By Cicero's time the public had attained to such a degree of sophistication that the slightest slip on the part of the wretched actor was greeted by a storm of popular disapproval. "Histrio si paulum se movit extra numerum, aut si versus pronuntiatus est syllaba una brevior aut longior, exsibilatur, exploditur," says Cicero.[53] The actor dare not even have a cold, for on the slightest manifestation of hoarseness, he was hooted off, though favorites such as Roscius might be excused on the plea of indisposition.[54] The Scholiast Cruquius to Hor. Ser. I. 10.37 ff. notes: "Poemata ... in theatris exhibita imperitae multitudinis applausum captare."
It is evident from all this that, while the Roman public had made considerable advances in education, their demonstrative temperament had not cooled. It seems eminently fair to deduce that the far ruder and less cultivated audiences of Plautus' day were even more violent in their manifestations of pleasure and displeasure, but that their criterion of taste was solely the amount of amusement derived from the performance and that they bothered themselves little about niceties of rhythm. To the Roman, the scenic and histrionic were the vital features of a production. Again we reiterate, only the bold brush could have pleased them.
That the plays of Plautus attained a permanent position in ihe theatrical repertoire of Rome is of course well known; but he wrote primarily for his own age, and in a difficult environment. Not only did he have to please a highly volatile and inflammable public, but he must have been forced to exercise tact to avoid offending the patrician powers, as the imprisonment of Naevius indicates. Mommsen has an apt summary:[55] "Under such circumstances, where art worked for daily wages and the artist instead of receiving due honour was subjected to disgrace, the new national theatre of the Romans could not present any development either original or even at all artistic."
[Sidenote: The Actor] This brief discussion of the relation between public and playwright will suffice for our purposes. In the course of it we have insensibly encroached upon the next topic: the relation of public and actor. Who after all is the chief factor in the success or failure of a drama, in spite of the oft misquoted adage, "The play's the thing?" The actor! The actor, who can mouth and tear a passion to tatters, or swing a piece of trumpery into popular favor by the brute force of his dash and personality. That this was true in Plautus' day, no less than in our own, is plainly indicated by the personal allusion inserted in the Bac. (214-5):
Etiam Epidicum, quam ego fabulam aeque ac me ipsum amo,
Nullam aeque invitus specto, si agit Pellio.
The servile status of the ancient actor is an index to the energy of his performance, if to nothing else. Failure meant a beating, success a drink at least.[56] Augustus humanely abrogated the whipping of actors, but an attempt was made in Tiberius' time to renew the practice.[57] On the other hand, there seem to have been prizes awarded to successful actors,[58] as well as to the poet;[59] but this practice surely arose after Plautus' lifetime. At any rate, whatever was the nature of the reward, in his day the large emoluments won by Roscius and other popular favorites were impossible.[60] The effort demanded by the elaborate education of the actor,[61] in which naturally gesticulation was the most vital element, was out of all proportion to the precarious reward. A rigid course of training was prescribed and strenuous exercises were required, for both actor and orator to keep the voice in proper form.[62] Indeed, Quintilian advises the budding orator to take instruction in voice production and gesticulation from the comic actor.[63] For the comic actor was at all times recognized as livelier and more vivid in his performance than the tragedian.[64] The two were usually sharply differentiated.[65] Specialization arose, too, and we hear of actors who confined their efforts to feminine roles,[66] though naturally every performer was cast for parts to which his physique was best suited.[67]
It is doubtful whether such an elaborate system had been developed in Plautus' time, but this much is certain: the comedian was on the stage lively, energetic and constantly spurred on by the fear of punishment from the dominus gregis and the violent disapproval of a fickle, tempestuous and withal exacting public. Polybius[68] relates that the visit of a troupe of Greek actors to Rome was a failure because of their over-staid deportment, until, learning the desires of the volatile Italians, they improvised a vastly more vivid pantomime depicting a mock battle, with huge success. Assuredly the early Roman comedian must have acted with greater abandon and clownish drollery, if not with the elaborate histrionic technique of the later actor.[69] We have heard Dr. Charles Knapp relate that the performance of the Ajax of Sophocles by a troupe of modern Greek players went with amazing and incredible rapidity and vivacity. It is all of a piece. We must inevitably associate vivid temperament with the sons of the Mediterranean in all ages. Yet we have just seen that the Greeks of old were too self-contained for their Italian brethren.
[Sidenote: The Histrionism] With this brief discussion of the condition, incentive and motive of the Plautine actor, let us pass on to a more detailed consideration of his methods and technique. Naturally by far the most important part of this was gesture. Here again, while some of our evidence is somewhat unreliable, practically every shred of extant testimony indicates an extreme liveliness and vivacity. In the rhetoricians frequent warning is issued to the forensic neophyte to avoid the unrestraint of theatrical gesticulation. Cicero says (De Or. I. 59. 251): "Nemo suaserit studiosis dicendi adulescentibus in gestu discendo histrionum more elaborare." Quintilian echoes (I. 11. 3): "Ne gestus quidem omnis ac motus a comediis petendus est.... Orator plurimum ... aberit a scaenico, nec vultu nec manu nec excursionibus nimius." And in the Auctor ad Herennium we find (III. 15. 26): "Convenit igitur in vultu et pudorem nec acrimoniam esse, in gestu et venustatem nec turpitudinem, ne aut histriones aut operarii videamur esse."[70] That the nature and liveliness of gesture on the stage was determined by the character portrayed, it is almost needless to say.[71]
Cicero's analysis (de Or. III. 59. 220) of the difference between theatrical and forensic gesture implies that the former illustrates individual words and ideas, while the latter comprehends more broadly the general thought and sentiment.[72] It is most unfortunate that we have lost Cicero's treatise De Gestu Histrionis.[73]
By Cicero's time a more restrained mode of acting was evidently considered good taste; witness de Off. (I. 36. 130): "Histrionum non nulli gestus ineptus non vacant, et quae sunt recta et simplicia laudantur."[74] But the passages cited above bear ample testimony to the vigor of histrionic gesticulation even at this later and far more cultivated epoch. Again we repeat, what must have been the energy and abandon of the original Plautine actor?[75]