3. The Stage. The front area of the stage was a little elevated above that part of the orchestra where the musicians were placed, and was called the Proscenium. On the proscenium a wooden platform, termed the pulpitum, was raised to the height of five feet[610]. This the actors ascended to perform their characters; and here all the dramatic representations of the Romans were exhibited[611], except the Mimes, which were acted on the lower floor of the proscenium. Certain architectural proportions were assigned to all these different parts of the theatre.
The whole space or area behind the pulpitum was called the Scena, because the scenery appropriate to the piece was there exhibited. “The three varieties of scenes,” says Vitruvius, “are termed tragic, comic, and satyric, each of which has a style of decoration peculiar to itself. In the tragic scene columns are represented, with statues, and other embellishments suitable to palaces and public buildings. The comic scene represents the houses of individuals, with their balconies and windows arranged in imitation of private dwellings. The satyric is adorned with groves, dens, and mountains, and other rural objects.” The rigid adherence of the ancients to the unity of place, rendered unnecessary that frequent shifting of scenes which is required in our dramas. When the side scenes were changed, the frames, or painted planks, were turned by machinery, and the scene was then called versatilis, or revolving: When it was withdrawn altogether, and another brought forward, it was called ductilis, or, sliding. There were also trapdoors in the floor of this part of the theatre, by which ghosts and the Furies ascended when their presence was required; and machines were disposed above the scene, as also at its sides, by which gods and other superior beings were suddenly brought upon the stage.
At the bottom of the scene, or end most remote from the spectators, there was a curtain of painted canvass, which was first used after the tapestry of Attalus had been brought to Rome[612]. It was dropped when the play began, remained down during the performance, and was drawn up when the [pg 346]representation concluded. This was certainly the case during the existence of the republic; but I imagine that an alteration took place in the time of the emperors, and that the curtain, being brought more forward on the scene, was then, as with us, raised at the commencement, and dropped at the end of the piece:—
“Mox ubi ridendas inclusit pagina partes,
Vera redit facies, dissimulata perit[613].”
At each side of the scena there were doors called Hospitalia, by which the actors entered and made their exits.
That part of the theatre which comprehended the stage and scene was originally covered with branches of trees, which served both for shelter and ornament. It was afterwards shut in with planks, which were painted for the first time in the year 654. About the same period the scene was enriched with gold and silver hangings, and the proscenium was decorated with columns, statues, and altars to the god in whose honour, or at whose festival, the stage plays were represented.
II. In turning our attention to the actors who appeared on the pulpitum of the Roman stage, the point which first attracts our notice is that supposed separation of the dramatic labour, by which one performer gesticulated while the other declaimed. This division, however, did not take place at all in comedy, or in the ordinary dialogue (Diverbia) of tragedy; as is evinced by various passages in the Latin authors, which show that Æsopus, the chief tragic actor, and Roscius, the celebrated comedian, both gesticulated and declaimed. Cicero informs us, that Æsopus was hissed if he was in the least degree hoarse[614]; and he also mentions one remarkable occasion, on which, having returned to the stage after he had long retired from it, his voice suddenly failed him just as he commenced an adjuration in the part he represented[615]. This evinces that Æsopus declaimed; and the same author affords us proof that he gesticulated: For, in the treatise De Divinatione, he introduces his brother Quintus, declaring, that he had himself witnessed in Æsopus such animation of countenance, and vehemence of gesture, that he seemed carried beside himself [pg 347]by some irresistible power[616]. Roscius, indeed, is chiefly talked of for the gracefulness of his gestures[617], but there are also passages which refer to the modulation of his voice[618]. It may perhaps, however, be said, that the above citations only prove that the same actor gesticulated in some characters, and declaimed in others; it seems, however, much more probable that Æsopus went through the whole dramatic part, than that he appeared in some plays merely as a gesticulating, and in others as a declaiming, performer.
There was thus no division in the ordinary dialogue, or diverbium, as it was called, and it was employed only in the monologues, and those parts of high excitement and pathos, which were declaimed somewhat in the tone of recitativo in an Italian opera, and were called Cantica, from being accompanied either by the flutes or by instrumental music. That one actor should have recited, and another performed the corresponding gestures in the scenes of a tragedy, and that, too, in parts of the highest excitement, and in which theatric illusion should have been rendered most complete, certainly appears the most incongruous and inexplicable circumstance in the history of the Roman Drama. This division did not exist on the Greek stage, but it commenced at Rome as early as the time of Livius Andronicus, who, being encored, as we call it, in his monologues, introduced a slave, who declaimed to the sound of the flute, while he himself executed the corresponding gesticulations[619]. To us nothing can seem at first view more ridiculous, and more injurious to theatric illusion, than one person going through a dumb show or pantomime, while another, who must have appeared a supernumerary on the pulpitum, recited, with his arms across, the corresponding verses, in tones of the utmost vehemence and pathos[620]. It must, [pg 348]however, be recollected, that the Roman theatres were larger and worse lighted than ours; that the mask prevented even the nearest spectators from perceiving the least motion of the lips, and they thus heard only the words without knowing whether they proceeded from him who recited or gestured; and, finally, that these actors were so well trained, that they agreed precisely in their respective parts. We are informed by Cicero, that a comedian who made a movement out of time was as much hissed as one who mistook the pronunciation of a word or quantity of a syllable in a verse[621]. Seneca says, that it is surprising to see the attitudes of eminent comedians on the stage overtake and keep pace with speech, notwithstanding the velocity of the tongue[622].
So much importance was attached to the art of dramatic gesticulation, that it was taught in the schools; and there were instituted motions as well as natural. These artificial gestures, however, of arbitrary signification, were chiefly employed in pantomime, where speech not being admitted, more action was required to make the piece intelligible: And it appears from Quintilian, that comedians who acted with due decorum, never, or but very rarely, made use of instituted signs in their gesticulation[623]. The movements suited to theatrical declamation were subdivided into three different sorts. The first, called Emmelia, was adapted to tragic declamation; the second, Cordax, was fitted to comedies; and the third, Sicinnis, was proper to satiric pieces, as the Mimes and Exodia[624].