CŌMOEDĬA (κωμῳδία), comedy. (1) GREEK. Comedy took its rise at the
vintage festivals of Dionysus. It originated with those who led
off the phallic songs of the band of revellers (κῶμος), who at the
vintage festivals of Dionysus gave expression to the feelings of
exuberant joy and merriment which were regarded as appropriate to
the occasion, by parading about, partly on foot, partly in waggons,
with the symbol of the productive powers of nature, singing a wild,
jovial song in honour of Dionysus and his companions. These songs
were commonly interspersed with, or followed by petulant, extemporal
witticisms with which the revellers assailed the bystanders. This
origin of comedy is indicated by the name κωμῳδία, which undoubtedly
means “the song of the κῶμος,” though it has sometimes been derived
from κώμη, as if the meaning were “a village song.” It was among the
Dorians that comedy first assumed any thing of a regular shape. The
Megarians, both in the mother country and in Sicily, claimed to be
considered as its originators, and so far as the comedy of Athens
is concerned, the claim of the former appears well founded. Among
the Athenians the first attempts at comedy were made at Icaria by
Susarion, a native of Megara, about B.C. 578. Susarion no doubt
substituted for the more ancient improvisations of the chorus and
its leader premeditated compositions. There would seem also to have
been some kind of poetical contest, for we learn that the prize for
the successful poet was a basket of figs and a jar of wine. It was
also the practice of those who took part in the comus to smear their
faces with wine-lees, either to prevent their features from being
recognised, or to give themselves a more grotesque appearance. Hence
comedy came to be called τρυγῳδία, or lee-song. Others connected
the name with the circumstance of a jar of new wine (τρύξ) being
the prize for the successful poet. It was, however, in Sicily, that
comedy was earliest brought to something like perfection. Epicharmus
was the first writer who gave it a new form, and introduced a
regular plot. In his efforts he appears to have been associated
with Phormis, a somewhat older contemporary. The Megarians in
Sicily claimed the honour of the invention of comedy, on account of
Epicharmus having lived in Megara before he went to Syracuse. In
Attica, the first comic poet of any importance whom we hear of after
Susarion is Chionides, who is said to have brought out plays in B.C.
488. Euetes, Euxenides, and Myllus were probably contemporaries
of Chionides; he was followed by Magnes and Ecphantides. Their
compositions, however, seem to have been little but the reproduction
of the old Megaric farce of Susarion, differing, no doubt, in
form, by the introduction of an actor or actors, separate from the
chorus, in imitation of the improvements that had been made in
tragedy.--That branch of the Attic drama which was called the _Old
Comedy_, begins properly with Cratinus, who was to comedy very much
what Aeschylus was to tragedy. The old comedy has been described as
the comedy of caricature, and such indeed it was, but it was also a
great deal more. As it appeared in the hands of its great masters
Cratinus, Hermippus, Eupolis, and especially Aristophanes, its main
characteristic was that it was throughout _political_. Everything
that bore upon the political or social interests of the Athenians
furnished materials for it. The old Attic comedy lasted from Ol. 80
to Ol. 94 (B.C. 458-404). From Cratinus to Theopompus there were
forty-one poets, fourteen of whom preceded Aristophanes. The later
pieces of Aristophanes belong to the Middle rather than to the Old
Comedy. The chorus in a comedy consisted of twenty-four. [CHORUS.]
The dance of the chorus was the κόρδαξ, the movements of which were
capricious and licentious, consisting partly in a reeling to and
fro, in imitation of a drunken man, and in various unseemly and
immodest gestures. Comedies have choric songs, but no στάσιμα, or
songs between acts. The most important of the choral parts was the
Parabasis, when the actors having left the stage, the chorus, which
was ordinarily divided into four rows, containing six each, and was
turned towards the stage, turned round, and advancing towards the
spectators delivered an address to them in the name of the poet,
either on public topics of general interest, or on matters which
concerned the poet personally, criticising his rivals and calling
attention to his merits; the address having nothing whatever to
do with the action of the play. The parabasis was not universally
introduced: three plays of Aristophanes, the Ecclesiazusae,
Lysistrata, and Plutus, have none. As the old Attic comedy was the
offspring of the political and social vigour and freedom of the age
during which it flourished, it naturally declined and ceased with the
decline and overthrow of the freedom and vigour which were necessary
for its development.--It was replaced by a comedy of a somewhat
different style, which was known as the _Middle Comedy_, the age of
which lasted from the end of the Peloponnesian war to the overthrow
of liberty by Philip of Macedon. (Ol. 94-110.) The comedy of this
period found its materials in satirizing classes of people instead of
individuals, in criticising the systems and merits of philosophers
and literary men, and in parodies of the compositions of living and
earlier poets, and travesties of mythological subjects. It formed
a transition from the old to the new comedy, and approximated to
the latter in the greater attention to the construction of plots
which seem frequently to have been founded on amorous intrigues,
and in the absence of that wild grotesqueness which marked the
old comedy. As regards its external form, the plays of the middle
comedy, generally speaking, had neither parabasis nor chorus. The
most celebrated authors of the middle comedy were Antiphanes and
Alexis.--The _New Comedy_ was a further development of the last
mentioned kind. It answered as nearly as may be to the modern
comedy of manners or character. Dropping for the most part personal
allusions, caricature, ridicule, and parody, which, in a more general
form than in the old comedy, had maintained their ground in the
middle comedy, the poets of the new comedy made it their business
to reproduce in a generalized form a picture of the every-day life
of those by whom they were surrounded. There were various standing
characters which found a place in most plays, such as we find in the
plays of Plautus and Terence, the _leno perjurus_, _amator fervidus_,
_servulus callidus_, _amica illudens_, _sodalis opitulator_, _miles
proeliator_, _parasitus edax_, _parentes tenaces_, _meretrices
procaces_. In the new comedy there was no chorus. It flourished from
about B.C. 340 to B.C. 260. The poets of the new comedy amounted to
64 in number. The most distinguished was Menander.--(2) ROMAN.--The
accounts of the early stages of comic poetry among the Romans are
scanty. Scenic entertainments were introduced at Rome in B.C. 363
from Etruria, where it would seem they were a familiar amusement.
Tuscan players (_ludiones_), who were fetched from Etruria, exhibited
a sort of pantomimic dance to the music of a flute, without any
song accompanying their dance, and without regular dramatic
gesticulation. The amusement became popular, and was imitated by the
young Romans, who improved upon the original entertainment by uniting
with it extemporaneous mutual raillery, composed in a rude irregular
measure, a species of diversion which had been long known among the
Romans at their agrarian festivals under the name of _Fescennina_
[FESCENNINA]. It was 123 years after the first introduction of
these scenic performances before the improvement was introduced of
having a regular plot. This advance was made by Livius Andronicus,
a native of Magna Graecia, in B.C. 240. His pieces, which were both
tragedies and comedies, were merely adaptations of Greek dramas.
The representation of regular plays of this sort was now left to
those who were histriones by profession, and who were very commonly
either foreigners or slaves; the free-born youth of Rome confined
their own scenic performances to the older, irregular farces, which
long maintained their ground, and were subsequently called _exodia_.
[EXODIA; SATURA.] Livius, as was common at that time, was himself an
actor in his own pieces. The first imitator of the dramatic works
of Livius Andronicus was Cn. Naevius, a native of Campania. He
composed both tragedies and comedies, which were either translations
or imitations of those of Greek writers. The most distinguished
successors of Naevius were Plautus, who chiefly imitated Epicharmus,
and Terence, whose materials were drawn mostly from Menander,
Diphilus, Philemon, and Apollodorus. The comedy of the Romans was
throughout but an imitation of that of the Greeks, and chiefly of
the new comedy. Where the characters were ostensibly Greek, and the
scene laid in Athens or some other Greek town, the comedies were
termed _palliatae_. All the comedies of Terence and Plautus belong to
this class. When the story and characters were Roman, the plays were
called _togatae_. But the fabulae togatae were in fact little else
than Greek comedies clothed in a Latin dress.
The togatae were divided into two classes, the _trabeatae_ and
_tabernariae_, according as the subject was taken from high or from
low life. In the comediae palliatae, the costume of the ordinary
actors was the Greek pallium. The plays which bore the name of
_praetextatae_, were not so much tragedies as historical plays. It
is a mistake to represent them as comedies. There was a species
of tragi-comedy, named from the poet who introduced that style
_Rhinthonica_. A tragedy the argument of which was Greek was termed
_crepidata_. The mimes are sometimes classed with the Latin comedies.
[MIMUS.] The mimes differed from the comedies in little more than
the predominance of the mimic representation over the dialogue. Latin
comedies had no chorus, any more than the dramas of the new comedy,
of which they were for the most part imitations. Like them, too, they
were introduced by a prologue, which answered some of the purposes
of the parabasis of the old comedy, so far as bespeaking the good
will of the spectators, and defending the poet against his rivals and
enemies. It also communicated so much information as was necessary to
understand the story of the play. The prologue was commonly spoken
by one of the players, or, perhaps, by the manager of the troop.
Respecting the _Atellanae fabulae_ see that article.
COMPĬTĀLĬA, also called LŪDI COMPĬTĀLĬCĬI, a festival celebrated
once a year in honour of the lares compitales, to whom sacrifices
were offered at the places where two or more ways met. In the time
of Augustus, the ludi compitalicii had gone out of fashion, but were
restored by him. The compitalia belonged to the _feriae conceptivae_,
that is, festivals which were celebrated on days appointed annually
by the magistrates or priests. The exact day on which this festival
was celebrated appears to have varied, though it was always in the
winter, generally at the beginning of January.