Roman Stage Research Articles

Античность (Тысячелетие до Рождества Христова). Базис европейской культуры

The essay is devoted to a summary review of the main phenomena of global artistic culture in the Antiquity period (a millennium before the Birth of Christ). The work provides a holistic vision of artistic phenomena. The author consistently examines the achievements of ancient masters in various art forms: literature (the creation of the spiritual foundation of ancient culture in religious canons and national epic), architecture (the appearance of the order in ancient Greek classics), sculpture (as the leading genre of Antiquity), fine art (based on preserved frescoes and mosaics), theatrical art (tragedies of ancient Greek playwrights), poetry (Roman classicism). Attention is also paid to the development of art in line with Hellenism and to the parallels to Greco-Roman Antiquity in the territories of the East. In addition, an overview of the last stage of Antiquity, the Roman stage (the heyday of Roman architecture and sculpture), is given. In conclusion, the author finds that the art phenomena of the period of Antiquity played the most important role as the basis of European culture.

Reform trends in Europe’s higher education programmes as an exemplification of the bologna process after the Rome 2020 Ministerial Conference

Purpose: The subject of the study is issues related to the reform of higher education systems taking into account the Bologna Process. As a theoretical and cognitive goal, the author adopted the presentation of the categories and conditions of the Bologna Process in its roman stage (2020). Design/methodology/approach: The article adopts methodological elements specific to the field of social sciences, including the monographic method. It is implemented in this work as a way of researching specific, individual cases and focuses on the overall recognition of one relevant problem. It is important here to verify each element of the phenomenon in question and focus on the individual components of the issue addressed based on qualitative descriptive elements. The paper draws on the printed publications of authors such as Irina Ferencz, Agnieszka Olechnicka, Tim Birtwistle, Robert Wagenaar, Jurgen Enders, Jeroen Huisman and continuous prints, including: Edukacja Ekonomistów i Menedżerów, Forum Akademickie, Education, Zeszyty Naukowe Politechniki Śląskiej, Studia Prawno Ekonomiczne, Białostockie Studia Prawnicze and Studia Prawnoustrojowe. Findings: The research problem was framed by the question: what changes are possible to implement in European higher education, under the Bologna harmonization formula, after the announcement of the Rome Communiqué in 2020? Practical implications: The practical objective was defined in the form of comments relevant to the needs for changes in the course of the Bologna Process with regard to multidegree education, quality assurance and recognition of periods of education, the social dimension of the Bologna Process and the internationalization of higher education. Originality/value: The study consists of three rudimentary parts, including a characterisation of the development of higher education and the implications for the region, and an analysis of the Bologna Process and its benefits for European higher education, as well as its most recent implications for higher education systems after the Rome 2020 conference. This characterisation fits into the thematic area of education management understood as a potential of the European region. This article addresses the issue of higher education development as a factor in regional development and aims to analyse the most up-to-date desiderata for harmonising higher education systems in Europe, particularly those raised at the Rome 2020 Ministerial Conference. Keywords: Higher (tertiary) education, Bologna Process, harmonisation. Category of the paper: Conceptual paper.

Rzymska faza sprawy beatyfikacyjnej Sługi Bożego ks. Stanisława Streicha

April 13, 2019, in the Church of St. John Bosco in Luboń, the last public session was held ending the diocesan stage of canonization process of the Servant of God, Rev. Stanisław Streich. Streich was a martyr for the faith who died at the hands of the Communist criminal Wawrzyniec Nowak. The session was attended by Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, Metropolitan of Poznań, and the established tribunal: bishop’s delegate, promoter of justice, and notary, as well as a postulator. Archbishop Gądecki’s decree declared that the investigation at the diocesan stage was finally closed. Each individually swore that he had fulfilled his tasks faithfully and that he would keep an official secret. Extensive documentation of the canonization process of Rev. Stanisław Streich, numbering almost 3,500 pages that included trial files with thirty-one testimonies of witnesses was prepared to be submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. This stage, which is called the Roman stage of any altar candidate process, represents a qualitative leap in a given cause. The phase of collecting documents is over, and their substantive development begins. Al this is served by the various stages that establish the following: a new postulator of the cause; the issuance of a decree of validity of the diocesan inquiry; the appointment of a relator; the editing of the Positio; then the historical, theological, and ordinary congregation of cardinals and bishops; and finally, the promulgation of the decree of martyrdom by the pope.

Laughing Awry: Plautus and Tragicomedy by Erik Gunderson

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 435 to Aristotle’s theory and as a more consistent application of Aristotle’s own principles. Yet Inwood also reminds us, in his opening chapters, that Aristotle’s immediate successors tended to resolve the “tensions and hesitations of the master” by adopting positions that were “clearer, cleaner, and that much less subtle” (27). Some later students of Aristotle’s ethics (e.g., Aquinas) might well regard Alexander’s neglect of Aristotle’s non-naturalism in this light. In short, not everyone will draw from Inwood’s narrative the philosophical conclusions that Inwood himself draws. Future scholarship will nonetheless be indebted to his masterly study of the period. Colgate University Jacob Klein Laughing Awry: Plautus and Tragicomedy. By Erik Gunderson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2015. Pp. x, 283. You know what they say about explaining jokes and dissecting frogs: you understand them better, but they (usually) die in the process. Likewise reviewing books, especially one like Gunderson’s that streaks breathlessly across the Roman stage while strewing insight, witticism, and not a little confusion. Newcomers to Roman comedy need not apply: those without a firm grounding will quickly become lost and even specialists will find their patience tested by a grating prose style and muddy argumentation. But this book is not so much for learning new things about Plautus as for unlearning some things you thought you knew well, and in this regard Gunderson regularly manages to hit a hard target. Readers willing to work to extract them will find keen observations and bold contributions, and although it is difficult to identify a coherent through-line for the book as a whole, Gunderson’s analyses of individual scenes, characters, and themes can repay the hunt. Chapter One ostensibly introduces the book’s methodology and, after an oddly-fitting summary of Federico Fellini’s I Clowns (important points of contact between the film and Plautus can be glimpsed but Gunderson does not connect the dots), offers a promising outline of significant ways in which everything to do with Plautus defies categorization: his identity, corpus, genre, jokes, and even his audiences cannot stand without whatever we construe as their opposites. “On the one hand, comedy gives pleasure by circumventing barriers. But, on the other, ‘comedy’ as a designation can itself constitute a barrier. Only ‘comedy’ lets us enjoy comedy” (6). Comic violence is only funny if we get that real violence is tragic; the set-up and the punch line have to bounce off a reasonable scenario to land as a joke. The chapter closes with a convoluted Lacanian apparatus that reappears throughout the book but may seem both unnecessary and unnecessarily off-putting to many readers. Chapter Two is Gunderson’s sharpest and most cohesive contribution, and here he deconstructs the varied ways the ancients constructed “Plautus.” He lays out the circular and subjective approach that reader-scholars such as Aelius Stilo and Varro used to define the Plautine canon, Plautinity, and Plautus’ biography; how Terence builds a (forgettable) Plautus in order to fashion his own image as a new playwright; and how later poets such as Catullus, Ovid, and Horace deploy a selectively crafted Plautus for their own ends. There are some missteps—few, I think, would agree that the “narrative voice of the Amores is relatively sincere” (39)—but Gunderson highlights well how easily authors can can make Plautus be and say whatever is needed for producing their own identity. 436 PHOENIX In Chapter Three Gunderson explores the gaps between Plautine characters who believe words merely describe reality (e.g., the socially powerful who depend on the status quo for their power) and the disenfranchised (e.g., servi, meretrices, etc.) who know how to employ words to manipulate the realities of those above them. As he neatly observes, “Trickery lets them use the only thing they do have, ‘mere words’ to change the things of the world and, with them, the recognized words of the world as well” (66–67). The main points here have been articulated by others before,1 but Gunderson’s readings of Truculentus and of the manipulation of the audience are perceptive. Chapter Four continues in a similar vein, examining a variety...

TWO ALLUSIONS TO TERENCE,EUNUCHUS579 IN JEROME

During the Late Roman Empire Terence was the most revered and the most quoted classical Latin poet after Virgil. Among authors both pagan and Christian, none (to judge, of course, by the surviving written record) made as frequent or as creative literary use of his comedies as Jerome, one of the most accomplished polymaths in all of Latin antiquity. In his estimation Terence ranked, alongside Homer, Menander and Virgil, as one of the greatest of all poets. Jerome had an encyclopedic knowledge of Terence's dramatic corpus and quoted or appropriated phraseology from all six of his comedies. A significant number of these reminiscences have already been identified, but others await discovery. The purpose of the present study is to make a further contribution to this particular branch of HieronymianQuellenforschungby adducing and analysing two hitherto unrecognized allusions in Jerome's correspondence to Terence'sEunuchus, apparently one of the biggest blockbusters in the history of the Roman stage.

Inventing the Origins of Theatre History: The Modern Uses of Juba II's theatriké historia

Inventing the Origins of Theatre History:The Modern Uses of Juba II's theatriké historia Richard Schoch (bio) It is an Oedipal irony of theatre history that over the past half century some of its leading practitioners have begun their undeniably heterogeneous works with ritualistic invocations of the same text. This work is frequently taken to be the oldest in our field: the theatriké historia of Juba II of Mauretania (ca. 48 BC - ca. 23 AD).1 Composed during or just before the reign of Augustus, and written in Greek, the language of scholarship in the Roman world, Juba's text survives only as isolated quotations in a handful of late classical works. Its composition has been proposed more than once—and in more than one manner—as theatre history's founding moment. In this essay I look at what we know about a text that despite—more likely, because of—almost total disappearance has been used to construct disciplinary myths of origin. In so doing I want to offer a more deeply excavated historicist reading of this early work of theatre scholarship: not to overturn, but to situate, modern rhetorical readings of it, thereby building up a stronger sense of a disciplinary past that can be put into an always new relation with the present. I argue that the context, composition, and reception history of the theatriké historia prevent us from confidently ascribing any foundational status within theatre history to that text or to its author, despite a continuing desire, at least on the part of some theatre scholars, to do just that. My contention is that in its modern afterlife, Juba's lost work has possessed a value as a placeholder for disciplinary myths of origins that is not historically warranted. Indeed, the more deeply we immerse ourselves in the documentary record the more it hinders the construction of straightforward and empowering narratives of disciplinary identity. This withdrawal from originating claims does not, however, result in the dismantling of our disciplinary identity but rather in the freedom for theatre scholars to see themselves as part of an endeavor that, although it possesses a history, does not need to begin that history at any precise moment or with any single person. [End Page 5] I I start with three historians of the stage who, by claiming Juba as their disciplinary forerunner, encode a shifting set of historiographical and disciplinary positions. The first reference appears in the totemic compendium that is Alois Nagler's Sources of Theatrical History (1952). The second comes from R.W. Vince's essay "Theatre History as an Academic Discipline" in Interpreting the Theatrical Past (1989), the influential collection edited by Thomas Postlewait and Bruce McConachie. Lastly is Joseph Roach's introduction to the historiography section of Critical Theory and Performance (1992), a widely read volume edited by Roach and Janelle Reinelt, enlarged and revised in 2007. Though each citation of Juba is anecdotal and speculative, that does not disable the citations but instead gives them symbolic force, in that their purpose is not to document disciplinary practice but to mythologize it. Here, in chronological order, are the relevant passages and my explication of them, in which I aim to show how each historian (necessarily) created Juba in his own image and, correspondingly, how each historian's approach diverged from that of his predecessors and successors. The idea of collecting materials for a history of the theater is part of our classical heritage. The earliest attempt dates back to the time of Augustus, when Juba II, King of Mauretania, compiled his seventeen-book theatriké historia. The greatest single blow sustained by our field of learning is the loss of Juba's work. . . . When King Juba was compiling his theatrical history, he had access to the primary sources of Greek and Roman stage practice. He must have had before him all pertinent source material, the disappearance of which is responsible for our groping in the dark when we try to investigate the theatre of antiquity. Juba must have read Agatharchus' own commentary on the design work he had done for Aeschylus; he must have been familiar with the treatises of Democritus and Anaxagoras on the use of...

Opera’s Orbit: Musical Drama and the Influence of Opera in Arcadian Rome (review)

Reviewed by: Opera’s Orbit: Musical Drama and the Influence of Opera in Arcadian Rome Bruno Forment Opera’s Orbit: Musical Drama and the Influence of Opera in Arcadian Rome. By Stefanie Tcharos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. [xiv, 320 p. ISBN 9780521116657. $95.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index. Musical genres are thorny things. Representing artifacts of the classifying imagination, generic designations defy categorization along clear-cut lines, let alone transhistorical definition. Witness the example of Joseph Haydn’s early keyboard works, many of which were originally designated as divertimenti or partitas by their creator, but were soon renamed sonatas. Or consider the origins of Mozart’s two-act serenata Il Re Pastore (1775) in a three-act dramma per musica (1751) by Pietro Meta -stasio. Of course, as Stefanie Tcharos acknowledges, “categorizations and genre titles were seminal and effective,” if only within their own cultural context and “in spite of their inability to hold any real consistency, categorical protectionism, and enclosure” (p. 13). It is the modern scholar’s task to come to grips with the “multiple manifestations of form and presentation” (p. 162) of each genre by redressing its social dimensions as performative event. Stefanie Tcharos boldly accepts this challenge in Opera’s Orbit: Musical Drama and the Influence of Opera in Arcadian Rome, but whether she succeeds in her daunting quest remains to be seen. Tcharos’s work area is the late-seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century Roman stage, which she does not understand as an “actual stage of a particular theater or a context in which a given composer’s works were performed” (p. 1), nor as a “collection of discrete formal texts” (p. 2), but rather as a “metaphorical and symbolic” stage, and a “highly problematic” (p. 1) one at that. As she stresses throughout her opening chapter, “Enclosures, Crises, Polemics: Opera Production in 1690s Arcadian Rome” (pp. 20–45), opera lived an uncertain existence in the transitory decades at hand, now enjoying unrestricted freedom under such bons vivants as Alexander VIII, then facing outright proscription under Innocents XI and XII. But “despite the conventional wisdom which argues that the upheavals of papal policies regarding opera . . . were to the detriment of Roman theatrical life,” Tcharos asserts that the “city’s peculiar predicament and necessary pocketing of opera culture into various private corners had creative advantages,” allowing “for a variety of opera models” and a “change from the more singular adherence to the institutionalized formulas that dominated Venice’s theater scene” (p. 22). Opera’s “sphere of influence” or “orbit” (the term is Mikhail Bakthin’s) thus reached further than the actual dramma per musica; it also encompassed the three genres Tcharos turns to in the central chapters of her book: the oratorio, serenata, and cantata. The first of these chapters, “Disrupting the Oratorio” (pp. 46–97), combines an interpretation of Arcangelo Spagna’s Discorso intorno a gl’oratorii (1706) with discussions of Pietro Ottoboni’s Il martirio di Sant’Eu -stachio (1690) and Alessandro Scarlatti’s two Giuditta oratorios (1694 and 1697) to argue that the late-seventeenth-century Roman oratorio tended to be “resolutely ‘anti-opera’ in official function,” while at the same time being “intimately bound with conceptions of the theatrical” (p. 46). Notwithstanding their mission to “erase all that opera signified morally and socially” (p. 46), various oratorios in fact incorporated theatrical features, including stage decorations and dance in the case of Sant’Eustachio. Unfortunately, Tcharos omits several aspects that could have helped her chart the inextricable ties between the Roman oratorio and opera with more historical depth and precision than [End Page 780] happens to be the case. It is a mystery, for instance, why she ignores the long tradition of the mystery play and sacra rappresentazione, many examples of which—reports and drawings tell us—enacted martyrs’ lives in equally “theatrical” and musical fashion as Ottoboni’s Sant’Eustachio did. Nor do we learn more about the dramaturgical and, by extension, generic affinities of the oratorio with other religious entertainments of propagandist—and operatic—allure, such as the Jesuit school drama and hagio-graphic opera of Seicento Rome; only Il Sant’Alessio is briefly mentioned, on page 66. Third and...

Livia the Princeps : Gender and Ideology in the Consolatio ad Liviam

Livia the PrincepsGender and Ideology in the Consolatio ad Liviam Thomas E. Jenkins (bio) I. Introduction The pseudo-Ovidian Consolatio ad Liviam refracts a single politically charged event—the funeral of Drusus the Elder—through an astounding range of viewpoints (mortal and supernatural, female and male, noble and plebeian) and set pieces (consolatory rhetoric, mythological exempla, eyewitness narrative, and internal monologue).1 One constant in this kaleidoscope, however, is the quintessentially Augustan discourse that surrounds the characterization of the empress herself, up to and including the apparently novel application of the term princeps. The appellation princeps thus continues its Augustus-propelled trajectory from a moniker of "the leading statesmen of the Republic" (so Syme 1939),2 to a nebulous and therefore powerful epithet of Augustus and his possible male heirs (so Rowe 2002),3 to a title that, when applied to Livia in the Consolatio, attempts, like much of the poem, to reconcile some of the inherent contradictions in Augustan constructions of imperial womanhood.4 Other imperial narratives of Drusus's death, such as Livy, Seneca, and Tacitus, recognize the importance of the funeral as an icon of Augustus's dynastic ambitions: a curious amalgam of private mourning and public performance played upon the Roman stage. None, however, approach the Consolatio's elaborate structure or its persistent focus on the ever increasing political authority of the women of the Domus Augusta. Indeed, though the poem putatively focuses on Livia's private mourning, it returns time and again to her extraordinary public actions and powers, whether as intensifications of traditional female prerogatives, or as revolutionary steps in imperial patronage and influence. The poem's concluding endorsement of Livia thus attempts, however imperfectly, to balance Livia's gender with her (perhaps troubling) powers of auctoritas. Though the dramatic date of the poem is 9 B.C.E., the year of Drusus's death, the poem was likely to have been crafted under Tiberius, and thus created precisely at a time of renewed attention to (and anxiety [End Page 1] about) the discourses of gender and power surrounding the imperial household.5 As (Kristina Milnor 2004, 4) has outlined in her recent examination of the ideology of domesticity in the early empire, "The family (especially the emperor's own) and domestic life constituted the central space around which the rest of civic life might be built. It is, of course, a fundamentally paradoxical position…." In Augustus's case, the paradox is particularly acute: the greater the emperor's emphasis on domesticity "as a kind of moralized privacy" (Milnor 2004, 7), the greater the tension with the increasing prominence of imperially connected women, and of their involvement in civic affairs. As an example, Milnor points to the portico dedicated to Livia on the Palatine Hill as emblematic of this paradox; the portico replaced the extravagant private villa of the eques Vedius with a public edifice in honor of Livia (thereby reversing the more traditional associations of the female with the private, and the male with the public).6 Beth Severy (2003, 234) has argued that the principate of Tiberius actually accelerated such innovation in imperial discourse. Representations, particularly literary representations, of Livia were relatively infrequent under Augustus; after Augustus's death, Livia exerted a far greater presence in a number of public forms, including literary references (principally in Ovid), portraiture, coins, and honorific titles.7 This expansion may be linked to Tiberius's own agenda in forging, publicly at least, a unified front with his mother, but it also represents the efflorescence of discursive seeds planted in the previous principate. So while the exact date of the Consolatio is unknown, its primary ideological tensions are thoroughly 'Augustan' in that the poem juggles multiple, and often mutually conflicting, representations of proper female imperial behavior.8 Scholars' comparative neglect of the Consolatio may be attributed not just to its uncertain provenance, but also to its fluid—some may argue chaotic—structure (a structure that presents unique challenges to a modern reader searching for either its narrative unity or its ideological underpinnings). As related by Dio Cassius (55.2.1–3), the facts of Drusus's death are clear enough. While on campaign in Germany in...

The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy by C. W. Marshall

322 BOOK REVIEWS TheStagecraft andPerformance ofRomanComedy. ByC.W. MARSHALL. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2006. Pp. xiii+ 320. Cloth,$90.00.ISBN 0-521-86161-6. Our understandingofPlautineperformance is greatlyhindered by thenatureoftheevidence.C.W. Marshall(M.) aims to enrichour appreciationof Plautus by offering a new synthesisof the limited evidence surroundingthe productionand performanceof Plautus' comedies (and, while Terence makes briefappearances, M. focuses on Plautus). Buildingon thestudiesofMoore and Slater,'M. distinguishes himselfby his creativereconstruction of the backstage Realienofthetheater , and by his perspectiveon comedicperformance. M. bringshis expertisein theatrical productionand improvisation to his criticalwork,and thisgreatlyinforms his understandingof the Roman stage.2Hereinalso lie some oftheshortcomings ofhis work, as his visualizationoftheperformance ofPlautus' plays sometimes seems more at home on a modern stage than on the temporary wooden structures ofRepublicanRome. In his introduction, M. elucidates Plautus' abilityto blend literary and performancegenres into a dramatic formatwith broad appeal to his audience. He tracestheprimaryinfluenceson Roman comedy(GreekNew Comedy,fabulaeAtellanae and mime),and discusses theirimpact on Plautus. An ambitious firstchapter,"The Business of Comedy," investigateshow financialconsiderationsaffectedperformancespace , the troupe,set, costumes and even the audience. This chaptercontainsa wealth of information, and M. in theend favorsa sparse stage with minimalprops to accommodate the vicissitudesof performance. His enlightening discussion of the compositionoftheaudience shows how theyactivelyengage in performance ,and how Plautus caters to the tastes of different social classes. Here, M.'s own experiencesas a producerof theplays enlivenhis examplesand lead toplausible conclusions. Chapter 2, "Actors and Roles," treatsthe activityof Plautus' troupeand theimportanceofactorson stage. M. again stressesthe economicpressureson thetroupe,which"is competingfora limited resource (contracts)and must offera product that will generate wealth (a satisfiedaudience) so thatfuturemagistrateswill make futurepurchases fromthe same source" (p. 84). A small troupe would lead to thedoubling ofroles,and M. generatesa listindicating how many performers were needed in each play (pp. 109-11). 1 N.W. Slater,PlautusinPerformance: theTheatre oftheMind(Princeton, 1985);T.J. Moore,TheTheater ofPlautus:PlayingtotheAudience (Austin,1998). 2 For more information about M.'s contemporary productionsof ancient comedies and tragedies, see his website MASC (Modern Actors Staging Classics): http: //www2.cnrs.ubc.ca /masc/. BOOK REVIEWS 323 This leads to speculation that one or two actors fromthe troupe would enjoycelebrity statusand thusdelivera majorityofthelines. M. claims that the audience "will acknowledge and reward challenges accepted by an actor,that it wants to see an actor exhibit dramaticrange,and thatitwantstoidentify staractorsbeneaththeir masks" (pp. 114-15).When M. considersthedoublingofroles,however ,he does notdiscuss how thismightaffect theplay's reception; e.g.,in thePseudolustheactorplayingtheeponymouscharacter also plays the cook in M.'s system,but thereis littlediscussion ofhow thisbears on thespectator'sinterpretation oftheplay (p. 117). The doubling of roles necessarilyraises the question of masks, to whichM. devotes his thirdchapter.3 Here,he displays a sensitivityto performance oftenlackingin criticswho address thisinveterate issue. Masks do notlimittheemotionalregister oftheactors,but ratherhighlightthe emotionalsignificanceof theirphysical movementsand posture.M. assertsthatAtellanfarcesbroadlyinfluenced masks,especiallyin regardto thepresentationofthepimp,and argues that masks were more individualized, and charactersless stereotyped, thanmighthave been assumed fromPollux (Onomasticon4 .143-54).Thisleads to a nuanced discussionofthecomicpotentialofan individualized slave's maskin thePseudolusand oftheway masksamplifythethemesofslaveryand freedomin theCaptivi. In his fourthchapter,M. analyzes fouraspects of stage action: focus,pace, tone and routines.He provides examples oftheimportanceofthephysicalrealityofperformance , ofhow "some interpretationsof the play were activelyencouraged,and otherswere discouraged or even precluded" via stage action (p. 187). M. believes thata "breathless"pace enhances the comic natureof theperformance ,and contendsthatthejuxtapositionofdramatictimeand actual timecould be played forlaughs in (esp.) theMenaechmi and theAndria .He questions whetherthereis roomforseriousnessin Plautus, but his conclusionsabout tone are hamperedby his primaryexample , Alcumena in theAmphitruo, about whom he equivocates,treating her as simultaneouslyserious and comic. When he turnsto the various routinesof Plautine comedy, e.g., servuscurrens, M. is on surerground,and his discussionrevealshow Plautus createshumor throughtheselazzi. The finaltwo chaptersofthebook are themostspeculativeand thought-provoking. Chapter5, "Music and Metre,"offers many insightson theeffects ofmusic on thestructure and movementofthe plays.M. arguesthatalteration betweenunaccompanied and accompanied meterscreatedstructural unitstheaudience recognizedas the 3 His account fundamentallyfollows thatof D. Wiles, TheMasks ofMenander (Cambridge,1991),but M. believes that"some refinements are necessarywhen the GreekNew Comic tradition is transferred toRome" (p. 126n.3). 324 BOOK REVIEWS buildingblocks oftheplay. M. tracesthese "arcs" throughPlautus' plays,and assertsthatthispatterning ofmusicand metershapes the audience's interpretation ofscenesand characters. Likewise,M. views thetibicen as an integralpartoftheperformance, and revealshis influenceon thepacingand architecture ofplays.Whileitis difficult to prove exactlyhowmusic aids the interpretation...

Malpighi and the holy body: medical experts and miraculous evidence in seventeenth‐century Italy

In this article I use the records of the canonization proceedings of Caterina Vigri (Saint Catherine of Bologna) to examine the role of physicians in assessing miraculous evidence, and more broadly the relationship between religious and secular views of the body in early modern Italy. Medical men – including the prominent anatomist Marcello Malpighi – were important expert witnesses in the final denouement of Caterina Vigri's canonization process, in the 1660s and 70s. Their opinion was crucial in the evaluation of the Beata's healing miracles, as well as in the assessment of her body's ‘incorruption’. I examine how the doctors involved in the canonization proceedings viewed Caterina's healing miracles and I compare it with their attitude to her allegedly undecayed body. The way these doctors handled the touchy issue of Caterina's ‘holy body’ is particularly interesting, as it betrays a strong note of scepticism, which is absent, in contrast, in their reaction to her healing miracles. The doctors’ sceptical view of the ‘holy body’ played a major role in the Roman stage of the canonization proceedings, leading the Congregation of Rites to exclude the miracle of the ‘incorrupt’ body from the two miracles necessary for canonization. This episode indicates a new significance of medical testimony in the evaluation of miraculous evidence, and the emerging of a tension between the medical and the religious views of the body, which was destined to become a serious problem for modern Catholicism. (pp. 568–586)

IV From Greece to Rome

The origins of Roman comedy are, in one sense, clear-cut: at the Ludi Romani or Roman Games of September 240, a Romanized Tarentine Greek known as Lucius Livius Andronicus, who at some point also translated the Odyssey into Latin, produced the first Latin translations of Greek plays on a Roman stage. This firm date, for which we have Cicero's friend Atticus to thank, marks the beginning of the establishment of a practice of translating classic Greek plays that would continue in both comedy and tragedy for at least a further century.

A theatrical device on the Late Roman stage: the relief of Flavius Valerianus

A theatrical device on the Late Roman stage: the relief of Flavius Valerianus

Carol Vegvar. Review of "Anglo-Saxon Gestures and the Roman Stage" by C.R. Dodwell.

Carol Vegvar. Review of "Anglo-Saxon Gestures and the Roman Stage" by C.R. Dodwell.

Anglo-Saxon Gestures and the Roman Stage by C.R. Dodwell (review)

Anglo-Saxon Gestures and the Roman Stage by C.R. Dodwell (review)

The Greek and Roman Stage

This text sets out to bring to life the Greek and Roman plays and their staging, evoking the visual and emotional character of performances and dramatic festivals and offering a clear account of the plays and their writers. It attempts to re-create the excitement of the competitions and analyses the practical challenges faced by the playwrights and actors in staging the plays, whether tragedies or comedies. It also aims to bring to life the costumes, masks, stage and scenery, as well as the audience's reactions to the experience. book gives clear summaries of well-known Greek and Roman plays and their authors, and explores in depth some of the best-known, particularly Antigone and The Clouds. There are many suggestions for further study, including additional reading for both the teachers and pupils, topics for discussion, subjects to write about, and activities for individuals and groups.

Roman Theater and Society ed. by William J. Slater

Reviews William J. Slater, ed. Roman Theater and Society. E. Togo Salmon Papers, I. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1996. Pp. xiv + 186 + 8 plates. $42.50. In September 1993, McMaster University held its first E. Togo Salmon Conference, a series named for the distinguished historian whose bequest makes it possible and dedicated to topics that require, in the editor's words, "the confrontation of archaeological with literary evidence in constructing ancient history." The first of these Salmon Conferences dealt with theater in the Roman world. This volume presents seven of its papers. A summary first and then some comments. I.E.J. Jory, "The Drama of the Dance: Prolegomena to an Iconography of Imperial Pantomime" (1-27). Ancient pantomime was an entertainment in which a solo dancer in mask and costume performed the story of a myth to the accompaniment of musicians and chorus. Though quite a popular art form, it is now little understood by scholars of antiquity . Jory here reviews the material evidence for what pantomime dancers looked like and how they performed, which is largely a matter of isolating medallions, mosaics, and figurines that represent masks with closed mouths and realistic features and dancers who are dressed in such masks and ankle-length robes. The discussion of these artifacts, which is very well illustrated, then leads to important discussions of the difference between solo and choral dancing in antiquity and the different attitudes toward dance in Greek and Roman societies. 2.W. D. Lebek, "Moneymaking on the Roman Stage" (29^48). Republican theater, as everyone knows but too often forgets, was a commercial venture for performers and impresarios. Lebek reviews the evidence for the most successful such practitioners in the last two centuries B. C. in the city of Rome. He discusses the early comic writers Plautus and Terence, the tragic poets Ennius and (rather later) Varius, and then goes on to consider the famous actors of Cicero's day, Roscius and Aesopus, the success of pantomime and mime, the role of women in Roman theater, and the careers of Laberius and Publilius Syrus. 3.K. M. Coleman, "Ptolemy Philadelphus and the Roman Amphitheater " (49-68). In the winter of 275/74, Ptolemy Philadelphus, the second Macedonian king of Egypt, staged a grand procession in honor of his father and predecessor, Ptolemy Soter, at the second celebration of a festival called the Ptolemaieia. Coleman analyzes four elements of Ptolemy's display which she believes came to be echoed in the spectacles of later Roman amphitheaters. These are the use of mythological motifs and figures, the distribution of gifts to spectators, the development of elaborate and sophisticated technology, and the presentation of wild animals. Ptolemy's display made the Egyptian festival a demonstration of both the wealth and extent of his domain. It was also, however, a largely passive display of exoticism, and Coleman makes the inter589 590Comparative Drama esting point that the Roman tendency in developing these elements was to make them active, since for the Romans "the natural world was a theater that provided a spectacle for humankind." 4.J. C. Edmondson, "Dynamic Arenas: Gladiatorial Presentations in the City of Rome and the Construction of Roman Society during the Early Empire" (69-112). Gladiatorial shows at Rome were originally held as part of funeral celebrations, and though they could attract large crowds they were by nature activities in the private sphere. Only with Augustus did they become entertainments on the public calendar and come under imperial patronage. Edmondson concentrates on the production of these shows at Rome in the period from Augustus through Trajan (i.e., c.30 B.C-A.D. 117), when our sources are the richest. He shows how the arenas themselves were organized to reflect the social hierarchy of their time through seating by social standing and by regional and national groups. Seating privileges could even be used to set forth social and political agendas. 5.Elizabeth R. Gebhard, "The Theater and the City" (113-27). The acoustics and sightlines of ancient theaters made them ideal venues —generally the best in town—for a wide range of civic displays, including festivals, political demonstrations, and religious ceremonies, as well as what...

Nero's Masks

Two sources, Suetonius and Dio Cassius, report that Nero performed some of his theatrical roles while wearing portrait masks of himself and his female lovers. Shadi Bartsch, in her recent fascinating study of theatricality under Nero and his successors, calls attention to this remarkable fact, focusing in particular on the narrative in Suetonius as emblematic of the endemic confusion between reality and theatricality in the reign of this performer emperor.' A closer examination of these masks against the background of both contemporary Roman stage practice and earlier Roman traditions will suggest that they constitute a significant further dimension to the scandal of Nero's performances. Dio's account at least implies recognition of this scandal. Both texts are relatively brief and worth citing in full:

‘By the gods, boy, … Stop bothering me! Can't you tell Menander from Plautus?’ or How Dis Exapaton does not help us understand Bacchides

So much has been written about Menander's Dis Exapaton and its correspondence to Plautus' Bacchides that little more than a quarter of a century after the publication of its longest and most important fragmentary remains, the so-called ‘Dis Exapaton papyrus’, it seems almost foolhardy to assert there is anything new to be said about Plautus' workmanship or the relationship between the Roman play and its model. But there is. Most studies have focused on direct comparison of Menander's and Plautus' texts through detailed examination of the deletions and insertions, mutations and mutilations that Plautus committed or achieved, depending on one's perspective. We limit our profits, however, when we limit our vision and there is more known about Menander's Dis Exapaton than just what corresponds directly to Bacchides 494-561. By addressing closely the wider context of Plautus' drama, especially the various methods he is known to have used in reconstituting Greek plays for the Roman stage, and applying that to what we know about his and Menander's drama in general, we stand to gain further insight into Plautus' innovations as well as an important reminder of the traps and pitfalls inherent in dealing with fragmentary remains. Dis Exapaton is, after all, not the only incomplete work here; Bacchides is not preserved intact, either.

The Roman Stage - Richard C. Beacham: The Roman Theatre and its Audience. Pp. + 267; 34 black and white plates (and frontispiece). London: Routledge, 1991. £35.

The Roman Stage - Richard C. Beacham: The Roman Theatre and its Audience. Pp. + 267; 34 black and white plates (and frontispiece). London: Routledge, 1991. £35.

Masks on the Roman stage

Masks on the Roman stage