Kingdom

Founding in 753 to 510 BCE

Republic

509 to 27 BCE

Age of conquest 4^th-3^rd cent. BCE

Empire

27 BCE to 476 CE

Augustus crowned Emperor, 27 BCE

Etruscan istri (flute players, dancers)

Festival to Jupiter 364 BCE

Plays at Ludi Romani, 240 BCE

Livius Andronicus introduces argumento fabulam (play with a plot)

Gnaeus Naevius writes fabula praetexta (play with a Roman plot)

Literary Theatre (Plautus, Terence, Seneca)

240 BCE to 31 BCE

Theatre of the Empire

Mimes, pantomimes, spectacles

Roman performances took place in the context of festivals

Ludi Romani (Jupiter)

Floralia (Flora)

Cereales (Ceres)

Funeral Games

Victory Games, Political Rallies

By 4^th century CE, almost 200 festivals in Roman calendar

4 BCE - 65 CE

Roman tragic playwright and Stoic philosopher

Tutor and advisor to Emperor Nero

Forced to commit suicide

Tragedies of grand rhetoric and graphic, sensational horror

Oedipus

Thyestes

Probably never performed

Profound influence on Renaissance playwrights

Hired by magistrate or sponsor of games

troupes were independent, led by dominus, often competing

Women used in mime performances

Famous actors well rewarded, regarded

Roscius praised by Cicero, left estate worth $1M

Roman Theatres

Before 55 BCE, theatres were temporary

Theatre of Scaurus, 58 BCE

Odeon in Pompeii, 80 BCE

Theatre of Pompey, 55 BCE

Disguised as temple to Venus Victrix

Freestanding, unlike Greek theatres

Symmetry and classical proportions

Vitruvius, De Architectura, ca. 15 BCE

Elements:

Cavea (audience)

Orchestra (forestage)

Pulpitum (stage)

Scaenae frons (scene building)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comedy or drama on domestic or mythological themes

First subliterary, later texts

Popular from 2nd cent. BCE through fall of Empire

Topics often sensational (murder, adultery)

4 to 60 actors, led by archimimus/a

Actresses onstage

Often reputed as prostitutes

Later Imperial mimes sometimes violent or pornographic

Emperors Nero, Domitian, Heliogabalus

"Christological Mime" satirized Christianity

Pantomime

Emerges 1st cent. BCE (22 BCE)

Solo dance form

Integration of music, dance, poetry

Male dancers

Themes from mythology, tragedy

Appeal to emperors, patricians

Bathyllus, Pylades famous pantomime actors

Romans imitated Greek New Comedy freely

Most prominent Greek playwright of New Comedy: Menander (342-291 BCE)

Dyskolos (ca. 316 BCE)

Inspired by The Characters by Theophrastus (372-287 BCE)

New Comedy:

Stock characters in domestic settings

Plots revolving around love and family

Often melodramatic or sentimental situations

Etruscan Influence

Fescennine Verses (ribald dialogues for weddings or harvests)

Atellan Farce

From Oscan town of Atella

Based on Greek improvised farces

Character types: Dossenus, Maccus

Born Umbria, ca. 254-184 BCE

Middle name perhaps from "Maccus" (fool character)

Most popular Roman comic author

Inspired Shakespeare, Moliere

20 surviving plays

Modeled on New Comedy of Menander and others

Puns and word-play, song and dance

Situation comedy

Use of types: angry father (senex iratus), clueless lover, smart slave (servus callidus), parasite, prostitute, etc.

Typical set-up: 2 houses, forum, harbor

Devices: "playwriting," eavesdropping, direct address, disguise, role-playing

Born Carthage (North Africa) 190 BCE

Brought to Rome by senator Terentius Lucanus as a slave

Received education in Greek and Latin

Wrote 6 comedies, including

Phormio (161 BCE)

The Brothers (160 BCE)

Plays are domestic comedies based on types, written in elegant Latin and featuring "double plots" (contaminatio)

Terence had less popular success than Plautus

Died 159 BCE on a voyage to bring back new Menander plays from Greece