The Dramatic Values in Plautus | Page 8

and citations immediately following). Note the description of
Mommsen:[46] "The audience was anything but genteel.... The body of
spectators cannot have differed much from what one sees in the present
day at public fireworks and gratis exhibitions. Naturally, therefore, the
proceedings were not too orderly; children cried,[47] women talked and
shrieked, now and then a wench prepared to push her way to the stage;
the ushers had on these festivals anything but a holiday, and found
frequent occasion to confiscate a mantle or to ply the rod."[48]
Impatient if the play be delayed, and voicing their disapproval by lusty
clapping, stamping, whistling and cat-calls, they are equally ready with
noisy approval if the dramatic fare tickle their palate.[49] The tibicen,
as he steps forth to render the overture, is greeted uproariously as an
old favorite. The manager perhaps appears and announces the names of
those taking part, each one of whom is doubtless applauded or hissed in
proportion to his measure of popularity. Differences of opinion as to
the merits of an individual actor may culminate in the partisans' coming
to blows.[50] Horace (Ep. II. I. 200 ff.) comments on the turbulence of
the audiences of his day too; while under the Empire factions for and
against particular actors grew up, as in the circus.[51] Late-comers of
course often disturbed the Prologus in his lines. The continual
reiteration that we find in such prologues as the Amph., Cap. and Poen.
was naturally designed as a safeguard against such disturbance. Yet
these prologues were undoubtedly composed, as Ritschl has shown
(Par. 232 ff.), shortly after 146 B.C., and the turbulence of the original
audience must have been far greater.
To win the favor of such a crowd, which would groan if instead of the
expected comedy a tragedy should be announced,[52] what methods

were necessary? Slap-sticks, horse-play, broad slashing swashbuckling
humor, thick colors daubed on with lavish brush!
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