I. Roman Theatre
Lecture Five
II. The Roman Theatre
A. Basic History
1. Founded in 753 BC, about the time Greeks colonizing southern Italy
2. Dominated by Etruria until 509 (just as Athens becomes a democracy)
3. By 265 Rome dominates Italian Peninsula
4. 1st Punic War 264-241, gains Sicily and its Greek cities.
5. 240 Regular Greek Drama introduce to Rome.
6. 146 BC conquers Greece
7. Republic (509-27 BC) and Empire (27 BC - 476 AD)
B. Consider that the Romans loved variety. Nothing remained popular for long. Hence acrobats, dancers, races, mimes, theatre, etc. had a definite shelf life. This is true of theatre as well.
1. It is almost totally devoid of the philosophical bent so prevalent with the Greeks. A practical people. Their art tended to the grandiose, sentimental or diversionary.
2. The Romans had a genius for borrowing the best of cultures, absorbing these elements and making them uniquely Roman. Engineering, architecture, military strategy and tactics, farming, trade, and so forth.
3. Rome was deeply conservative in the Republican period and considered the Greeks effeminate and degenerate, though Greek literature and art was widely copied and the tutors were in great demand.
a) Rome believed in family and state, discipline, endurance, economy. They were known in the ancient world for their incorruptibility and sense of duty to Family and State in the Republican period. After the Empire, these virtues decline, and the power rests with the imperial bureaucracy rather than the citizenry.
C. Under the Republic drama prospered. Comedy stressed the everyday and the mundane, tragedy the duty/honor/country/virtue theme so dear to the Roman.
D. Under the Empire the theatre declines ( but does not disappear) in favor of varieties and novelties.
E. Theatre Development from Etruria
1. Took religious festivals. These include carnival and theatre as well as ritual. Music, dance and mask are present in nearly all Etruscan ceremonies. Also originated gladiator shows, as a funeral service.
2. Horace (65-8 BC) Latin drama started with Fescennine Verses. These were improvised vulgar and comedic dialogues between masked figures at harvest and wedding celebrations.
3. Livy (59 BC-17AD) dates beginning to 364BC, when Etruscan dancers were invited to Rome to appease the God's for a plague raging in Rome. These performers were Ister in Etruscan, Histriones in Latin. Dialogue was added to the dances, hence the theatre
4. Tarquin Pater 616-579, Etruscan king of Rome, established the Ludi Romani, which was later to host the Greek Dramas. Also tomb reliefs from this period indicate grandstands for spectators, long before they were used in Greece.
F. The Greek Colonies of Southern Italy
1. Fabula Aetellana (Aetellan farce) comes from Aetella near Naples. The Oscan region was conquered by 275, and these farces move north.
a) Short, improvised, based on domestic situations. May have been performed by the Phylakes or other mimes.
III. Roman Festivals and their connection with the drama.
A. Festivals or Ludi.
1. Ludi Romani
a) Given in September
b) Honored Jupiter
c) Established by Tarquinnius in 6th century, drama included in 364, regular comedy and tragedy in 240. Theatre considered pleasing to the Gods.
2. Ludi Florales
a) Given in April
b) Honored Flora
c) Established 238, regular part of calendar in 173 BC
3. Ludi Plebeii
a) November
b) Honored Jupiter
c) Established 220 BC, drama included 200 BC
4. Ludi Apollinares
a) July
b) Honored Apollo
c) Est. 212, with drama in 179 BC
5. Ludi Megalenses
a) April
b) Great Mother
c) Est. 204, theatre in 194
6. Ludi Cereales
a) May
b) Ceres
c) est. 202 BC
7. Saturnalia!!!
a) December
b) Saturn
c) Prehistory
B. Days for drama during a Ludi grew from one, to 25 days in 150 BC, to 40 in the Christian era. By 354 BC 100 days set aside for some sort of theatrical entertainment, and an additional 75 to events such as chariot races and gladiatorial contests.
1. Ludi could be repeated (instauratio) due to some ritual irregularity. The Ludi Plebeii was repeated 7 times in one year!
C. Roman Drama and Literature
1. Said to have begun with Livius Andronicus 240 - 204 BC, wrote comedies and tragedies. Also translated them from the Greek. Suggested he was a Greek slave.
2. First Roman dramatist was Gnaeus Naevius 270-201 BC.
a) First of the notable playwrights was Quintas Annius, from Brundisium, approximately 239 B.C.
(1) Educated in Tarentum by Greek tutors, he read and watched performances of new drama, Philemon and Menander
(a) Wrote like Euripides. "Igrant you that there are Gods, but they don't care what men do; else it would go well with the good and ill with the bad -- which rarely happens"
b) was a tragedian. 20 of them. only fragments survive.Began writing 235 BC
c) Wrote comedy best, though also wrote tragedy.
d) Wrote plays on Roman stories, and introduced roman characters into the Greek stories he wrote.
3. Titus Maccius Plautus 254-184 BC, known as Plautus
a) Varro 116-27 BC writes of him
b) Highly successful and popular. Authors stole his name and pinned it to their works, 130 of them.
c) 21 plays we know of: Comedy of Asses, The Merchants, The Braggart Warrior, Pot of Gold, The Casket, Stichus, Pseudolus, Amphitryon, The Menachmae, etc.
d) Admired for his Latin dialogue, wit, and varied poetic meters. Best known for farce, though his comedy is quite good.
4. Publius Terentius Afer 195 - 159 BC, known as Terence
5. Phoenecian, and perhaps of African blood. Dark hued skin.
6. Terentius Lucanus his master freed him, whereupon he took his name. This was a common practice for freed slaves.
a) Plots more complex. Used double plots to contrast human behaviors. Sympathetic treatment moves his plays toward sentimental comedy. More conscious of artistic principles
b) Of Terence, Caesar writes "dimidiatus Menander -- half a Menander. Vis comica." Translated it roughly means … lacking the power of laughter.
(a)
7. Caecilius Statius 219-168 BC
a) Caecilius Statius gave him his start in theatre
b) Famous sayings: "Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." I am man; nothing human is alien to me. : "fortes fortuna adiuvat." Fortune favors the brave. : "quot homines tot sententiae." As many opinions as men.
(a) six plays all of which survive: Andria, Mother in Law, Self-Tormentor, Eunuch, Phormio, The Brothers.
c) Considered by many Roman critics the greatest of comic authors.
d) None of his plays survive. Combined best of Plautus and Terence
8. Other writers are Marcus Atilius, Aquilius, Lucius Lanuvinius, Sextus Turpilius, this last the last writer of the Fabula palliata (comedy based on Greek originals) vs. Fabula Togata (Roman models
D. Plautus and Terencehave enormous influence on the Renaissance, not only for their purity of Latin, but for their plots
1. All action takes place in the street
2. The action accompanied by music (Etruscan influence)
3. No chorus.
IV. Early theatre Architecture
A. Plays and theatres
1. Scaena, Caenium (stage), orchestra, proscaenium. 145 first permanent wooden theatre
2. Plays end with Nunc Plaudite Omnes
3. Characters unmasked until 2d century B.C.
a) Etruscan word Phersu, so masks become persona. Dramatis personae -- masks of the play.
4. Most are taken from New Comedy. Greek author on title page
5. Twelve Tables make political satire punishable by death -- hence mostly comedy.
V. The first of the Roman Theatres were wooden structures
A. These were inherited from the Etruscans, and were torn down after each perform
VI. Roman Drama
A. Tragedy
1. Only three writers survive: Quintas Ennius, Marcus Pacuvius, and Lucius Accius. No plays in their entirety survive.
a) Majority are Adapted from Greek (Fibula Crepidata), vs. Roman in whole cloth (Fabula Praetexta)
b) Apparently the last to be produced was Thyestes by Varius Rufus, in 29 BC
c) Closet dramas written. Ovids' 43bc - 17 AD Medea
2. Lucius Annaeus Seneca 4 BC - 65 AD.
a) Born in Spain, wrote on rhetoric and philosophy. His pupil was Nero, emperor in 54 AD
b) Committed suicide in 65 AD
c) 9 plays survive: The Trojan Women, Medea, Oedipus, Phaedra, Theystes, Heracles on Oeta, The Mad Heracles, The Phoenician Women, Agamemnon
(1) Plays are divided into 5 episodes by choral interludes. In Renaissance the 5 act was standard, while the chorus was reduced to a single character.
(2) Speeches elaborate and resemble forensic addresses.
(3) Heavy reliance on morality, as illustrated through sensational deeds and pithy sayings (sententiae) paralleled in Renaissance by horrifying examples of evil and moralizing ruminations.
(4) Scenes of violence and horror heavily borrowed in Renaissance drama. Oedipus, Jocasta rips open her womb, Thyestes children are served up at a banquet.
(5) Preoccupation with death, magic, human vs. superhuman heavily used in Renaissance.
(6) Characters dominated by a single passion (revenge)
(7) Technical devices: soliloquies, asides, confidantes.
d) Octavia sole example of Fabula Praetexta. Death of Nero's wife.
B. Aettelan Farce.
1. Pomponius and Novius primary writers (100-75 BC)
2. 300 - 400 lines, served as afterpeices.
3. Emphasized rural settings, character and speech. Cheating, gluttony, fighting, and sexual exploits.
4. Bucco, braggart; Pappus, comic old man; Maccus gluttonous fool; Dossenus, hunchback of frightening appearance.
C. Mime
1. 211 BC Fabula Ricinata
a) Associated to Ludi Florales
b) Decimus Liberius 106-43 BC, Publius Syrus credited to literary form
c) Mime almost any type of entertainment
d) Heliogabalus 218-222 AD ruled sexual acts to be performed realistically. Mime got a bad odor from that.
VII. The first of the Roman Theatres were wooden structures
A. These were inherited from the Etruscans, and were torn down after each performance
VIII.
IX.
A. cont'd... These structures lasted only for the duration of the ludi. The illustration above is also instructive in its treatment of the masks and costumes of the comedians.
B. If there were 5 festivals a year requiring temporary theatres, by 55 B.C. there would have been 500 theatres erected and torn down!
C. By 99 B.C. the temporary theatres were gaining elaborate decoration. Amelius Scaurus, during his Consulship in 58 B.C. had a Scanae house of three stories built; the first story of marble, the second of gilded wood, the third of glass, the whole decorated with columns and bronze statues.
X. The first permanent theatre in Rome was built in 55 B.C. by Pompeus Magnus: Pompey the Great.
A. It must be remembered that during the Republican period drama could only be performed on the precincts of the temple to whose God the plays were dedicated.
1. Pompey realises this. He also knows how very popular theatres are. So he circumvents the strictures of tradition and decrees of the senate by building a temple to Venus atop the theatre, thereby making the theatre itself holy ground.
XI. Let's reflect a moment on what the Romans felt was of value in their drama.
A. Horace Ars Poetica 68-5 BC
1. Primarily concerned with the rhetoric of drama, stressing decorum and appropriateness throughout
a) Unlike Aristotle Horace believes that in order to make the audience weep he must feel grief himself, then search among the emotions available for that which would be appropriate to the character's station in life.
b) Marvelous and offensive should be kept off stage, and narrated.
c) The play must have five acts
d) No more than three characters on stage at a time
e) Chorus maintains high moral tone
f) Gods appear only when absolutely necessary to resolve the action
g) purity of genre
2. Prefers a lively work with an occasional flaw to dull mediocrity.
3. "to delight" "to profit" Rome's major contribution to dramatic theory.
B. Quintillian 40-118 AD De institutiones
1. Mind body connection
a) black bile -- gloom, sadness, morbidity "melancholic"
b) yellow bile -- anger "Choleric"
c) red blood -- amorous, cheerful, courageous, hopeful and confident "Sanguine" pink cheeks
d) phlegm -- sluggish, apathetic
2. Keep these elements in balance.
a) If the actor uses his feelings to express the emotions of the character he runs the risk of triggering an imbalance in his own body.
b) A safe way to perform without being "carried away"
(1) each emotion has specific physical manifestations. These were codified so that the actor could signify feeling with gesture.
(2) Using the mirror and the spear
(3) natural emotion lacks "artfulness" and thus is to be avoided.
C. Others are Plutarch in Comparison between Aristophanes and Menander, De Fabula by Evanthius, and De commedia by Donatus
1. Evanthius
a) "In comedy the fortunes of men are middle-class, the dangers are slight, and the ends of the action are happy; but in tragedy everything is the opposite--the characters are great men, the fears are intense, and the ends disastrous. In comedy the beginning is troubles, the end tranquil; in tragedy the events follow the reverse order. And in tragedy the kind of life is shown that is to be shunned; while in comedy the kind is shown that is to be sought after. Finally, in comedy the story is always fictitious, while in tragedy it is often based on historical truth."
b) Four parts of Comedy
(1) Prologue
(2) Prostasis -- introduces the action
(3) Epistasis -- complication
(4) Catastrophe -- resolution
c) Discusses costume and acting
2. Donatus
a) Singles out Terence for the following
(1) Appropriateness -- suiting a character to his station
(2) Verisimilitude -- types true to life
(3) purity of genre
(4) decorum -- avoiding offensive topics
(5) clarity -- rejecting obscure topics
(6) unity -- forming a "single body" "from the same material"
3. Diomedes
a) aim of the tragedy is to move us to tears, that of comedy to laughter; when we witness these emotions we qualify our own and thus purge them. the "unnamed emotion"
D. Attacks on the theatre
1. Tertullian De spectaculis 198 BC
a) Scriptural evidence against spectacle
b) idolatrous through their origin, concerns, locale etc.
c) Encourages a loss of self control through an appeal to our emotions and senses "There is no spectacle without agitation of the soul"
(1) Chrysostom 347 - 407 "deliver it (the soul) captive to the mercy of your passions"
2. Augustine Confessions 397
a) "why is it that man desires to be made sad, beholding doleful and tragically things, which yet himself would by no means suffer?" perverse fascination with grief. Grief is good when it moves us to action to ameliorate the suffering of our fellow man; when done for its own sake it is a corruption.
(1) Not christian until age 32. Lived during decline of Roman Empire and born 40 yrs. after the conversion of Constantine (Roman Empiror?)
(2) Search for wisdom brought him back to GOD. The way to happiness was provided for men in Jesus C. The source of saving truths was the scriptures. This supplanted the teaching of philosophers as the gateway to truth.
XII. HENCE AUTHORITY RATHER THAN REASONING,FATH Rather THAN UNDERSTANDING CAME TO BE THE EMPHASIS OF "CHRISTAIN PHILOSPHY.
1.
2. Only two other permenent theatres were ever erected; the Theatre of Balbus in 13 B.C. (seating 8000) and the Theatre Marcellus in 11 B.C. (14000). However, theatre building went on robustly throughout the empire evenutally numbering 125. Excellent examples can still be found in Orange, Marseilles, Ephesus, and Qom.
3. The theatres for the most part were erected on level ground, taking advantage of the arch supported architecture. Where they were built on a hill, as above at Orange, aisles and passages were cut into the hillside to permit audience traffic.
4. Below you'll note that the auditorium (hearing place) is bisected by numerous verticle aisles. The aisles that admit directly into the orchestra are called vomitoria. Often times there was a box atop the entrance to the vomitoria for the use of magistrates.
5. The auditorium was called the cavea. The cavea was shielded from the sun by a huge awning, called a vela.
6. The stage in the front (pulpitum) was five feet off the ground, and bisected the circle that was the orchestra. It could be 20 - 40 feet in depth, and from 100 to 300 feet long. There were at least five doors leading off the stage into the tiring house, or scanae, and at least one in each wing (versurae). The stage itself contained numerous trap doors, and the scanae contained machines to fly the actors.
7. The front of the scanae house, or scanae frons, was lavishly gilded, painted and decorated with statues and porticoes. the stage was roofed (see below) not only to protect the actors and scenery but also to improve accoustics.
XIII.
XIV. The primary scenic background was provided by the scanae frons itself (below). There were of course pariaktoi in use, and two curtains, the auleum and the siparium. The auleum seems to have been a fore-curtain, raised and lowered by a use of poles (until the 2d century A.D. when it was suspended above the pulpitum by a wire). The siparium was a backdrop curtain, and may have contained painted scenes.
XV. Spectacle was important to the Romans. They could devise volcanoes, mountains and the like. Indeed, a special warehouse for props and special effects was erected between the Theatre of Pompey and the Colosseum.
XVI. The primary source is Vitruvius de architectura.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
A. cont'd... These structures lasted only for the duration of the ludi. The illustration above is also instructive in its treatment of the masks and costumes of the comedians. If there were 5 festivals a year requiring temporary theatres, by 55 B.C. there would have been 500 theatres erected and torn down!
B. By 99 B.C. the temporary theatres were gaining elaborate decoration. Amelius Scaurus, during his Consulship in 58 B.C. had a Scanae house of three stories built; the first story of marble, the second of gilded wood, the third of glass, the whole decorated with columns and bronze statues.
XX. The first permanent theatre in Rome was built in 55 B.C. by Pompeus Magnus: Pompey the Great.
A. It must be remembered that during the Republican period drama could only be performed on the precincts of the temple to whose God the plays were dedicated.
1. Pompey realises this. He also knows how very popular theatres are. So he circumvents the strictures of tradition and decrees of the senate by building a temple to Venus atop the theatre, thereby making the theatre itself holy ground.
XXI. Byzantine Theatre
A. History overview
1. Byzantium, or as they called themselves, Rome, was raised to imperial importance in 330 AD by the emperor Constantine the Great.
2. It was felt that the empire was too large to govern solely from Rome. 395 sons of Theodosius the Great. 519 Acacian Schism, Council of Nicea
3. Edict of Milan previously had assured Christians the freedom to worship. With the conversion of Constantine 312 at Battle of Milvian Bridge the new religion became the official religion. As far as Byzantium was concerned, the two pillars of empire are now Church and State.
a) Witness the great Hagia Sophia
4. Final separation of East and West when Baldwin I crowned Holly Roman Emperor in 1204
5. 1391 Sultan Bayzeid extracts tribute from Constantinople
6. May 29 1453 new calendar Mohammed II conquers Byzantium, Constantine XI dies in the fighting.
B. Hippodrome built in 124, re-built in 330 AD
1. 80000 spectators, marble seats
2. Scene of games, theatre, and the massacre of the Nika revolt in 532 AD (Belisarius)
C. Theatres
1. Mostly taken over from the Romans, one was built near the Church of St. Irene.
2. Antioch has 4 theatres
3. Palladius writes that the [plays of Menander still performed in 5th century, up to the time Persian King Chosroes destroys the city in 538 AD
D. Nature more static than innovative
1. Franz Dogler:
a) The reasons for this are quite clear. By the third century ad complete performances of tragedies or comedies were seldom given in the Roman empire. Pantomimes still performed separate lyrical, and chiefly choral parts, For the rest the Mimus, a sort of operetta like sketch, with a great deal of spectacular display and usually a rather "blue" content, had long captured the taste of the broad masses, and despite the prohibitions of the emperors Anatsatius I and Justinian 526 Ad must have continued clandestinely throughout the whole Byzantine period.
b) Christos Paschon (Gregory of Nazianus) but now attributed to 12th century, was a closet play. A third of the 2640 lines are paraphrases of Euripides.
2. Witnesses
a) St John Chrysostum 347-407
(1) In bright daylight curtains are hung up and a number of actors with masks appear. One plays the philosopher, though he is nothing of the kind himself; another plays the king; a third plays the physician, though really only recognizable as such by his costume; an illiterate plays the school master. They represent the opposite of what they are... The philosopher is only one because of the long hair on his mask....
b) Gregory of Nyssa
(1) A myth or old legend serves as the subject of the representation, and it is reproduced in imitation before our eyes. What corresponds to the story is performed ion the following way. The actors put on costumes and masks. In the orchestra curtains are hung up which represent the city, and the whole thing is so true to nature that the public thinks it is a miracle.
3. Other plays
a) Processus (ceremony), Ludi circensus (circus mime), tame venatio, gothikon [(Liudrand of Cremona 968) Book of Ceremonies records a gothikon], Christus aneste an Easter trope, kontakion [(canticle or metrical sermon sung to music and including dialogue) Sophranus 560 -638 records 12 of these], sogitha [(syrian sermon which included dialogue) Proclus of Constantinople 447 The Encomium to the Mother of God Mariam]