ORIGIN OF THE STAGE IN ROME.--USES OF THE MASK AMONG THE
ROMANS.--SCENES FROM ROMAN COMEDY.--THE SANNIO AND MIMUS.--THE
ROMAN DRAMA.--THE ROMAN SATIRISTS.--CARICATURE.--ANIMALS
INTRODUCED IN THE CHARACTERS OF MEN.--THE PIGMIES, AND THEIR
INTRODUCTION INTO CARICATURE; THE FARM-YARD; THE PAINTER'S STUDIO;
THE PROCESSION.--POLITICAL CARICATURE IN POMPEII; THE GRAFFITI.
The Romans appear to have never had any real taste for the regular
drama, which they merely copied from the Greeks, and from the earliest
period of their history we find them borrowing all their arts of this
description from their neighbours. In Italy, as in Greece, the first
germs of comic literature may be traced in the religious festivals,
which presented a mixture of religious worship and riotous festivity,
where the feasters danced and sung, and, as they became excited with
wine and enthusiasm, indulged in mutual reproaches and abuse. The
oldest poetry of the Romans, which was composed in irregular measure,
was represented by the _versus saturnini_, said to have been so called
from their antiquity (for things of remote antiquity were believed to
belong to the age of Saturn). Nævius, one of the oldest of Latin poets,
is said to have written in this verse. Next in order of time came the
Fescennine verses, which appear to have been distinguished chiefly
by their license, and received their name because they were brought
from Fescennia, in Etruria, where they were employed originally in the
festivals of Ceres and Bacchus. In the year 391 of Rome, or 361 B.C.,
the city was visited by a dreadful plague, and the citizens hit upon
what will appear to us the rather strange expedient of sending for
performers (_ludiones_) from Etruria, hoping, by employing them, to
appease the anger of the gods. Any performer of this kind appears to
have been so little known to the Romans before this, that there was
not even a name for him in the language, and they were obliged to adopt
the Tuscan word, and call him a _histrio_, because _hister_ in that
language meant a player or pantomimist. This word, we know, remained
in the Latin language. These first Etrurian performers appear indeed
to have been mere pantomimists, who accompanied the flute with all
sorts of mountebank tricks, gestures, dances, gesticulations, and the
like, mixed with satirical songs, and sometimes with the performance of
coarse farces. The Romans had also a class of performances rather more
dramatic in character, consisting of stories which were named _Fabulæ
Atellanæ_, because these performers were brought from Atella, a city of
the Osci.
A considerable advance was made in dramatic Art in Rome about the
middle of the third century before Christ. It is ascribed to a freedman
named Livius Andronicus, a Greek by birth, who is said to have brought
out, in the year 240 B.C., the first regular comedy ever performed in
Rome. Thus we trace not only the Roman comedy, but the very rudiments
of dramatic art in Rome, either direct to the Greeks, or to the Grecian
colonies in Italy. With the Romans, as well as with the Greeks, the
theatre was a popular institution, open to the public, and the state
or a wealthy individual paid for the performance; and therefore the
building itself was necessarily of very great extent, and, in both
countries open to the sky, except that the Romans provided for throwing
an awning over it. As the Roman comedy was copied from the new comedy
of the Greeks, and therefore did not admit of the introduction of
caricature and burlesque on the stage, these were left especially to
the province of the pantomime and farce, which the Romans, as just
stated, had received from a still earlier period.
[Illustration: _No. 13. A Scene from Terence._]
[Illustration: _No. 14. Geta and Demea._]
Whether the Romans borrowed the mask from the Greeks, or not, is
rather uncertain, but it was used as generally in the Roman theatres,
whether in comedy or tragedy, as among the Greeks. The Greek actors
performed upon stilts, in order to magnify their figures, as the area
of the theatre was very large and uncovered, and without this help
they were not so well seen at a distance; and one object of utility
aimed at by the mask is said to have been to make the head appear
proportionate in size to the artificial height of the body. It may
be remarked that the mask seems generally to have been made to cover
the whole head, representing the hair as well as the face, so that
the character of age or complexion might be given complete. Among the
Romans the stilts were certainly not in general use, but still the
mask, besides its comic or tragic character, is supposed to have served
useful purposes. The first improvement upon its original structure
is said to have been the making it of brass, or some other sonorous
metal, or at least lining the mouth with it, so as to reverberate, and
give force to the voice, and also to the mouth of the mask something
of the character of a speaking-trumpet.[9] All these accessories could
not fail to detract much from the effect of the acting, which must in
general have been very measured and formal, and have received most of
its importance from the excellence of the poetry, and the declamatory
talents of the actors. We have pictures in which scenes from the Roman
stage are accurately represented. Several rather early manuscripts of
Terence have been preserved, illustrated with drawings of the scenes
as represented on the stage, and these, though belonging to a period
long subsequent to the age in which the Roman stage existed in its
original character, are, no doubt, copied from drawings of an earlier
date. A German antiquary of the last century, Henry Berger, published
in a quarto volume a series of such illustrations from a manuscript of
Terence in the library of the Vatican at Rome, from which two examples
are selected, as showing the usual style of Roman comic acting, and
the use of the mask. The first (No. 13) is the opening scene in the
_Andria_. On the right, two servants have brought provisions, and on
the left appear Simo, the master of the household, and his freedman,
Sosia, who seems to be entrusted with the charge of his domestic
affairs. Simo tells his servants to go away with the provisions, while
he beckons Sosia to confer with him in private:--
Si. _Vos istæc intro auferte; abite. Sosia,
Adesdum; paucis te volo._ So. _Dictum puta
Nempe ut curentur recte hæc._ Si. _Imo aliud_.
Terent. Andr., Actus i., Scena 1.
When we compare these words with the picture, we cannot but feel
that in the latter there is an unnecessary degree of energy put into
the _pose_ of the figures; which is perhaps less the case in the
other (No. 14), an illustration of the sixth scene of the fifth act
of the _Adelphi_ of Terence. It represents the meeting of Geta, a
rather talkative and conceited servant, and Demea, a countryfied and
churlish old man, his acquaintance, and of course superior. To Geta's
salutation, Demea asks churlishly, as not at first knowing him, "Who
are you?" but when he finds that it is Geta, he changes suddenly to an
almost fawning tone:--
G. ... _Sed eccum Demeam. Salvus fies._
D. _Oh, qui vocare?_ G. _Geta._ D. _Geta, hominem maximi
Pretii esse te hodie judicavi animo mei._
[9] It is said to have received its Latin name from this circumstance,
_persona, a personando_. See Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att., lib. v.
c. 7.
[Illustration: _No. 15. Comic Scene from Pompeii._]
That these representations are truthful, the scenes in the
wall-paintings of Pompeii leave us no room to doubt. One of these is
produced in our cut No. 15, which is no doubt taken from a comedy
now lost, and we are ignorant whom the characters are intended to
represent. The _pose_ given to the two comic figures, compared with
the example given from Berger, would lead us to suppose that this
over-energetic action was considered as part of the character of comic
acting.
[Illustration: _No. 16. Cupids at Play._]
The subject of the Roman masks is the more interesting, because they
were probably the origin of many of the grotesque faces so often met
with in mediæval sculpture. The comic mask was, indeed, a very popular
object among the Romans, and appears to have been taken as symbolical
of everything that was droll and burlesque. From the comic scenes of
the theatre, to which it was first appropriated, it passed to the
popular festivals of a public character, such as the Lupercalia, with
which, no doubt, it was carried into the carnival of the middle ages,
and to our masquerades. Among the Romans, also, the use of the mask
soon passed from the public festivals to private supper parties. Its
use was so common that it became a plaything among children, and was
sometimes used as a bugbear to frighten them. Our cut No. 16, taken
from a painting at Resina, represents two cupids playing with a mask,
and using it for this latter purpose, that is, to frighten one another;
and it is curious that the mediæval gloss of Ugutio explains _larva_,
a mask, as being an image, "which was put over the face to frighten
children."[10] The mask thus became a favourite ornament, especially on
lamps, and on the antefixa and gargoyls of Roman buildings, to which
were often given the form of grotesque masks, monstrous faces, with
great mouths wide open, and other figures, like those of the gargoyls
of the mediæval architects.
[10] "Simulacrum ... quod opponitur faciei ad terrendos parvos."
(Ugutio, ap. Ducange, v. _Masca_.)
[Illustration: _No. 17. The Roman Sannio, or Buffoon._]
While the comic mask was used generally in the burlesque
entertainments, it also became distinctive of particular characters.
One of these was the _sannio_, or buffoon, whose name was derived from
the Greek word σάννος, "a fool," and who was employed in performing
burlesque dances, making grimaces, and in other acts calculated to
excite the mirth of the spectator. A representation of the _sannio_
is given in our cut No. 17, copied from one of the engravings in the
"Dissertatio de Larvis Scenicis," by the Italian antiquary Ficoroni,
who took it from an engraved gem. The sannio holds in his hand what is
supposed to be a brass rod, and he has probably another in the other
hand, so that he could strike them together. He wears the _soccus_, or
low shoe peculiar to the comic actors. This buffoon was a favourite
character among the Romans, who introduced him constantly into their
feasts and supper parties. The _manducus_ was another character of this
description, represented with a grotesque mask, presenting a wide mouth
and tongue lolling out, and said to have been peculiar to the Atellane
plays. A character in Plautus (Rud., ii. 6, 51) talks of hiring himself
as a _manducus_ in the plays.
"_Quid si aliquo ad ludos me pro manduco locem?_"
The mediæval glosses interpret _manducus_ by _joculator_, "a jogelor,"
and add that the characteristic from which he took his name was the
practice of making grimaces like a man gobbling up his food in a vulgar
and gluttonous manner.
[Illustration: _No. 18. Roman Tom Fool._]
Ficoroni gives, from an engraved onyx, a figure of another burlesque
performer, copied in our cut No. 18, and which he compares to the
Catanian dancer of his time (his book was published in 1754), who was
called a _giangurgolo_. This is considered to represent the Roman
_mimus_, a class of performers who told with mimicry and action scenes
taken from common life, and more especially scandalous and indecent
anecdotes, like the jogelors and performers of farces in the middle
ages. The Romans were very much attached to these performances, so much
so, that they even had them at their funeral processions and at their
funeral feasts. In our figure, the _mimus_ is represented naked, masked
(with an exaggerated nose), and wearing what is perhaps intended as a
caricature of the Phrygian bonnet. In his right hand he holds a bag,
or purse, full of objects which rattle and make a noise when shaken,
while the other holds the _crotalum_, or castanets, an instrument in
common use among the ancients. One of the statues in the Barberini
Palace represents a youth in a Phrygian cap playing on the _crotalum_.
We learn, from an early authority, that it was an instrument especially
used in the satirical and burlesque dances which were so popular among
the Romans.
As I have remarked before, the Romans had no taste for the regular
drama, but they retained to the last their love for the performances
of the popular _mimi_, or _comædi_ (as they were often called), the
players of farces, and the dancers. These performed on the stage, in
the public festivals, in the streets, and were usually introduced at
private parties.[11] Suetonius tells us that on one occasion, the
emperor Caligula ordered a poet who composed the Atellanes (_Attellanæ
poetam_) to be burnt in the middle of the amphitheatre, for a pun. A
more regular comedy, however, did flourish, to a certain degree, at
the same time with these more popular compositions. Of the works of
the earliest of the Roman comic writers, Livius Andronicus and Nævius,
we know only one or two titles, and a few fragments quoted in the
works of the later Roman writers. They were followed by Plautus, who
died B.C. 184, and nineteen of whose comedies are preserved and well
known; by several other writers, whose names are almost forgotten, and
whose comedies are all lost; and by Terence, six of whose comedies are
preserved. Terence died about the year 159 B.C. About the same time
with Terence lived Lucius Afranius and Quinctius Atta, who appear to
close the list of the Roman writers of comedy.
[11] See, for allusions to the private employment of these
performances, Pliny, Epist. i. 15, and ix. 36.
But another branch of comic literature had sprung out of the satire of
the religious festivities. A year after Livius Andronicus produced the
first drama at Rome, in the year 239 B.C., the poet Ennius was born
at Rudiæ, in Magna Græcia. The satirical verse, whether Saturnine or
Fescennine, had been gradually improving in its form, although still
very rude, but Ennius is said to have given at least a new polish, and
perhaps a new metrical shape, to it. The verse was still irregular, but
it appears to have been no longer intended for recitation, accompanied
by the flute. The Romans looked upon Ennius not only as their earliest
epic poet, but as the father of satire, a class of literary composition
which appears to have originated with them, and which they claimed
as their own.[12] Ennius had an imitator in M. Terentius Varro. The
satires of these first writers are said to have been very irregular
compositions, mixing prose with verse, and sometimes even Greek with
Latin; and to have been rather general in their aim than personal. But
soon after this period, and rather more than a century before Christ,
came Caius Lucilius, who raised Roman satirical literature to its
perfection. Lucilius, we are told, was the first who wrote satires in
heroic verse, or hexameters, mixing with them now and then, though
rarely, an iambic or trochaic line. He was more refined, more pointed,
and more personal, than his predecessors, and he had rescued satire
from the street performer to make it a class of literature which was
to be read by the educated, and not merely listened to by the vulgar.
Lucilius is said to have written thirty books of satires, of which,
unfortunately, only some scattered lines remain.
[12] Quintilian says, "_Satira quidem tota nostra est_." De Instit.
Orator., lib. x. c. 1.
Lucilius had imitators, the very names of most of whom are now
forgotten, but about forty years after his death, and sixty-five
years before the birth of Christ, was born Quintus Horatius Flaccus,
the oldest of the satirists whose works we now possess, and the most
polished of Roman poets. In the time of Horace, the satire of the
Romans had reached its highest degree of perfection. Of the two other
great satirists whose works are preserved, Juvenal was born about the
year 40 of the Christian era, and Persius in 43. During the period
through which these writers flourished, Rome saw a considerable number
of other satirists of the same class, whose works have perished.
In the time of Juvenal another variety of the same class of literature
had already sprung up, more artificial and somewhat more indirect
than the other, the prose satiric romance. Three celebrated writers
represent this school. Petronius, who, born about the commencement
of our era, died in A.D. 65, is the earliest and most remarkable of
them. He compiled a romance, designed as a satire on the vices of the
age of Nero, in which real persons are supposed to be aimed at under
fictitious names, and which rivals in license, at least, anything
that could have been uttered in the Atellanes or other farces of the
_mimi_. Lucian, of Samosata, who died an old man in the year 200, and
who, though he wrote in Greek, may be considered as belonging to the
Roman school, composed several satires of this kind, in one of the
most remarkable of which, entitled "Lucius, or the Ass," the author
describes himself as changed by sorcery into the form of that animal,
under which he passes through a number of adventures which illustrate
the vices and weaknesses of contemporary society. Apuleius, who was
considerably the junior of Lucian, made this novel the groundwork of
his "Golden Ass," a much larger and more elaborate work, written in
Latin. This work of Apuleius was very popular through subsequent ages.
[Illustration: _No. 19. The Farm-yard in Burlesque._]
[Illustration: _No. 20. An Asilla-Bearer._]
Let us return to Roman caricature, one form of which seems to have
been especially a favourite among the people. It is difficult to
imagine how the story of the pigmies and of their wars with the cranes
originated, but it is certainly of great antiquity, as it is spoken
of in Homer, and it was a very popular legend among the Romans, who
eagerly sought and purchased dwarfs to make domestic pets of them. The
pigmies and cranes occur frequently among the pictorial ornamentations
of the houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum; and the painters of Pompeii
not only represented them in their proper character, but they made use
of them for the purpose of caricaturing the various occupations of
life--domestic and social scenes, grave conferences, and many other
subjects, and even personal character. In this class of caricatures
they gave to the pigmies, or dwarfs, very large heads, and very small
legs and arms. I need hardly remark that this is a class of caricature
which is very common in modern times. Our first group of these pigmy
caricatures (No. 19) is taken from a painting on the walls of the
Temple of Venus, at Pompeii, and represents the interior of a farm-yard
in burlesque. The structure in the background is perhaps intended for a
hayrick. In front of it, one of the farm servants is attending on the
poultry. The more important-looking personage with the pastoral staff
is possibly the overseer of the farm, who is visiting the labourers,
and this probably is the cause why their movements have assumed so much
activity. The labourer on the right is using the _asilla_, a wooden
yoke or pole, which was carried over the shoulder, with the _corbis_,
or basket, suspended at each end. This was a common method of carrying,
and is not unfrequently represented on Roman works of art. Several
examples might be quoted from the antiquities of Pompeii. Our cut No.
20, from a gem in the Florentine Museum, and illustrating another class
of caricature, that of introducing animals performing the actions and
duties of men, represents a grasshopper carrying the _asilla_ and the
_corbes_.
[Illustration: _No. 21. A Painter's Studio._]
A private house in Pompeii furnished another example of this style
of caricature, which is given in our cut No. 21. It represents the
interior of a painter's studio, and is extremely curious on account
of the numerous details of his method of operation with which it
furnishes us. The painter, who is, like most of the figures in these
pigmy caricatures, very scantily clothed, is occupied with the portrait
of another, who, by the rather exaggerated fulness of the gathering
of his toga, is evidently intended for a dashing and fashionable
patrician, though he is seated as bare-legged and bare-breeched as the
artist himself. Both are distinguished by a large allowance of nose.
The easel here employed resembles greatly the same article now in use,
and might belong to the studio of a modern painter. Before it is a
small table, probably formed of a slab of stone, which serves for a
palette, on which the painter spreads and mixes his colours. To the
right a servant, who fills the office of colour-grinder, is seated by
the side of a vessel placed over hot coals, and appears to be preparing
colours, mixed, according to the directions given in old writers,
with punic wax and oil. In the background is seated a student, whose
attention is taken from his drawing by what is going on at the other
side of the room, where two small personages are entering, who look as
if they were amateurs, and who appear to be talking about the portrait.
Behind them stands a bird, and when the painting was first uncovered
there were two. Mazois, who made the drawing from which our cut is
taken, before the original had perished--for it was found in a state
of decay--imagined that the birds typified some well-known singers or
musicians, but they are, perhaps, merely intended for cranes, birds so
generally associated with the pigmies.
[Illustration: _No. 22. Part of a Triumphal Procession._]
According to an ancient writer, combats of pigmies were favourite
representations on the walls of taverns and shops;[13] and, curiously
enough, the walls of a shop in Pompeii have furnished the picture
represented in our cut No. 22, which has evidently been intended for
a caricature, probably a parody. All the pigmies in this picture
are crowned with laurel, as though the painter intended to turn to
ridicule some over-pompous triumph, or some public, perhaps religious,
ceremony. The two figures to the left, who are clothed in yellow
and green garments, appear to be disputing the possession of a bowl
containing a liquid. One of these, like the two figures on the right,
has a hoop thrown over his shoulder. The first of the latter personages
wears a violet dress, and holds in his right hand a rod, and in his
left a statuette, apparently of a deity, but its attributes are not
distinguishable. The last figure to the right has a robe, or mantle, of
two colours, red and green, and holds in his hand a branch of a lily,
or some similar plant; the rest of the picture is lost. Behind the
other figure stands a fifth, who appears younger and more refined in
character than the others, and seems to be ordering or directing them.
His dress is red.
[13] ἐπί των καπηλίων. Problem. Aristotelic. Sec. x. 7.
We can have no doubt that political and personal caricature flourished
among the Romans, as we have some examples of it on their works of art,
chiefly on engraved stones, though these are mostly of a character
we could not here conveniently introduce; but the same rich mine of
Roman art and antiquities, Pompeii, has furnished us with one sample
of what may be properly considered as a political caricature. In the
year 59 of the Christian era, at a gladiatorial exhibition in the
amphitheatre of Pompeii, where the people of Nuceria were present,
the latter expressed themselves in such scornful terms towards the
Pompeians, as led to a violent quarrel, which was followed by a pitched
battle between the inhabitants of the two towns, and the Nucerians,
being defeated, carried their complaints before the reigning emperor,
Nero, who gave judgment in their favour, and condemned the people of
Pompeii to suspension from all theatrical amusements for ten years.
The feelings of the Pompeians on this occasion are displayed in the
rude drawing represented in our cut No. 23, which is scratched on the
plaster of the external wall of a house in the street to which the
Italian antiquarians have given the name of the street of Mercury. A
figure, completely armed, his head covered with what might be taken
for a mediæval helmet, is descending what appear to be intended for
the steps of the amphitheatre. He carries in his hand a palm-branch,
the emblem of victory. Another palm-branch stands erect by his side,
and underneath is the inscription, in rather rustic Latin, "CAMPANI
VICTORIA VNA CVM NVCERINIS PERISTIS"--"O Campanians, you perished in
the victory together with the Nucerians." The other side of the picture
is more rudely and hastily drawn. It has been supposed to represent
one of the victors dragging a prisoner, with his arms bound, up a
ladder to a stage or platform, on which he was perhaps to be exhibited
to the jeers of the populace. Four years after this event, Pompeii
was greatly damaged by an earthquake, and sixteen years later came
the eruption of Vesuvius, which buried the town, and left it in the
condition in which it is now found.
[Illustration: _No. 23. A Popular Caricature._]
[Illustration: _No. 24. Early Caricature upon a Christian._]
This curious caricature belongs to a class of monuments to which
archæologists have given technically the Italian name of _graffiti_,
scratches or scrawls, of which a great number, consisting chiefly of
writing, have been found on the walls of Pompeii. They also occur
among the remains on other Roman sites, and one found in Rome itself
is especially interesting. During the alterations and extensions which
were made from time to time in the palace of the Cæsars, it had been
found necessary to build across a narrow street which intersected the
Palatine, and, in order to give support to the structure above, a
portion of the street was walled off, and remained thus hermetically
sealed until about the year 1857, when some excavations on the spot
brought it to view. The walls of the street were found to be covered
with these _graffiti_, among which one attracted especial attention,
and, having been carefully removed, is now preserved in the museum
of the Collegio Romano. It is a caricature upon a Christian named
Alexamenos, by some pagan who despised Christianity. The Saviour is
represented under the form of a man with the head of an ass, extended
upon a cross, the Christian, Alexamenos, standing on one side in the
attitude of worship of that period. Underneath we read the inscription,
ΑΛΕΞΑΜΕΝΟΣ CΕΒΕΤΕ (for σεβεται), "Alexamenos worships God." This
curious figure, which may be placed among the most interesting as well
as early evidences of the truth of Gospel history, is copied in our cut
No. 24. It was drawn when the prevailing religion at Rome was still
pagan, and a Christian was an object of contempt.