Plautus and Roman comedy in times of war

 The comedic plays of Titus Maccius Plautus are said to be mostly adapted from the works of established Greek playwrights like Menander, referred to as Greek New Comedy. The resulting plays, thought to be around 130 works, were written between 205 and 184 BCE. Only 20 have survived to modern times.  

Unlike the Old Comedy of such playwrights as Aristophances with its critical commentary on politics and societal values, New Comedy has been described as "devoid of a serious political, social or intellectual content" and "could be performed in any number of social and political settings without risk of giving offense." Instead, there is much more of a focus on the home and the family unit—something that the Romans, including Plautus, could easily understand and adopt for themselves later in history.

However, Plautus did not ignore the Roman Republic's expansion of power and influence that was taking place during this time.  A. F. West observed that Plautus inserted patriotic passages into his work Miles Gioriosus, composed during the Second Punic War.  At the time, the general Scipio Africanus wanted to confront Hannibal, a plan "strongly favored by the plebs". Plautus apparently pushes for the plan to be approved by the senate, working his audience up with the thought of an enemy in close proximity and a call to outmaneuver him. 

Later, though, when Rome was preparing  to move on Philip V in the Second Macedonian War and there was considerable debate beforehand about the course Rome should take in this conflict considering the recent struggles with Carthage, Plautus incorporates the Roman people's antiwar sentiments into his work, Stichus.   

W. M. Owens writes in his article "Plautus' Stichus and the Political Crisis of 200 B.C.", "There is evidence that antiwar feeling ran deep and persisted even after the war was approved." Owens contends that Plautus was attempting to match the complex mood of the Roman audience riding the victory of the Second Punic War but facing the beginning of a new conflict. For instance, the characters of the dutiful daughters and their father seem obsessed over the idea of officium, the duty one has to do what is right. Their speech is littered with words such as pietas and aequus, and they struggle to make their father fulfill his proper role. The stock parasite in this play, Gelasimus, has a patron-client relationship with this family and offers to do any job in order to make ends meet. Owens puts forward that Plautus is portraying the economic hardship many Roman citizens were experiencing due to the cost of war.

With repeated references to civic responsibility while portraying the desperation of the lower class, Plautus establishes himself firmly on the side of the average Roman citizen. While he makes no specific reference to the possible war with Greece or the struggles of the previous war, he does seem to push the message that the government should take care of its own people before attempting any other military actions.

Terracotta comic mask from Tarentum in South Italy, 300-200 BCE, now in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum. Image courtesy of the museum. The mask features a rounded skullcap with two holes for hanging in the upper section of the head. The oval face presents a convex forehead with a cleft at center, high arched eyebrows above half-closed eyes, a long thin nose, puffy cheeks, and a broad mouth with an ambiguous smile. Fleshy lips frame the wide-open mouth; the jaw is prominent and features a full, dimpled chin. The hair is painted red and forms a crown of radial striations around the forehead. These characteristics associate the mask with the New Comedy character Colax, an adulator (or vain flatterer).

Greek Terracotta Statuette of a Comic Actor made in Apulia South Italy 325-275 BCE that I photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Roman Terracotta Lamp with Reclining Comic Actor 100-200 CE that I photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Statuette of a Comic Actor Wearing an Animal Mask Roman 100 BCE-100 CE Bronze that I photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Incense Burner (Thymiaterion) shaped as a Comic Actor Seated on an Altar Roman 1-50 CE Bronze and Silver BCE that I photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Bronze Roman Lamp in the Shape of a Comic Mask 75-125 CE that I photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Mosaic depicting theater masks Roman 2nd century CE that I photographed at the Capitoline Museum in Rome.

Carved Marble Relief depicting tragic and comic masks Roman 2nd century CE that I photographed at "The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece" on display at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon.

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Phlyax play

A Phlyax play, also known as a hilarotragedy, was a burlesque dramatic form that developed in the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia (southern Italy) in the 4th century BCE. Its name derives from the Phlyakes, “Gossip Players,” in Doric Greek. From the surviving titles of the plays they appear to have been a form of mythological burlesque, which mixed figures from the Greek pantheon with the stock characters and situations of Attic New Comedy. The absence of any surviving script has led to conjecture that they were largely improvised. 

Although only a few script fragments have been found, fortunately, such plays were a popular subject of vase paintings from the region. The vases first appeared at the end of the 5th century BCE, but most are 4th century BCE. They depict grotesque characters, the masks of comedy, and the props of comic performance such as ladders, baskets, and open windows. These vase paintings indicate that they were performed on a raised wooden stage with an upper gallery, and that the actors wore grotesque costumes and masks similar to those of Attic Old Comedy. The term phlyax, which is used for both the play and the costumed actors, probably derives from the Greek verb "to swell" and finds its meaning in the actors' costumes. They wore a mask, tights, a padded tunic, and a large artificial phallus.  Any other garments necessary for the role were worn over this. They parodied heroes and themes of mythology or the comic elements of everyday life and incorporated acrobatics into the performances.

The Greek version of phlyakes seems to have died out by the late 3rd century BCE, but the Oscan inhabitants of Campania subsequently developed a tradition of farces, parodies, and satires influenced by late Greek models, which became popular in Rome during the 3rd century BCE. This genre was known as Atellan farce, Atella being the name of a Campanian town. Atellan farce introduced a set of stock characters such as Maccus and Bucco to Latin comedy. Even in antiquity, these were thought to be the ancestors of the characters found in Plautus, and perhaps distantly of those of commedia dell'arte, an improvised kind of popular comedy in Italian theaters in the 16th–18th centuries. Although an older view held that Attic comedy was the only source of Roman comedy, it has been argued that the phlyax playwright Rhinthon, in particular, influenced Plautus’s Amphitruo.

Image: Phlyax scene: three men (Gynmilos, Kosios and Karion) robbing a miser (Kharinos) inside his house. Side A of red-figure calyx-krater made in Paestum, 350–340 BCE, now in the Altes Museum in Berlin courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Bibi Saint-Pol.

 

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Orestes and Iphigenia

In Euripides' play, Iphigenia in Tauris, the story takes place after the purported sacrifice of Iphigenia, and after Orestes has killed Clytemnestra and Aegisthus for killing his father, King Agamemnon. Apollo orders Orestes—to escape persecution by the Erinyes (the furies) for killing his mother, Clytemnestra, and her lover—to go to Tauris. While in Tauris, Orestes is to carry off the xoanon (carved wooden cult image) of Artemis, which had fallen from heaven, and bring it to Athens. When Orestes arrives at Tauris with Pylades, son of Strophius and intimate friend of Orestes, the pair are immediately captured by the Tauri, who have a custom of sacrificing all Greek strangers to Artemis. Iphigenia, not dead but spared and whisked away by the gods, is the priestess of Artemis, and it is her duty to perform the sacrifice. Iphigenia and Orestes don't recognize each other (Iphigenia thinks her brother is dead—a key point). Iphigenia finds out from Orestes, who is still concealing his identity, that Orestes is alive.

Iphigenia then offers to release Orestes if he will carry home a letter from her to Greece. Orestes refuses to go, but bids Pylades to take the letter while Orestes will honorably stay to be slain. After a conflict of mutual affection, Pylades at last yields, but the letter makes brother and sister recognize each other, and all three escape together, carrying with them the image of Artemis.

Some scholars think Euripedes modified the original myth of Iphigenia's sacrifice to make the story more palatable for audiences and to allow sequels using the same characters. The original version, however, is thought to be the inspiration for the Taurians' sacrifice of bulls and virgins in honor of Artemis.  Rather than sacrificing virgins, the Spartans would whip a male victim in front of a sacred image of Artemis. Iphigenia's sacrifice was most popular in Etruria, especially in Perusia.  In the second and first centuries BCE the Etruscans adorned their cremation urns with scenes from the sacrifice. The most common scene was Iphigenia depicted as a little girl, held over the altar by Odysseus while Agamemnon performs the aparchai. Clytemnestra stands beside Agamemnon and Achilles beside Odysseus and each one begs for the life of Iphigenia. This version is closest to the myth as the Romans told it.

 

Modern relief of Orestes and Iphigéneia stealing the statue of Diana (Artemis) Taurique in the Diana Room of The Louvre courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Tangopaso.

Roman mosaic of Iphigenia and Orestes from the Horti Maecenatiani found in the area near the auditorium, 2nd - 3rd century CE, that I photographed at the Capitoline Museum in Rome, Italy

Fresco of Iphigenia as a priestess of Artemis in Tauris sets out to greet prisoners, amongst which are her brother Orestes and his friend Pylades, from Pompeii, now in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, italy, courtesy of Marie-Lan Nguyen 

Pylades and Orestes Brought as Victims before Iphigenia, 1766, by Bejamin West, now in the Tate Britain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and the Google Art Project.

Roman silver cup depicting Orestes, Iphigeneia and Pylades on the island of Sminthe, may be illustrating a lost play by Sophocles. Silver cup with repoussé decoration, Roman artwork, ca. 20 BCE/CE, Said to be from Asia Minor, now in the British Museum, courtesy of Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Orestes at Delphi, Paestan red-figured bell-krater, ca. 330 BCE, now in the British Museum, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen

Orestes and Pylades attributed to the Roman Pasiteles School, late Republican Period, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Disdero.

Fresco from the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii depicting Iphigeneia carried to the sacrifice (centre) while the seer Calchas (on the right) watches on and Agamemnon (on the left) covers his head in sign of deploration. In the sky, Artemis appears with a hind (deer) which will be substituted for the young girl. This fresco is in an alcove viewable by those approaching or leaving the triclinium. When studying the frescoes of this structure, I proposed that this image is meant to remind the pater familias that sacrificing family for ambition always ends in dire consequences. See my 2014 post, "The House of the Tragic Poet: What's Love Got To Do With It?" at https://ancientimes.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-house-of-tragic-poet-whats-love-got.html

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23 Knives - CSI: Ancient Rome?

I saw this blurb about a play written about Julius Caesar's autopsy and couldn't help but wish I could take a quick trip to New York to see it!

"The mission of Resonance Ensemble is to present classic plays in conjunction with modern plays inspired by them. This season they change things up a bit, by presenting George Bernard Shaw's classic Caesar and Cleopatra along with the premiere of Christopher Boal's 23 Knives; both plays are inspired by Shakespeare's works.

23 Knives is based on the real-life figure of Antistius (Patrick Melville), whose only surviving record in history is of having been the man to perform the autopsy of Julius Caesar after he was assassinated, and who presented his findings as testimony in front of the Roman forum (from which comes our term "forensics").

Boals spins an amusingly modern take on the piece- at times it feels much like an episode of CSI:Ancient Rome. In his version of events, Marcus Antonius (Ryan Tramont) has chosen Antistius for the job of discovering which of the many stab wounds actually killed Caesar, because Antistius had won a court case by getting a murderer acquitted. But, unbeknownst to Marcus Antonius, Antistius is a fraud- a Greek who, pretending to be a physician, came to Rome when Caesar gave an edict to allow knowledgeable Greek physicians room to live there. With the help of his slave Janus (Todd Alan Crain), he sets about actually performing a real autopsy, supervised in part by Musa (Brian D. Coats), another slave who actually knows something about medicine, or so it seems. Like any good con man in fiction, Antistius begins to take on the nobler qualities of the character he pretends to be, beginning to feel a duty to the truth, and when he discovers unsettling evidence of even fouler play than anticipated, won't lie to the forum in accordance with the official story Marcus Antonius would like to have spread." - Broadway World
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