The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

The greatest comic writer of the period at which our history has arrived, was Marcus Accius Plautus, of whose origin little is known; for the Romans held their wits and humorists in such little respect, that as long as they could raise a laugh, it mattered little who they were, whence they sprung, or what became of them. It was not until after a writer's death that any interest was felt in his life, and such was the case with regard to Plautus, who has been the subject of more invention than is to be found in all his comedies. Conjecture—the author of half the history, and three-fourths of the biography, which the world possesses—describes Plautus as a low-born fellow, made of the very commonest clay, moulded by one of Nature's awkwardest journeymen into a misshapen lump, and whose angular deformities constituted his chief points of humour. Having made a little money as a dramatist, he is said to have embarked it in the baking business; some would say that he might make his own puffs; but his shop failed, and as the public would not, he of course could not, get his bread at it. He next entered the service of a miller and master baker, where he attempted, in grinding corn, to turn at once the handle of a mill and an honest penny. Even in the bakehouse he was unable to forget the flowery path of literature; and while watching the bread, he managed to inscribe on different rolls no less than three comedies. Of these he made sufficient to enable him to quit the oven, which was incapable of warming his imagination; and taking lodgings in Rome, he resumed the life of a dramatist.

What Plautus may have wanted in originality, he made up for by industry, there being still extant twenty of his plays, and he was, according to some, the author of one hundred pieces.

The mantle of Plautus—supposing the dramatist to have died with a coat to his back—may be said to have fallen on Terentius Afer, or Terence. He is believed to have been born at Carthage, and to have been the slave of a Roman senator; for his biographers—who, by the way, were writers themselves—will not hazard the supposition that one of their own order could have been the son of a gentleman. Terentius, however, got into what is usually termed the best society, which had the usual effect of the "best society" on a literary man; for it took what it could never compensate him for—his time; it led him into idle and extravagant habits, and thus brought him, where it will inevitably leave him, if it once gets him there—to ruin. His fashionable friends carried their patronage so far, as to tax his reputation as well as his means, and even claimed a share in the credit of his writings, declaring the best part of them to be their own, though they suffered Terentius to affix his name to them.

Scipio Africanus, who stands convicted of fraud and embezzlement in a former chapter,[60] had the effrontery to say, or allow it to be said, that he had written portions of the plays in question, or, at least, contributed some of the jokes; but we have nothing to support the claim, except the fact that he might, perhaps, have made a pun, as he is known to have picked the public pocket. The following anecdote, related by his biographer, Donatus, or Suetonius—for the learned are at issue, and have long been stumbling over the two styles—may afford some idea of the treatment to which authors were submitted in the age we are writing of. Having completed his play of "Andria," Terence was desirous of getting it licensed, and applied to the Ædiles, who referred him to Cæcilius, for an opinion on the manuscript. The critic being at dinner, desired the dramatist to take a seat on a low stool, and read his piece, so that Cæcilius might, at the same time, swallow his meal, and digest the new comedy. Terence had read but a few verses, when the critic declared he could not continue selfishly putting good things into his own mouth, while so many good things were coming from the mouth of his visitor. He was requested to put the comedy away until after the dinner, which he was invited to share; and, having done so, the play was finished over a glass or two of wine, which increased the enthusiasm with which the author read, and the critic listened. Both were delighted with each other. Their better acquaintance was drunk; success to the comedy was drunk; their healths were drunk together; and, ultimately, Cæcilius and Terence were drunk separately as well as jointly, before the termination of the evening.

The plays of Terence, though of Greek origin, were moulded after a fashion of his own, and what little of the material he borrowed was almost immaterial to the value of his productions. He received for one of them "The Eunuchus," no less than 8000 sesterces (about £64), which was, in those days, the largest sum that had ever been paid for a five act comedy. After having been successful for some years, he embarked, according to some authorities, for Greece—as our dramatists embark occasionally for Boulogne—to lay in a new stock of pieces for future translation. Other authorities assert that he went to Asia, taking a number of translations with him, and was never heard of again, the ship having been sunk, perhaps, by the weight of his too heavy manuscripts.

Terence reading his Play to Cæcilius.

Among the writers of the period, we must not forget to mention Ennius, a Calabrian, who gave lessons in Greek to the patrician youths, at a small lodging on the Aventine. He is regarded as the father of Latin poetry; but Latin poetry could profit little from the paternal care of one whose devotion to the bottle rendered his own care of himself frequently impossible. His productions are of a very fragmentary kind; and, indeed, his habits of intemperance prevented him from making any sustained effort. He was the boon companion of several patricians, who helped him to ruin when alive, and gave him a monument at his death;—one of them (Scipio Africanus) accommodating the poet with a place in his tomb, so that the patron might literally go down to posterity with the man of genius.

While on the subject of the drama, as represented at Rome in the days of Plautus and Terence, we may refer to the fact that masks were worn by the actors, which gave to a theatrical performance some absurd and not very interesting features. There were several sets of masks among the properties of a regular theatre, beginning with that of the first tragic old man, which had a quantity of venerable white worsted attached to it for hair, with cheeks as chalky as grief and tears, strong enough to have washed out the fastest colour, might be supposed to have rendered them. The mask of the second tragic old man was less pale than that of the first, for he was not supposed to have attained to that universal privilege of aged heroism,—a countenance sicklied o'er with a pale coat of whitewash. The mask of the tragic young man, or youthful hero, was remarkable for its luxuriant head of hair, which, from the earliest days of the drama to the present hour, seems to be accepted as the stage indication of a noble character. The tragic masks for slaves embraced some interesting varieties, including a sharp nose, intended to be indicative of many a blow from fortune's hand,—a sunken eye, to bespeak a sorry look-out,—and, occasionally, long white hair, quite straight, which was supposed to convey the idea of the party having seen better days, though the analogy is difficult, unless the lankiness of the locks may be held to show that a favourable turn has in vain been waited for. The mask of a tragic lady had all those signs of a genuine female in distress which are even to this day required on the stage, where long black hair, in terribly straightened circumstances, is the emblem of an anxious mind, which has long been a stranger to curl-papers. When insanity, as well as anguish, had to be represented by the mask, the hair was undivided in the centre, but floated in wild profusion, as if the wearer had gone through a great deal, and as if, whatever she had gone through, her hair had caught in the middle of.

The classical mask of the first comic old man was drawn excessively mild and benevolent, to indicate that propensity for scattering purses among the poor, and bestowing his daughter, with some millions of sesterces, on young Lucius, which were the probable attributes of the Greek and Latin stage veteran. There was also the mask of the testy old man, who was represented perfectly bald, as if he was always taking something or other into his head which had torn all the hair out of it. The masks for comic young men had the ordinary characteristics of stage humour, including red hair, pug noses, broad lips, and raised eyebrows, which are in these days supplied from those recognised sources of dramatic drollery, the burnt cork, the gum-pot, and the paint-box.