The Story of Civilization: Volume III: Caesar and Christ
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The bather seldom left the thermae at this point. For these were clubhouses as well as baths; they provided rooms for games like dice and chess,83 galleries of painting and statuary, exedrae where friends might sit and converse, libraries and reading rooms, and halls where a musician or a poet might give a recital or a philosopher might explain the world. In these afternoon hours after the bath Roman society found its chief meeting point; both sexes mingled freely in gay but polite association, flirtation, or discussion; there, and at the games and in the parks, the Romans could indulge their passion for talk, their fondness for gossip, and learn all the news and scandal of the day.
If they wished they could have dinner in the restaurant at the baths, but most of them dined at home. Perhaps because of the lassitude caused by exercise and warm bathing, the custom was to recline at meals. Once the women had sat apart while the men reclined; now the women reclined beside the men. The triclinium, or dining room, was so named because it usually contained three couches, arranged in square-magnet form around a serving table. Each couch normally accommodated three persons. The diner rested his head on his left arm, and his arm on a cushion, while the body extended diagonally away from the serving table.
The poorer classes continued to live chiefly on grains, dairy products, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. Pliny lists a wide assortment of vegetables in the Roman dietary, from garlic to rape. The well to do ate meat, with the usual superabundance of reckless carnivores. Pork was the favorite flesh food; Pliny praises the pig for furnishing fifty different dainties.84 Pork sausages (botuli) were hawked through the streets in portable ovens, as on our highways today.
When one dined at a banquet he expected rarer foods. The banquet began at four and lasted till late in the night or till the next day. The tables were strewn with flowers and parsley, the air was scented with exotic perfumes, the couches were soft with cushions, the servants were stiff with livery. Between the appetizer (gustatio) and the dessert (secunda mensa, “second table”) came the luxury dishes on which the host and his chef prided themselves. Rare fish, rare birds, rare fruit, appealed to the curiosity as well as the palate. Mullets were bought at a thousand sesterces a pound; Asinius Celer paid 8000 for one; Juvenal growled that a fisherman cost less than a fish. As an added delight for the guests, the mullet might be brought in alive and boiled before their eyes, that they might enjoy the varied colors it took in the agony of death.85 Vedius Pollio raised these sesquipedalian fish in a large tank and fed them with unsatisfactory slaves.86 Eels and snails were considered dainties, but the law forbade the eating of dormice.87 The wings of ostriches, the tongues of flamingoes, the flesh of songbirds, the livers of geese, were favorite dishes. Apicius, a famous epicure under Tiberius, invented the pâté de fois gras by fattening the livers of sows with a diet of figs.88V Custom allowed the diner to empty his stomach with an emetic after a heavy banquet. Some gluttons performed this operation during the meal and then returned to appease their hunger; vomunt ut edant, edunt ut vomant, said Seneca—“they vomit to eat, and eat to vomit.”90 Such behavior was exceptional, and no worse than the braggart drunkenness of American conventioneers. Pleasanter was the custom of presenting gifts to the guests, or letting flowers or perfumes fall upon them from the ceiling, or entertaining them with music, dancing, poetry, or drama. Conversation, loosened with wine and stimulated by the presence of the other sex, would conclude the evening.
We must not think of such banquets as the customary end of a Roman day, or as more frequent in a Roman’s life than the dinners-cum-oratory so popular today. History, like the press, misrepresents life because it loves the exceptional and shuns the newsless career of an honest man or the quiet routine of a normal day. Most Romans were like our neighbors and ourselves: they rose reluctantly, ate too much, worked too much, played too little, loved much, seldom hated, quarreled a bit, talked a great deal, dreamed waking dreams, and slept.
VI. A ROMAN HOLIDAY
1. The Stage
Having many gods to worship, and many provinces to milk, Rome had many holidays, once solemn with religious pageantry, now gay with secular delight. In summer many of the poor fled from the humid heat to suburban or riverside taverns or groves, drinking, dining, dancing, and loving in the open air. Those who could afford it might go to the bathing resorts that lined the western coast, or sport with the rich on Baiae’s bay. In winter it was the ambition of every caste-conscious Roman to go south, if possible to Rhegium or Tarentum, and return with a coat of tan as a certificate of class. But those who stayed in Rome found entertainment plentiful and cheap. Recitations, lectures, concerts, mimes, plays, athletic contests, prize fights, horse races, chariot races, mortal combats of men with men or beasts, not-quite-sham naval battles on artificial lakes—never was a city more bountifully amused.
In the early Empire there were in the Roman year seventy-six festival days on which ludi were performed. Of these, fifty-five were ludi scenici, devoted to plays or mimes; twenty-two were games in the circus, the stadium, or the amphitheater. The number of ludi increased until by A.D. 354 they were presented on 175 days in the year.91 This meant no growth in the Roman drama; on the contrary, the drama decayed while the stage prospered. Original dramas were now written to be read rather than played; the theater contented itself with old Roman and Greek tragedies, old Roman comedies, and mimes. Stars dominated the stage and made huge fortunes. Aesopus the tragedian, after a life of assiduous extravagance, left 20,000,000 sesterces. Roscius the comic actor made 500,000 sesterces a year and became so rich that for several seasons he acted without pay—a scorn of money that made this ex-slave the lion of aristocratic gatherings. The games of the circus and the amphitheater absorbed the interest and coarsened the taste of the public, and the Roman drama died in the arena, another martyr to Roman holidays.
Through emphasis on acting and scenery rather than plot or thought, the drama gradually yielded the stage to mimes and pantomimes. The mime contained little dialogue, chose its themes from lowly life, and relied on character sketches presented with skillful mimicry. Freedom of speech, having disappeared from the assemblies and the Forum, survived for a moment in these brief farces, when a mime would risk his head to earn applause by a double-entendre aimed at an emperor or his favorites. Caligula had an actor burned alive in the amphitheater for such an allusion.92 On the day when the parsimonious Vespasian was buried a mime imitated the obsequies. During the procession the corpse sat up and asked how much this funeral was costing the state. “Ten million sesterces,” was the answer. “Give me 100,000,” said the imperial cadaver, “and throw me into the Tiber.”93 The mime alone admitted women as actors; and as these were thereby automatically classed as prostitutes, they had nothing to lose by obscenity. On special occasions like the Floralia the audience called upon these performers to remove every garment.94 Both sexes attended these performances, as in our time. Cicero found brides there, and they found him.
By suppressing speech altogether, and raising the theme to subjects from classic literature, the pantomime (“all mimicry”) was evolved out of the mime. There was a profit in foregoing language; the polyglot population of Rome, of which a considerable part could understand only the simplest Latin, followed the action better when unburdened with words. In 21 B.C. two actors, Pylades of Cilicia and Bathyllus of Alexandria, came to Rome and introduced the pantomime—already popular in the Hellenistic East—by performing one-act plays composed only of music, action, gesture, and dance. Tired of dramas in ancient and pompous verse, Rome welcomed the new art, thrilled to the grace and skill of the actors, enjoyed the gorgeousness of their costumes, the splendor or humor of their masks, the trained and dieted perfection of their figures, the Oriental expressiveness of their hands, their quick and versatile impersonation of diverse characters, their sensuous enactment of erotic scenes. Audiences divided into frantic cliques and claques in support of rival favorites; women of high station fell in love with the actors, and pursued them with gifts and embraces, until one litera
lly lost his head over Domitian’s wife. The pantomime gradually drove all rivals but the mime from the Roman stage. The drama succumbed to the ballet.
2. Roman Music
Such a triumph was made possible by the high development of music and the dance. Under the Republic dancing had been looked upon as disgraceful; the younger Scipio had compelled the closing of schools that taught music and dancing,95 and Cicero had remarked that “only a lunatic would dance when sober.”96 But the pantomimes made dancing a fashion, then a passion; nearly every private home, says Seneca, had a dancing platform, echoing to the feet of men and women; rich households now had a dancing master, as well as a chef and a philosopher, as part of their equipment. As practiced in Rome the dance involved the rhythmical movement of the hands and the upper body even more than of legs and feet. Women cultivated the art not only for its own attractiveness, but because it gave them flexibility and grace.
The Romans loved music only less than power, money, women, and blood. Like nearly everything else in Rome’s cultural life, her music came from Greece and had to fight its way against a conservatism that identified art with degeneration. In 115 B.C.. the censors had forbidden the playing of any instrument except the short Italian flute. A century later the elder Seneca still considered music unmanly; but meanwhile Varro had devoted a book to De Musica, and this treatise, together with its Greek sources, became the support of many Roman works on musical theory.97 Finally the rich and sensuous Greek modes and instruments won the day over Roman awkwardness and simplicity, and music became a regular element in the education of women, and frequently of men. By A.D. 50 it had captured all classes and sexes; men as well as women spent whole days in hearing, composing, or singing airs; at last even emperors climbed and descended scales, and the philosophic Hadrian, as well as the effeminate Nero, was proud of his skill on the lyre. Lyric poetry was intended to be sung with music, and music was seldom composed except for poetry; ancient music was subordinated to the verse, whereas with us the music tends to overwhelm the words. Choral music was popular and was frequently heard at weddings, games, religious ceremonies, and funerals. Horace was deeply moved by the sight and sound of youths and maidens singing his carmen saeculare. In such choruses all the voices sang the same note, though in different octaves; part singing was apparently unknown.
The basic instruments were the flute and the lyre. Our wind and string orchestras are still variations of these forms: the most heroic symphony is a judicious combination of puffing, plucking, scraping, and beating. The flute accompanied drama and was supposed to arouse emotion; the lyre attended song and was expected to elevate the soul. The flute was long, had many openings, and a greater range of expression than the modern instrument. The lyre and the cithara were like our harp, but took a greater variety of shapes. Among the Greeks they had been of modest size, but the Romans magnified them until Ammianus described citharas “as large as carriages”;98 in general the Roman instruments, like ours, improved upon earlier ones chiefly in sonorousness and size. The strings of the lyre were made of gut or sinew and numbered up to eighteen; they were plucked with a plectrum or with the fingers—which alone could execute the quicker runs. From Alexandria, early in the first century, came the hydraulic organ, with several registers, stops, and orders of pipes. Nero fell in love with it, and the calm Quintilian was impressed by its versatility and power.
Formal concerts were given, and musical contests played a part in some public games. Even modest dinners required a bit of music; Martial promises his guest at least a flute player;99 as for Trimalchio’s feast, the tables are wiped in rhythm with song. Caligula had an orchestra and a chorus on his pleasure boat. At the pantomimes symphoniae were performed—i.e., a chorus sang and danced to the accompaniment of an orchestra. Sometimes the actor would sing the solo parts, sometimes a professional singer (cantor) sang the words while the actor gestured or danced. It was not unheard of for a pantomime to be accompanied by 3000 singers and 3000 dancers.100 The orchestra was led by flutes, aided by lyres, cymbals, pipes, trumpets, “syringes,” and scabella—boards fastened to the players’ feet and capable of producing a pandemonium even more frightful than that of a modern orchestra at the height of its powers. Seneca mentions harmony in the playing of individuals,101 but there is no sign that ancient orchestras used harmony contrapuntally. The accompaniment was usually on a higher note than the song, but it did not, so far as we know, pursue a distinct sequence.
Virtuosi were plentiful and minor performers abounded. Talent converged from all provinces upon the center of the world’s gold, while the institution of slavery permitted the training of choruses and orchestras on a large but inexpensive scale. Many rich establishments had their own musicians, and sent the most promising to famous teachers for advanced instruction. Some became citharoedi and gave concerts in which they sang and played the lyre; some specialized in singing, usually composing their own songs; some gave concerts on the organ or the flute like Cannus, who boasted, in the style of Beethoven, that his music could alleviate sorrow, increase joy, elevate piety, and fan the flame of love.102 These professionals went on extended concert tours throughout the Empire, earning plaudits, fees, public monuments, and infatuations; some, says Juvenal, sold their love for an added honorarium.103 Women fought for the plectra with which famous players had touched the strings, and offered sacrifice at the altars for the victory of their musical favorites in the Neronian and Capitoline games. We can faintly picture the imposing scene when musicians and poets from all the realm competed before great throngs, and the breathless winners received the crown of oak leaves from the emperor’s hands.
We do not know enough of Roman music to describe its quality. Apparently it was louder, fuller, wilder than the Greek; a weird Oriental quality had entered it from Egypt, Asia Minor, and Syria. Old men mourned that recent composers were abandoning the restraint and dignity of the classic style, and were disordering the soul and nerves of youth with extravagant airs and noisy instruments. Certainly no people ever loved music more. The songs of the stage were caught up by a lively and volatile populace and rang through the streets and windows of Rome; the complex airs of the pantomimes were so fondly remembered that devotees could tell from the first notes of a strain to what play and scene it belonged. Rome made no real contribution to music, except perhaps through the better organization of performers into larger groups. But it honored music with exuberant usage and resilient response; it gathered the musical heritage of the ancient world into its temples, theaters, and homes; and when it passed it left to the Church the instruments and elements of the music that moves and deepens us today.
3. The Games
Now that war seemed banished, the great games were the most exciting event of the Roman year. They took place chiefly in celebration of religious festivals—of the Great Mother, of Ceres, of Flora, of Apollo, of Augustus; they might be the “Plebeian Games” to appease the plebs, or “Roman Games” in honor of the city and its goddess Roma; they might be offered in connection with triumphs, candidacies, elections, or imperial birthdays; they might, like the ludi saeculares, commemorate some cycle in Roman history. Like the games of Achilles in honor of Patroclus, those of Italy had originally been offered as a sacrifice to dead men. At the funeral of Brutus Pera in 264 B.C. his sons gave a “spectacle” of three duels; at the funeral of Marcus Lepidus in 216 B.C.. twenty-two combats were fought; and in 174 B.C.. Titus Flaminius celebrated his father’s death with gladiatorial games in which seventy-four men fought.
The simplest public games were athletic contests, usually held in a stadium. The performers, mostly professionals and aliens, ran foot races, threw the discus, wrestled, and boxed. The Roman public, accustomed to sanguinary gladiatorial exhibitions, only mildly favored athletics, but relished the prize fights in which massive Greeks fought almost to the death with gloves reinforced at the knuckles with an iron band three quarters of an inch thick. The gentle Virgil describes a milder pugilistic feast in almost modern terms:
Still more exciting were the races at the Circus Maximus. On two successive days forty-four races were run, some of horses and jockeys, some of light two-wheeled chariots drawn by two, three, or four horses abreast. The cost was met by rival stables owned by rich men; the jockeys, drivers, and chariots of each stable were costumed or painted in distinctive colors-white, green, red, or blue; and all Rome, as the time for these contests approached, divided into factions named from these colors, and particularly the red and the green. At home, in school, at lectures, in the forums, half the talk was about favorite jockeys and charioteers; their pictures were everywhere, their victories were announced in the Acta Diurna; some of them made great fortunes, some had statues raised to them in public squares. On the appointed day 180,000 men and women moved in festive colors to the enormous hippodrome. Enthusiasm rose to a mania. Excited partisans smelled the dung of the animals to assure themselves that the horses of their favorite drivers had been properly fed.105 The spectators passed by the shops and brothels that lined the outer walls; they filed through hundreds of entrances and sorted themselves with the sweat of anxiety into the great horseshoe of seats. Vendors sold them cushions, for the seats were mostly of hard wood, and the program would last all day. Senators and other dignitaries had special seats of marble, ornamented with bronze. Behind the imperial box was a suite of luxurious rooms, where the emperor and his family might eat, drink, rest, bathe, and sleep. Gambling was feverish, and fortunes passed from hand to hand as the day advanced. From openings under the stands emerged the horses, the jockeys and drivers, and the chariots; and each faction shook the stands with applause as its favorite color appeared. The charioteers, mostly slaves, wore bright tunics and shining helmets; in one hand was a whip, and in their belts a knife to cut, in accident, the traces tied to their waists. Along the middle of the elliptical arena ran the spina (“thorn,” “spine”), an island a thousand feet long, adorned with statues and obelisks; at one end were the metae (“measures”), circular pillars that served as goals. The usual length of a chariot race was seven circuits, about five miles. The test of skill lay in making the turns at the goals as swiftly and sharply as safety would allow; collisions were frequent there, and men, chariots, and animals mingled in fascinating tragedy. As the horses or chariots clattered to the final post the hypnotized audience rose like a swelling sea, gesticulated, waved handkerchiefs, shouted and prayed, groaned and cursed, or exulted in almost supernatural ecstasy. The applause that greeted the winner could be heard far beyond the limits of the city.