With its love of the false heroic, of rhetorical bombast, of sumptuous dress, magnificent scenes, and gorgeous accessories in the way of "supers" and processions, the Roman tragic drama of this period must have borne a striking resemblance to the corresponding English pieces of the Restoration or age of Dryden. Perhaps the most popular part of the performance was the music and dancing, whether by individual actors or as ballets, accompanied by the flageolet, the lyre, or the cymbals.
In comedy there was apparently no originality. As in the oldest days of their drama the Romans had copied the Greeks, so they copied them still. We may believe that the acting was often excellent; especially in respect of intonation and gesture, but little can be said for the play, whether from the point of view of literature or of morals. Since verbal description must necessarily be of little force, it will serve better to present here a few specimens of comic masks and a scene from comedy:
[Illustration: FIG. 82.—COMIC MASKS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 83.—SCENE FROM COMEDY.]
Much more in demand were theatrical performances of a lower kind. These were farces, interludes, character-pieces, and dumb-shows known as "pantomimes." The farce was a loosely constructed form of fooling comedy, containing much of the ready Italian improvisation or "gag," and regularly introducing the four stock characters which have lasted with little disguise for so many centuries There was an old "grandfather," the forerunner of the modern pantaloon; a cunning sharper; a garrulous glutton with a fat face (known as "Chops"); and an amorous Simple Simon. Sometimes types of foreigners or provincials were introduced, with caricatures of their dress and language, after the manner, and probably with the veracity, of the stage Scotchman, Irishman, or Frenchman. All these parts were played in masks.
The interlude again was a slight piece with very little plot, and composed in a large measure of buffoonery, practical jokes, hitting and slapping, and dancing. Topical allusions and contemporary caricatures were freely introduced, and the whole performance, however coarsely amusing, was both vulgar and indecent. In these pieces no masks were worn and also no shoes, and the women's parts—taken in the other instances by men and boys—were actually played by females, whose posture-dances were no credit to their sex.
The dumb-shows or "pantomimes" were performances in which expressive and elaborate gestures and movements were left to tell the whole tale. For this kind of piece the actors naturally required not only uncommon cleverness but also great suppleness of body. As usual, these qualities, together with the qualities of voice, the magnificent dress, and the carefully cultivated long hair, won for the actor demoralising influence over too large a number of the more impressionable and untrammelled Roman dames.
Meanwhile the huge audience must not be conceived as sitting in quiet and restrained attention, but as roaring with laughter, applauding and stamping, shouting approval and encores, hissing and waving handkerchiefs. And meanwhile the claqueurs will have been duly distributed by those interested in the success of the performance. Every now and then a fine rain of saffron perfume is shed over the audience from pipes and jets distributed round the building. It deserves remark also that in the theatre, as in the other places of amusement, the gathering frequently broke out into demonstrations of its feeling towards persons and politics. There was safety in numbers, and the applause or hissing which greeted a personage or a topical allusion—or a line which could be twisted into such—could hardly be laid to the account of any individual. A certain license was conceded and fully utilised at the festivals: it served as a safety-valve, and wise emperors apparently so regarded it. At Rome the government was indeed "despotism tempered by epigram," but it was no less tempered by these demonstrations at the games and spectacles.
More worthy of imperial Rome were the exhibitions of chariot-races held in the immense Circus Maximus. That building, already described, would at this date probably hold some 200,000 persons, but it could never provide room enough for the excited people, who not only gathered in multitudes from Rome itself, but also from all the country, even all the empire, within reach. For weeks the chances of the parties have been discussed and betted upon; even the schoolboys have talked chariots, chariot-drivers, and horses. The fortune-tellers have been consulted about them; dreamers have dreamed the winners; and many an underhand attempt, sometimes including the hocussing of men or horses, has been made to corrupt the sport. The struggle is in reality not between chariot and chariot, but between what we should call stable and stable. There are four parties—the white, red, green, and blue—whose drivers will wear the respective colours, in which also the chariots were probably painted. By some means the green and blue have at this date contrived to stand out beyond the others, and the chief interest commonly centres upon these.
The day of the great spectacle arrives. Outside the building and in the porticoes surrounding it the sellers of books of the races and of cushions are plying their trade along with venders of confectionery and perfumes. The people are streaming into the numerous entrances which lead by stairways to the particular blocks or tiers of seats in which they are entitled to sit, and for which they bear a ticket. Full citizens are wearing the toga, or, if the emperor has not forbidden the practice, the brightly coloured cloak which has been already described. Seats are reserved for officials, senators, knights, and Vestal Virgins; and on the side under the Palatine is a large balcony-box for the emperor and his suite. At these games women have no special place set apart for them; they sit in their richest land showiest attire among the general body of the spectators, and flirting and love-making are part of the order of the day. A very crude form of field-glass or "spy-glass" was already in use, apparently consisting generally of a mere hollow tube, but occasionally provided with a magnifying lens. Nero himself, in consequence of his short-sight, had a "glass" in some way contrived of emerald.