A Smaller Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities

by William Smith

CŌMOEDĬA (κωμῳδία), comedy. (1) Greek. Comedy took its rise at the vintage festivals of Dionysus. It originated with those who led off the phallic songs of the band of revellers (κῶμος), who at the vintage festivals of Dionysus gave expression to the feelings of exuberant joy and merriment which were regarded as appropriate to the occasion, by parading about, partly on foot, partly in waggons, with the symbol of the productive powers of nature, singing a wild, jovial song in honour of Dionysus and his companions. These songs were commonly interspersed with, or followed by petulant, extemporal witticisms with which the revellers assailed the bystanders. This origin of comedy is indicated by the name κωμῳδία, which undoubtedly means “the song of the κῶμος,” though it has sometimes been derived from κώμη, as if the meaning were “a village song.” It was among the Dorians that comedy first assumed any thing of a regular shape. The Megarians, both in the mother country and in Sicily, claimed to be considered as its originators, and so far as the comedy of Athens is concerned, the claim of the former appears well founded. Among the Athenians the first attempts at comedy were made at Icaria by Susarion, a native of Megara, about B.C. 578. Susarion no doubt substituted for the more ancient improvisations of the chorus and its leader premeditated compositions. There would seem also to have been some kind of poetical contest, for we learn that the prize for the successful poet was a basket of figs and a jar of wine. It was also the practice of those who took part in the comus to smear their faces with wine-lees, either to prevent their features from being recognised, or to give themselves a more grotesque appearance. Hence comedy came to be called τρυγῳδία, or lee-song. Others connected the name with the circumstance of a jar of new wine (τρύξ) being the prize for the successful poet. It was, however, in Sicily, that comedy was earliest brought to something like perfection. Epicharmus was the first writer who gave it a new form, and introduced a regular plot. In his efforts he appears to have been associated with Phormis, a somewhat older contemporary. The Megarians in Sicily claimed the honour of the invention of comedy, on account of Epicharmus having lived in Megara before he went to Syracuse. In Attica, the first comic poet of any importance whom we hear of after Susarion is Chionides, who is said to have brought out plays in B.C. 488. Euetes, Euxenides, and Myllus were probably contemporaries of Chionides; he was followed by Magnes and Ecphantides. Their compositions, however, seem to have been little but the reproduction of the old Megaric farce of Susarion, differing, no doubt, in form, by the introduction of an actor or actors, separate from the chorus, in imitation of the improvements that had been made in tragedy.—That branch of the Attic drama which was called the Old Comedy, begins properly with Cratinus, who was to comedy very much what Aeschylus was to tragedy. The old comedy has been described as the comedy of caricature, and such indeed it was, but it was also a great deal more. As it appeared in the hands of its great masters Cratinus, Hermippus, Eupolis, and especially Aristophanes, its main characteristic was that it was throughout political. Everything that bore upon the political or social interests of the Athenians furnished materials for it. The old Attic comedy lasted from Ol. 80 to Ol. 94 (B.C. 458-404). From Cratinus to Theopompus there were forty-one poets, fourteen of whom preceded Aristophanes. The later pieces of Aristophanes belong to the Middle rather than to the Old Comedy. The chorus in a comedy consisted of twenty-four. [[Chorus].] The dance of the chorus was the κόρδαξ, the movements of which were capricious and licentious, consisting partly in a reeling to and fro, in imitation of a drunken man, and in various unseemly and immodest gestures. Comedies have choric songs, but no στάσιμα, or songs between acts. The most important of the choral parts was the Parabasis, when the actors having left the stage, the chorus, which was ordinarily divided into four rows, containing six each, and was turned towards the stage, turned round, and advancing towards the spectators delivered an address to them in the name of the poet, either on public topics of general interest, or on matters which concerned the poet personally, criticising his rivals and calling attention to his merits; the address having nothing whatever to do with the action of the play. The parabasis was not universally introduced: three plays of Aristophanes, the Ecclesiazusae, Lysistrata, and Plutus, have none. As the old Attic comedy was the offspring of the political and social vigour and freedom of the age during which it flourished, it naturally declined and ceased with the decline and overthrow of the freedom and vigour which were necessary for its development.—It was replaced by a comedy of a somewhat different style, which was known as the Middle Comedy, the age of which lasted from the end of the Peloponnesian war to the overthrow of liberty by Philip of Macedon. (Ol. 94-110.) The comedy of this period found its materials in satirizing classes of people instead of individuals, in criticising the systems and merits of philosophers and literary men, and in parodies of the compositions of living and earlier poets, and travesties of mythological subjects. It formed a transition from the old to the new comedy, and approximated to the latter in the greater attention to the construction of plots which seem frequently to have been founded on amorous intrigues, and in the absence of that wild grotesqueness which marked the old comedy. As regards its external form, the plays of the middle comedy, generally speaking, had neither parabasis nor chorus. The most celebrated authors of the middle comedy were Antiphanes and Alexis.—The New Comedy was a further development of the last mentioned kind. It answered as nearly as may be to the modern comedy of manners or character. Dropping for the most part personal allusions, caricature, ridicule, and parody, which, in a more general form than in the old comedy, had maintained their ground in the middle comedy, the poets of the new comedy made it their business to reproduce in a generalized form a picture of the every-day life of those by whom they were surrounded. There were various standing characters which found a place in most plays, such as we find in the plays of Plautus and Terence, the leno perjurus, amator fervidus, servulus callidus, amica illudens, sodalis opitulator, miles proeliator, parasitus edax, parentes tenaces, meretrices procaces. In the new comedy there was no chorus. It flourished from about B.C. 340 to B.C. 260. The poets of the new comedy amounted to 64 in number. The most distinguished was Menander.—(2) Roman.—The accounts of the early stages of comic poetry among the Romans are scanty. Scenic entertainments were introduced at Rome in B.C. 363 from Etruria, where it would seem they were a familiar amusement. Tuscan players (ludiones), who were fetched from Etruria, exhibited a sort of pantomimic dance to the music of a flute, without any song accompanying their dance, and without regular dramatic gesticulation. The amusement became popular, and was imitated by the young Romans, who improved upon the original entertainment by uniting with it extemporaneous mutual raillery, composed in a rude irregular measure, a species of diversion which had been long known among the Romans at their agrarian festivals under the name of Fescennina [[Fescennina]]. It was 123 years after the first introduction of these scenic performances before the improvement was introduced of having a regular plot. This advance was made by Livius Andronicus, a native of Magna Graecia, in B.C. 240. His pieces, which were both tragedies and comedies, were merely adaptations of Greek dramas. The representation of regular plays of this sort was now left to those who were histriones by profession, and who were very commonly either foreigners or slaves; the free-born youth of Rome confined their own scenic performances to the older, irregular farces, which long maintained their ground, and were subsequently called exodia. [[Exodia]; [Satura].] Livius, as was common at that time, was himself an actor in his own pieces. The first imitator of the dramatic works of Livius Andronicus was Cn. Naevius, a native of Campania. He composed both tragedies and comedies, which were either translations or imitations of those of Greek writers. The most distinguished successors of Naevius were Plautus, who chiefly imitated Epicharmus, and Terence, whose materials were drawn mostly from Menander, Diphilus, Philemon, and Apollodorus. The comedy of the Romans was throughout but an imitation of that of the Greeks, and chiefly of the new comedy. Where the characters were ostensibly Greek, and the scene laid in Athens or some other Greek town, the comedies were termed palliatae. All the comedies of Terence and Plautus belong to this class. When the story and characters were Roman, the plays were called togatae. But the fabulae togatae were in fact little else than Greek comedies clothed in a Latin dress.

The togatae were divided into two classes, the trabeatae and tabernariae, according as the subject was taken from high or from low life. In the comediae palliatae, the costume of the ordinary actors was the Greek pallium. The plays which bore the name of praetextatae, were not so much tragedies as historical plays. It is a mistake to represent them as comedies. There was a species of tragi-comedy, named from the poet who introduced that style Rhinthonica. A tragedy the argument of which was Greek was termed crepidata. The mimes are sometimes classed with the Latin comedies. [[Mimus].] The mimes differed from the comedies in little more than the predominance of the mimic representation over the dialogue. Latin comedies had no chorus, any more than the dramas of the new comedy, of which they were for the most part imitations. Like them, too, they were introduced by a prologue, which answered some of the purposes of the parabasis of the old comedy, so far as bespeaking the good will of the spectators, and defending the poet against his rivals and enemies. It also communicated so much information as was necessary to understand the story of the play. The prologue was commonly spoken by one of the players, or, perhaps, by the manager of the troop. Respecting the Atellanae fabulae see that article.

COMPĬTĀLĬA, also called LŪDI COMPĬTĀLĬCĬI, a festival celebrated once a year in honour of the lares compitales, to whom sacrifices were offered at the places where two or more ways met. In the time of Augustus, the ludi compitalicii had gone out of fashion, but were restored by him. The compitalia belonged to the feriae conceptivae, that is, festivals which were celebrated on days appointed annually by the magistrates or priests. The exact day on which this festival was celebrated appears to have varied, though it was always in the winter, generally at the beginning of January.

COMPLŪVĬUM. [[Domus].]

CONCĬLĬUM generally has the same meaning as conventus or conventio, but the technical import of concilium in the Roman constitution was an assembly of a portion of the people as distinct from the general assemblies or comitia. Accordingly, as the comitia tributa embraced only a portion of the Roman people, viz. the plebeians, these comitia are often designated by the term concilia plebis. Concilium is also used by Latin writers to denote the assemblies or meetings of confederate towns or nations, at which either their deputies alone or any of the citizens met who had time and inclination, and thus formed a representative assembly. Such an assembly or diet is commonly designated as commune concilium, or τὸ κοινόν, e.g. Achaeorum, Aetolorum, Boeotorum, Macedoniae, and the like.

CONFARRĔĀTĬO. [[Matrimonium].]

CONGĬĀRĬUM (scil. vas, from congius), a vessel containing a congius. [[Congius].] In the early times of the Roman republic the congius was the usual measure of oil or wine which was, on certain occasions, distributed among the people; and thus congiarium became a name for liberal donations to the people, in general, whether consisting of oil, wine, corn, money, or other things, while donations made to the soldiers were called donativa, though they were sometimes also termed congiaria. Many coins of the Roman emperors were struck in commemoration of such congiaria. Congiarium was, moreover, occasionally used simply to designate a present or a pension given by a person of high rank, or a prince, to his friends.

Congiarium. (Coin of Trajan.)

CONGĬUS, a Roman liquid measure, which contained six sextarii, or the eighth part of the amphora (nearly six pints Eng.) It was equal to the larger chous of the Greeks.