CHAPTER VI.
Roman Theatres—Description—"Deadheads"—Pantomime in Italy—Livius Andronicus—Fabulae Atellanae—Extemporal Comedy—Origin of the Masque, Opera, and Vaudeville—Origin of the term Histrionic—Etruscans—Popularity of Pantomime in Italy—Pantomimists banished by Trajan—Nero as a Mime—Pylades and Bathyllus—Subjects chosen for the Roman Pantomimes—The Ballet—The Mimi and Pantomimi—Archimimus—Vespasian—Harlequin—"Mr. Punch"—Zany, how the word originated—Ancient Masks—Lucian, Cassiodorus, and Demetrius in praise of Pantomime—A celebrated Mima—Pantomimes denounced by early writers—The purity of the English stage contrasted with that of the Grecian and Roman—Female parts on the Grecian and Roman stages—The principal Roman Mimas—The origin of the Clown of the early English Drama.
The Roman theatres (continues Fosbroke) were of a similar D form. Two lofty arched doorways entered into the pit. In front of the stage, which was very shallow, was a pew-like orchestra. The proscenium was very narrow, and instead of a drop scene was the elisium, a house, narrow, with a kind of bow window front in the centre, and a door on each side: for Pollux says that a house with two stories formed part of the stage, whence old women and panders used to look down and peep about them. Within the house were apartments. Around the back of the stage was a porticus. At Herculaneum, on a balustrade which divided the orchestra from the stage, was found a row of statues, and on each side of the pulpitum, an equestrian figure. Below the theatre (great and small) was a large square constructed, says Vitruvius, for the reception of the audience in bad weather. It consisted of Doric columns, around an open area, forming an ample portico for this purpose, whilst under it were arranged cellae, or apartments, amongst which were a soap manufactory, oil mill, corn mill, and prison. An inner logia was connected with a suite of apartments. There was also an exedra, or recess.
Among the Romans, theatrical approbation was signified by an artificial musical kind of noise, made by the audience to express satisfaction. There were three species of applause denominated from the different noises made in them, viz.: Bombus, Imbrius, and Testae.
First, a confused din, made either by the hands or mouth. The second and third, by beating on a sort of sounding vessel placed in the theatres for that purpose. Persons were instructed to give applause with skill—and there were even masters who professed to teach the art. The proficients in this way let themselves out for hire to the poets, actors, &c., and were so disposed as to support a loud applause. These they called Laudicena. At the end of the play, a loud peal of applause was expected, and even asked of the audience either by the chorus or by the person who spoke last. The formula was "Spectatore Claudite," or "Valete et Plaudite." The applauders were divided into Chori, and disposed in theatres opposite to each other, like the choristers in cathedrals, so that there was a kind of concert of applause. The free admission tickets were small ivory death's heads, and specimens of these are to be seen in the Museum of Naples. From this custom, it is stated, that we derive our word "Deadhead," as denoting one who has a free entrance to places of amusement.
With the dawn of the Roman Empire, Pantomime, in Italy, is first authentically mentioned. The Emperor Augustus always displayed great favour to the Art, and even by some writers he has been credited with being the originator of Pantomime. This, of course, as we have seen, is impossible, and to use a familiar and trite saying, the Pantomimic Art is "as old as the hills" themselves. Again, Bathyllus and Pylades (both freed slaves, the former born in Cilicia, and the latter came from Alexandria), and Hylas, the principal exponents of Pantomime during the reign of Augustus, have also been credited with the honour of originating Pantomime.
The early Roman entertainments only consisted of the military and sacred dances, and the scenes in the circus. With the advent of the arts of Greece the austerity hitherto practised by the Romans, which had arisen, says Duray, "Much more from poverty than conviction," for "Two or three generations had sufficed to change a city which had only known meagre festivities and rustic delights into the home of revelry and pleasure."
With the Romans, in their Pantomimic entertainments, the whole gamut of the emotions were gone through.
When the Greek drama was brought into Rome by Livius Andronicus, the Fabulae Atellanae, or Laudi Osci—derived from the town of Atella, in Campania, between Capua and Naples—was still employed to furnish the Interludes, and just in a similar way as the Satyra Extemporal Interludes supplied the Grecian stage. None of these Atellan Farces have been committed to us, but Cicero, in a letter to his friend Papyrius Paetus, speaks of them as the "More delicate burlesque of the old Atellan Farces." From them also, we derive the Extemporal Comedy, or Comedia del' Arte of Italy (afterwards to be noted), with its characters, Harlequin, Clown, Pierrot, and the like, associated with English and Italian Pantomime, and the progenitor also of all those light forms of entertainment known as the Masque, the Opera, and the Vaudeville. On English dramatic literature the Italian Extemporal Comedies and their Pantomimical characters have also had a considerable amount of influence.
Livy mentions that actors were sent for (circa 364 B.C.) from Etruria, who, without verses or any action expressive of verses, danced not ungracefully, after the Tuscan manner to the flute. In process of time the Roman youth began to imitate these dancers intermixing raillery with unpolished verses, their gestures corresponding with the sense of the words. Thus were these plays received at Rome, and being improved and refined by frequent performance the Roman actors acquired the name of Histriones, from the Etruscan Hister, meaning a dancer or a stage player. (From this we obtain our words histrion and histrionic). But their dialogue did not consist of unpremeditated and coarse jests in such rude verses as were used by the Fescennini, but of satires, accompanied with music set to the flute, recited with suitable gestures. After satires, which had afforded the people subject of coarse mirth and laughter, were, by this regulation, reduced to form and acting, by degrees became an art, the Roman youth left it to players by profession, and began, as formerly, to act farces at the end of their regular pieces. These dramas were called Exodia, and were generally woven with the Atellanae Comedies. These were borrowed from the Osci, and were always acted by the Roman youth. Tacitus speaks of Atellanae Comedies written in the spirit and language of the Osci having been acted in his time.
It is thought that the Etruscans possessed histories, poems, and dramas, and, if these, then certainly they knew the Pantomimic Art, out of which, in all probability, their dramatic entertainments grew. To the Etruscans the Romans owe their early civilization.
The Etruscan era is supposed to have commenced about 1044 B.C., and we are told that the Etruscans shared with the Greeks, and the Phoenicians, the maritime supremacy of the Mediterranean. In the sepulchral chambers of the Necropolis of Tarquinii, which extends for many miles, there are several scenes painted in the archaic style by the Etruscans, representing the Chase, the Circus, and Dancing Girls.
Soon after its innovation among the Romans, Pantomime spread all over Italy and the provinces. So attractive did it become in Rome, and so popular, that Tiberius issued a decree forbidding the knights and nobles to frequent their houses of entertainment, or to be seen walking in the streets with them. Trajan also oppressed and banished the Pantomimists. Under Caligula, however, they were received with great favour, and Aurelius made them priests of Apollo. Nero, who carried everything to the extremity of foolishness, was not content in patronising the Pantomimes, but must needs assist, and appear himself, as a Mimi. Here again, in Nero, another claimant as the author of Pantomime has been put forward.
"So great (observes Gaston Vuillier, in his 'History of Dancing,') was the admiration for Pylades and Bathyllus that the theatrical supporters clothed themselves in different liveries, and broils in the public streets were of frequent occurrence." "The rivalries of Pylades and Bathyllus," says De Laulnaye, "occupied the Romans as much as the gravest affairs of state. Every citizen was a Bathyllian or a Pyladian." Augustus reproved Pylades on one occasion for his quarrels with Bathyllus. The Mime retorted, "It is well for you that the people are engrossed by our disputes; their attention is thus diverted from your actions." A bold retort, but it shows how important these Mimes were. The banishment of Pylades brought about an insurrection, and the Emperor had to recall him.
Cassius attributes the disgrace of Pylades to the intrigues of Bathyllus, Suetonius to his effrontery; for on one occasion, when acting Hercules, annoyed by the criticism of the spectators, he tore off his mask, and shouted to them: "Fools, I am acting a madman." They thought his gestures too extravagant. Another time he shot off arrows amongst the spectators. Amongst other privileges extended by the Emperor Augustus to the Mimis was being exempt from magisterial control and immunity from military serving.
The subjects chosen for the Roman Pantomimes, like those of the Grecian mysteries, from which they doubtless were borrowed, were of a Mythological description, and they were of such a nature that the audience could follow them easily, even if they were not already previously acquainted with them. Between the Roman Pantomime, and the Western ballet d'action, there is hardly any difference. The Romans always liked to see their stages well peopled; and to help in the action of their Pantomimes, a chorus accompanied with music, formed part of the entertainment. The Mimis and Mimas, like the ballet of the present day, provided the dances in addition to their Pantomimic Art of posing and posturing.
Mr. Isaac Disraeli, in his work, "Curiosities of Literature," edited by the late Earl of Beaconsfield, thus distinguishes between the Mimi and the Pantomimi of the Ancients. The Mimi were an impudent race of buffoons who excelled in mimicry, and like our domestic fools, were admitted into convivial parties to entertain the guests. Their powers enabled them to perform a more extraordinary office; for they appear to have been introduced into funerals to mimic the person, and even the language of the deceased. Suetonius describes an archimimus accompanying the funeral of Vespasian. This archimimus performed his part admirably, not only representing the person, but imitating, according to custom, ut est mos, the manners and language of the living Emperor. He contrived a happy stroke at the prevailing foible of Vespasian, when he enquired the cost of all this funeral pomp—"Ten million of sesterces!" On this he observed that if they would give him but a hundred thousand they might throw his body into the Tiber.
The Pantomimi were quite of a different class. They were tragic actors, and usually mute; they combined the arts of gesture, music, and dances of the most impressive character. Their silent language has often drawn tears by the pathetic emotions they excited; "Their very nod speaks, their hands talk, and their fingers have a voice," says one of their admirers.
These Pantomimists seem to have been held in great honour. The tragic and the comic masks were among the ornaments of the sepulchral monuments of an Archmime and a Pantomimi. Montfaucon conjectures that they formed a select fraternity.
The parti-coloured hero (Harlequin), with every part of his dress, has been drawn out of the greatest wardrobe of antiquity; he was a Roman Mime. Harlequin is described with his shaven head (rasis capitibus); his sooty face (fuligine faciem abducti); his flat unshod feet, (planipedes), and his patched coat of many colours, (Mimi centunculo). Even Pulcinello, whom we familiarly call "Punch," may receive, like other personages of no great importance, all his dignity from antiquity; one of his Roman ancestors having appeared to an antiquary's visionary eye in a bronze statue; more than one erudite dissertation authenticates the family likeness; the nose long, prominent and hooked; the staring goggle eyes; the hump at his back, and at his breast; in a word, all the character which so strongly marks the Punch race, as distinctly as whole dynasties have been featured by the Austrian lip and the Bourbon nose.
The genealogy of the whole family is confirmed by the general term which includes them all: in English, Zany; in Italian, Zanni; in the Latin, Sannio; and a passage in "Cicero De Oratore," paints Harlequin and his brother gesticulators after the life; the perpetual trembling motion of their limbs, their ludicrous and flexible gestures, and all the mimicry of their faces: "Quid enim potest tam ridiculum quam Sannio esse? Qui ore vultu, imitandis motibus, voce, denique corpore ridetur ipso." Lib II., Sect. 51. ("For what has more of the ludicrous than Sannio? Who, with his mouth, his face, imitating every motion with his voice, and, indeed, with all his body, provokes laughter.")
The Latin Sannio was changed by the Italians into (as Ainsworth explains) Zanni, as, in words like Smyrna and Sambuco, they change the s into z, which gives Zmyrna and Zambuco, and hence we derive our word Zany. The word is, however, originally obtained from the Greek Sannos (observes Quadrio), from whence the Latins derived their Sannio.
From the size of the ancient theatres it was not possible to notice the visage of the actors, and this was one, but not the only reason, why masks were adopted. The Ancients did not like a character to be attempted, to which a proper appropriation was not annexed, and these masks were so contrived, that the profile on one side exhibited chagrin, and on the other serenity, or whatever other passion was most required. The actor thus, according to the part he was playing, presented the side of the mask best suited to the passage which he was reciting. The large mouths of these masks were presumed to have contained some bronze instrument suited to assist the voice, upon the principle of the speaking trumpet; for the mask was wider, and the recitation in tragedy much louder than in comedy, so that the voice might be heard all over the theatre. The masks of the dancers were of regular features.
By some it has been contended that these masks covered both the head and the shoulders under the supposed idea that when the head was thus enlarged it would throw the whole body into symmetry when raised upon stilts. It has, also, been argued that the masks for some of the characters were made of gold-beaters skin, or some transparent substance just covering the face so that the facial muscles could be seen through it, and the eyes, mouth, and ears being left uncovered. These masks, however, delineated very carefully the features of the character that were to be represented. Something not unlike the huge Pantomime masks of a hideous and frightful shape that we sometimes see in our present day Pantomimes must have appeared, especially those that covered the head and shoulders of the Mimis in the days of the Romans. Those that were just of the size of the face in all probability were fantastic and picturesque; and the third and remaining species of mask made of a transparent substance could hardly have been very effective.
Mr. Wright tells us, in his book on the Chester Mystery plays (which work I shall again refer to later on), that masks were used in the Mystery series of plays acted in England during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Julius Pollux is still more ample in his account of theatrical masks used in Tragedy, Satyr, and Comedy. Niobe weeping, Medea furious, Ajax astonished, and Hercules enraged. In Comedy, the slave, the parasite, the clown, the captain, the old woman, the harlot, the austere old man, the debauched young man, the prodigal, the prudent young woman, the matron, and the father of a family, were all constantly characterised by particular masks.
Lucian and the other writers of the Augustan era, have handed down to us sufficient information to show how Pantomime in Rome was so highly thought of. Cassiodorous, speaking of them, says:—"Men whose eloquent hands had a tongue, as it were, on the tip of each finger—men who spoke while they were silent, and knew how to make a recital without opening their mouths—men, in short, whom Polyhymnia had formed in order to show that there was no necessity for articulation in order to convey our thoughts." Demetrius, a cynic philosopher, laughed at the Romans for permitting so strange an entertainment; but having been, with much difficulty, prevailed upon to be present at the representation of one of them, he was confounded with wonder. The story represented was that of Mars and Venus, the whole performed by a single actor, who described the fable in dumb show. At length the philosopher, wrought up to the highest pitch of admiration, exclaimed, "That the actor had no occasion for a tongue, he spoke so well with his hands."
Of one Pontus, who had come on a visit to Nero, we are told that he was present at a performance, in the course of which a favourite Mime gave a representation of the Labours of Hercules. The Mime's gestures were so precise that he could follow the action without the slightest hesitation. Being struck by the performance, on taking leave he begged Nero to give him the actor, explaining that there was a barbarous tribe adjoining his dominions, whose language no one could learn, and that Pantomime could express his intentions to them so faithfully by gestures that they would at once understand.
The dress of the performers of Pantomime was made to reveal, and not to conceal, their figures. After the second century women began to act in their representations, and even down to the sixth century we find them associating themselves with Pantomime, and mention is made of a celebrated Mima, who was ultimately raised to the imperial throne. Through the lewdness of the Mimis and mimas in Pantomime, their dress, or rather lack of dress, Pantomimes were denounced, not only by the early Christian writers, but also by some of the Pagan writers, like Juvenal, as being very prejudicial to morality.
It has, however, always been a favourite topic of the Prynne's, the Jeremy Collier's and the Dr. Style's, and such like opponents of the theatre, to contrast the English stage with the purity of the Grecian and Roman Theatres. Now, without stopping to enquire whether this has any particular connection with the subject of their dissertations, or whether it is not in fact quite irrelevant to the question, it is impossible not to remark the crass ignorance which these assertions display of the manners and customs of the theatres of either the Greeks or the Romans. Without wearying the reader by entering into a long discussion upon the subject, it will be sufficient to recall certain passages in Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plautus, and Terence to induce them to hesitate in assenting to such vague assertions of the purity of either the Grecian or Roman dramatic writers. William Prynne, the English Puritan writer, in his violent attack on the stage in the "Histrio-Mastix" or "Players Scourge"—which book, by the way, for some unfavourable comments therein on the Queen of Charles I., and the ladies of her Court, for attending theatrical representations, was debarred his rooms (he was a barrister), by the Court of Star Chamber, sentenced to be imprisoned for life, fined £5,000, committed to the Tower, placed in the pillory, both ears cut off, and his book burnt by the common hangman; yet after undergoing all these pains and penalties, he published a recantation of all that he had previously written in his "Histrio-Mastix"—says "It seems that the Grecian actors did now and then to refresh the spectators, bring a kind of cisterne on the stage, wherein naked women did swim and bathe themselves between the acts and scenes; which wicked, impudent, and execrable practice the holy father Chrysostom doth sharpely and excellently declaime against."
Xenophon mentions the tale of "Bacchus and Ariadne," Pantomimically played, and Martial tells us he saw the whole story of "Pasiphae," minutely represented on the stage of the Mimis, and Plautus, in his epilogue to "Casina," has—
"Nunc vos aequim est, manibus meritis,
Meritam mercedem dare.
Qui faxit, clam uxorem, ducat scortum
Semper quod volet.
Verum qui non manibus clare, quantum
Potent, plauserit,
Ei, pro scorto, supponetur hircus unctus nantea."
On the Roman stage female parts were represented in tragedy by men, is ascertained (says Malone) by one of Cicero's letters to Atticus, and by a passage in Horace. Horace mentions, however, a female performer called Arbuscula, but as we find from his own authority men personated women on the Roman stage, she was probably an Emboliariae. Servius calls her a Mima, or one who danced in the Pantomimic dances, and which seems more probable, as she is mentioned by Cicero, who says the part of Andromache was played by a male performer on the very day Arbuscula also performed.
The principal Roman Mimas were:—Arbuscula, Thymele, Licilia, Dionysia, Cytheris, Valeria, and Cloppia.
In the satirical interludes of the Grecian stage, and the Fabulae Atellanae of the Roman theatres, the Exodiarii and Emboliariae of the Mimes, were the remote progenitors (says Malone) of the Vice or Devil, and the Clown of our English Mystery plays, the latter series of plays being the origin of the drama of this country. The exact conformity between our Clown and the Exodiarii and Emboliariae of the Roman stage is ascertained by that passage in Pliny—"Lucceia Mima centum annis in scena pronuntiavit. Galeria, Copiola, Emboliariae, reducta est in scenam: annum certissimum quartum agens," is thus translated by an English author, Philemon Holland, "Lucceia, a common Vice in a play, followed the stage, and acted thereupon 100 yeeres. Such another Vice that plaied the foole, and made sporte between whiles in interludes, named Galeria Copiola, was brought to act upon the stage when she was in the 104th yeere of her age." We shall, in another chapter, return to the Vice, or Clown.