Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/334

 308 ON THE EOMAN THEATRE. Old Comedy a garb very much resembling theirs : long trousers, and a doublet with sleeves, articles of dress otherwise strange both to Greeks and Romans. To this day, Zanni is one of Harlequin's names ; and Sannio in the Latin farces was the name of a buflfoon, who, as ancient writers testify, had his head shorn, and wore a dress pieced together out of gay party-coloured patches. The very image and likeness of Pulcinello is said to have been found among the fresco-paintings of Pompeii. If he derives his extraction originally from Atella, he has his local habitation still pretty much in the old land of his nativity. As for the objection, how these characters could be tradi- tionally kept up notwithstanding a suspension of all theatrical amusements for many centuries together, a sufficient answer may be found in the yearly licences of the carnival, and the fools'-holidays of the middle ages. The Greek mimes were dialogues written in prose, and not intended for the stage. Those of the Romans were composed in verse, were acted, and often delivered extem- pore. The most famous authors in this department were Laberlus and Syrus, contem- poraries of Julius Caesar. He, as dictator, by his courtly request compelled Laberius, a Roman knight, to exhibit himself publicly in his mimes, though the scenic profession was branded with the loss of civil rights. Laberius made his complaint of this in a prologue which is still extant, and in which the painful feeling of annihilated self- respect is nobly and touchingly expressed. It is not easy to conceive how in such a state of mind he could be capable of cracking ludicrous jokes, and how the audience, with so bitter an example of a despotic act of degradation before their eyes, could find pleasure in them, Caesar kept his word : he gave Laberius a considerable sum of money, and invested him anew with the equestrian rank, which however could not reinstate him in the opinion of his fellow-citizens. But he took his revenge for the prologue and other allusions ^, by awarding the prize against Laberius to Syrus, once the slave, and afterwards the freedman and pupil of Laberius in the art of composing mimes. Of Syrus's mimes there are still extant a number of sentences, which in matter and terse conciseness of expression deserve to be ranked with Menander's. Some of them even transcend the moral horizon of serious Comedy itself, and assume an almost stoic sublimity. How could the transition be eflfccted from vulgar jokes to such sentiments as these ? And how could such maxims be at all introduced, without a development of human relations as considerable as that exhibited in the perfect Comedy ? At all events, they are calculated to give one a very favourable idea of the mimes. Horace indeed speaks disparagingly of Laberius' mimes, considered as works of art, either on account of the arbitrary manner in which they were put together, or their carelessness of execution. Yet this ought not of itself to determine our judg- ment against them, for this critical poet, for reasons which it is easy to conceive, lays much greater stress upon the diligent use of the file, than upon original boldness and fertility of invention, A single entire mime, which time however has unfortunately denied us, would clear up the matter much better than the confused notices of gram- marians, and the conjectures of modern scholars. The regular Comedy of the Romans was mostly paUiata, that is, exhibited in the Grecian costume, and representing Grecian manners. This is the case with all the Comedies of Plautus and Terence. But they had also a Comcedia togata, so called from the Roman garb, usually worn in it. Afranius is mentioned as the most famous 1 What an inward liumiliation for Caesar, could he have foreseen, that after a few generations, his successor in the despotism, Nero, out of a lust for self-dishonour, would expose himself repeatedly to infamy in the same manner as he, the first despot, had exposed a Roman of the middle order, not without exciting genei-al indignation !