions differing in other respects from those of the Greek theatre. The Romans loved a full stage, and from the later period of the republic liked to see it crowded with supernumeraries. This accorded with their military instincts, and with the general grossness of their tastes, which led them in the theatre as well as in the circus to delight in spectacle and tumult, and to applaud Pompeius when he furnished forth the return of Agamemnon in the Clytcemnestra with a grand total of 600 heavily-laden mules. On the other hand, the actors were nearer to the spectators in the Roman theatre 1 Augur; Cinerarius (The Crimper); Fullonia (The Fuller s Trade); Libertus (The Freedman); Tibicina (The Flute-girl). 2 Brundisince; Ferentinatis ; Setina.