It is vaguely asserted that the Roman stage amplified the Greek scope of pantomime. And, notwithstanding the many reasons to distrust such a statement, there were two artists whose work may have been of a class to justify it. They were Pylades and Bathyllus, natives respectively of Silicia and Alexandria. Their names live in the impression they produced. Of the character of their work it is impossible to learn anything explicit; “softly dancing Bathyllus” is as concrete a reference as anything to be found about them in writings of their period. So it is impossible to know whether their great popularity was due to merit, or to ingenious compliance with the taste of their adopted city. Their record, therefore, must stand as the story of a furor, and not necessarily as that of artistic achievement.
“The rivalries of Pylades and Bathyllus occupied the Romans as much as the gravest affairs of state. Every Roman was a Bathyllian or a Pyladian,” De l’Aulnaye writes. Vuillier presents a more graphic image of their hold on public attention: “Their theatrical supporters, clad in different liveries, used to fight in the streets, and bloody brawls were frequent throughout the city.” For the endless quarrelling and intriguing between the two, Pylades was once taken to task by the emperor. The answer was that of a lofty artist or a publicity-seeking gallery-player, let him decide who can: “Cæsar, it is well for you that the people are occupied with our quarrels; their attention is in that way diverted from your actions.”
His arrogance directed itself impartially toward ruler and subject. Representing the madness of Hercules—he combined pantomime with dancing—he shot arrows into the audience. Octavius being present on such an occasion refrained from any expression of disapproval. Was he afraid of offending his people by so much as an implied criticism of their favourite? It is not unlikely. When, unable to control his impatience with Pylades’ unsettling influence, the emperor banished him, a revocation of the decree was made imperative by signs of a popular insurrection!
Not the least of the instances of Pyladian insolence was his interruption of the action of a play to scold his audience. During a performance of Hercules some one complained loudly that the movement was extravagant. Pylades tore off his mask and shouted back, “I am representing a madman, you fools!”
So much for Pylades and Bathyllus. The jealous, hypertemperamental artist who allows nothing to interfere with the effect of the work to which he is consecrated sometimes falls into eccentricities of conduct. Such eccentricities are copied to admiration by impudent incompetents; and, contrary to P. T. Barnum’s aphorism, some of them do “fool all the people all the time”—especially if those people themselves lack the clear vision of simplicity. Impudence to emperors and “shooting up” audiences may mean the utmost of either sincerity or hypocrisy; choice of opinion is free. Certainly the Roman Empire’s political intrigues reveal a profound and practical knowledge of the science of publicity; it is an ancient profession.
Artists, advertisers or both, it matters not at all, Pylades and Bathyllus failed to lift dancing from the mire. The self-styled “Eternal City,” the Rome of the Cæsars, held it down to her level till her rotted hands could cling no longer, yet treated it from first to last with scorn. Horace, who never allowed his wit to lead him into danger of offending any except those without influence on his patron Mæcenas, repeatedly uses association with dancers as a synonym of disreputability. Cicero takes a fling at the art; Sallust attacks a lady for dancing with a degree of skill unbecoming a virtuous woman. With the logic of a father who locked up his children so that they should not teach bad manners to their parents, successive emperors banished dancers for doing their work according to the taste of their patrons.
Rome’s inability to move her imagination on a high plane had decayed her, muscle, brain and bone; wealth slipped away, and all of her that was respected was her remote past. In the meantime she had imposed upon Europe her laws and prejudices. Ears trained to credulous attention were those that heard her complaint of the depravity of dancing—a complaint given colour by the obscenity of the only secular dancing known to Europeans (outside of Spain) in the time of the empire’s decadence. With such a combined force of misrepresentation against it, its restoration to a proper position among the great arts was destined to be postponed a thousand years. To this day there persists to its injury an echo of its early defamation.
Yet in the hour of humiliation, the dance gained the respect of the only earthly power that might reasonably hope, in such an extremity, to save it from a miserable end. It was taken under the protection of the Christian Church.
CHAPTER III
THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE
CHRISTIANITY, like the religions of the Hebrews of old and the Greeks, employed dancing as an important part of the ritual of worship. During the greater part of a thousand years, the relation was not violently disturbed; the ballet d’action served in the mass before the altar, and in the “moralities” that long held favour as an agency of spiritual instruction. A clerical it was who eventually composed and staged the great pantomime which the many authorities place as the first modern ballet.