It cannot be pretended that the doom which thus slowly and gradually overtook the Roman theatre was undeserved. The remnants of the literary drama had long been overshadowed by entertainments such as both earlier and later Roman emperors—Domitian and Trajan as well as Galerius and Constantine—had found themselves constrained to prohibit in the interests of public morality and order, by the bloody spectacles of the amphitheatre and by the maddening excitement of the circus. The art of acting had sunk into pandering to the lewd or frivolous itch of eye and ear; its professors had, in the words of a most judicious modern historian, become “a danger to the peace of householders, as well as to the peace of the streets”; and the theatre had contributed its utmost to the demoralization of a world. The attitude taken up by the Christian Church towards the stage was in general as unavoidable as its particular expressions were at times heated by fanaticism or distorted by ignorance. Had she not visited with her condemnation a wilderness of decay, she could not herself have become—what she little dreamt of becoming—the nursing mother of the new birth of an art which seemed incapable of regeneration.
Though already in the 4th century scenici had been excluded from the benefit of Christian sacraments, and excommunication had been extended to those who visited theatres instead of churches on Sundays and holidays, while the clergy Survival of the mimes. were absolutely prohibited from entering a theatre, and though similar enactments had followed at later dates—yet the entertainments of the condemned profession had never been entirely suppressed, and had even occasionally received imperial patronage. The legislation on the subject in the Codex Theodosianus (accepted by both empires in the earlier part of the 5th century) shows a measure of tolerance indicating a conviction that the theatrical profession could not be suppressed. Gradually, however, as they lost all footing in the centres of civic life, the mimes and their fellows became a wandering fraternity, who doubtless appeared at festivals when their services were required, and vanished again into the depths of the obscurity which has ever covered that mysterious existence—the strollers’ life. It was thus that these strange intermediaries of civilization carried down such traditions as survived of the acting drama of pagan antiquity into the succeeding ages.
(Article continued in Volume 8 Slice 7.)
[1] e.g. Mrichchhakatīkā; Mālatī and Mādhava.
[2] Vikrama and Urvāsī.
[3] Śaŕada-Tilaka.
[4] Sākuntalā; Uttara-Rāma-Charitra.
[5] Arichandra, act iv.
[6] Nāgānanda, act i.