Pantomimus.
Mimus.
The ignoble end of the Roman--and with it of the ancient
classical--drama has been already foreshadowed. The elements of dance
and song, never integrally united with the dialogue in Roman tragedy,
were now altogether separated from it. While it became customary simply
to recite tragedies to the small audiences who continued (or, as a
matter of courtesy, affected) to appreciate them, the _pantomimus_
commended itself to the heterogeneous multitudes of the Roman theatre
and to an effete upper class by confining the performance of the actor
to gesticulation and dancing, a chorus singing the accompanying text.
The species was developed with extraordinary success already under
Augustus by Pylades and Bathyllus; and so popular were these
entertainments that even eminent poets, such as Lucan (d. A.D. 65),
wrote the librettos for these _fabulae salticae_ (ballets), of which the
subjects were generally mythological, only now and then historical, and
chiefly of an amorous kind. A single masked performer was able to
enchant admiring crowds by the art of gesticulation and movement only.
In what direction this art tended, when suiting itself to the most
abnormal demands of a recklessly sensual age, may be gathered from the
remark of one of the last pagan historians of the empire, that the
introduction of pantomimes was a sign of the general moral decay of the
world which began with the beginning of the monarchy. Comedy more easily
lost itself in the cognate form of the _mimus_, which survived all other
kinds of comic entertainments because of its more audacious immorality
and open obscenity. Women took part in these performances, by means of
which, as late as the 6th century, a _mima_ acquired a celebrity which
ultimately raised her to the imperial throne, and perhaps occasioned the
removal of a disability which would have rendered her marriage with
Justinian impossible.
The drama and the Christian Church.
Meanwhile, the regular drama had lingered on, enjoying in all its forms
imperial patronage in the days of the literary revival under Hadrian
(117-138); but the perennial taste for the spectacles of the
amphitheatre, which was as strong at Byzantium as it was at Rome, and
which reached its climax in the days of Constantine the Great (306-337),
under whom the reaction set in, determined the downfall of the dramatic
art. It was not absolutely extinguished even by the irruptions of the
northern barbarians; but a bitter adversary had by this time risen into
power. The whole authority of the Christian Church had, without usually
caring to distinguish between the nobler and the looser elements in the
drama, involved all its manifestations in a consistent condemnation (as
in Tertullian's _De spectaculis_, 200 c.), comprehended them all in an
uncompromising anathema. When the faith of that Church was acknowledged
as the religion of the Roman empire, the doom of the theatre was sealed.
It died hard, however, both in the capitals and in many of the
provincial centres of East and West alike. At Rome the last mention of
_spectacula_ as still in existence seems to date from the sway of the
East-Goths under Theodoric and his successor, in the earlier half of the
6th century. In the capital and provinces of the Eastern empire the
decline and fall of the stage cannot be similarly traced; but its end is
authoritatively assigned to the period of Saracen invasions which began
with the Omayyad dynasty in the 7th century.
It cannot be pretended that the doom which thus slowly and gradually
overtook the Roman theatre was undeserved. The remnants of the literary
drama had long been overshadowed by entertainments such as both earlier
and later Roman emperors--Domitian and Trajan as well as Galerius and
Constantine--had found themselves constrained to prohibit in the
interests of public morality and order, by the bloody spectacles of the
amphitheatre and by the maddening excitement of the circus. The art of
acting had sunk into pandering to the lewd or frivolous itch of eye and
ear; its professors had, in the words of a most judicious modern
historian, become "a danger to the peace of householders, as well as to
the peace of the streets"; and the theatre had contributed its utmost to
the demoralization of a world. The attitude taken up by the Christian
Church towards the stage was in general as unavoidable as its particular
expressions were at times heated by fanaticism or distorted by
ignorance. Had she not visited with her condemnation a wilderness of
decay, she could not herself have become--what she little dreamt of
becoming--the nursing mother of the new birth of an art which seemed
incapable of regeneration.
Survival of the mimes.
Though already in the 4th century _scenici_ had been excluded from the
benefit of Christian sacraments, and excommunication had been extended
to those who visited theatres instead of churches on Sundays and
holidays, while the clergy were absolutely prohibited from entering a
theatre, and though similar enactments had followed at later dates--yet
the entertainments of the condemned profession had never been entirely
suppressed, and had even occasionally received imperial patronage. The
legislation on the subject in the _Codex Theodosianus_ (accepted by both
empires in the earlier part of the 5th century) shows a measure of
tolerance indicating a conviction that the theatrical profession could
not be suppressed. Gradually, however, as they lost all footing in the
centres of civic life, the _mimes_ and their fellows became a wandering
fraternity, who doubtless appeared at festivals when their services were
required, and vanished again into the depths of the obscurity which has
ever covered that mysterious existence--the strollers' life. It was thus
that these strange intermediaries of civilization carried down such
traditions as survived of the acting drama of pagan antiquity into the
succeeding ages.
(Continued in volume 8 slice 7).