CHAPTER II
COMEDY
Comedy imported—Plautus, about 254 to 184 B. C.—Plots of Roman comedies—Extant plays of Plautus—Degree of originality in Plautus—Statius Cæcilius, birth unknown, death about 165 B. C.—Other comic writers—Terence, about 190 to 159 B. C.—Plays of Terence—Plautus and Terence compared—Turpilius, died 103 B. C.—Fabula togata—Titinius, about 150 B. C. (?)—Titus Quinctius Atta, died 77 B. C.—Lucius Afranius, born about 150 B. C.—Fescennine verses—Fabulæ Atellanæ—Pomponius and Novius, about 90 B. C.—Mimes—Decimus Laberius and Publilius Syrus, about 50 B. C.
Comedy, like tragedy, was an imported product, not an original growth, at Rome. Comedy an imported product. There had, to be sure, been improvised dialogues of more or less dramatic nature even before Livius Andronicus, but these, about which a few words will be said later, have nothing to do with the origin of Roman comedy, which is an imitation of the new Attic comedy as it existed at Athens after the time of Alexander the Great, being at its best from about 320 to about 280 B. C. No plays of the new Attic comedy are preserved in the original Greek, but there are fragments which supplement the knowledge we derive from the Latin imitations. The poets of the new comedy, Menander, Philemon, Diphilus, and others, avoided historical and political subjects and drew their comedies from private life, finding in petty intrigues, interesting situations, and unexpected complications, some compensation for the general meagreness of the plot. This kind of play was called at Rome fabula palliata because the actors wore the pallium, or Greek costume. Another kind of comedy, in which Roman characters and scenes were represented, though even in this kind of plays the plots were derived from Greek originals, was called fabula togata, because the actors wore the Roman toga. Of this latter kind of plays only a few fragments are preserved, and it seems never to have been so popular as the fabula palliata.
Livius Andronicus, Ennius, and Pacuvius, all produced comedies at Rome, as did other writers of tragedies, but of these works only scanty fragments remain. Three writers, Plautus, Cæcilius, and Terence, devoted themselves exclusively to comedy, and it is from the extant plays of the eldest and the youngest of these, Plautus and Terence, that most of our knowledge of Roman comedy is derived.
Titus Maccius Plautus (Flatfoot) was born at Sarsina, a town of Umbria, about 254 B. C. T. Maccius Plautus. He went to Rome while still a boy, and seems to have earned so much as a servant or assistant of actors, that he was able to leave the city and engage in trade at some other place. His business venture was a failure; he lost his money, and returned to Rome, where he hired himself out to a miller, in whose service he was when he wrote his first three plays. His first appearance with a play was probably about 224 B. C. Further details of his life are unknown. He died in 184 B. C., at the age of about seventy years. He was, therefore, a younger contemporary of Livius Andronicus and Nævius, but older than Ennius and Pacuvius.
Of the plays of Plautus twenty are extant, besides extensive fragments of another. His total production is said to have been one hundred and thirty plays, though some of these were probably wrongly ascribed to him. The plots of his plays, as of those of Terence, are usually founded upon a love affair between a young man of good family and a girl of low position and doubtful character. The plots and characters of Roman comedies. The young man is aided by his servant or a parasite, but his father is opposed to his having anything to do with the girl. The girl’s mother or mistress usually aids the lovers, but often has to be won over by money, which the young man and his servant have to get from his father. Sometimes the characters mentioned are duplicated, and we have two pairs of lovers, two irate fathers, two cunning slaves, etc. Other typical characters are the procurer, the parasite, the boastful soldier, and a few more, who help to bring about amusing situations, and serve as the butt of many jokes. In the end, the lovers are usually united, and the girl turns out to be of good birth, often the long-lost daughter of one of the older men in the play. Sometimes other plots are chosen, as in the Amphitruo, which is founded on the story that Jupiter, when he visited Alcmene, used to take the form of her husband Amphitryon, and the fun of the play is caused by the confusion between the real husband and the disguised god. In a few plays the plot is less decidedly a love plot, but, as a general rule, the Roman comedies had love stories for their foundation. There is, however, room for considerable variety, as may be seen by a brief sketch of the contents of the extant plays of Plautus.
The Amphitruo, bringing the “Father of gods and men” into comic confusion with a mortal, and under very suspicious circumstances at that, is a burlesque, full of rather broad fun and amusing situations, perhaps the most interesting of all Latin comedies. The extant plays of Plautus. In the Asinaria, the Casina, and the Mercator, father and son are rivals for the affection of the same girl. Of these three, the Casina is the worst in its indecency, while the other two lack interest. These plays, however, like all the comedies of Plautus, are full of animal spirits, plays on words, and clever dialogue. The Aulularia, or Pot of Gold, has a plot of little interest, but is famous for the brilliant and lifelike presentation of the chief character, the old miser Euclio. The Captivi, one of the best of the plays, has for its subject the friendship between a master and his slave. There are no female characters, and the piece is entirely free from the coarseness and immorality which disfigure most of the others. The Trinummus, or Three-penny Piece, has also friendship, not love, as its leading motive, though it ends with a betrothal. This play also is free from coarseness, and gives an attractive picture of the good old days when friend was true to friend. The Curculio is interesting chiefly through the cleverness of the parasite, who succeeds in making the rival of his employer furnish the money needed to obtain the girl. The Epidicus, the Mostellaria, and the Persa, also owe their interest to the tricks and rascalities of the parasite or the valet. The Cistellaria, only part of which is preserved, contains a love affair, but has for its chief interest the recognition between a father and his long-lost daughter. The Vidularia, too, which exists only in fragments, leads up to a recognition, this time between a father and his son. The Miles Gloriosus, a play of very ordinary plot, is distinguished for the somewhat exaggerated and farcical portrait of the braggart soldier. So the Pseudolus is a piece of character drawing, in which the perjured go-between, Ballio, is the one important figure. In the Bacchides the plot is more intricate and interesting, and the execution more brilliant, but the life depicted is that of loose women and immoral men. The Stichus has little plot, but several attractive scenes. Two women, whose husbands have disappeared, remain faithful to them, and are rewarded by having them return with great wealth. The Pœnulus is chiefly interesting on account of passages in the Carthaginian language, which have for centuries attracted the attention of linguists. In the Truculentus, a countryman comes to the city and changes his rustic manners for city polish. The scenes are witty and effective, but the plot is weak. In the Menæchmi, twin brothers come to the town of Epidamnum, and their likeness to each other causes most laughable confusion. This is the original of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors and many other modern plays of similar plot. The Rudens, or Cable, has for its subject the restoration of a long-lost daughter to her father and her union with her lover, but is distinguished from the other plays of Plautus by the evident love of nature and the fresh breath of the sea and open air that breathe through it, making it one of the most attractive of his comedies.
How much of the plots of these plays can be attributed to Plautus himself it is hard to tell. Degree of originality in Plautus. In some instances nearly all the details seem to be Greek, and probably the plays in which this is the case are simply free translations with just enough changes to make them easily understood at Rome. In other cases, as in the Stichus, the play as we have it seems to be made up of scenes only loosely strung together, arranged apparently rather for a Roman audience which cared chiefly for spectacular effect and stage by-play than for a Greek audience accustomed to weigh and criticize the excellence of the plot. In some instances, too, the Latin play is known to be made up of scenes taken from two Greek plays and put together in order to produce a single piece of more action than either of the originals. The importance of the work of the Latin playwright varies therefore considerably. There are, however, numerous passages containing references to details of Roman life, which must be in great measure original with the Roman writer; there are many plays on Latin words which could not be introduced in a mere translation from a foreign language; and in other respects also the comedies show Roman rather than Greek qualities. We must therefore attribute to Plautus a considerable share of originality, and the metrical form of his plays is naturally due to him alone.
The following passage, whatever it may owe to the Greek original, doubtless owes part of its unusual liveliness to Plautus:[7]
Sceparnio. But, O Palæmon, holy companion of Neptune, who art said to be a sharer in the labors of Hercules, what’s that I see? Two shipwrecked women. Dæmones.What do you see? Scep. I see two women folk sitting all alone in a boat. How the poor things are tossed about! Ah! ha! Bully for that! The current has turned the boat from the rock to the shore. No pilot could have done it better. I think I never saw bigger waves. They are safe, if they have escaped those billows. Now, now’s the danger! Oh! It has thrown one of them out. But she’s in shallow water; she’ll swim out easily. Whew! Do you see how the water threw that other one out? She’s come up again; she’s coming this way. She’s safe!
A second passage[8] will give an idea of the style of some of the dialogue of Plautus. The speakers are a boy, Pægnium, and a maid-servant, Sophoclidisca:
Sophoclidisca. Pægnium, darling boy, good day. How do you do? How’s your health? Pægnium. Bantering talk. Sophoclidisca, the gods bless me! Soph. How about me? Pæg. That’s as the gods choose; but if they do as you deserve, they’ll hate you and hurt you. Soph. Stop your bad talk. Pæg. When I talk as you deserve, my talk is good, not bad. Soph. What are you doing? Pæg. I’m standing opposite and looking at you, a bad woman. Soph. Surely I never knew a worse boy than you. Pæg. What do I do that’s bad, or to whom do I say anything bad? Soph. To whomever you get a chance. Pæg. No man ever thought so. Soph. But many know that it is so. Pæg. Ah! Soph. Bah! Pæg. You judge other people’s characters by your own nature. Soph. I confess I am as a pimp’s maid should be. Pæg. I’ve heard enough. Soph. What about you? Do you confess you’re as I say? Pæg. I’d confess if I were so. Soph. Go off now. You’re too much for me. Pæg. Then you go off now. Soph. Tell me this: where are you going? Pæg. Where are you going? Soph. You tell; I asked first. Pæg. But you’ll find out last. Soph. I’m not going far from here. Pæg. And I’m not going far, either. Soph. Where are you going, then, scamp? Pæg. Unless I hear first from you, you’ll never know what you ask. Soph. I declare you’ll never find out to-day, unless I hear first from you. Pæg. Is that so? Soph. Yes, it is. Pæg. You’re bad. Soph. You’re a scamp. Pæg. I’ve a right to be. Soph. And I’ve just as good a right. Pæg. What’s that you say? Have you made up your mind not to tell where you’re going, you wretch? Soph. How about you? Have you determined to conceal where you’re bound for, you scoundrel? Pæg. Hang it, you answer like with like. Go away now, since it’s settled so. I don’t care to know. Good-by.
Statius Cæcilius, an Insubrian by birth, probably came to Rome as a slave—that is, a captive—at some time not far from 200 B. C. Statius Cæcilius. Here he became a writer of comedies, was set free by his master, and lived in the same house with Ennius. He died about 165 B. C. The titles of some forty plays by Cæcilius are known; but the extant fragments are too short to afford much information as to his style, his ability, or the contents of his plays. As many of the titles of his pieces are known also as titles of plays by Menander, it is clear that Cæcilius presented plays of the Greek new comedy in Latin form. Other writers of comedies. He appears to have followed the Greek originals rather more closely than Plautus, and to have cultivated elegance of style rather than brilliant dialogue. Other comic writers of the same time were Trabea, Atilius, Aquilius, Licinius Imbrex, and Luscius Lanuvinus, of whose works few fragments exist, and who are mentioned here merely to show that there were writers of comedies at Rome between Plautus and Terence. No one of them, however, seems to have possessed the originality and exuberant wit of Plautus, or to have attained the elegance and polish of Terence.
Publius Terentius Afer, called Terence in English, was born at Carthage and brought to Rome as a slave. P. Terentius Afer. He can not have come as a captive to Rome, for his birth took place between the second and third Punic wars, at a time when the Romans were waging no war in Africa. He was the slave of the senator Terentius Lucanus, by whom he was carefully educated and soon set free. From him he derived his name Terentius, and he was called Afer on account of his African origin. He became intimate with Scipio Africanus the younger, his friend Lælius, and others of the most cultivated and prominent men of Rome. It was even said by some that the plays of Terence were really written by Scipio, while others thought Lælius was their author. This goes to prove that Terence was intimate with Scipio, Lælius, and the rest, and may be regarded as an indication of his age; for if he was much older than Scipio he would hardly have been charged with passing off Scipio’s work as his own. If he was of the same age as Scipio he was born in 185 B. C., and in that case was only nineteen years old when the Andria, his first play, was produced in 166. It is therefore likely that he was a few years older than Scipio, and was born about 190 B. C. After he had produced six comedies he went to Greece in 160 B. C. to study, and died in the next year either on his way back to Rome or in Greece. His popularity with the most cultivated men of Rome testifies to his good breeding and agreeable manners. Suetonius tells us that he was of moderate height, slender figure, and dark complexion, that he had a daughter who was afterwards married to a Roman knight, and that he left property amounting to twenty acres. The six plays of Terence are all preserved to us, together with the dates of the first performance of each.
The Andria, produced at the Ludi Megalenses, 166 B. C., is adapted from the Andria of Menander, with additions from his Perinthia. The Andria. A young man, Pamphilus, is in love with a girl from Andros, but his father, Simo, has arranged a marriage for him with the daughter of a neighbor, Chremes. Pamphilus’s servant, Davus, succeeds in breaking off the match, and the girl from Andros is finally found to be a daughter of Chremes. Pamphilus and his beloved are united, and a second young man comes forward to marry the other daughter.
The Hecyra (Mother-in-law), first produced at the Ludi Megalenses, 165 B. C., is adapted from the Greek of Apollodorus. The Hecyra. Pamphilus is a young man who has recently married Philumena, for whom he has no affection. He goes on a journey to attend to some property, and Philumena returns to her mother. Upon Pamphilus’s return, a child born to Philumena in his absence is shown to be his, and he and Philumena are reconciled. This play was unsuccessful, and deservedly so, as it is the least interesting Latin comedy extant.
The Heauton-Timorumenos (Self-tormentor), after Menander’s play of the same title, was produced at the Ludi Megalenses in 163 B. C. The Heauton-Timorumenos. Menedemus has by his harshness driven his son Clinias, who is in love with Antiphila, to take service in a foreign army. He therefore torments himself on account of remorse, and he confides his troubles to his friend Chremes, whose son, Clitipho, is in love with Bacchis. When Clinias comes back from the wars, he and Clitipho get Chremes to receive Antiphila and Bacchis in his house, in the belief that Clinias is in love with Bacchis, and that Antiphila is her servant. Finally Antiphila is found to be the daughter of Chremes and is betrothed to Clinias. Clitipho gives up the spendthrift Bacchis. The comic personage of the play is the slave Syrus, who helps the young men to get the money they need. The character of Chremes is well drawn, but the action of the play is weak.
The Eunuchus, produced at the Ludi Megalenses in 161 B. C., is adapted from the “Eunuch” of Menander, with additions from the “Flatterer” of the same author. The Eunuchus. The plot is complicated and interesting, involving a love affair between Thais and Phædria, who has a soldier as his rival, and a second love affair between Pamphila, who had been brought up as foster sister to Thais, and Phædria’s brother, Chærea. In order to approach Pamphila, Chærea disguises himself as a eunuch. In the end Pamphila’s brother Chremes appears, proclaims her free birth, and sanctions her marriage to Chærea. The characters are well drawn, Chærea, perhaps, the best of all, and the action is amusing.
The Phormio, first performed at the Ludi Romani, in 161 B. C., is adapted from the Greek of Apollodorus. The Phormio. Two brothers, Chremes and Demipho, have gone on a journey, leaving their two sons, Phædria and Antipho, in charge of a slave, Geta. Antipho marries a poor girl named Phanium, from Lesbos, and Phædria falls in love with a slave girl, whose owner sells her to some one else, but agrees to give her to Phædria if he brings the sum of thirty minæ in one day. The two fathers return, and the parasite, Phormio, from whom the play takes its name, now has to get the money for Phædria and to secure the consent of Demipho to the marriage of Antipho and Phanium. He gets the money from Demipho by telling him that he will himself marry Phanium for thirty minæ, but just at the right moment Phanium is found to be the daughter of Chremes, and her marriage with Antipho is accepted by all parties. The plot is well carried out, and the two old men and their sons are well portrayed.
The Adelphœ (Brothers), after Menander’s play of the same name, with additions from a play by Diphilus was first performed at the funeral games of Æmilius Paulus, in 160 B. C. The Adelphœ. Demea had two sons, and gave his brother, Micio, one of them, named Æschinus, keeping the other, Ctesipho, himself. Micio is a bachelor, and treats Æschinus with the greatest indulgence, whereas Demea is very strict toward Ctesipho, but the result is about the same. Ctesipho falls in love with a harpist, whom Æschinus, to please his brother, carries off from her master. Æschinus himself is engaged in an affair with the daughter of a poor widow. The girl is, however, of good Attic parentage, and Æschinus has promised to marry her. In the end this marriage takes place, Ctesipho gets his harpist and Micio is persuaded to marry the widow.
The plays of Terence are written in a style far more advanced, more refined, and more artistic than those of Plautus, but they show much less originality, wit, and vigor. Terence and Plautus compared. Plautus wrote at a time when Greek culture was already known to the Romans, but when it was less thoroughly appreciated than later, and he wrote not for any one class of Romans, but for the people. The language of Plautus is therefore the language of every-day life as it was spoken by the average Roman; his wit is of the kind that appealed to ordinary men, and his plays have much action, that the common man might enjoy them. Plautus took Greek plays and made them over to suit the average Roman. The position of Terence was different. In his day a cultivated class of Romans existed, who knew Greek literature well, who admired and loved Greek culture, but were none the less patriotic Romans. These men wished to introduce all that was best in Greece into Rome. So far as literature was concerned, they wished to make Latin literature as much like Greek literature as possible, and therefore encouraged imitation rather than originality, purity and grace of language rather than vigor of thought or expression. These were the men among whom Terence lived, and whose taste influenced him most. His plays contain few indications that they are written for a Roman audience (except, of course, that they are written in Latin), but are Greek in their refinement of language, gentle humor, and polished excellence of detail. There is less variety of metre than in the plays of Plautus, as, indeed, there is less variety of any kind, for Terence relies for his effect, not upon variety, but upon finished elegance. He is the earliest Latin author who tries to equal the Greeks in stylistic refinement, and few of those who came after him were as successful as he.
Many of the qualities of the style of Terence are lost in translation; but something of the air of ease, naturalness, and good humor that pervades his plays is seen in the short scene in the Phormio, in which Demipho asks Nausistrata, the wife of Chremes, to persuade Phanium to marry Phormio.[9]
Demipho. Come then, Nausistrata, with your usual good nature make her feel kindly toward us, so that she may do of her own accord what must be done. Nausistrata. I will. De. You’ll be aiding me now with your good offices, just as you helped me a while ago with your purse. Na. You’re quite welcome; and upon my word, it’s my husband’s fault that I can do less than I might well do. De. Why, how is that? Na. Because he takes wretched care of my father’s honest savings; he used regularly to get two talents from those estates. How much better one man is than another! De. Two talents, do you say? Na. Yes, two talents, and when prices were much lower than now. De. Whew! Na. What do you think of that? De. Oh, of course— Na. I wish I’d been born a man, I’d soon show you— De. Oh, yes, I’m sure. Na. The way— De. Pray do save yourself up for her, lest she may wear you out; she’s young, you know. Na. I’ll do as you tell me. But there’s my husband coming out of your house.
The comedies of Plautus and Terence have served as the originals for almost countless plays in later times, and through them the Greek comedy has survived until our own day. Turpilius. There were other Latin writers of comedies derived from the Greek after Terence, most noted of whom was Turpilius, who died in 103 B. C., but of their works, which were unimportant, little remains. Of the fabula togata, Roman comedy in Roman dress, little need be said. It never attained great popularity, and it lasted but a comparatively short time. Fabula togata. Titinius, Atta, Afranius. The first writer of comedies of this sort was Titinius. About one hundred and eighty lines of fragments and fifteen titles of his plays are preserved, from which we can learn little about the quality of his works. He seems to have written a little later than Terence. Titus Quinctius Atta has left to us the titles of eleven plays and about twenty-five lines of fragments. Little is known of him except the date of his death, 77 B. C. Lucius Afranius, the last and most important writer of this kind of comedies, was born probably not far from 150 B. C. Forty-two titles and more than four hundred lines of fragments now remain to attest his activity. The scenes of the plays are laid in the smaller towns of Italy, and the characters belong for the most part to the lower social classes. In these respects Afranius seems to have differed little from Titinius and Atta, but his plays had apparently less local color than theirs, and thus approached more nearly the character of the fabula palliata as developed by Terence.
Three other kinds of dramatic composition deserve brief mention, though little now remains of them and their literary importance was never very great. Fescennine Verses. The Fescennine Verses, named from the town of Fescennium in Etruria, were originally sung at rustic festivals and weddings and consisted of jokes and sarcasms directed by the country folk at each other. Fabulæ Atellanæ. They never became regular stage performances, and gradually lost their dramatic qualities, until they were nothing more than wedding songs. The Fabulæ Atellanæ, named from the Oscan town of Atella, in Campania, had some sort of plot, carried out with more or less dramatic unity. The characters were conventional—Maccus, the fool, Pappus, the old man, Bucco, the talker and liar, Dossenus, the clever man and boaster, and the like—and the whole performance was a popular burlesque comedy, somewhat like our Punch and Judy. This sort of performance was introduced at Rome after the conquest of Campania, in 211 B. C., and Roman youths of good family took the parts for amusement. Somewhat later, the custom arose of performing an Atellan piece at the end of a tragedy. The performers were now regular actors, and presently the Fabulæ Atellanæ became a regular branch of literature, the chief writers of which were Lucius Pomponius, from Bononia, and Novius, both of whom flourished in the time of Sulla, about 90 B. C. Few fragments of their works remain. The Atellan plays continued to be performed even after the beginning of the empire, but the words became less and less important, and the performance became mere pantomime. Mimes. Another kind of burlesque performance was the Mime, which was introduced into Rome from the Greek cities of Italy and Sicily. It had less consistent plots than comedy, and was more popular in its character. Though doubtless introduced at Rome as early as comedy itself, it hardly appears as a branch of literature until about the time of Cicero, when mimes serve as afterpieces at tragic performances. In imperial times mimes were performed independently. The chief authors of mimes were Decimus Laberius (105-43 B. C.), a Roman knight, and Publilius Syrus, a slave from Antioch, both belonging to the time of Cæsar, about the middle of the first century B. C. No mimes are extant, nor is their loss to be greatly regretted, for their humor was generally coarse, their plots often indecent, and their literary qualities of a low order. Some of the fragments of the mimes of Laberius show, however, considerable merit, and in those of Publilius so many sensible precepts and wise utterances were embodied that a collection of his sayings was made, part of which is preserved to us.