605) ; but It was probably soon
afterwards
pulled down again (Tertull.
The history of Rome; tr. with the sanction of the ... v.3. Mommsen, Theodor, 1817-1903
96).
At the close of the
this popular festival had duration of at least six days and besides this there were celebrated at the beginning of April the festival of the Mother of the Gods or the so-called
A sort of parabasis in the Curculio of Plautus describes what went on In the market-place of the capital, with little humour perhaps, but with life-like distinctness.
Conmonstrabo, quo in quemqut hominem facile inveniatis loco, Ne nimio opcre sumat operant, si guis convention veto
Vel vitiosum vel sine vitio, vel probum vel inprobum.
Qui perjurum convenire volt hominem, ito in comitium Qui mendacem et gloriosum, apud Cloacinae sacrum. [Ditis damnosos maritos sub basilica quaerito.
Ibidem erunt scoria exolela quique stipulari solent. Symbolarum conlatores apud forum piscarium.
Inforo infumo boni homines atque dites ambulant In medio propter canalem ibi ostentatorts meri.
124
FAITH AND MANNERS
Confidentes garrulique et malevoli supra locum.
Qui alteri de nihilo audacter dicunt contumeliam
St qui ipsi sat habent quod in se possit vere dicier.
Sub veteribus ibi sunt, qui dant quique accipiunt faenort. Pone aedem Castoris ibi sunt, subito quibus credos male. In Tusco vico ibi sunt homines, qui ipsi sese venditant. In Velabro vel pistorem vel Ionium vel haruspicem
yd qui ipsi vorsant, vel qui aliis, ut vorsentur, pratbeant. Ditis damnosos maritos apud Leucadiam Oppiam.
The verses in brackets are subsequent addition, inserted after the 184. building of the first Roman bazaar (570). The business of the baker (pistor, literally miller) embraced at this time the sale of delicacies and the
providing accommodation for revellers (Festus, Ep. v. alicariae, p. 7, Mull. Plautus, Capt. 160 Poen. a, 54 Trin. 407). The same was the case with the butchers. Leucadia Oppia may have kept • house of bad
epoch,
;
i.
a
a
;
;
;
a
;;
]
1
it, a
chap, XIII FAITH AND MANNERS
125
towards the end of April that of Ceres and
that of Flora, in June that of Apollo, in November the Plebeian games —all of them probably occupying already more days than one. To these fell to be added the numerous cases where the games were celebrated afresh —
in which pious scruples presumably often served as a mere pretext —and the incessant extraordinary festivals. Among these the already -mentioned banquets furnished from the dedicated tenths no), the feasts of the gods, the triumphal and funeral festivities, were conspicuous; and above all the festal games which were celebrated —for the
first time in 505—at the close of one of those longer 249.
which were marked off the Etrusco- Roman religion, the saecula, as they were called. At the same
time domestic festivals were multiplied. During the second Punic war there were introduced, among people of quality, the already-mentioned banquetings on the anniver
sary of the entrance of the Mother of the Gods (after 550), 204 and, among the lower orders, the similar Saturnalia (after 537)i Doth under the influence of the powers henceforth 217. closely allied —the foreign priest and the foreign cook.
A very near approach was made to that ideal condition in which every idler should know where he might kill time every day and this in commonwealth where formerly action had been with all and sundry the very object of existence, and idle enjoyment had been proscribed by custom as well as by law The bad and demoralizing elements in these festal observances, moreover, daily ac quired greater ascendency. true that still as formerly
the chariot races formed the brilliant finale of the national festivals and poet of this period describes very vividly
the straining expectancy with which the eyes of the multi
tude were fastened on the consul, when he was on the point of giving the signal for the chariots to start. But
the former amusements no longer sufficed there was
Megalensia,
periods
;
a
;
a
It is
a 1
;
by
(p.
126 FAITH AND MANNERS book hi
craving for new and more varied spectacles. Greek
athletes now made their appearance (for the first time in 186. 568) alongside of the native wrestlers and boxers. Of the
dramatic exhibitions we shall speak hereafter : the trans planting of Greek comedy and tragedy to Rome was a gain perhaps of doubtful value, but it formed at any rate the best of the acquisitions made at this time. The Romans had probably long indulged in the sport of coursing hares and hunting foxes in presence of the public ; now these innocent hunts were converted into formal baitings of wild animals, and the wild beasts of Africa — lions and panthers —were (first so far as can be proved in
186. 568) transported at great cost to Rome, in order that by killing or being killed they might serve to glut the eyes of the gazers of the capital. The still more revolting gladia torial games, which prevailed in Campania and Etruria, now gained admission to Rome; human blood was first
264. shed for sport in the Roman forum in 490. Of course these demoralizing amusements encountered severe censure:
268. the consul of 486, Publius Sempronius Sophus, sent a divorce to his wife, because she had attended funeral games ; the government carried a decree of the people prohibiting the bringing over of wild beasts to Rome, and strictly insisted that no gladiators should appear at the public festivals. But here too it wanted either the requisite power or the requisite energy : it succeeded, apparently, in checking the practice of baiting animals, but the appear ance of sets of gladiators at private festivals, particularly at funeral celebrations, was not suppressed. Still less could the public be prevented from preferring the comedian to the tragedian, the rope-dancer to the comedian, the gladiator to the rope-dancer ; or the stage be prevented from revelling by choice amidst the pollution of Hellenic life. Whatever elements of culture were contained in the scenic and artistic entertainments were from the first
chap, xiii FAITH AND MANNERS taj
thrown aside ; it was by no means the object of the givers
of the Roman festivals to elevate — though it should be
but temporarily —the whole body of spectators through the power of poetry to the level of feeling of the best, as the Greek stage did in the period of its prime, or to prepare
an artistic pleasure for a select circle, as our theatres endeavour to do. The character of the managers and spectators in Rome is illustrated by a scene at the triumphal games in 587, where the first Greek flute-players, on their 167. melodies failing to please, were instructed by the director
to box with one another instead of playing, upon which the delight would know no bounds.
Nor was the evil confined to the corruption of Roman manners by Hellenic contagion ; conversely the scholars
began to demoralize their instructors. Gladiatorial games,
which were unknown in Greece, were first introduced by
king Antiochus Epiphanes (579-590), a professed imitator 178-164. of the Romans, at the Syrian court, and, although they
excited at first greater horror than pleasure in the Greek public, which was more humane and had more sense of art than the Romans, yet they held their ground likewise there, and gradually came more and more into vogue.
As a matter of course, this revolution in life and manners brought an economic revolution in its train. Residence in the capital became more and more coveted as well as more costly. Rents rose to an unexampled height Extravagant prices were paid for the new articles of luxury ; a barrel of anchovies from the Black Sea cost
1600 sesterces (j£i6)—more than the price of a rural slave ; a beautiful boy cost 24,000 sesterces (,£240)— more than many a farmer's homestead. Money therefore, and nothing but money, became the watchword with high and low. In Greece it had long been the case that nobody did anything for nothing, as the Greeks themselves with discreditable candour allowed : after the second
128 FAITH AND MANNERS book hi
Macedonian war the Romans began in this respect also to imitate the Greeks. Respectability had to provide itself with legal buttresses ; pleaders, for instance, had to be prohibited by decree of the people from taking money for their services ; the jurisconsults alone formed a noble exception, and needed no decree of the people to compel
their adherence to the honourable custom of giving good advice gratuitously. Men did not, if possible, steal out right ; but all shifts seemed allowable in order to attain rapidly to riches — plundering and begging, cheating on the part of contractors and swindling on the part of speculators, usurious trading in money and in grain, even the turning of purely moral relations such as friendship and marriage to economic account. Marriage especially became on both sides an object of mercantile speculation ; marriages for money were common, and it appeared necessary to refuse legal validity to the presents which the spouses made to each other. That, under such a state of things, plans for setting fire on all sides to the capital came to the knowledge of the authorities, need excite no surprise. When man no longer finds enjoyment in work, and works merely in order to attain as quickly as possible to enjoyment, it is a mere accident that he does not become a criminal. Destiny had lavished all the glories of power and riches with liberal hand on the Romans ; but, in truth, trie Pandora's box was a gift of doubtful value.
CHAP, xi y LITERATURE AND ART
119
CHAPTER XTV
LITERATURE AND ART
The influences which stimulated the growth of Roman literature were of a character altogether peculiar and hardly paralleled in any other nation. To estimate them correctly, it is necessary in the first place that we should glance at the instruction of the people and its recreations during this period.
Language lies at the root of all mental culture ; and this was especially the case in Rome. In a community where ? {
so much importance was attached to speeches and documents, and where the burgess, at an age which is still according to modern ideas regarded as boyhood, was already entrusted with the uncontrolled management of his property and might perhaps find it necessary to make formal speeches to the assembled community, not only was great value set all along on the fluent and polished use of the mother-tongue, but efforts were early made to acquire a command of it in the years of boyhood. The Greek language also was already generally diffused in Italy in the time of Hannibal. In the higher circles a knowledge of that language, which was the general medium of inter course for ancient civilization, had long been a far from uncommon accomplishment ; and now, when the change of Rome's position in the world had so enormously increased
the intercourse with foreigners and the foreign traffic, such
VOL, III
74
Knowledge languages.
IJ»
LITERATURE AND ART book III
a knowledge was, if not necessary, yet presumably of very material importance to the merchant as well as the states man. By means of the Italian slaves and freedmen, a very large portion of whom were Greek or half-Greek by birth, the Greek language and Greek knowledge to a certain extent reached even the lower ranks of the population, especially in the capital. The comedies of this period may convince us that even the humbler classes of the capital were familiar with a sort of Latin, which could no more be properly understood without a knowledge of Greek than the English of Sterne or the German of Wieland without a knowledge of French. 1 Men of senatorial families, how ever, not only addressed a Greek audience in Greek, but even published their speeches —Tiberius Gracchus (consul
\Tl. 168. in 577 and 591) so published a speech which he had given at Rhodes —and in the time of Hannibal wrote their chronicles in Greek, as we shall have occasion to mention more particularly in the sequel. Individuals went still farther. The Greeks honoured Flamininus by compli mentary demonstrations in the Roman language 437), and he returned the compliment the "great general of the Aeneiades " dedicated his votive gifts to the Greek gods
A distinct set of Greek expressions, such as stratioticus, mathaera, nauclrrus, trapcrita, danista, drapeta, oenopoHum, bolus, malacus, morus, graphicus, logus, apologus, Uchna, schema, forms quite a special feature in the language of Plautus. Translations are seldom attached, and that only
in the case of words not embraced in the circle of ideas to which those which we have cited belong for instance, in the Trueulentus — in a verse, however, that perhaps later addition 1, 60)—we find the explana tion <pp6yijcit est sapientia. Fragments of Greek also are common, as in the Casino, (iii.
OpdyfULTd tun rapixut—Dabo fUya kokqsi, ut opinor. Greek puns likewise occur, as in the Baxchides (240)
opus est chryso Chrysalo.
Ennius in the same way takes for granted that the etymological meaning of Alexandras and Andromache known to the spectators (Varro, de L. L. vii. 8a). Most characteristic of all are the half-Greek formations, such aiferritribax, plagipatida, pugilice, or in the Miles Oloriosus (913):
euscheme herclt astitit sic dulice et comoedicel
Euge
I
is
is
:
6,
9) :
a
;
:
1
(i.
;
(ii.
chap, xiv LITERATURE AND ART
131
after the Greek fashion in Greek distichs. 1 Cato reproached another senator with the fact, that he had the effrontery to deliver Greek recitations with the due modulation at Greek revels.
Under the influence of such circumstances Roman instruction developed itself. It is a mistaken opinion, that antiquity was materially inferior to our own times in the general diffusion of elementary attainments. Even among the lower classes and slaves there was much reading, writing, and counting : in the case of a slave steward, for instance, Cato, following the example of Mago, takes for granted the ability to read and write. Elementary instruction, as well as instruction in Greek, must have been long before this period imparted to a very considerable extent in Rome. But the epoch now before us initiated an education, the aim of which was to communicate not merely an outward expertness, but a real mental culture. Hitherto in Rome a knowledge of Greek had conferred on
its possessor as little superiority in civil or social life, as a knowledge of French perhaps confers at the present day in a hamlet of German Switzerland ; and the earliest writers of Greek chronicles may have held a position among the other senators similar to that of the farmer in the fens of Holstein who has been a student and in the evening, when he comes home from the plough, takes down his Virgil from the shelf. A man who assumed airs of greater im portance by reason of his Greek, was reckoned a bad patriot and a fool ; and certainly even in Cato's time one who spoke Greek ill or not at all might still be a man of rank and become senator and consul. But a change was
1 One of these epigrams composed in the name of Flamininus runt thus:
Zyvbs lui KpaiirvaiaL yeyaOoTti InrooOvam Kovpoi, lui Zirdpraf TvvSaplScu /9a<rtX«>,
Aircddas Tiros Ofifuif viripTarov Cmaat owpor VyMjuur rnifat raivlf {\tv0tfla*.
13a
LITERATURE AND ART BOOK ill
already taking place. The internal decomposition of Italian nationality had already, particularly in the aris tocracy, advanced so far as to render the substitution of a general humane culture for that nationality inevitable : and the craving after a more advanced civilization was already powerfully stirring the minds of men. Instruction in the Greek language as it were spontaneously met this craving. The classical literature of Greece, the Iliad and still more the Odyssey, had all along formed the basis of that instruction; the overflowing treasures of Hellenic art and science were already by this means spread before the eyes of the Italians. Without any outward revolution, strictly speaking, in the character of the instruction the natural result was, that the empirical study of the language became converted into a higher study of the literature ; that the general culture connected with such literary studies was communicated in increased measure to the scholars; and that these availed themselves of the knowledge thus
acquired to dive into that Greek literature which most powerfully influenced the spirit of the age—the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Menander.
In a similar way greater importance came to be attached to instruction in Latin. The higher society of Rome began to feel the need, if not of exchanging their mother- tongue for Greek, at least of refining it and adapting it to the changed state of culture ; and for this purpose too they found themselves in every respect dependent on the Greeks. The economic arrangements of the Romans placed the work of elementary instruction in the mother-tongue —like every other work held in little estimation and performed for hire—chiefly in the hands of slaves, freedmen, or foreigners, or in other words chiefly in the hands of Greeks or half-Greeks ; 1 which was attended with the less difficulty,
1 Such, e. g. , was Chilo, the slave of Cato the Elder, who earned money ob his master's behalf as a teacher of children (Plutarch, Cato Mai. ao).
chap, xiv LITERATURE AND ART
133
because the Latin alphabet was almost identical with the Greek and the two languages possessed a close and striking
But this was the least part of the matter; the importance of the study of Greek in a formal point of view exercised a far deeper influence over the study of Latin. Any one who knows how singularly difficult it is to find suitable matter and suitable forms for the higher intellectual culture of youth, and how much more difficult it is to set aside the matter and forms once found, will understand how it was that the Romans knew no mode of supplying the desideratum of a more advanced Latin instruction except that of simply transferring the solution of this problem, which instruction in the Greek language and literature furnished, to instruction in Latin. In the present day a process entirely analogous goes on under our own eyes in the transference of the methods of instruction from the dead to the living languages.
But unfortunately the chief requisite for such a transfer ence was wanting. The Romans could, no doubt, learn to read and write Latin by means of the Twelve Tables ; but a Latin culture presupposed a literature, and no such literature existed in Rome.
To this defect was added a second. We have already The stage described the multiplication of the amusements of the Ro- SS man people. The stage had long played an important part influence, in these recreations; the chariot-races formed strictly the
principal amusement in all of them, but these races uni formly took place only on one, viz. the concluding, day, while the earlier days were substantially devoted to stage- entertainments. But for long these stage-representations consisted chiefly of dances and jugglers' feats ; the impro vised chants, which were produced on these occasions, had neither dialogue nor plot (ii. 98). It was only now that the Romans looked around them for a real drama. The Roman popular festivals were throughout under the influence of the
affinity.
Rise of a literatme.
Greeks, whose talent for amusing and for killing time natu rally rendered them purveyors of pleasure for the Romans. Now no national amusement was a greater favourite in Greece, and none was more varied, than the theatre; it could not but speedily attract the attention of those who provided the Roman festivals and their staff of assistants. The earlier Roman stage-chant contained within it a dramatic germ capable perhaps of development; but to develop the drama from that germ required on the part of the poet and the public a genial power of giving and receiv ing, such as was not to be found among the Romans at all, and least of all at this period ; and, had it been possible to find the impatience of those entrusted with the amuse ment of the multitude would hardly have allowed to the noble fruit peace and leisure to ripen. In this case too there was an outward want, which the nation was unable to satisfy the Romans desired theatre, but the pieces were wanting.
On these elements Roman literature was based; and its defective character was from the first and necessarily the result of such an origin. All real art has its root in indivi dual freedom and cheerful enjoyment of life, and the germs of such an art were not wanting in Italy but, when Roman training substituted for freedom and joyousness the sense of belonging to the community and the consciousness of duty, art was stifled and, instead of growing, could not but pine away. The culminating point of Roman development was the period which had no literature. It was not till Roman nationality began to give way and Hellenico-cosmopolite tendencies began to prevail, that literature made its appear ance at Rome in their train. Accordingly from the beginning, and by stringent internal necessity, took its stand on Greek ground and in broad antagonism to the distinctively Roman national spirit. Roman poetry above all had its immediate origin not from the inward impulse of
134
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it
;
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;
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a
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the poets, but from the outward demands of the school, which needed Latin manuals, and of the stage, which needed Latin dramas. Now both institutions —the school and the stage —were thoroughly anti-Roman and revolutionary. The gaping and staring idleness of the theatre was an abomina tion to the sober earnestness and the spirit of activity which animated the Roman of the olden type ; and— inasmuch as it was the deepest and noblest conception lying at the root of the Roman commonwealth, that within the circle of Roman burgesses there should be neither master nor slave, neither miUionnaire nor beggar, but that above all a like faith and a like culture should characterize all Romans —the school and the necessarily exclusive school- culture were far more dangerous still, and were in fact utterly destructive of the sense of equality. The school and the theatre became the most effective levers in the hands of the new spirit of the age, and all the more so that they used the Latin tongue. Men might perhaps speak and write Greek and yet not cease to be Romans ; but in this case they accustomed themselves to speak in the Roman language, while the whole inward being and life were Greek. It is not one of the most pleasing, but it is one of the most remarkable and in a historical point of view most instructive, facts in this brilliant era of Roman conservatism, that during its course Hellenism struck root in the whole field of intellect not immediately political, and that the maitre de plaisir of the great public and the schoolmaster in close alliance created a Roman literature.
In the very earliest Roman author the later development Livius An-
r caM~
as it were, in embryo. The Greek Andronikos
(from before 482, till after 547), afterwards as a Roman 372. 207. burgess called Lucius1 Livius Andronicus, came to Rome
at an early age in 482 among the other captives taken at 272.
1 The later rule, by which the freedman necessarily bore the fratnowum of his patron, was not yet applied In republican Rome.
appears,
207.
136
LITERATURE AND ART book in
Tarentum 37) and passed into the possession of the
conqueror of Sena 348) Marcus Livius Salinator (consul 219. 207. 535, 547). He was employed as slave, partly in acting and copying texts, partly in giving instruction in the Latin
and Greek languages, which he taught both to the children of his master and to other boys of wealthy parents in and out of the house. He distinguished himself so much this way that his master gave him freedom, and even the autho rities, who not unfrequently availed themselves of his services —commissioning him, for instance, to prepare thanks giving-chant after the fortunate turn taken by the Hannibalic war in 547—out of regard for him conceded to the guild of poets and actors place for their common worship in the temple of Minerva on the Aventine. His authorship arose out of his double occupation. As schoolmaster he translated the Odyssey into Latin, in order that the Latin text might form the basis of his Latin, as the Greek text was the basis of his Greek, instruction and this earliest of Roman school-
books maintained its place in education for centuries. As an actor, he not only like every other wrote for himself the texts themselves, but he also published them as books, that he read them in public and diffused them copies. What was still more important, he substituted the Greek drama for the old essentially lyrical stage poetry. was in
240. 5M. year after the close of the first Punic war, that the first play was exhibited on the Roman stage. This creation of an epos, tragedy, and comedy in the Roman language, and that by man who was more Roman than Greek, was historically an event but we cannot speak of his labours as having any artistic value. They make no sort of claim to originality viewed as translations, they are characterized by barbarism which only the more percep tible, that this poetry does not naively display its own native simplicity, but strives, after pedantic and stammering fashion, to imitate the high artistic culture of the neighbouring
a
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a
a
a ;
;
a
(ii. (ii.
a
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It
by
a
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a
chap, xiv LITERATURE AND ART
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people. The wide deviations from the original have arisen not from the freedom, but from the rudeness of the imitation ; the treatment is sometimes insipid, sometimes turgid, the language harsh and quaint. 1 We have no difficulty in believing the statement of the old critics of art, that, apart from the compulsory reading at school, none of the poems of Livius were taken up a second time. Yet these labours were in various respects norms for succeeding times. They began the Roman translated literature, and naturalized the Greek metres in Latium. The reason why these were adopted only in the dramas, while the Odyssey of Livius was written in the national Saturnian measure, evidently was that the iambuses and trochees of tragedy and comedy far more easily admitted of imitation in Latin than the epic dactyls.
But this preliminary stage of literary development was soon passed. The epics and dramas of Livius were re garded by posterity, and undoubtedly with perfect justice, as resembling the rigid statues of Daedalus destitute of emo tion or expression — curiosities rather than works of art.
1 One of the tragedies of Livius presented the line —
Quem ego nifrendem alui licteam immulgins opem.
The verses of Homer (Odyssey, xii. 16) :
oiS' ipa Ktpicriv it 'Aittio i\06mn eX^eoner, dXXA fi&\' S>xa
*A9' irrwaiiivn ' &na 3' ifuplirokoi (pipov alrr% vItov koX Kpla. 7roXXi koX aWowa. olvov Ipv0p6v.
are thus interpreted :
Tipper eiti ad aidis—vfnimds Circae Simili diiona dram (? ) —portant ad ndvis, Milia ilia in isdem — inserinilntur.
The most remarkable feature is not so much the barbarism as the thought lessness of the translator, who, instead of sending Circe to Ulysses, sends Ulysses to Circe. Another still more ridiculous mistake is the translation of altoiourtp ISuxa {Odyss. xv. 373) by lusi (Festus, Ep. v. affatim, p. n,
Such traits are not in a historical point of view matters of indifference ; we recognize in them the stage of intellectual culture which marked these earliest Roman verse-making schoolmasters, and we at the same time perceive that, although Andronicus was born in Tarentum, Greek cannot have been properly his mother-tongue.
Miilltr).
Drama. Theatre,
Ijfi LITERATURE AND ART book hi
But in the following generation, now that the foundations were once laid, there arose a lyric, epic, and dramatic art ; and it is of great importance, even in a historical
point of view, to trace this poetical development.
Both as respects extent of production and influence over the public, the drama stood at the head of the poetry
thus developed in Rome. In antiquity there was no permanent theatre with fixed admission-money ; in Greece as in Rome the drama made its appearance only as an element in the annually-recurring or extraordinary amuse ments of the citizens. Among the measures by which the
counteracted or imagined that they counter acted that extension of the popular festivals which they justly regarded with anxiety, they refused to permit the erection of a stone building for a theatre. 1 Instead of this there was erected for each festival a scaffolding of boards with a stage for the actors (proscaenium, pulpitum) and a decorated background (scaena) ; and in a semicircle in front of it was staked off the space for the spectators (eavea), which was merely sloped without steps or seats, so that, if the spectators had not chairs brought along with them, they squatted, reclined, or stood. * The women were probably separated at an early period, and were restricted to the uppermost and worst places ; otherwise there was
government
194. no distinction of places in law till 560, after which, as already mentioned (p. 10), the lowest and best positions were reserved for the senators.
179. 155.
1 Such a building was, no doubt, constructed for the Apollinarian games in the Flaminian circus in 575 (Liv. xl. 51 ; Becker, Top. p.
605) ; but It was probably soon afterwards pulled down again (Tertull. de Spat. 10I.
* In 599 there were still no seats in the theatre (Ritschl, Parerg. i. p. xviii. xx. 214 ; romp. Ribbeck, Trag. p. 385) ; but, as not only the authors of the Plautine prologues, but Plautus himself on various occasions, make allusions to a sitting audience [Mil. Glor. 82, 83 ; Aulul. It. 9, 6 ; Trucul. ap. fin. ; Epid. ap. fin. ), most of the spectators must have brought stools with them or have seated themselves on the ground.
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The audience was anything but genteel. The better Audience, classes, it is true, did not keep aloof from the general re
creations of the people ; the fathers of the city seem even
to have been bound for decorum's sake to appear on
these occasions. But the very nature of a burgess festival implied that, while slaves and probably foreigners also were excluded, admittance free of charge was given to every burgess with his wife and children ;1 and accordingly the body of spectators cannot have differed much from what one sees in the present day at public fireworks and
gratis exhibitions. Naturally, therefore, the proceedings were not too orderly ; children cried, women talked and shrieked, now and then a wench prepared to push her way to the stage ; the ushers had on these festivals any thing but a holiday, and found frequent occasion to con fiscate a mantle or to ply the rod.
The introduction of the Greek drama increased the de mands on the dramatic staff, and there seems to have been no redundance in the supply of capable actors : on one occasion for want of actors a piece of Naevius had to be performed by amateurs. But this produced no change in the position of the artist ; the poet or, as he was at this time called, the "writer," the actor, and the composer not only belonged still, as formerly, to the class of workers for hire in itself little esteemed 94), but were still, as formerly, placed in the most marked way under the ban of public opinion, and subjected to police maltreatment
company
Women and children appear to have been at all times admitted to the Roman theatre Val. Max. vi. 3, 12 Plutarch. Quaest Rem. 14 Cicero, de Har. Resp. 12, 24 Vitruv. v. Suetonius, Aug. 44,
but slaves were de jure excluded (Cicero, de Har. Resp. 12, 26 Ritschl, Parerg. p. xix. 223), and the same must doubtless have been the case with foreigners, excepting of course the guests of the community, who took their places among or by the side of the senators (Varro, v. 155 Justin, xliii. 5, 10 Sueton. Aug. 44).
Ac. )
Of course all reputable persons kept aloof from
(ii. 98).
such an occupation. The manager of the
;
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;
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grefis, factionis, also choragus), who was ordi narily also the chief actor, was generally a freedman, and its members were ordinarily his slaves ; the composers, whose names have reached us, were all of them non-free. The remuneration was not merely small — a honorarium of 8000 sesterces (;£8o) given to a dramatist is described
shortly after the close of this period as unusually high —but was, moreover, only paid by the magistrates pro viding the festival, if the piece was not a failure. With the payment the matter ended; poetical competitions and
(dominus
such as took place in Attica, were not yet heard of in Rome — the Romans at this time appear to have simply applauded or hissed as we now do, and
to have brought forward only a single piece for exhibition each day. 1 Under such circumstances, where art worked for daily wages and the artist instead of receiving due honour was subjected to disgrace, the new national theatre of the Romans could not present any development either original or even at all artistic ; and, while the noble rivalry of the noblest Athenians had called into life the Attic drama, the Roman drama taken as a whole could be nothing but a spoiled copy of its predecessor, in which the only wonder is that it has been able to display so much grace and wit in the details.
1 It is not necessary to infer from the prologues of Plautus (Cos. 17 ; Amfh. 65) that there was a distribution of prizes (Ritschl, Parerg. i. ■29) ; even the passage Trin. 706, may very well belong to the Greek original, not to the translator ; and the total silence of the didascaliae and prologues, as well as of all tradition, on the point of prize tribunals and prizes is decisive.
That only one piece was produced each day we infer from the fact, that the spectators come from home at the beginning of the piece (Foot. 10), and return home after its close (Epid. Pseud. Pud. SticA. True. ap.
honorary prizes,
They went, as these passages show, to the theatre after the second breakfast, and were at home again for the midday meal ; the performance hus lasted, according to our reckoning, from about noon till half -past
two o'clock, and a piece of Plautus, with music in the intervals between the acts, might probably occupy nearly that length of time (comp. Horal Bp. ii. 1, 189). The passage, in which Tacitus (Ann. xiv. 20) makes the spectators spend "whole days" in the theatre, refers to the state (I matters at a later period.
Jin. ).
chap. XIT LITERATURE AND ART
141
In the dramatic world comedy greatly preponderated Comedy, over tragedy ; the spectators knit their brows, when instead
of the expected comedy a tragedy began. Thus it hap
pened that, while this period exhibits poets who devoted themselves specially to comedy, such as Plautus and Caecilius, it presents none who cultivated tragedy alone ;
and among the dramas of this epoch known to us by
name there occur three comedies for one tragedy. Of
course the Roman comic poets, or rather translators,
laid hands in the first instance on the pieces which had possession of the Hellenic stage at the time ; and thus
they found themselves exclusively1 confined to the range
of the newer Attic comedy, and chiefly to its best-known
poets, Philemon of Soli in Cilicia (394 ? 492) and Menander of Athens (412-462). This comedy came to
be of so great importance as regards the development
not only of Roman literature, but even of the nation
at large, that even history has reason to pause and con
sider it
The pieces are of tiresome monotony. Almost without Character exception the plot turns on helping a young man, at the
expense either of his father or of some leno, to obtain Attic
possession of a sweetheart of undoubted charms and of very doubtful morals. The path to success in love regularly lies through some sort of pecuniary fraud ; and the crafty servant, who provides the needful sum and performs the requisite swindling while the lover is mourning over his amatory and pecuniary distresses, is the real mainspring of
1 The scanty use made of what is called the middle Attic comedy does not require notice in a historical point of view, since it was nothing but the Menandrian comedy in a less developed form. There is no trace of any employment of the older comedy. The Roman tragi -comedy- after the type of the Amphitruo of Plautus —was no doubt styled by the Roman literary historians fabula Rhinthonica ; but the newer Attic co medians also composed such parodies, and it is difficult to see why the Romans should have resorted for their translations to Rhinthon and the older writers rather than to those who were nearer to their own times.
comeoy•
860-263. 342-292.
142
LITERATURE AND ART book in i
the piece. There is no want of the due accompaniment of reflections on the joys and sorrows of love, of tearful parting-scenes, of lovers who in the anguish of their hearts threaten to do themselves a mischief; love or rather amorous intrigue was, as the old critics of art say, the very life-breath of the Menandrian poetry. Marriage forms, at least with Menander, the inevitable finale; on which occasion, for the greater edification and satisfaction of the spectators, the virtue of the heroine usually comes forth almost if not wholly untarnished, and the heroine herself proves to be the lost daughter of some rich man and so in every respect an eligible match. Along with these love-pieces we find others of a pathetic kind. Among the comedies of Plautus, for instance, the Rudens turns on a shipwreck and the right of asylum ; while the Trinummus and the Captivi contain no amatory intrigue, but depict the generous devotedness of the friend to his friend and of the slave to his master. Persons and situations recur down to the very details like patterns on a carpet ; we never get rid of the asides of unseen listeners, of knocking at the house-doors, and of slaves scouring the streets on some
errand or other. The standing masks, of which there was a certain fixed number — viz. , eight masks for old men, and seven for servants —from which alone in ordinary cases at least the poet had to make his choice, further favoured a stock-model treatment. Such a comedy almost of necessity rejected the lyrical element in the older comedy—the chorus — and confined itself from the first to conversation, or at most recitation ; it was devoid not of the political element only, but of all true passion and of all poetical
elevation. The pieces judiciously made no pretence to any grand or really poetical effect : their charm resided pri marily in furnishing occupation for the intellect, not only through their subject-matter — in which respect the newer comedy was distinguished from the old as much by the
chap, xit LITERATURE AND ART
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greater intrinsic emptiness as by the greater outward com plication of the plot—but more especially through their execution in detail, in which the point and polish of the conversation more particularly formed the triumph of the poet and the delight of the audience. Compli cations and confusions of one person with another, which very readily allowed scope for extravagant, often licenti ous, practical jokes — as in the Casina, which winds up in genuine Falstaffian style with the retiring of the two bridegrooms and of the soldier dressed up as bride— jests, drolleries, and riddles, which in fact for want of real conversation furnished the staple materials of enter tainment at the Attic table of the period, fill up a large portion of these comedies. The authors of them wrote not like Eupolis and Aristophanes for a great nation, but rather for a cultivated society which spent its time, like other clever circles whose cleverness finds little fit
scope for action, in guessing riddles and playing at charades. They give us, therefore, no picture of their times ; of the great historical and intellectual movements of the age no trace appears in these comedies, and we need to recall, in order to realize, the fact that Philemon and Menander were really contemporaries of Alexander and Aristotle. But they give us a picture, equally elegant and faithful, of that refined Attic society beyond the circles of which comedy never travels. Even in the dim Latin copy, through which we chiefly know the grace of the original
not wholly obliterated; and more especially in the pieces wnich are imitated from Menander, the most talented of these poets, the life which the poet saw and shared delicately reflected not so much in its aberrations and distortions as in its amiable every-day course. The friendly domestic relations between father and daughter, husband and wife, master and servant, with their love- affairs and other little critical incidents, are portrayed with
is is
it,
144 LITERATURE AND ART book hi
so broad a truthfulness, that even now they do not miss their effect: the servants' feast, for instance, with which the Stichus concludes in the limited range of its re lations and the harmony of the two lovers and the one sweetheart, of unsurpassed gracefulness in its kind. The elegant grisettes, who make their appearance perfumed and adorned, with their hair fashionably dressed and varie gated, gold-embroidered, sweeping robes, or even perform their toilette on the stage, are very effective. In their train come the procuresses, sometimes of the most vulgar sort, such as one who appears in the Curculio, sometimes duennas like Goethe's old Barbara, such as Scapha in the Mostettaria and there no lack of brothers and comrades ready with their help. There great abundance and variety of parts representing the old there appear in turn
the austere and avaricious, the fond and tender-hearted, and the indulgent accommodating, papas, the amorous old
man, the easy old bachelor, the jealous aged matron with her old maid-servant who takes part with her mistress against her master; whereas the young men's parts are less prominent, and neither the first lover, nor the virtuous model son who here and there occurs, lays claim to much significance. The servant-world —the crafty valet, the stern house-steward, the old vigilant tutor, the rural slave redolent of garlic, the impertinent page —forms transition to the very numerous professional parts. A standing figure among these the jester (parasitus) who, in return for permission to feast at the table of the rich, has to entertain the guests with drolleries and charades, or, according to circumstances, to let the potsherds be flung at his head. This was at that time formal trade in Athens and certainly no mere poetical fiction which represents such a parasite as expressly preparing himself for his work by means of his books of witticisms and anecdotes. Favourite parts, moreover, are those of the cook, who understands
a
is
;
a
it is
is
is :
;
in
is,
chap, xiv LITERATURE AND ART
145
not only how to boast of unheard-of sauces, but also how to pilfer like a professional thief; the shameless leno, com placently confessing to the practice of every vice, of whom Ballio in the Pseudolus is a model specimen ; the military braggadocio, in whom we trace a very distinct reflection of the free-lance habits that prevailed under Alexander's successors; the professional sharper or sycophant, the stingy money-changer, the solemnly silly physician, the priest, mariner, fisherman, and the like. To these fall to be added, lastly, the parts delineative of character in the strict sense, such as the superstitious man of Menander and the miser in the Aulularia of Plautus. The national- Hellenic poetry has preserved, even in this its last creation, its indestructible plastic vigour; but the delineation of character is here copied from without rather than repro duced from inward experience, and the more so, the more the task approaches to the really poetical. It is a sig nificant circumstance that, in the parts illustrative of character to which we have just referred, the psychological truth is in great part represented by abstract development of the conception ; the miser here collects the parings of his nails and laments the tears which he sheds as a waste of water. But the blame of this want of depth in the portraying of character, and generally of the whole poetical and moral hollowness of this newer comedy, lay less with the comic writers than with the nation as a whole.
Every thing distinctively Greek was expiring : fatherland, national faith, domestic life, all nobleness of action and sentiment were gone; poetry, history, and philosophy were inwardly exhausted; and nothing remained to the Athenian save
the school, the fish -market, and the brothel. It is no matter of wonder and hardly a matter of blame, that poetry, which is destined to shed a glory over human existence, could make nothing more out of such a life than the Menandrian comedy presents to us. It is at the same
vou in
75
146 LITERATURE AND ART book hi
time very remarkable that the poetry of this period, wherever it was able to turn away in some degree from the corrupt Attic life without falling into scholastic imitation, immediately gathers strength and freshness from the ideal. In the only remnant of the mock-heroic comedy of this period —the Amphitruo of Plautus —there breathes through out a purer and more poetical atmosphere than in all the other remains of the contemporary stage. The good- natured gods treated with gentle irony, the noble forms from the heroic world, and the ludicrously cowardly slaves present the most wonderful mutual contrasts; and, after the comical course of the plot, the birth of the son of the gods amidst thunder and lightning forms an almost grand concluding effect But this task of turning the myths into irony was innocent and poetical, as compared with that of the ordinary comedy depicting the Attic life of the period. No special accusation may be brought from a historico-moral point of view against the poets, nor ought it to be made matter of individual reproach to any particular poet that he occupies the level of his epoch : comedy was not the cause,
but the effect of the corruption that prevailed in the national life. But it is necessary, more especially with a view to judge correctly the influence of these comedies on the life of the Roman people, to point out the abyss which yawned beneath all that polish and elegance. The coarse nesses and obscenities, which Menander indeed in some measure avoided, but of which there is no lack in the other
are the least part of the evil. Features far worse are, the dreadful desolation of life in which the only oases are lovemaking and intoxication; the fearfully prosaic atmosphere, in which anything resembling enthusiasm is to be found only among the sharpers whose heads have been turned by their own swindling, and who prosecute the trade of cheating with some sort of zeal ; and above all that immoral morality, with which the pieces of Menander in
poets,
CHAP. XIV LITERATURE AND ART
147
particular are garnished. Vice is chastised, virtue is re warded, and any peccadilloes are covered by conversion at or after marriage. There are pieces, such as the
Trinummus of Plautus and several of Terence, in which all the characters down to the slaves possess some admixture of virtue ; all swarm with honest men who allow deception on their behalf, with maidenly virtue wherever possible, with lovers equally favoured and making love in company ; moral commonplaces and well-turned ethical maxims abound. A finale of reconciliation such as that of the Bacchides, where the swindling sons and the swindled fathers by way of a good winding up all go to carouse together in the brothel, presents a corruption of morals thoroughly worthy of Kotzebue.
Such were the foundations, and such the elements which shaped the growth, of Roman comedy. Originality was in its case excluded not merely by want of aesthetic freedom, but in the first instance, probably, by its subjection to police control. Among the considerable number of Latin comedies of this sort which are known to us, there is not
Roman
''
its HellemsTM a necessary result of thelaw-
'
one that did not announce itself as an imitation of a
definite Greek model; the title was only complete when the names of the Greek piece and of its author were also given, and as occasionally happened, the " novelty " of piece was disputed, the question was merely whether had been previously translated. Comedy laid the scene of its plot abroad not only frequently, but regularly and under the pressure of necessity and that species of art derived its special name (fabula palliate? ) from the fact, that the scene was laid away from Rome, usually in Athens, and
that the dramatis personal were Greeks or at any rate not Romans. The foreign costume strictly carried out even in detail, especially in those things in which the unculti vated Roman was distinctly sensible of the contrast. Thus the names of Rome and the Romans are avoided,
com
is
;
it
a
if,
148
LITERATURE AND ART book hi
and, where they are referred to, they are called in good Greek " foreigners " (barbart) ; in like manner among the appellations of moneys and coins, that occur ever so frequently, there does not once appear a Roman coin. We form a strange idea of men of so great and so versatile talents as Naevius and Plautus, if we refer such things to their free choice : this strange and clumsy " exterritorial " character of Roman comedy was undoubtedly due to causes very different from aesthetic considerations. The transference of such social relations, as are
Political **" **.
uniformly delineated in the new Attic comedy, to the Rome of the Hannibalic period would have been a direct outrage on its
civic order and morality. But, as the dramatic spectacles at this period were regularly given by the aediles and praetors who were entirely dependent on the senate, and even extraordinary festivals, funeral games for instance, could not take place without permission of the govern ment ; and as the Roman police, moreover, was not in the habit of standing on ceremony in any case, and least of all in dealing with the comedians ; the reason is self- evident why this comedy, even after it was admitted as one of the Roman national amusements, might still bring no Roman upon the stage, and remained as it were banished to foreign lands.
The compilers were still more decidedly prohibited from naming any living person in terms either of praise or cen sure, as well as from any captious allusion to the circum stances of the times. In the whole repertory of the Plautine and post-Plautine comedy, there is not, so far as we know, matter for a single action of damages. In like manner—if we leave out of view some wholly harmless jests—we meet hardly any trace of invectives levelled at communities (invectives which, owing to the lively municipal spirit of the Italians, would have been specially dangerous), except the significant scoff at the unfortunate Capuans and
chap, xit LITERATURE AND ART
149
Atellans (ii. 366) and, what is remarkable, various sarcasms on the arrogance and the bad Latin of the Praenestines. 1 In general no references to the events or circumstances of the present occur in the pieces of Plautus. The only ex ceptions are, congratulations on the course of the war 2 or on the peaceful times ; general sallies directed against usurious dealings in grain or money, against extravagance, against bribery by candidates, against the too frequent triumphs, against those who made a trade of collecting forfeited fines, against farmers of the revenue distraining for payment, against the dear prices of the oil -dealers; and once — in the Curculio —a more lengthened diatribe as to the doings in the Roman market, reminding us of the parabascs of the older Attic comedy, and but little likely to cause offence
But even in the midst of such patriotic endeavours, which from a police point of view were entirely in order, the poet interrupts himself;
Sed sumne ego stultus, qui rem euro publicam Ubi sunt magistrates, quos curare oporteat t
and taken as a whole, we can hardly imagine a comedy
1 Batch. 24 ; Trin. 609 ; True. iil. a, 33. Naevius also, who in fact was generally less scrupulous, ridicules the Praenestines and Lanuvinl (Com. si, Ribb. ). There are indications more than once of a certain variance between the Praenestines and Romans (Liv. xxiii. 20, xlil. 1) ; and the executions in the time of Pyrrhus (ii. 18) as well as the catastrophe in that of Sulla, were certainly connected with this variance. — Innocent jokes, such as Capt. 160, 881, of course passed uncensured. —The compli ment paid to Massilia in Cos. v. 4, 1 , deserves notice.
* Thus the prologue of the Cistcllaria concludes with the following words, which may have a place here as the only contemporary mention of the Hannibalic war in the literature that has come down to us :—
Hate ra sic gesta est Bene valete, et vincitt Virtute vera, quod fecistis antidhac ;
Servate vostros socios, veteres et novas; Augete auxilia vostris iustis legibus ; Perdite perduelles : parite laudem et lauream
Ut vobis victi Poeni poenas suferant
The fourth line (augete auxilia vostris iustis legibus) has reference to the supplementary payments imposed on the negligent Latin colonies in 550 204. (Liv. xdx. 15 ; see ii. 350).
(p. 124).
ISO
LITERATURE AND ART book ill
politically more tame than was that of Rome in the sixth century. 1 The oldest Roman comic writer of note, Gnaeus Naevius, alone forms a remarkable exceptioa Although he did not write exactly original Roman comedies, the few fragments of his, which we possess, are full of references to circumstances and persons in Rome. Among other liberties he not only ridiculed one Theodotus a painter by name, but even directed against the victor of Zama the following verses, of which Aristophanes need not have been ashamed :
Etiam qui res magnat manu taepe gessit gloriolt,
Cujus facta viva nunc vigent, qui apud gentes solus praestat. Bum tuus pater cum paliio una at amica abduxii.
As he himself says,
Libera lingua toquemur ludis Liieralibut,
he may have often written at variance with police rules, and put dangerous questions, such as :
Cedo qui vestram rem publicam tantam amitittit tam cite t
which he answered by an enumeration of political sins, such as:
Proveniebant oratores novi, stulli aduletceniuli.
But the Roman police was not disposed like the Attic to hold stage-invectives and political diatribes as privileged, or even to tolerate them at all. Naevius was put in prison for these and similar sallies, and was obliged to remain there, till he had publicly made amends and recantation in other comedies. These quarrels, apparently, drove him
1 For this reason we can hardly be too cautious in assuming allusions on the part of Plautus to the events of the times. Recent investigation has set aside many instances of mistaken acuteness of this sort ; but might Dot even the reference to the Bacchanalia, which is found in Cos. v. 4, 1 1 (Ritschl, Parerg. 1. 19a), have been expected to incur censure? We might even reverse the case and infer from the notices of the festival of Bacchus in the Carina and some other pieces [Amph. 703 ; Aul. iii. 1, 3 ; Bacch. 53, 371 ; Mil. Glor. 1016 ; and especially Men. 836), that these were written at a time when it was not yet dangerous to speak of the Bacchanalia.
chap, xiv LITERATURE AND ART
151
from his native land ; but his successors took warning from his example — one of them indicates very plainly, that he has no desire whatever to incur an involuntary gagging like his colleague Naevius. Thus the result was accomplished —not much less unique of its kind than the conquest of Hannibal — that, during an epoch of the most feverish national excitement, there arose a national stage utterly destitute of political tinge.
But the restrictions thus stringently and laboriously Character imposed by custom and police on Roman poetry stifled its ^j^8 „j very breath. Not without reason might Naevius declare Roman the position of the poet under the sceptre of the Lagidae comeT* and Seleucidae enviable as compared with his position in
free Rome. 1 The degree of success in individual instances
was of course determined by the quality of the original
which was followed, and by the talent of the individual editor; but amidst all their individual variety the whole
stock of translations must have agreed in certain leading features, inasmuch as all the comedies were adapted to
similar conditions of exhibition and a similar audience.
The treatment of the whole as well as of the details was Personi uniformly in the highest degree free ; and it was necessary Jj^ that it should be so. While the original pieces were
in presence of that society which they copied, and in this very fact lay their principal charm, the Roman audience of this period was so different from the Attic, that it was not even in a position rightly to understand that foreign world.
this popular festival had duration of at least six days and besides this there were celebrated at the beginning of April the festival of the Mother of the Gods or the so-called
A sort of parabasis in the Curculio of Plautus describes what went on In the market-place of the capital, with little humour perhaps, but with life-like distinctness.
Conmonstrabo, quo in quemqut hominem facile inveniatis loco, Ne nimio opcre sumat operant, si guis convention veto
Vel vitiosum vel sine vitio, vel probum vel inprobum.
Qui perjurum convenire volt hominem, ito in comitium Qui mendacem et gloriosum, apud Cloacinae sacrum. [Ditis damnosos maritos sub basilica quaerito.
Ibidem erunt scoria exolela quique stipulari solent. Symbolarum conlatores apud forum piscarium.
Inforo infumo boni homines atque dites ambulant In medio propter canalem ibi ostentatorts meri.
124
FAITH AND MANNERS
Confidentes garrulique et malevoli supra locum.
Qui alteri de nihilo audacter dicunt contumeliam
St qui ipsi sat habent quod in se possit vere dicier.
Sub veteribus ibi sunt, qui dant quique accipiunt faenort. Pone aedem Castoris ibi sunt, subito quibus credos male. In Tusco vico ibi sunt homines, qui ipsi sese venditant. In Velabro vel pistorem vel Ionium vel haruspicem
yd qui ipsi vorsant, vel qui aliis, ut vorsentur, pratbeant. Ditis damnosos maritos apud Leucadiam Oppiam.
The verses in brackets are subsequent addition, inserted after the 184. building of the first Roman bazaar (570). The business of the baker (pistor, literally miller) embraced at this time the sale of delicacies and the
providing accommodation for revellers (Festus, Ep. v. alicariae, p. 7, Mull. Plautus, Capt. 160 Poen. a, 54 Trin. 407). The same was the case with the butchers. Leucadia Oppia may have kept • house of bad
epoch,
;
i.
a
a
;
;
;
a
;;
]
1
it, a
chap, XIII FAITH AND MANNERS
125
towards the end of April that of Ceres and
that of Flora, in June that of Apollo, in November the Plebeian games —all of them probably occupying already more days than one. To these fell to be added the numerous cases where the games were celebrated afresh —
in which pious scruples presumably often served as a mere pretext —and the incessant extraordinary festivals. Among these the already -mentioned banquets furnished from the dedicated tenths no), the feasts of the gods, the triumphal and funeral festivities, were conspicuous; and above all the festal games which were celebrated —for the
first time in 505—at the close of one of those longer 249.
which were marked off the Etrusco- Roman religion, the saecula, as they were called. At the same
time domestic festivals were multiplied. During the second Punic war there were introduced, among people of quality, the already-mentioned banquetings on the anniver
sary of the entrance of the Mother of the Gods (after 550), 204 and, among the lower orders, the similar Saturnalia (after 537)i Doth under the influence of the powers henceforth 217. closely allied —the foreign priest and the foreign cook.
A very near approach was made to that ideal condition in which every idler should know where he might kill time every day and this in commonwealth where formerly action had been with all and sundry the very object of existence, and idle enjoyment had been proscribed by custom as well as by law The bad and demoralizing elements in these festal observances, moreover, daily ac quired greater ascendency. true that still as formerly
the chariot races formed the brilliant finale of the national festivals and poet of this period describes very vividly
the straining expectancy with which the eyes of the multi
tude were fastened on the consul, when he was on the point of giving the signal for the chariots to start. But
the former amusements no longer sufficed there was
Megalensia,
periods
;
a
;
a
It is
a 1
;
by
(p.
126 FAITH AND MANNERS book hi
craving for new and more varied spectacles. Greek
athletes now made their appearance (for the first time in 186. 568) alongside of the native wrestlers and boxers. Of the
dramatic exhibitions we shall speak hereafter : the trans planting of Greek comedy and tragedy to Rome was a gain perhaps of doubtful value, but it formed at any rate the best of the acquisitions made at this time. The Romans had probably long indulged in the sport of coursing hares and hunting foxes in presence of the public ; now these innocent hunts were converted into formal baitings of wild animals, and the wild beasts of Africa — lions and panthers —were (first so far as can be proved in
186. 568) transported at great cost to Rome, in order that by killing or being killed they might serve to glut the eyes of the gazers of the capital. The still more revolting gladia torial games, which prevailed in Campania and Etruria, now gained admission to Rome; human blood was first
264. shed for sport in the Roman forum in 490. Of course these demoralizing amusements encountered severe censure:
268. the consul of 486, Publius Sempronius Sophus, sent a divorce to his wife, because she had attended funeral games ; the government carried a decree of the people prohibiting the bringing over of wild beasts to Rome, and strictly insisted that no gladiators should appear at the public festivals. But here too it wanted either the requisite power or the requisite energy : it succeeded, apparently, in checking the practice of baiting animals, but the appear ance of sets of gladiators at private festivals, particularly at funeral celebrations, was not suppressed. Still less could the public be prevented from preferring the comedian to the tragedian, the rope-dancer to the comedian, the gladiator to the rope-dancer ; or the stage be prevented from revelling by choice amidst the pollution of Hellenic life. Whatever elements of culture were contained in the scenic and artistic entertainments were from the first
chap, xiii FAITH AND MANNERS taj
thrown aside ; it was by no means the object of the givers
of the Roman festivals to elevate — though it should be
but temporarily —the whole body of spectators through the power of poetry to the level of feeling of the best, as the Greek stage did in the period of its prime, or to prepare
an artistic pleasure for a select circle, as our theatres endeavour to do. The character of the managers and spectators in Rome is illustrated by a scene at the triumphal games in 587, where the first Greek flute-players, on their 167. melodies failing to please, were instructed by the director
to box with one another instead of playing, upon which the delight would know no bounds.
Nor was the evil confined to the corruption of Roman manners by Hellenic contagion ; conversely the scholars
began to demoralize their instructors. Gladiatorial games,
which were unknown in Greece, were first introduced by
king Antiochus Epiphanes (579-590), a professed imitator 178-164. of the Romans, at the Syrian court, and, although they
excited at first greater horror than pleasure in the Greek public, which was more humane and had more sense of art than the Romans, yet they held their ground likewise there, and gradually came more and more into vogue.
As a matter of course, this revolution in life and manners brought an economic revolution in its train. Residence in the capital became more and more coveted as well as more costly. Rents rose to an unexampled height Extravagant prices were paid for the new articles of luxury ; a barrel of anchovies from the Black Sea cost
1600 sesterces (j£i6)—more than the price of a rural slave ; a beautiful boy cost 24,000 sesterces (,£240)— more than many a farmer's homestead. Money therefore, and nothing but money, became the watchword with high and low. In Greece it had long been the case that nobody did anything for nothing, as the Greeks themselves with discreditable candour allowed : after the second
128 FAITH AND MANNERS book hi
Macedonian war the Romans began in this respect also to imitate the Greeks. Respectability had to provide itself with legal buttresses ; pleaders, for instance, had to be prohibited by decree of the people from taking money for their services ; the jurisconsults alone formed a noble exception, and needed no decree of the people to compel
their adherence to the honourable custom of giving good advice gratuitously. Men did not, if possible, steal out right ; but all shifts seemed allowable in order to attain rapidly to riches — plundering and begging, cheating on the part of contractors and swindling on the part of speculators, usurious trading in money and in grain, even the turning of purely moral relations such as friendship and marriage to economic account. Marriage especially became on both sides an object of mercantile speculation ; marriages for money were common, and it appeared necessary to refuse legal validity to the presents which the spouses made to each other. That, under such a state of things, plans for setting fire on all sides to the capital came to the knowledge of the authorities, need excite no surprise. When man no longer finds enjoyment in work, and works merely in order to attain as quickly as possible to enjoyment, it is a mere accident that he does not become a criminal. Destiny had lavished all the glories of power and riches with liberal hand on the Romans ; but, in truth, trie Pandora's box was a gift of doubtful value.
CHAP, xi y LITERATURE AND ART
119
CHAPTER XTV
LITERATURE AND ART
The influences which stimulated the growth of Roman literature were of a character altogether peculiar and hardly paralleled in any other nation. To estimate them correctly, it is necessary in the first place that we should glance at the instruction of the people and its recreations during this period.
Language lies at the root of all mental culture ; and this was especially the case in Rome. In a community where ? {
so much importance was attached to speeches and documents, and where the burgess, at an age which is still according to modern ideas regarded as boyhood, was already entrusted with the uncontrolled management of his property and might perhaps find it necessary to make formal speeches to the assembled community, not only was great value set all along on the fluent and polished use of the mother-tongue, but efforts were early made to acquire a command of it in the years of boyhood. The Greek language also was already generally diffused in Italy in the time of Hannibal. In the higher circles a knowledge of that language, which was the general medium of inter course for ancient civilization, had long been a far from uncommon accomplishment ; and now, when the change of Rome's position in the world had so enormously increased
the intercourse with foreigners and the foreign traffic, such
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Knowledge languages.
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a knowledge was, if not necessary, yet presumably of very material importance to the merchant as well as the states man. By means of the Italian slaves and freedmen, a very large portion of whom were Greek or half-Greek by birth, the Greek language and Greek knowledge to a certain extent reached even the lower ranks of the population, especially in the capital. The comedies of this period may convince us that even the humbler classes of the capital were familiar with a sort of Latin, which could no more be properly understood without a knowledge of Greek than the English of Sterne or the German of Wieland without a knowledge of French. 1 Men of senatorial families, how ever, not only addressed a Greek audience in Greek, but even published their speeches —Tiberius Gracchus (consul
\Tl. 168. in 577 and 591) so published a speech which he had given at Rhodes —and in the time of Hannibal wrote their chronicles in Greek, as we shall have occasion to mention more particularly in the sequel. Individuals went still farther. The Greeks honoured Flamininus by compli mentary demonstrations in the Roman language 437), and he returned the compliment the "great general of the Aeneiades " dedicated his votive gifts to the Greek gods
A distinct set of Greek expressions, such as stratioticus, mathaera, nauclrrus, trapcrita, danista, drapeta, oenopoHum, bolus, malacus, morus, graphicus, logus, apologus, Uchna, schema, forms quite a special feature in the language of Plautus. Translations are seldom attached, and that only
in the case of words not embraced in the circle of ideas to which those which we have cited belong for instance, in the Trueulentus — in a verse, however, that perhaps later addition 1, 60)—we find the explana tion <pp6yijcit est sapientia. Fragments of Greek also are common, as in the Casino, (iii.
OpdyfULTd tun rapixut—Dabo fUya kokqsi, ut opinor. Greek puns likewise occur, as in the Baxchides (240)
opus est chryso Chrysalo.
Ennius in the same way takes for granted that the etymological meaning of Alexandras and Andromache known to the spectators (Varro, de L. L. vii. 8a). Most characteristic of all are the half-Greek formations, such aiferritribax, plagipatida, pugilice, or in the Miles Oloriosus (913):
euscheme herclt astitit sic dulice et comoedicel
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after the Greek fashion in Greek distichs. 1 Cato reproached another senator with the fact, that he had the effrontery to deliver Greek recitations with the due modulation at Greek revels.
Under the influence of such circumstances Roman instruction developed itself. It is a mistaken opinion, that antiquity was materially inferior to our own times in the general diffusion of elementary attainments. Even among the lower classes and slaves there was much reading, writing, and counting : in the case of a slave steward, for instance, Cato, following the example of Mago, takes for granted the ability to read and write. Elementary instruction, as well as instruction in Greek, must have been long before this period imparted to a very considerable extent in Rome. But the epoch now before us initiated an education, the aim of which was to communicate not merely an outward expertness, but a real mental culture. Hitherto in Rome a knowledge of Greek had conferred on
its possessor as little superiority in civil or social life, as a knowledge of French perhaps confers at the present day in a hamlet of German Switzerland ; and the earliest writers of Greek chronicles may have held a position among the other senators similar to that of the farmer in the fens of Holstein who has been a student and in the evening, when he comes home from the plough, takes down his Virgil from the shelf. A man who assumed airs of greater im portance by reason of his Greek, was reckoned a bad patriot and a fool ; and certainly even in Cato's time one who spoke Greek ill or not at all might still be a man of rank and become senator and consul. But a change was
1 One of these epigrams composed in the name of Flamininus runt thus:
Zyvbs lui KpaiirvaiaL yeyaOoTti InrooOvam Kovpoi, lui Zirdpraf TvvSaplScu /9a<rtX«>,
Aircddas Tiros Ofifuif viripTarov Cmaat owpor VyMjuur rnifat raivlf {\tv0tfla*.
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already taking place. The internal decomposition of Italian nationality had already, particularly in the aris tocracy, advanced so far as to render the substitution of a general humane culture for that nationality inevitable : and the craving after a more advanced civilization was already powerfully stirring the minds of men. Instruction in the Greek language as it were spontaneously met this craving. The classical literature of Greece, the Iliad and still more the Odyssey, had all along formed the basis of that instruction; the overflowing treasures of Hellenic art and science were already by this means spread before the eyes of the Italians. Without any outward revolution, strictly speaking, in the character of the instruction the natural result was, that the empirical study of the language became converted into a higher study of the literature ; that the general culture connected with such literary studies was communicated in increased measure to the scholars; and that these availed themselves of the knowledge thus
acquired to dive into that Greek literature which most powerfully influenced the spirit of the age—the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Menander.
In a similar way greater importance came to be attached to instruction in Latin. The higher society of Rome began to feel the need, if not of exchanging their mother- tongue for Greek, at least of refining it and adapting it to the changed state of culture ; and for this purpose too they found themselves in every respect dependent on the Greeks. The economic arrangements of the Romans placed the work of elementary instruction in the mother-tongue —like every other work held in little estimation and performed for hire—chiefly in the hands of slaves, freedmen, or foreigners, or in other words chiefly in the hands of Greeks or half-Greeks ; 1 which was attended with the less difficulty,
1 Such, e. g. , was Chilo, the slave of Cato the Elder, who earned money ob his master's behalf as a teacher of children (Plutarch, Cato Mai. ao).
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because the Latin alphabet was almost identical with the Greek and the two languages possessed a close and striking
But this was the least part of the matter; the importance of the study of Greek in a formal point of view exercised a far deeper influence over the study of Latin. Any one who knows how singularly difficult it is to find suitable matter and suitable forms for the higher intellectual culture of youth, and how much more difficult it is to set aside the matter and forms once found, will understand how it was that the Romans knew no mode of supplying the desideratum of a more advanced Latin instruction except that of simply transferring the solution of this problem, which instruction in the Greek language and literature furnished, to instruction in Latin. In the present day a process entirely analogous goes on under our own eyes in the transference of the methods of instruction from the dead to the living languages.
But unfortunately the chief requisite for such a transfer ence was wanting. The Romans could, no doubt, learn to read and write Latin by means of the Twelve Tables ; but a Latin culture presupposed a literature, and no such literature existed in Rome.
To this defect was added a second. We have already The stage described the multiplication of the amusements of the Ro- SS man people. The stage had long played an important part influence, in these recreations; the chariot-races formed strictly the
principal amusement in all of them, but these races uni formly took place only on one, viz. the concluding, day, while the earlier days were substantially devoted to stage- entertainments. But for long these stage-representations consisted chiefly of dances and jugglers' feats ; the impro vised chants, which were produced on these occasions, had neither dialogue nor plot (ii. 98). It was only now that the Romans looked around them for a real drama. The Roman popular festivals were throughout under the influence of the
affinity.
Rise of a literatme.
Greeks, whose talent for amusing and for killing time natu rally rendered them purveyors of pleasure for the Romans. Now no national amusement was a greater favourite in Greece, and none was more varied, than the theatre; it could not but speedily attract the attention of those who provided the Roman festivals and their staff of assistants. The earlier Roman stage-chant contained within it a dramatic germ capable perhaps of development; but to develop the drama from that germ required on the part of the poet and the public a genial power of giving and receiv ing, such as was not to be found among the Romans at all, and least of all at this period ; and, had it been possible to find the impatience of those entrusted with the amuse ment of the multitude would hardly have allowed to the noble fruit peace and leisure to ripen. In this case too there was an outward want, which the nation was unable to satisfy the Romans desired theatre, but the pieces were wanting.
On these elements Roman literature was based; and its defective character was from the first and necessarily the result of such an origin. All real art has its root in indivi dual freedom and cheerful enjoyment of life, and the germs of such an art were not wanting in Italy but, when Roman training substituted for freedom and joyousness the sense of belonging to the community and the consciousness of duty, art was stifled and, instead of growing, could not but pine away. The culminating point of Roman development was the period which had no literature. It was not till Roman nationality began to give way and Hellenico-cosmopolite tendencies began to prevail, that literature made its appear ance at Rome in their train. Accordingly from the beginning, and by stringent internal necessity, took its stand on Greek ground and in broad antagonism to the distinctively Roman national spirit. Roman poetry above all had its immediate origin not from the inward impulse of
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the poets, but from the outward demands of the school, which needed Latin manuals, and of the stage, which needed Latin dramas. Now both institutions —the school and the stage —were thoroughly anti-Roman and revolutionary. The gaping and staring idleness of the theatre was an abomina tion to the sober earnestness and the spirit of activity which animated the Roman of the olden type ; and— inasmuch as it was the deepest and noblest conception lying at the root of the Roman commonwealth, that within the circle of Roman burgesses there should be neither master nor slave, neither miUionnaire nor beggar, but that above all a like faith and a like culture should characterize all Romans —the school and the necessarily exclusive school- culture were far more dangerous still, and were in fact utterly destructive of the sense of equality. The school and the theatre became the most effective levers in the hands of the new spirit of the age, and all the more so that they used the Latin tongue. Men might perhaps speak and write Greek and yet not cease to be Romans ; but in this case they accustomed themselves to speak in the Roman language, while the whole inward being and life were Greek. It is not one of the most pleasing, but it is one of the most remarkable and in a historical point of view most instructive, facts in this brilliant era of Roman conservatism, that during its course Hellenism struck root in the whole field of intellect not immediately political, and that the maitre de plaisir of the great public and the schoolmaster in close alliance created a Roman literature.
In the very earliest Roman author the later development Livius An-
r caM~
as it were, in embryo. The Greek Andronikos
(from before 482, till after 547), afterwards as a Roman 372. 207. burgess called Lucius1 Livius Andronicus, came to Rome
at an early age in 482 among the other captives taken at 272.
1 The later rule, by which the freedman necessarily bore the fratnowum of his patron, was not yet applied In republican Rome.
appears,
207.
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LITERATURE AND ART book in
Tarentum 37) and passed into the possession of the
conqueror of Sena 348) Marcus Livius Salinator (consul 219. 207. 535, 547). He was employed as slave, partly in acting and copying texts, partly in giving instruction in the Latin
and Greek languages, which he taught both to the children of his master and to other boys of wealthy parents in and out of the house. He distinguished himself so much this way that his master gave him freedom, and even the autho rities, who not unfrequently availed themselves of his services —commissioning him, for instance, to prepare thanks giving-chant after the fortunate turn taken by the Hannibalic war in 547—out of regard for him conceded to the guild of poets and actors place for their common worship in the temple of Minerva on the Aventine. His authorship arose out of his double occupation. As schoolmaster he translated the Odyssey into Latin, in order that the Latin text might form the basis of his Latin, as the Greek text was the basis of his Greek, instruction and this earliest of Roman school-
books maintained its place in education for centuries. As an actor, he not only like every other wrote for himself the texts themselves, but he also published them as books, that he read them in public and diffused them copies. What was still more important, he substituted the Greek drama for the old essentially lyrical stage poetry. was in
240. 5M. year after the close of the first Punic war, that the first play was exhibited on the Roman stage. This creation of an epos, tragedy, and comedy in the Roman language, and that by man who was more Roman than Greek, was historically an event but we cannot speak of his labours as having any artistic value. They make no sort of claim to originality viewed as translations, they are characterized by barbarism which only the more percep tible, that this poetry does not naively display its own native simplicity, but strives, after pedantic and stammering fashion, to imitate the high artistic culture of the neighbouring
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people. The wide deviations from the original have arisen not from the freedom, but from the rudeness of the imitation ; the treatment is sometimes insipid, sometimes turgid, the language harsh and quaint. 1 We have no difficulty in believing the statement of the old critics of art, that, apart from the compulsory reading at school, none of the poems of Livius were taken up a second time. Yet these labours were in various respects norms for succeeding times. They began the Roman translated literature, and naturalized the Greek metres in Latium. The reason why these were adopted only in the dramas, while the Odyssey of Livius was written in the national Saturnian measure, evidently was that the iambuses and trochees of tragedy and comedy far more easily admitted of imitation in Latin than the epic dactyls.
But this preliminary stage of literary development was soon passed. The epics and dramas of Livius were re garded by posterity, and undoubtedly with perfect justice, as resembling the rigid statues of Daedalus destitute of emo tion or expression — curiosities rather than works of art.
1 One of the tragedies of Livius presented the line —
Quem ego nifrendem alui licteam immulgins opem.
The verses of Homer (Odyssey, xii. 16) :
oiS' ipa Ktpicriv it 'Aittio i\06mn eX^eoner, dXXA fi&\' S>xa
*A9' irrwaiiivn ' &na 3' ifuplirokoi (pipov alrr% vItov koX Kpla. 7roXXi koX aWowa. olvov Ipv0p6v.
are thus interpreted :
Tipper eiti ad aidis—vfnimds Circae Simili diiona dram (? ) —portant ad ndvis, Milia ilia in isdem — inserinilntur.
The most remarkable feature is not so much the barbarism as the thought lessness of the translator, who, instead of sending Circe to Ulysses, sends Ulysses to Circe. Another still more ridiculous mistake is the translation of altoiourtp ISuxa {Odyss. xv. 373) by lusi (Festus, Ep. v. affatim, p. n,
Such traits are not in a historical point of view matters of indifference ; we recognize in them the stage of intellectual culture which marked these earliest Roman verse-making schoolmasters, and we at the same time perceive that, although Andronicus was born in Tarentum, Greek cannot have been properly his mother-tongue.
Miilltr).
Drama. Theatre,
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But in the following generation, now that the foundations were once laid, there arose a lyric, epic, and dramatic art ; and it is of great importance, even in a historical
point of view, to trace this poetical development.
Both as respects extent of production and influence over the public, the drama stood at the head of the poetry
thus developed in Rome. In antiquity there was no permanent theatre with fixed admission-money ; in Greece as in Rome the drama made its appearance only as an element in the annually-recurring or extraordinary amuse ments of the citizens. Among the measures by which the
counteracted or imagined that they counter acted that extension of the popular festivals which they justly regarded with anxiety, they refused to permit the erection of a stone building for a theatre. 1 Instead of this there was erected for each festival a scaffolding of boards with a stage for the actors (proscaenium, pulpitum) and a decorated background (scaena) ; and in a semicircle in front of it was staked off the space for the spectators (eavea), which was merely sloped without steps or seats, so that, if the spectators had not chairs brought along with them, they squatted, reclined, or stood. * The women were probably separated at an early period, and were restricted to the uppermost and worst places ; otherwise there was
government
194. no distinction of places in law till 560, after which, as already mentioned (p. 10), the lowest and best positions were reserved for the senators.
179. 155.
1 Such a building was, no doubt, constructed for the Apollinarian games in the Flaminian circus in 575 (Liv. xl. 51 ; Becker, Top. p.
605) ; but It was probably soon afterwards pulled down again (Tertull. de Spat. 10I.
* In 599 there were still no seats in the theatre (Ritschl, Parerg. i. p. xviii. xx. 214 ; romp. Ribbeck, Trag. p. 385) ; but, as not only the authors of the Plautine prologues, but Plautus himself on various occasions, make allusions to a sitting audience [Mil. Glor. 82, 83 ; Aulul. It. 9, 6 ; Trucul. ap. fin. ; Epid. ap. fin. ), most of the spectators must have brought stools with them or have seated themselves on the ground.
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The audience was anything but genteel. The better Audience, classes, it is true, did not keep aloof from the general re
creations of the people ; the fathers of the city seem even
to have been bound for decorum's sake to appear on
these occasions. But the very nature of a burgess festival implied that, while slaves and probably foreigners also were excluded, admittance free of charge was given to every burgess with his wife and children ;1 and accordingly the body of spectators cannot have differed much from what one sees in the present day at public fireworks and
gratis exhibitions. Naturally, therefore, the proceedings were not too orderly ; children cried, women talked and shrieked, now and then a wench prepared to push her way to the stage ; the ushers had on these festivals any thing but a holiday, and found frequent occasion to con fiscate a mantle or to ply the rod.
The introduction of the Greek drama increased the de mands on the dramatic staff, and there seems to have been no redundance in the supply of capable actors : on one occasion for want of actors a piece of Naevius had to be performed by amateurs. But this produced no change in the position of the artist ; the poet or, as he was at this time called, the "writer," the actor, and the composer not only belonged still, as formerly, to the class of workers for hire in itself little esteemed 94), but were still, as formerly, placed in the most marked way under the ban of public opinion, and subjected to police maltreatment
company
Women and children appear to have been at all times admitted to the Roman theatre Val. Max. vi. 3, 12 Plutarch. Quaest Rem. 14 Cicero, de Har. Resp. 12, 24 Vitruv. v. Suetonius, Aug. 44,
but slaves were de jure excluded (Cicero, de Har. Resp. 12, 26 Ritschl, Parerg. p. xix. 223), and the same must doubtless have been the case with foreigners, excepting of course the guests of the community, who took their places among or by the side of the senators (Varro, v. 155 Justin, xliii. 5, 10 Sueton. Aug. 44).
Ac. )
Of course all reputable persons kept aloof from
(ii. 98).
such an occupation. The manager of the
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grefis, factionis, also choragus), who was ordi narily also the chief actor, was generally a freedman, and its members were ordinarily his slaves ; the composers, whose names have reached us, were all of them non-free. The remuneration was not merely small — a honorarium of 8000 sesterces (;£8o) given to a dramatist is described
shortly after the close of this period as unusually high —but was, moreover, only paid by the magistrates pro viding the festival, if the piece was not a failure. With the payment the matter ended; poetical competitions and
(dominus
such as took place in Attica, were not yet heard of in Rome — the Romans at this time appear to have simply applauded or hissed as we now do, and
to have brought forward only a single piece for exhibition each day. 1 Under such circumstances, where art worked for daily wages and the artist instead of receiving due honour was subjected to disgrace, the new national theatre of the Romans could not present any development either original or even at all artistic ; and, while the noble rivalry of the noblest Athenians had called into life the Attic drama, the Roman drama taken as a whole could be nothing but a spoiled copy of its predecessor, in which the only wonder is that it has been able to display so much grace and wit in the details.
1 It is not necessary to infer from the prologues of Plautus (Cos. 17 ; Amfh. 65) that there was a distribution of prizes (Ritschl, Parerg. i. ■29) ; even the passage Trin. 706, may very well belong to the Greek original, not to the translator ; and the total silence of the didascaliae and prologues, as well as of all tradition, on the point of prize tribunals and prizes is decisive.
That only one piece was produced each day we infer from the fact, that the spectators come from home at the beginning of the piece (Foot. 10), and return home after its close (Epid. Pseud. Pud. SticA. True. ap.
honorary prizes,
They went, as these passages show, to the theatre after the second breakfast, and were at home again for the midday meal ; the performance hus lasted, according to our reckoning, from about noon till half -past
two o'clock, and a piece of Plautus, with music in the intervals between the acts, might probably occupy nearly that length of time (comp. Horal Bp. ii. 1, 189). The passage, in which Tacitus (Ann. xiv. 20) makes the spectators spend "whole days" in the theatre, refers to the state (I matters at a later period.
Jin. ).
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In the dramatic world comedy greatly preponderated Comedy, over tragedy ; the spectators knit their brows, when instead
of the expected comedy a tragedy began. Thus it hap
pened that, while this period exhibits poets who devoted themselves specially to comedy, such as Plautus and Caecilius, it presents none who cultivated tragedy alone ;
and among the dramas of this epoch known to us by
name there occur three comedies for one tragedy. Of
course the Roman comic poets, or rather translators,
laid hands in the first instance on the pieces which had possession of the Hellenic stage at the time ; and thus
they found themselves exclusively1 confined to the range
of the newer Attic comedy, and chiefly to its best-known
poets, Philemon of Soli in Cilicia (394 ? 492) and Menander of Athens (412-462). This comedy came to
be of so great importance as regards the development
not only of Roman literature, but even of the nation
at large, that even history has reason to pause and con
sider it
The pieces are of tiresome monotony. Almost without Character exception the plot turns on helping a young man, at the
expense either of his father or of some leno, to obtain Attic
possession of a sweetheart of undoubted charms and of very doubtful morals. The path to success in love regularly lies through some sort of pecuniary fraud ; and the crafty servant, who provides the needful sum and performs the requisite swindling while the lover is mourning over his amatory and pecuniary distresses, is the real mainspring of
1 The scanty use made of what is called the middle Attic comedy does not require notice in a historical point of view, since it was nothing but the Menandrian comedy in a less developed form. There is no trace of any employment of the older comedy. The Roman tragi -comedy- after the type of the Amphitruo of Plautus —was no doubt styled by the Roman literary historians fabula Rhinthonica ; but the newer Attic co medians also composed such parodies, and it is difficult to see why the Romans should have resorted for their translations to Rhinthon and the older writers rather than to those who were nearer to their own times.
comeoy•
860-263. 342-292.
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the piece. There is no want of the due accompaniment of reflections on the joys and sorrows of love, of tearful parting-scenes, of lovers who in the anguish of their hearts threaten to do themselves a mischief; love or rather amorous intrigue was, as the old critics of art say, the very life-breath of the Menandrian poetry. Marriage forms, at least with Menander, the inevitable finale; on which occasion, for the greater edification and satisfaction of the spectators, the virtue of the heroine usually comes forth almost if not wholly untarnished, and the heroine herself proves to be the lost daughter of some rich man and so in every respect an eligible match. Along with these love-pieces we find others of a pathetic kind. Among the comedies of Plautus, for instance, the Rudens turns on a shipwreck and the right of asylum ; while the Trinummus and the Captivi contain no amatory intrigue, but depict the generous devotedness of the friend to his friend and of the slave to his master. Persons and situations recur down to the very details like patterns on a carpet ; we never get rid of the asides of unseen listeners, of knocking at the house-doors, and of slaves scouring the streets on some
errand or other. The standing masks, of which there was a certain fixed number — viz. , eight masks for old men, and seven for servants —from which alone in ordinary cases at least the poet had to make his choice, further favoured a stock-model treatment. Such a comedy almost of necessity rejected the lyrical element in the older comedy—the chorus — and confined itself from the first to conversation, or at most recitation ; it was devoid not of the political element only, but of all true passion and of all poetical
elevation. The pieces judiciously made no pretence to any grand or really poetical effect : their charm resided pri marily in furnishing occupation for the intellect, not only through their subject-matter — in which respect the newer comedy was distinguished from the old as much by the
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greater intrinsic emptiness as by the greater outward com plication of the plot—but more especially through their execution in detail, in which the point and polish of the conversation more particularly formed the triumph of the poet and the delight of the audience. Compli cations and confusions of one person with another, which very readily allowed scope for extravagant, often licenti ous, practical jokes — as in the Casina, which winds up in genuine Falstaffian style with the retiring of the two bridegrooms and of the soldier dressed up as bride— jests, drolleries, and riddles, which in fact for want of real conversation furnished the staple materials of enter tainment at the Attic table of the period, fill up a large portion of these comedies. The authors of them wrote not like Eupolis and Aristophanes for a great nation, but rather for a cultivated society which spent its time, like other clever circles whose cleverness finds little fit
scope for action, in guessing riddles and playing at charades. They give us, therefore, no picture of their times ; of the great historical and intellectual movements of the age no trace appears in these comedies, and we need to recall, in order to realize, the fact that Philemon and Menander were really contemporaries of Alexander and Aristotle. But they give us a picture, equally elegant and faithful, of that refined Attic society beyond the circles of which comedy never travels. Even in the dim Latin copy, through which we chiefly know the grace of the original
not wholly obliterated; and more especially in the pieces wnich are imitated from Menander, the most talented of these poets, the life which the poet saw and shared delicately reflected not so much in its aberrations and distortions as in its amiable every-day course. The friendly domestic relations between father and daughter, husband and wife, master and servant, with their love- affairs and other little critical incidents, are portrayed with
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so broad a truthfulness, that even now they do not miss their effect: the servants' feast, for instance, with which the Stichus concludes in the limited range of its re lations and the harmony of the two lovers and the one sweetheart, of unsurpassed gracefulness in its kind. The elegant grisettes, who make their appearance perfumed and adorned, with their hair fashionably dressed and varie gated, gold-embroidered, sweeping robes, or even perform their toilette on the stage, are very effective. In their train come the procuresses, sometimes of the most vulgar sort, such as one who appears in the Curculio, sometimes duennas like Goethe's old Barbara, such as Scapha in the Mostettaria and there no lack of brothers and comrades ready with their help. There great abundance and variety of parts representing the old there appear in turn
the austere and avaricious, the fond and tender-hearted, and the indulgent accommodating, papas, the amorous old
man, the easy old bachelor, the jealous aged matron with her old maid-servant who takes part with her mistress against her master; whereas the young men's parts are less prominent, and neither the first lover, nor the virtuous model son who here and there occurs, lays claim to much significance. The servant-world —the crafty valet, the stern house-steward, the old vigilant tutor, the rural slave redolent of garlic, the impertinent page —forms transition to the very numerous professional parts. A standing figure among these the jester (parasitus) who, in return for permission to feast at the table of the rich, has to entertain the guests with drolleries and charades, or, according to circumstances, to let the potsherds be flung at his head. This was at that time formal trade in Athens and certainly no mere poetical fiction which represents such a parasite as expressly preparing himself for his work by means of his books of witticisms and anecdotes. Favourite parts, moreover, are those of the cook, who understands
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not only how to boast of unheard-of sauces, but also how to pilfer like a professional thief; the shameless leno, com placently confessing to the practice of every vice, of whom Ballio in the Pseudolus is a model specimen ; the military braggadocio, in whom we trace a very distinct reflection of the free-lance habits that prevailed under Alexander's successors; the professional sharper or sycophant, the stingy money-changer, the solemnly silly physician, the priest, mariner, fisherman, and the like. To these fall to be added, lastly, the parts delineative of character in the strict sense, such as the superstitious man of Menander and the miser in the Aulularia of Plautus. The national- Hellenic poetry has preserved, even in this its last creation, its indestructible plastic vigour; but the delineation of character is here copied from without rather than repro duced from inward experience, and the more so, the more the task approaches to the really poetical. It is a sig nificant circumstance that, in the parts illustrative of character to which we have just referred, the psychological truth is in great part represented by abstract development of the conception ; the miser here collects the parings of his nails and laments the tears which he sheds as a waste of water. But the blame of this want of depth in the portraying of character, and generally of the whole poetical and moral hollowness of this newer comedy, lay less with the comic writers than with the nation as a whole.
Every thing distinctively Greek was expiring : fatherland, national faith, domestic life, all nobleness of action and sentiment were gone; poetry, history, and philosophy were inwardly exhausted; and nothing remained to the Athenian save
the school, the fish -market, and the brothel. It is no matter of wonder and hardly a matter of blame, that poetry, which is destined to shed a glory over human existence, could make nothing more out of such a life than the Menandrian comedy presents to us. It is at the same
vou in
75
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time very remarkable that the poetry of this period, wherever it was able to turn away in some degree from the corrupt Attic life without falling into scholastic imitation, immediately gathers strength and freshness from the ideal. In the only remnant of the mock-heroic comedy of this period —the Amphitruo of Plautus —there breathes through out a purer and more poetical atmosphere than in all the other remains of the contemporary stage. The good- natured gods treated with gentle irony, the noble forms from the heroic world, and the ludicrously cowardly slaves present the most wonderful mutual contrasts; and, after the comical course of the plot, the birth of the son of the gods amidst thunder and lightning forms an almost grand concluding effect But this task of turning the myths into irony was innocent and poetical, as compared with that of the ordinary comedy depicting the Attic life of the period. No special accusation may be brought from a historico-moral point of view against the poets, nor ought it to be made matter of individual reproach to any particular poet that he occupies the level of his epoch : comedy was not the cause,
but the effect of the corruption that prevailed in the national life. But it is necessary, more especially with a view to judge correctly the influence of these comedies on the life of the Roman people, to point out the abyss which yawned beneath all that polish and elegance. The coarse nesses and obscenities, which Menander indeed in some measure avoided, but of which there is no lack in the other
are the least part of the evil. Features far worse are, the dreadful desolation of life in which the only oases are lovemaking and intoxication; the fearfully prosaic atmosphere, in which anything resembling enthusiasm is to be found only among the sharpers whose heads have been turned by their own swindling, and who prosecute the trade of cheating with some sort of zeal ; and above all that immoral morality, with which the pieces of Menander in
poets,
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particular are garnished. Vice is chastised, virtue is re warded, and any peccadilloes are covered by conversion at or after marriage. There are pieces, such as the
Trinummus of Plautus and several of Terence, in which all the characters down to the slaves possess some admixture of virtue ; all swarm with honest men who allow deception on their behalf, with maidenly virtue wherever possible, with lovers equally favoured and making love in company ; moral commonplaces and well-turned ethical maxims abound. A finale of reconciliation such as that of the Bacchides, where the swindling sons and the swindled fathers by way of a good winding up all go to carouse together in the brothel, presents a corruption of morals thoroughly worthy of Kotzebue.
Such were the foundations, and such the elements which shaped the growth, of Roman comedy. Originality was in its case excluded not merely by want of aesthetic freedom, but in the first instance, probably, by its subjection to police control. Among the considerable number of Latin comedies of this sort which are known to us, there is not
Roman
''
its HellemsTM a necessary result of thelaw-
'
one that did not announce itself as an imitation of a
definite Greek model; the title was only complete when the names of the Greek piece and of its author were also given, and as occasionally happened, the " novelty " of piece was disputed, the question was merely whether had been previously translated. Comedy laid the scene of its plot abroad not only frequently, but regularly and under the pressure of necessity and that species of art derived its special name (fabula palliate? ) from the fact, that the scene was laid away from Rome, usually in Athens, and
that the dramatis personal were Greeks or at any rate not Romans. The foreign costume strictly carried out even in detail, especially in those things in which the unculti vated Roman was distinctly sensible of the contrast. Thus the names of Rome and the Romans are avoided,
com
is
;
it
a
if,
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and, where they are referred to, they are called in good Greek " foreigners " (barbart) ; in like manner among the appellations of moneys and coins, that occur ever so frequently, there does not once appear a Roman coin. We form a strange idea of men of so great and so versatile talents as Naevius and Plautus, if we refer such things to their free choice : this strange and clumsy " exterritorial " character of Roman comedy was undoubtedly due to causes very different from aesthetic considerations. The transference of such social relations, as are
Political **" **.
uniformly delineated in the new Attic comedy, to the Rome of the Hannibalic period would have been a direct outrage on its
civic order and morality. But, as the dramatic spectacles at this period were regularly given by the aediles and praetors who were entirely dependent on the senate, and even extraordinary festivals, funeral games for instance, could not take place without permission of the govern ment ; and as the Roman police, moreover, was not in the habit of standing on ceremony in any case, and least of all in dealing with the comedians ; the reason is self- evident why this comedy, even after it was admitted as one of the Roman national amusements, might still bring no Roman upon the stage, and remained as it were banished to foreign lands.
The compilers were still more decidedly prohibited from naming any living person in terms either of praise or cen sure, as well as from any captious allusion to the circum stances of the times. In the whole repertory of the Plautine and post-Plautine comedy, there is not, so far as we know, matter for a single action of damages. In like manner—if we leave out of view some wholly harmless jests—we meet hardly any trace of invectives levelled at communities (invectives which, owing to the lively municipal spirit of the Italians, would have been specially dangerous), except the significant scoff at the unfortunate Capuans and
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Atellans (ii. 366) and, what is remarkable, various sarcasms on the arrogance and the bad Latin of the Praenestines. 1 In general no references to the events or circumstances of the present occur in the pieces of Plautus. The only ex ceptions are, congratulations on the course of the war 2 or on the peaceful times ; general sallies directed against usurious dealings in grain or money, against extravagance, against bribery by candidates, against the too frequent triumphs, against those who made a trade of collecting forfeited fines, against farmers of the revenue distraining for payment, against the dear prices of the oil -dealers; and once — in the Curculio —a more lengthened diatribe as to the doings in the Roman market, reminding us of the parabascs of the older Attic comedy, and but little likely to cause offence
But even in the midst of such patriotic endeavours, which from a police point of view were entirely in order, the poet interrupts himself;
Sed sumne ego stultus, qui rem euro publicam Ubi sunt magistrates, quos curare oporteat t
and taken as a whole, we can hardly imagine a comedy
1 Batch. 24 ; Trin. 609 ; True. iil. a, 33. Naevius also, who in fact was generally less scrupulous, ridicules the Praenestines and Lanuvinl (Com. si, Ribb. ). There are indications more than once of a certain variance between the Praenestines and Romans (Liv. xxiii. 20, xlil. 1) ; and the executions in the time of Pyrrhus (ii. 18) as well as the catastrophe in that of Sulla, were certainly connected with this variance. — Innocent jokes, such as Capt. 160, 881, of course passed uncensured. —The compli ment paid to Massilia in Cos. v. 4, 1 , deserves notice.
* Thus the prologue of the Cistcllaria concludes with the following words, which may have a place here as the only contemporary mention of the Hannibalic war in the literature that has come down to us :—
Hate ra sic gesta est Bene valete, et vincitt Virtute vera, quod fecistis antidhac ;
Servate vostros socios, veteres et novas; Augete auxilia vostris iustis legibus ; Perdite perduelles : parite laudem et lauream
Ut vobis victi Poeni poenas suferant
The fourth line (augete auxilia vostris iustis legibus) has reference to the supplementary payments imposed on the negligent Latin colonies in 550 204. (Liv. xdx. 15 ; see ii. 350).
(p. 124).
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politically more tame than was that of Rome in the sixth century. 1 The oldest Roman comic writer of note, Gnaeus Naevius, alone forms a remarkable exceptioa Although he did not write exactly original Roman comedies, the few fragments of his, which we possess, are full of references to circumstances and persons in Rome. Among other liberties he not only ridiculed one Theodotus a painter by name, but even directed against the victor of Zama the following verses, of which Aristophanes need not have been ashamed :
Etiam qui res magnat manu taepe gessit gloriolt,
Cujus facta viva nunc vigent, qui apud gentes solus praestat. Bum tuus pater cum paliio una at amica abduxii.
As he himself says,
Libera lingua toquemur ludis Liieralibut,
he may have often written at variance with police rules, and put dangerous questions, such as :
Cedo qui vestram rem publicam tantam amitittit tam cite t
which he answered by an enumeration of political sins, such as:
Proveniebant oratores novi, stulli aduletceniuli.
But the Roman police was not disposed like the Attic to hold stage-invectives and political diatribes as privileged, or even to tolerate them at all. Naevius was put in prison for these and similar sallies, and was obliged to remain there, till he had publicly made amends and recantation in other comedies. These quarrels, apparently, drove him
1 For this reason we can hardly be too cautious in assuming allusions on the part of Plautus to the events of the times. Recent investigation has set aside many instances of mistaken acuteness of this sort ; but might Dot even the reference to the Bacchanalia, which is found in Cos. v. 4, 1 1 (Ritschl, Parerg. 1. 19a), have been expected to incur censure? We might even reverse the case and infer from the notices of the festival of Bacchus in the Carina and some other pieces [Amph. 703 ; Aul. iii. 1, 3 ; Bacch. 53, 371 ; Mil. Glor. 1016 ; and especially Men. 836), that these were written at a time when it was not yet dangerous to speak of the Bacchanalia.
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from his native land ; but his successors took warning from his example — one of them indicates very plainly, that he has no desire whatever to incur an involuntary gagging like his colleague Naevius. Thus the result was accomplished —not much less unique of its kind than the conquest of Hannibal — that, during an epoch of the most feverish national excitement, there arose a national stage utterly destitute of political tinge.
But the restrictions thus stringently and laboriously Character imposed by custom and police on Roman poetry stifled its ^j^8 „j very breath. Not without reason might Naevius declare Roman the position of the poet under the sceptre of the Lagidae comeT* and Seleucidae enviable as compared with his position in
free Rome. 1 The degree of success in individual instances
was of course determined by the quality of the original
which was followed, and by the talent of the individual editor; but amidst all their individual variety the whole
stock of translations must have agreed in certain leading features, inasmuch as all the comedies were adapted to
similar conditions of exhibition and a similar audience.
The treatment of the whole as well as of the details was Personi uniformly in the highest degree free ; and it was necessary Jj^ that it should be so. While the original pieces were
in presence of that society which they copied, and in this very fact lay their principal charm, the Roman audience of this period was so different from the Attic, that it was not even in a position rightly to understand that foreign world.
