by Terence
Saturae.
According to Livy 7. 2, the first ‘ludi scenici’ were introduced at Rome 361 B.C. to appease the anger of the gods who had sent a pestilence on the city.
It seems certain that about this time a stage was erected in the Circus at the Ludi Maximi, and the first three days of the festival were henceforth occupied with recitations, music, and dancing. Performers from Etruria, called ludiones, danced to the music of the flute without words or descriptive action; but the strolling minstrels of Latium (grassatores, spatiatores) soon took advantage of the stage to recite their chants with appropriate music and gesture. These performances were named from their miscellaneous character Saturae1. They were composed in the rugged Saturnian metre, with no connected plot, and did not admit of dialogue.
1 From lanx satura, a dish of mixed food. The later Saturae or Miscellanies, with which we are familiar from the works of Horace, Juvenal, and Persius, were introduced by Lucilius, who died 103 B.c. Cf. Hor. Sat i. 10.
Fabulae Atellanae.
A nearer approach to dramatic form was made in the Tabulae Atellanae, broad farces with stock characters, e g. Maccus, Pappus, Bucco, and Dossenus, analogous to the clown, pantaloon, and harlequin of an English pantomime. Each character had its traditional mask, and the pieces were originally played only by amateurs at private theatricals; but when translations from Greek dramas had monopolised the Roman stage, the Atellan farce was adopted as an after-piece, like the Satyric drama among the Greeks, and was regularly performed by professional actors. The name Atellanae, from Atella, an Oscan town near Capua, gave rise to the erroneous supposition that these farces were performed at Rome in the Oscan dialect; whereas it was only in accordance with Roman custom to give to dramatic performances a local name which could offend no national prejudices. The records of these plays are scanty, but they appear to have presented extravagant caricatures of special classes, trades, or occurrences, and their grotesque situations and lively humour secured them a lasting place in popular favour.
Laws regulating Dramatic Performances.
The failure of the Romans to produce a national drama was due not only to their national ‘gravity’ but also to the rigid censorship of the laws. Any personal lampoon, any ill-advised criticism of public affairs, met with summary chastisement. Fuste feritor was the laconic edict of the Twelve Tables: and the magistrates seem to have had plenary power to scourge any actor at any time or place that they deemed fit.
Public opinion at Rome.
To legal harshness was added a moral stigma. No Roman citizen could venture to appear on a public stage without losing his character for ever. The composition and performance of plays were handed over entirely to freedmen and slaves, who did not dare to represent Roman life, or introduce Roman topics. Even the rustic raillery and amateur farces of early Rome had to lay their scene in Tuscan Fescennia or Oscan Atella.
Contact with Greek civilisation.
Moreover, in addition to a national deficiency of literary instinct, and ignominious legal penalties, a third cause had operated powerfully in checking any development of dramatic originality. For nearly five centuries the Romans had been engaged in a varying, yet almost ceaseless struggle for supremacy, or even for existence. The defeat of Pyrrhus, 274 B. C., and the final conquest of Tarentum and the other cities of Magna Graecia a few years later, left them undisputed masters of the whole peninsula. They were thus brought into close contact with Greek civilisation at the very moment when they had leisure to attend to it. There began at once to arise an ever-increasing demand for a better education for the Roman youth, and for more varied amusements for the Roman populace. The satisfaction of these demands was delayed by the First Punic War, 264-241 B.C.
Livius Andronicus.
In the next year Livius Andronicus, a Tarentine captive who received his freedom for educating the sons of Livius Salinator, produced on the Roman stage a drama translated from the Greek. He also translated the Odyssey into Saturnian verse as an educational text-book, which was still in use in the boyhood of Horace. Thus at Rome the beginnings both of Epic and Dramatic poetry were due not so much to poetical inspiration as to the needs of the school-room and the Circus. As might be expected in work thus done to order, there was little artistic merit. The few fragments which remain seem crude and barbarous, and we may well believe that the books were never again opened when the rod of an Orbilius was no longer dreaded.
Old Athenian Comedy.
There could be no doubt as to the school of Attic Comedy to be chosen for imitation. The Old Comedy of Eupolis, Cratinus or Aristophanes, essentially political in its subjects, abounding in topical allusions and trenchant satire of public men and public matters, could not have been reproduced on a Roman stage.
Middle Comedy.
Even the poets of the Middle Comedy, who satirised classes rather than individuals or travestied schools of philosophy, would have seemed far too free to the stern censors of the Republic, and would have been almost unintelligible to the majority of Romans.
New Comedy. The New Comedy was alone available. This was the name given to a school of dramatists, of whom the best known are Philemon, Diphilus, Apollodorus of Carystus, and above all Menander. They wrote at a period (340-260 B. c.) when the power of Macedon had crushed the liberty of Greece. Political life was dead; social life was idle and corrupt. The natural products of such a period of decay were the ‘Society’ plays of the New Comedy. Their aim was merely to give amusing sketches of every day life1. The savage satire of Aristophanes only survived in good-humoured banter. The keen strife of Conservatism against Democracy was replaced by intrigues of amorous youths or crafty slaves to out-wit the head of the family. The interest of these plays was not local but cosmopolitan. Human nature is pretty much the same in all ages, and so these plays were naturally suited for the Roman stage. They were amusing, without the slightest tendency to criticise points of national interest, or otherwise offend against the strict regulations of the Roman magistrates.
1 Cf. Cic. Rep. 4. 11 imitationem vitae, speculum consuetudinis, imaginem veritatis.
Cn. Naevius.
Naevius, 235-204 B.C., the first imitator of Livius Andronicus, a Campanian of great ability and force of character, did indeed dare to write with something of Aristophanic freedom. But his temerity in assailing the haughty Metelli, and even the mighty Africanus himself, led first to imprisonment and afterwards to banishment. The experiment was not repeated.
Plautus and Terence.
Between 230 and 160 B. C. the writers of Comedy were fairly numerous2, but only two have bequeathed to posterity more than scattered fragments. These two are Titus Maccius Plautus and Publius Terentius Afer.
1 e g. Caecilius, Licinius, Atilius, and others. Ennius, whose fame rests on his Epic poem, also adapted Greek plays, chiefly tragedies, to the Roman stage.
Life and Works of Terence.
Plautus died in 184 B. c. Terence was born in 195 B.C. at Carthage, whence his cognomen ‘Afer.’ He was a slave, but must early have shown signs of ability for his master Terentius Lucanus gave him a good education, and before long his freedom. His talents gained him admission to the literary clique, known as the Scipionic circle, the fashionable representatives of the new Hellenic culture. Scipio Aemilianus was the centre of the coterie, which included Laelius and Furius Philo, Sulpicius Gallus, Q. Fabius Labeo, M. Popillius, the philosopher Panaetius, and the historian Polybius. These being men of education and taste, unreservedly recognised the immeasurable superiority of Greek literature as compared with the rude efforts of their native writers. To present to a Roman audience a faithful reproduction of the best Hellenic models, in pure and polished Latin, seemed to them the ideal of literary excellence. Style was more valued than strength, correctness of form more than originality of thought. Such was the literary atmosphere which Terence breathed; and his enemies, not confining themselves to gross aspersions on his moral character, openly affirmed that the plays produced under his name were really the work
of his distinguished patrons. How far Scipio or Laelius may have had some hand in his plays can never be known, Terence at any rate did not care to refute the report which doubtless flattered his noble friends, but rather prided himself on the intimacy and approbation of so select a circle. All the plays of Terence, as of Plautus, were Comoediae palliatae, i e. plays wherein the scene and characters are Greek, as opposed to Comoediae togatae, where the scene is laid in Rome or at least in Italy. Praetextatae was a name given to historic or tragic plays.
Terence’s first comedy, the Andria, was produced 166 B.C. Suetonius relates that when this play was offered to the Aediles, the young author was told to submit it to the judgment of Caecilius. Terence arrived when the veteran poet was at supper, and being in mean attire was seated on a stool near the table. But he had read no more than a few lines, when Caecilius bade him take a place upon his couch, and bestowed high commendation on the play. As Caecilius died in 168 B.C., the Andria must have been in manuscript at least two years before its performance, and some colour is given to the above anecdote by the mention which Terence makes in the Prologue of the ill-natured criticisms of Luscius Lanuvinus. The Hecyra, his second play, proved his least successful one. At its first performance in 165 B. c., the audience deserted the theatre to look at some boxers; a similar fate attended a second representation in 160 B.C., and only the personal intercession of the manager. Ambivius Turpio, secured it a hearing at all. The Hauton Timorumenos appeared in 163, the Eunuchus and Phormio in 161, the Adelphi in 160. In the same year Terence visited Greece, either to study for himself Athenian manners and customs, or, as some assert, to escape the persecution of his enemies. According to one account he perished by shipwreck in 159 B. C., as he was returning to Italy with no less than 108 of Menander’s comedies translated into Latin. A more general belief was that he died at Stymphalus, in Arcadia, from grief on hearing of the loss of his MSS., which he had sent on before him by sea. Porcius Licinus narrates that his noble patrons suffered him to die in such abject poverty that he had not even a lodging at Rome whither a slave might have brought news of his death.
1 Cf. Suetonius, Vita Terenti 4-5.
This is probably untrue, for Suetonius writes that he left gardens of twenty jugera in extent on the Appian Way, and his daughter afterwards married a Roman knight.
In personal appearance Terence is said to have been of middle height, with a slight figure and reddish-brown hair. Of his character we know nothing, save what can be gathered from his prologues. These indicate a lack of independence and confidence. He evidently feels that he is not a popular poet. He never professes to be more than an adapter from Greek models; imitation, not creation, was the object of his art.
Contrast of Plautus and Terence.
This sensitive protégé of patrician patrons has none of the vigorous personality of Plautus. Indeed, though the literary activity of the two poets is only separated by a single generation, their works belong to different epochs of literature. Plautus wrote for the people, he aimed at the broad effect on the stage, his fun was natural and not unfrequently boisterous. Circumstances forced him to adapt foreign plays and lay his scenes in foreign cities, but he was not careful to disguise his true nationality, and freely introduced Roman names, allusions, and customs wherever they might contribute to the dramatic effect on the heterogeneous audience which crowded to the gratuitous entertainments of a Roman holiday; Between such plays and the polished productions of Terence there is a world of difference. Terence sought the approbation, not of the uncultured masses, but of a select circle of literary men. His highest aim was to produce in the purest Latin a perfect representation of the comedies of Menander and his school. His cardinal virtues, as a writer, were correctness of language and consistency of character. His scene is always laid at Athens, and not once in his six plays is to be found an allusion which is distinctively Roman. Indeed, the whole tone of his writings was cosmopolitan. Human nature, under the somewhat common-place conditions of every-day life in a civilised community, was his subject; Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto, was his motto. His plays breathe a spirit of broad-minded liberality, and their simple unaffected style, the easy yet pointed dialogue, the terse and dramatic descriptions, and the admirable delicacy of the portrayal of character, won for Terence from the cultured taste of the Augustan age a more favourable verdict than he could have expected from the rude and unlettered masses who most enjoyed the broad fun of a boisterous farce. The above characteristics secured for Terence considerable attention at the Renaissance in Europe. In England several of the minor dramatists are under obligations to him, while in France his influence profoundly affected Molière, and is in no small degree responsible for the long-continued servitude of the French drama to the ‘unities’ of time and place which have so cramped its free development. The Andria has been adapted to the French stage by Baron as L’Andrienne, while Sir Richard Steele has presented it in an English dress as The Conscious Lovers.
As might be expected, the characters in Terence, though admirably drawn, are rather commonplace. No personality in his plays stands out in the memory like that of Tyndarus in the Captivi, or Stasimus in the Trinummus. His morality does not rise above a conventional respectability and a civilised consideration for others, except where the natural impulses inspire a generous disposition with something of nobility.
The discerning criticism of Caesar nearly expresses the more matured judgment of modern times:
Tu quoque, tu in summis, O dimidiate Menander,
Poneris et merito, puri sermonis amator.
Lenibus atque utinam scriptis adiuncta foret vis
Comica, ut aequato virtus polleret honore
Cum Graecis, neque in hac despectics parte iaceres;
Unum hoc maceror ac doleo tibi deesse, Terenti.
Not that Terence was devoid of humour; but his humour is so delicate and refined that it must often have fallen flat upon the stage. When his plays are well known their subtle satire and polished wit can be appreciated; but there is without doubt an absence of energy and action (Caesar’s vis comica), which prevented his pieces from being dramatically successful. An audience must be educated up to his plays before it can perceive their many excellences.
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