Only once in the history of theatre can we observe how it comes to an end. Of course there are cases when it was stopped by force, as English theatre was by the Puritans or – as we shall see – Cretan theatre by the Turks. But in the present case we see an eventual closure of public theatres, along with a dissolution in the forms and functions of the theatre, as well as changes in the institutions that produced it. These artistic and institutional changes were hastened, in turn, by fundamental changes in political administration. Not surprisingly these changes also coincide with significant alterations in the expectations and habits of the spectators. In essence we are witnessing a change in the Greek cultural profile as a whole, with what we might consider a degeneration of aesthetics and values – a degeneration reflecting factors such as a changing worldview and the development of a different form of civic life. The contraction of the theatre’s interests from the topical and political to the family sphere and individual happiness, as reflected in comedy’s transition from Aristophanes to Menander, is characteristic of a fundamental change in mentality that accompanies the theatre’s eventual ‘decline and fall’.
Although the hostile attitude of the church in the first centuries AD functioned as a decisive catalyst, the process of dissolution and changing performative genres had already begun long before. So although we may divide the process of disintegration and change into a period before Christ and a period after, in the end it was not Christianity which put an end to ancient theatre. The changes that occurred, the abandonment of the agon and choregia and the rise of international, cosmopolitan professionals in particular, had already occurred in the pre-Christian period. These initial changes coincide with profound historical and political changes from polis to empire, from democracy to monarchy, and – with regard to performances – from Athens to nearly everywhere.
Given the vast bibliography on the subject it is not the goal of this chapter to recount the whole history of ancient theatre and drama, nor to provide every piece of evidence which might serve as the basis for the present scenario. Its function is simply to highlight some important aspects of the process which resulted in significant changes in classical theatre and drama from the Hellenistic period onward, and to provide an introduction to the main genres of performative activity on the stage.Footnote 1
The process begins during the late fourth and early third centuries BC: significant events from this period which demonstrate ongoing changes during the Hellenistic periodFootnote 2 begin with Athens’ abolition of the private choregia, the system used for financing amateur performances at the Great Dionysia, at the end of the fourth century.Footnote 3 Then by 293/1 we have the death of Menander; and with his death New Comedy loses its most prominent representative. Although we have ample evidence for poets and dramatists long after his time (his Roman imitators in particular), Menander would be admired for his moral sentiments and comic characters throughout Late Antiquity.Footnote 4 Meanwhile, not only were provincial theatres built in many cities throughout the Greek world during the fourth century BC, Alexander’s successors built theatres in brand-new Greek urban centres throughout his empire. Theatrical festivals were now organized on diverse occasions, and by the late fourth century the Dionysiakoi Technitae, ‘Artists’ or, better, ‘Artisans of Dionysos’, professional organizations of actors, musicians, dancers, etc., were created.Footnote 5 Through them a sort of repertory theatre was created, consisting of classic dramas and new productions. But the choruses are restricted or abolished altogether and the theatre’s connections with the Dionysus cult, through a combination of Hellenistic syncretism and respect for localized deities, become looser and are no longer exclusive. As a result festivals devoted to other cults take place in the theatre, which no longer hosts dramatic festivals exclusively.
During this period we also see the development of blurred genres, with theatre performances now given on political and historical occasions, for weddings, etc. The dissemination of theatre in the time of Alexander the Great reached as far as Iran and Babylon,Footnote 6 but itinerant ensembles mainly played the classical repertoire (e.g., Euripides).Footnote 7 Apparently, most demoi did not have the ability to pay the chorodidaskalos for an amateur chorus and for its months-long rehearsals, so we should seriously consider the possibility of the elimination of the chorika,Footnote 8 as it was practised in later years. The end of this process of devolution, from more sophisticated forms to more popular or primitive, saw the dissolution of full-length drama into separate scenes played with virtuosity in different genres,Footnote 9 and the increased awareness of the inherent theatricality or even performativity of everyday life.
The Dissolution of the Dionysiac Framework and the Scholarly Tradition of Texts
Culturally speaking the Hellenistic period is one of secularization and religious syncretism; intellectually it is a time of academic research, the systematic collection and cataloguing of data, the creation of lexica and encyclopedias – in other words the creation of a world of scholarly erudition.Footnote 10 The dramatic texts of the Attic tragedians, Aristophanes and even Menander were carefully copied, studied, commented, edited, transmitted through the school tradition, and for some time were even recited in theatre performances.Footnote 11 But educated and intellectual spectators who enjoyed more cultivated forms of entertainment were not the majority in the theatre, and as a result we also see the emergence of new, more popular and less demanding shows. Ancient drama and theatre were on the way to becoming academic traditions practised in reading rooms, a topic for erudite disputes and classes in schools, academies and universities far from the public stage; this involved a context quite distinct from the traditional one that had existed between actors and spectators. It can be found as a literary remnant, as parodies in mime; its mythological topics were now danced in pantomime, and there are also intertextual hints in Seneca’s tragedies. Ancient drama becomes part of a common Greek education system, a symbol of the cultural tradition and one of the highlights of the Classical past that could not (or would not) be achieved anymore. The consciousness of epigonism, and lamentations for the ‘decline and fall’ of the genre, are characteristic features of the Hellenistic era and of Byzantium.Footnote 12 But thanks to the conservative policy of preserving the Classical past, the outstanding texts of ancient theatre were saved from oblivion.
This academic environment is one part of the now-divided world of drama and theatre in Hellenistic times. The other part has nothing to do with the silence of libraries and the dust of archives, let alone the painstaking procedure of copying, studying and commentary. It takes place instead in the full light of the sun and in front of huge audiences; only this time, it is for pleasure and entertainment.Footnote 13 The religious framework is not abandoned entirely, but this is now professional show business. In contrast to the literary status of Hellenistic drama, which is ‘increasingly marked as a literary product’ like Lycophron’s ‘Alexandria’,Footnote 14 stage performances are now of high niveau, professionally executed, emphasizing a more realistic style of acting in addition to the traditional declamation of dramatic poetry, singing and dancing of amateur choruses. This change is aesthetically fundamental. Not surprisingly, theatre scholars are far more interested than philologists in this performance industry.Footnote 15 As Jane Lightfood pointed out, the connection with the cult of Dionysus was not lost entirely, as is indicated in the title of the privileged associations of stage performers and their hybrid festivals; it was more superficial, however, and Dionysus now shared billing with many other cults, including ruler cults, in which the monarch used the festival for self-display.Footnote 16
There is plenty of epigraphic evidence for the different organizations of Dionysiakoi technitai,Footnote 17 and the private choregos is replaced by the agonothetes who now uses public funds to pay for contracts with these associations. Essential for understanding this form of show business is the fact that these professional groups toured around the Greek-speaking world in search of work and negotiated contracts with cities, sponsors and rulers, organizing and performing any sort of festivities requested. These guilds had many privileges and were led by priests of Dionysus; in negotiations over contracts and payment the associations were treated as equal and trustworthy partners.Footnote 18 As artists their members had a professional reputation; they had nothing to do with the mime actors. Their degree of artistic specialization was quite high, and among the names of technitai preserved in epigraphic sources, there is not a single woman.Footnote 19
Most significant of all was the gradual dissolution of private subsidies,Footnote 20 as well as the competition of individual poets and amateur choruses – a fact which would have altered the dynamics of the spectators’ response. The suspense was no longer which poet or chorus would win the prize, but which guild would prevail in competition. There is ample epigraphic evidence for the rivalry among associations of technitai; still, the professionalization of performers does not seem to have affected the continuation of the festivals’ religious status; the ‘vocabulary of piety and the ritual remain’. Many festivals were established to honour the epiphany of other gods and were called thysiai (sacrifices): they featured processions, the singing of hymns, public prayers and ended with sacrifices in the theatre. The city and its surroundings were still considered holy and inviolable during the festivities, and ambassadors likewise had the sacred status of theoroi as in classical times. So, on the one hand, the language of piety in these inscriptions should not be interpreted as mere hypocritical devotion or calculated propaganda.Footnote 21 On the other hand, certain festivals were merely a demonstration of royal power in which the name of Dionysus is joined with that of the monarch.Footnote 22 At any rate the public character and function of the theatre, the self-display of the community as a cohesive group conferring honours on the performers, is preserved; the polis remains the centre of the event, however conceived.
Popular Theatre in the Hellenistic World
By contrast the actors and performers of the most popular forms of theatrical entertainment, the mimes and pantomimes, were usually not members of the Dionysiakoi technitai. Because of their humble station, it is difficult to draw clear distinctions in the legal and canonical status of these two genres.Footnote 23 Mime in particular is a highly elusive concept, and may in fact be a sort of heuristic construction of modern scholars, a catch-all term under which is subsumed everything that does not fit into the classical categories of tragedy, comedy and satyr play. It covers a whole spectrum of ancient performances, from solo singing and declamation to tight-rope walking, to short farces played by small companies of actors.Footnote 24 There may not even be significant differences between Roman and Hellenistic mime;Footnote 25 Plautus, after all, was heavily influenced by the Hellenistic mime.Footnote 26
Mime
There are few specific definitions of mime: descriptions from Diomedes (μῖμός ἐστι μίμησις βίου τά τε συγκεχωρημένα καὶ ἀσυγχώρητα περιέχων – ‘Mime is the imitation of life, including both the excusable and the inexcusable’)Footnote 27 to modern scholars such as Fantham (‘a narrative entertainment in the media of speech, song and dance’)Footnote 28 avoid referring to the specific topics performed.Footnote 29 This is related to the paucity of direct sources: only a few fragments referring to mime from the fifth century BC to AD 691/2 (the Council in Trullo) are extant.Footnote 30 Taken together with indirect information (Athenaeus, the Satyrica of Petronius, the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, the attacks and condemnations of the Greek Church Fathers, the Συνηγορία μίμων of Choricius of Gaza) there is scant evidence for a genre known for its great variety. For this reason the existing bibliography should be read with caution.Footnote 31 The first really consistent work with concrete results was Wiemken’s monograph, in which he underlined the improvizational character of mime performance as a legacy of ancient folk theatre, analyzing mostly Egyptian material from Oxyrhynchus.Footnote 32 Since then many studies have added new material, and in-depth research has served generally to widen the horizon of mime criticism without completely solving the problem of its definition. The title of a chapter in Anne Berland-Bajard’s book on aquatic mime in Rome is characteristic: ‘Les spectacles aquatiques et les genres théâtraux: la pantomime, le mime, mimes dansés et hydromimes’.Footnote 33
If we take as a guide one of our indirect sources, Athenaeus (c. AD 200), there were homeristai, private readings and recitations of Homer with singing and acting;Footnote 34 there were also solo performers such as hilarōidoi, simōidoi, magōidoi, lysiōidoi,Footnote 35 not to mention the explicitly sexual iōnikologoi and kinaidologoiFootnote 36. These specific categories are usually subsumed under the term ‘lyrical mime’Footnote 37 and are distinct from the dialogical prose mime.Footnote 38 But these solo performances were also acted out on stage, and we get a rough idea of such a performance from the Fragmentum Grenfellianum (second century BC), in which a woman (most likely played by a man) complains bitterly that she has been abandoned by her lover.Footnote 39 Similar texts can be written in dialogue for more than one actor and show the influence of New Comedy.Footnote 40
These fragments, put together by Cunningham with the Mimiambs of Herodas, raise the question of whether there was a separate mimus drama, with its own date of creation and its own relationship to New Comedy. In a fragment from the peripatetic philosopher and theorist of music Aristoxenos (fourth century BC) he speaks about mimes performing a topic that has even been played before in comedy.Footnote 41 On a lychnia (lamp) from the end of the third century, three ‘mimologoi’ are depicted playing the ‘hypothesis’ of ‘Hecyra’, the well-known ‘mother in law’ of New Comedy.Footnote 42 Plutarch also addresses the genres or ‘hypotheseis’ of mime, dividing them into paignia (short plays) and dramata δυσχορήγητα (long and complex play with many actors, hence ‘hard to get a choregia for’).Footnote 43 But we can only guess what these plays may have looked like. The only texts that allow us to get some idea of plot and performance are the Mimiambs of Herodas (c. 270–260 BC) and the two plays from Oxyrhynchos papyrus 413 (AD first or second century). But they are very different: Herodas’ seven (or eight) short dialogues are, by virtue of their sophisticated language, obviously a literary product; by contrast the later plays, Χαρίτιον and Μοιχεύτρια are conceived as scripts intended for performance by a troupe of mimes, in front of a large audience in an important city of northern Egypt.
Literary Mime (Herodas, Mimiambs)
The achievements of the Hellenistic period in drama are not insignificant, as the text tradition indicates; but there is a growing gap between literary production and live theatre. Dramatic elements or even dialogical forms of communication can be found in different literary genres, philosophy most notably. The increasing popularity of mime theatre in the last centuries before Christ had also some reflections in poetry, as in the second, fourteenth, and fifteenth Idylls of TheocritusFootnote 44 and the Mimiambs of Herodas. Scholars had hoped that literary mime might shed some light on theatrical mime; this is why Rusten and Cunningham recently edited the Characters of Theophrastus, the Mimiambs of Herodas, the fragments of Sophron and the Egypt material on mime together in the same volume.Footnote 45
The question of cross-fertilization of genres is complicated because hybridity, ‘blurred genres’ (Clifford Geertz) and syncretism are the rule in the world of Hellenistic art. Formal conventions are relaxed, traditions are mixed in various combinations, and this leads to an aesthetic synthesis of previously distinct art forms. The results are complex; there are no longer just one level of aesthetic expression and one dimension of interpretation. Even the mimiambs, with their Realism and focus on everyday subjects, are written in a sophisticated language and with delicate humour designed for reception by an educated audience. Meanwhile theatrical mime with its vulgarisms and frank scatological and sexual innuendo is performed professionally and appreciated by lower class families and intellectuals alike. So the intriguing idea that literary mime might have enriched the scarce evidence for improvized theatrical mime was in the end misleading; the influence was most likely the other way around.
There is no doubt that the texts closest to theatrical performance are the seven (or eight) Mimiambs of Herodas (third century BC, ev. 270–60). Discovered in 1891 and edited and translated numerous times,Footnote 46 the short dialogues have stimulated scholars’ imaginations and challenged the interpretative competence of many. In the beginning, they were seen mostly as ‘Buchpoesie’ written for solo declamation, and some scholars even had difficulty admitting that one actor could imitate the voices and gestures of two or three characters.Footnote 47 It was in 1979 that the Italian scholar Giuseppe Mastromarco presented an argument, convincing at first sight, in favour of a fully staged theatrical performance for these pieces.Footnote 48 But there are also many arguments against this theory, mostly concerning the lack of notes for blocking and stage business – the presence or absence of characters, exits and entrances, stage blocking, whether characters actually communicated with each other – questions which conventionally are determined within the dramatic text.Footnote 49
It is not by chance that these folkloric scenes from the urban lower classes were often examined together with the bucolic Idylls of Theocritus (especially the dialogues),Footnote 50 because they share the same characteristics of a pseudo-dramatic structure. All of them contain dialogue, but both space and stage business remain undefined even if they were intended for scenic production.Footnote 51 This is quite clear from the very beginning of Mimiamb I, where the entrance of the old procuress Gyllis into the house of Metriche and a door opened by the female slave Thrassa cause a series of unsolved problems: who is doing what, what can be heard by whom and who is standing (or sitting) where in the room?Footnote 52 The changes of speakers, within a single verse, are marked with underlines or paragraphoi but this system is not consistent and often leads to problems determining who is speaking what. The uncertainty about which character speaks is complicated by different readings of the text itself.
Analysis of the others reveal similar problems: Mimiamb II is a scene at the court of justice: the procurer and homosexual Battaros is trying to convince the judges that the young prostitute under his protection, Myrtale, has been raped but this is not at all clear at the beginning. Not until verse 65 does he ask the girl to show to the tribunal the signs of violation on intimate points of her (presumably attractive) body,Footnote 53 but it is unclear whether she was present during the first part of the scene. Only two lines in the whole scene are not spoken by Battaros.Footnote 54 Mimiamb III is about the punishment of the lazy pupil Kottalos at school, where his mother, Metrotime, has a similar long monologue followed by his teacher Lampriskos.Footnote 55
In Mimiamb IV two women are sacrificing a cock in the temple of Asclepios, proceeding into the temple hall and admiring the statues in a very naïve manner.Footnote 56 Here it is unclear what exactly is going on, because the ‘stage space’ is unfolding, as the ladies are going from art work to art work and commenting on the natural likeness and authenticity of sculptures and paintings.Footnote 57
Mimiamb V has been compared with the adultery mime in OxyP 413:Footnote 58 the lascivious housewife Bitinna punishes her slave Gastron, because now that he is engaged to another female slave, he is not willing to satisfy her desires anymore. After a struggle, and after the slaves have bound him with ropes and taken him outside to be whipped, Bittina orders them back inside to punish him otherwise. Here again the stage action is entirely unclear (who is on-stage, who is off-stage, who is doing what exactly): we see the action through the eyes of the outrageous housewife.Footnote 59
Mimiamb VI has some structural affinities with I: it concerns two women visiting each other and the confidential conversation between them. The subject in this case is a leather phallus, manufactured by the shoemaker Kerdon, the protagonist in VII.Footnote 60 The problems with defining the scenic actions are similar, with the female slave carrying in a chair, wiping off the dust etc.; concrete scenic actions are obviously not the author’s chief concern.Footnote 61 The sales scene in Mimiamb VII is similar, with Kerdon showing shoes to two ladies while two slaves help him (carrying chairs, wiping off the dust, finding pairs of shoes etc.), praising his own merchandise,Footnote 62 with the customers then bargaining over the price. But the sales monologue of Kerdon is dominant.Footnote 63
As theatrical performances these short studies of everyday behaviour among lower-class urbanites, lasting not much more than 100 iambic verses each, might have less entertainment value because there is no real plot. Aside from the fact that no clear scenic action is established, the spoken text in some cases is largely monologic in structure and presents the story through the eyes of the protagonist in a sort of ‘inner monologue’. The sophisticated language of the poems here is decorated with rare vocabulary that functions as kind of Verfremdungseffekt.Footnote 64 Some scholars have spoken about the ‘verismo trap’ in interpretation.Footnote 65 The sardonic realismFootnote 66 of brutality, violence, greediness, profiteering and sexuality is presented with a distancing humour and in a language that is most likely alien to the urban folk milieu. This poetry is addressed to an educated audience, able to appreciate the calculated difference between plot and style. Mastromarco spoke about ‘elite theatre’, but the text itself points in the direction of skilled declamation by a solo mime.Footnote 67
Nevertheless, Herodas does use a host of standard topoi from theatrical mime: adultery, sexual jealousy, sexual puns, prostitution, punishment by beating, scolding of slaves, and temple scenes with priests, etc. As the titles of these poems indicate, their relationship with mime theatre is close and stereotypic plot elements are used consciously.Footnote 68 Herodas seems to be playing around with the incommensurability of genres.
Theatrical Mime (Oxyrhynchos Papyri)
To get a better idea what theatrical mime was about, two extant texts, found in a papyrus in the Upper Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchos (OxyP 413), Charition, a sketch or persiflage most likely inspired by the Euripidean tragedy Iphigenia in Taurus, and an adultery mime conventionally called Moicheutria,Footnote 69 are illustrative. The condition of the two text fragments written on the same papyrus is problematic and has given rise to discussions about the nature and function of these texts. Nevertheless, there is some consensus that they were most likely written for stage production. Thanks to Wiemken’s brilliant monograph in 1972 (based on his 1957 dissertation) there is a sound basis for discussions on the details of performance. Because of the bad condition of the papyrus and the common, koine language of the first or second century AD in which they were written, these texts are not often edited and translated;Footnote 70 there is no poetry, only blunt realism. They do not inspire the delicate smile of an educated audience but bursts of laughter from average people one might find in a provincial urban centre.Footnote 71
Oxyrhynchos was in imperial times an important trade town about ten miles west of the Nile, with a bilingual population of around fifteen thousand (Egyptians, Greeks, and possibly others).Footnote 72 It also had a theatre of considerable size, seating more than eleven thousand spectators;Footnote 73 which would have been essential because the Charition mime requires two choruses, musicians, musical instruments, a temple and a mimicum naufragium, most likely a kind of a prop ship that could appear to pull away. As far as the genre of song and music is concerned, it resembles some sort of opera or comic operetta, as Reich put it.Footnote 74 The text is full of signs and marks for drums, cymbals and other instrumentsFootnote 75 but also has cues for exits and entrances; hence it is what is called un document théâtrale de nature techniqueFootnote 76 or Regie-EntwurfFootnote 77 – a ‘performance outline’ or a prompt book.Footnote 78 Wiemken argues convincingly that the rest of the text should be improvized by the actors.Footnote 79
Charition, is a persiflage drawn perhaps from Iphigenia among the Taurians, one of Euripides’ most popular ‘escape tragedies’ (together with Helen and Andromeda).Footnote 80 Here the subject is not domestic matters or adultery, but the daring flight of Iphigenia from the barbarian land of the Taurians, with the characters speaking in a sort of Indian dialect. The dramatis personae are ‘A’, Charition; ‘B’, her slave, in the central part of the fool; ‘Γ‘, Charition’s brother; and several other roles designated similarly by Greek letters.Footnote 81 The model for this play is doubtless Euripides,Footnote 82 with echoes of the Polyphemus episode in Odyssey book 9, a popular subject for satyr drama.Footnote 83 The escape-from-barbarians topos is also evident in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae (411), and is also found in book 3 of the Ephesian Tale by Xenophon of Ephesus.Footnote 84 It is difficult to say what the impact of this archetypal colonial encounter, not to mention the ever-popular shipwreck stories, might have been and how spectators might have reacted to this spectacular show.Footnote 85 It is also an open question whether the barbarian, pseudo-Indian dialect featured here was intelligible to the audience, whether it reproduced some sort of existing dialect from India, or whether it was nonsense designed to sound like a foreign language.Footnote 86
Wiemken has suggested that the second text on the same papyrus, the adultery mime play Moicheutria, was played in the Oxyrhynchos theatre by the same mime troupe, consisting of seven members with the archimimus playing the stupidus and other stereotypical roles distinguishable in the two plays.Footnote 87 But these two mime dramas are very different: the adultery mime has no choruses, no music, no spectacular scenic action, and guides us through the familiar world of domestic quarrels, erotic jealousy and affairs with house slaves – very similar to the plot of Herodas’ Mimiamb V.Footnote 88 Nevertheless, the text has been the subject of several studies for other reasons.Footnote 89 Here the signs and marks in the text may be linked to stage business and action, or may indicate pauses; in the end it remains open to interpretation.
The text is structured in a different manner: after a lacuna of thirty-seven lines (and seven more which are difficult to read) we may distinguish seven entrances and one scene and at least five different intrigues.Footnote 90 The action centres on a lustful Mistress of the house (kyria), her favoured slave Aesopus and his lover Apollonia, among others. The Mistress, jealous when Aesopus refuses her advances, orders the lovers murdered – only to break into lamentations when Aesopus is taken in apparently dead. The lamentations break off when she is consoled by another slave, Malacus.Footnote 91 Together she and Malacus plot to kill the entire household, beginning with her husband. Other intrigues ensue and when her husband is taken out, apparently dead, the Mistress pretends to mourn himFootnote 92 but is interrupted by Malacus, who mourns him with abusive words. The Old Man then rises in fury, and in the dénouement it turns out that Aesopus and Apollonia were both unharmed. The play probably concluded with a song, perhaps referring to the Mistress’ punishment.Footnote 93
The text has no indications which character speaks which lines. If, as proposed convincingly by Tsitsiridis, the lamentation is delivered by the Mistress and not a slave, then the entire text is a ‘side’ or role excerpt for the part of the archimima (she speaks eighty of eighty-eight lines).Footnote 94 Papyrus material from Oxyrhynchos include other examples of actor copies for separate parts in dramatic works.Footnote 95 But this indicates that there was a written mime drama, as appears to be the case with Charition as well. There are good arguments for the existence of elaborate mime dramas which were written down on papyri and presumably stored in libraries. The papyri attest that improvization may have had a more limited role and does account for the mime drama as a whole. The Moicheutria from Oxyrhynchos, then, appears to be a role excerpt from a full-length mime drama with several plots revolving around the adultery of a ruthless, egocentric, sexually unrestrained housewife; her old husband and a wide variety of slaves. It features criminal behaviour, brutal punishment, and multiple attempted murders. As other text fragments show, these are standard elements in theatrical mime.Footnote 96
In addition to these, Tsitsiridis lists intrigues, arguments, sex, eating and drinking, stereotyped roles, with dramaturgical features such as repetition, condensed stage time and very quickly developing plots, presumably performed with expressive gestures and an intensely physical acting style. Small wonder, then, that the Greek Church Fathers were outraged by the immorality and vulgarity of mime plots,Footnote 97 in addition to the erotic lasciviousness of pantomime. Popular theatre in Hellenistic times was not for the faint of heart, it seems.
Pantomime
One of the most fascinating theatrical entertainments of Late Antiquity was the dance pantomime, long underestimated in its cultural influence and for years of little interest to academics.Footnote 98 As a result there is a significant dividing line between older research and more recent efforts.Footnote 99 The mimetic dance of the cheirosophistae (‘skilled hands’), usually lascivious and erotic in character and emphasizing the movement of the hands, was not just an elite form but was popular among all classes of society. A single masqued dancer is all that is required to perform, through movement alone, stories usually taken from tragedy or mythology, to the accompaniment of a chorus which sang popular songs as a sort of libretto explaining the content of the play. But it appears there may have been significant differences between dinner entertainment and public performances in the theatre.Footnote 100 All we have are indirect sources; not a single song of the accompanying chorus has been saved.Footnote 101 But the show must have been impressive, with the dancer’s identity shifting continually from one role to another. ‘The costume in its beauty, feminine seductiveness, and transcendental quality symbolized and represented the central characteristics of the art form itself’.Footnote 102
As mentioned previously, it is difficult to distinguish the legal and canonical status of pantomime from mime and other stage spectacles; it is equally difficult to divide pantomime between the Hellenistic and Roman schools.Footnote 103 Indirect sources on pantomime include masques and inscriptions, while descriptions in literature like Lucian’s Περὶ ὀρχήσεως and Libanius’ later defence indicate that the pantomime had a stronger appeal to intellectuals than mime.Footnote 104 Epigraphic evidence for the pantomīmos seems to begin in the mid-third century BC, with inscriptions becoming more numerous in the first century BC; after that Bathyllus and Pylades (both from the East) reformed the mimetic dance in Rome and took it to its full development.Footnote 105 It has been noted that Seneca, given the loose dramaturgical structure of his tragedies, was considerably influenced by pantomime.Footnote 106 The literary evidence shows us that pantomime played an important role in the social and aesthetic life of Late Antiquity: the mute, masqued dancer with neutral facial expression, the beautifully costumed body with its erotic movements, was an incarnation of theatrical corporalityFootnote 107 and offered an internationally recognized ‘language’ of ‘silent eloquence’ – a fitting genre for the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Roman Empire. The pantomime’s highly expressive dances treated traditional cultural subjects and drew from a cultural heritage reaching back to antiquity.
As Lada Richards has put it:
Popular with all levels of society, pantomime became a sizzling melting pot of social identity construction. Even on the basis of our fragmentary evidence, pantomime begs to be envisaged as the vibrant, ever colourful terrain where competing models of individuality could be explored, cultural configurations (especially of gender and desire) fashioned and contested, and important negotiations between elite and popular culture played out… Pantomime quickened the pace of culture formations and shaped aesthetic sensibilities, moral categories and modes of understanding of the self and others in ways we have only very recently begun to reassess. Even the mere ‘idea’ of the pantomime dancer, with its attendant connotations of disorder and licentiousness, eroticism and riotous passion as well as its intoxicating play with multiple identities thrillingly fused into a single protean body, proved polarizing with respect to issues at the very heart of Graeco-Roman culture.Footnote 108
The literary evidence for pantomime begins with Xenophon’s Symposium and its description of a dinner pantomime of an erotic encounter between Dionysus and Ariadne, which was so exciting that all the attendees mounted their horses to go home to their wives as quickly as possible.Footnote 109 From the first century BC onwards this admired dance form spread throughout the Roman Empire, as the inscriptions in the theatre of Priene show,Footnote 110 as well as the testimonies of PlutarchFootnote 111 and Apuleius.Footnote 112 But the most detailed account is found in Lucian, a Hellenized Syrian rhetor (c. AD 129–190), whose his treatise Περὶ ὀρχήσεως (On dancing) is a key source for the genre.Footnote 113 On the talents of these dancers ‘with speaking hands’ he wrote: ‘He could imitate even the liquidity of water and the sharpness of fire in the liveliness of his movement; yes, the fierceness of a lion, the rage of a leopard, the quivering of a tree, and in a word whatever he wished’.Footnote 114 He recounts how a Barbarian from Pontus visited Nero, ‘and among other entertainments saw the dancer perform so vividly that although he could not follow what was being sung – he was but half hellenised, as it happened – he understood everything’.Footnote 115 With five different masques, ‘the dancer undertakes to present and enact characters and emotions, introducing now a lover and now an angry person, one man afflicted with madness, another with grief, and all this within fixed bounds’.Footnote 116 He reports the critical reaction of the people of Antioch to dancers they did not appreciate,Footnote 117 as well as the case of the pantomime who overdid his mimicry while dancing Ajax, and went crazy.Footnote 118 Lucian is an invaluable source for details about the show.
The famous Bathylus and Pylades are also mentioned by Athenaeus,Footnote 119 and another source of information is Libanius, a rhetor from Antioch in the fourth century AD.Footnote 120 In his Orations he not only gives an interesting explanation of its origins – that pantomime developed at a time when the poetic agon had declined, as a kind of instruction for the illiterate in tragedyFootnote 121 – but also admires the aesthetic authenticity of the presentation of gods like ‘living statues’.Footnote 122 He admires the pantomime’s vivid art of metamorphosis as well: Mind you, the possibility of each of the actions being accurately observed has been taken away by the speed of their body repeatedly undergoing a change to whatever you like. Each one of them is almost Proteus the Egyptian. You would say through the wand of Athena, which transforms the shape of Odysseus, they take on every guise; old men, young men, the humble, the mighty, the dejected, the elated, servants, masters’.Footnote 123
Pantomime was still alive in Syria at the beginning of the sixth century AD, if Bishop Jacob of Sarugh’s Homilies on the Spectacles of the Theatre (c. AD 500) reflect contemporary practice and are not just formulaic condemnations of pagan and idolatrous shows – a common occurrence in Byzantine times.Footnote 124 But before addressing the fate of theatre and dramatic texts during the Byzantine millennium we should have a closer look at another phenomenon, characteristic of the Hellenistic age: the awareness of the inherent theatricality of public life. As discussed previously, this was the era that witnessed the dissolution of aesthetic forms, changes in the context for religious festivals, as well as the creation of new (imperial) contexts for a variety of performances. There was also a marked decline in original dramatic productions and an increased reliance on revivals of a much-admired canon, now promoted as a cultural heritage. These changes gave way to a widespread diffusion of theatrical practices, whether in terms of scenic design or ‘dramatic’ behaviour, into the public sphere, creating a sense of generic ‘theatricality’ in a now-multiethnic and cosmopolitan society – a quality of social interaction that has recently become the focus of numerous theatre studies.Footnote 125
The Theatricality of Everyday Life
An art historian once remarked, ‘The theater in all ages has always served to provide a reflection of, or analogue of life, but in the Hellenistic period one gets the impression that life was sometimes seen as a reflection of the theater’.Footnote 126 Theatricality, loosely defined, is the effort to manipulate an observer’s impressions – usually for the benefit of the ‘actor’. This definition includes other more historically rooted phenomena such as the degradation of fully vested citizens to spectators of public life, particularly in the Diadoch kingdoms under the generals who succeeded Alexander the Great, and who ruled with only the semblance of democracy. The founding of theatres in many cities and the creation of new public festivals with theatrical spectaclesFootnote 127 featuring professional actors transformed citizens into spectators of public affairs and public figures into actors, who were expected to perform professionally according to the expectations of the audience.Footnote 128 Reality and theatre were increasingly confused; witness Nero, who used actors in the audienceFootnote 129 or performed real executions on stage as part of a fictional play.Footnote 130 In Christian times martyrdom was sometimes a staged spectacle for a public audience.Footnote 131 In the public sphere, actors’ training was vital for students of rhetoric, and as advocates the graduates of rhetoric schools used this training in the courts.Footnote 132 The private lives of rulers were a carefully staged sequence of scenes, in order to create the desired impression and enhance the public image of qualified and popular leaders.Footnote 133
Although theatres were used for different purposes even in classical times, by the Hellenistic age they now hosted a wide variety of events from musical competitions and concerts to speeches by itinerant scholars, nuptial festivities, etc. In the theatre of Delos in 145 BC a young prodigy demonstrated his admirable abilities in both speech and song.Footnote 134 Religious rituals were still performed on the theatre’s thymele, but now the orchestra also hosted symposia. Judicial proceedings were held in the theatre, as well as citizens’ assemblies and conventions of the demos.Footnote 135 During these events imperial announcements were made, people were honoured and candidates for prohedria (who were accorded a seat of honour in the same theatre) were elected. Festive entry processions of honourable city leaders and institutions were a vital part of the spectacle. In this way, public affairs were conducted in a fashion that was just as spectacular as the theatre shows themselves.
‘Theatricality’ was also the primary mode of public rhetorical declamations (hypocrisis, actio, pronuntiatio): not only were the tones and modalities of the voice controlled and regulated but also gestures, facial expression (eyes and eyebrows, lips, even the wings of the nose) and general body language (head, neck, shoulders, steps). Extant rhetorical guidelines offer a detailed code of behaviour, complete with exterior signs for all occasions; public figures should be familiar, in a jovial mood and high spirits, while the accused should appear at court in rags and tatters in order to arouse pity and sympathy in the jury. Likewise political speeches or defences at court had to follow an elaborate dramaturgy with special attention to highlights, surprises, as well as the climax of the argument. Diplomatic decisions and votes were carefully ‘staged’ texts, designed to give the desired impression of the addressee to the addressed. Statues of dignitaries were ‘staged’ as well, designed to give the impression of self-control, self-awareness, decisiveness and even self-sacrifice on behalf of the citizens.
In the case of rulers and monarchs the persona of familiarity had to be balanced with a remoteness appropriate to their god-like status. The Hellenistic Diadoch Kingdoms were usually military states but with a democratic façade; accordingly rules of behaviour for the privileged classes were cultivated with care. Even the apotheosis of a ruler had a careful mise-en-scène;Footnote 136 his public appearances, often made in the theatre, were meticulously staged and acted,Footnote 137 and court ceremonies were themselves a sort of ‘theatre’. Without doubt the most ‘theatrical’ king of this period was Demetrios Poliorketes (337/6 BC–283/2 BC), the unsuccessful besieger of Rhodes (305–4 BC).Footnote 138
‘Hypocritical’ behaviour is evident not only in the case of ruler cults but also in other cult ceremonies: sacrifices and processions, festivities, oracles and augury, whether performed by priests or laity. Theatrical modes of piety include hikesia, or humbleness; the pretence of incapacity; the debasement of the supplicant to the status of a slave; the simulated appearance of a god. All this was carefully staged so as to be truly spectacular; but with this calculated show of piety arises the spectre of secularism. With this sort of secularization via spectacle, the ceremony is not so much addressed to the gods as to the spectators themselves.Footnote 139 Another element is the concept of ‘life-as-drama’ or the ‘world-as-stage’, as delineated in the philosophy and historiography of the Hellenistic period, especially in Epictetus and Polybius (second century BC), where history is seen in terms of tragedy.Footnote 140 This Hellenistic idea of a world theatre would have a long Nachleben in Byzantium and the Western Renaissance, hence its prominence in the works of Shakespeare and Lope de Vega; it can also be linked to the semantic shifts of ancient theatrical terminology in Christian literature,Footnote 141 a topic we will analyze in more detail in Chapter 2.
So how did ancient theatre and drama come to an end? In the epigonic phases of ancient theatre during the last centuries BC, the popular forms of mime and pantomime emerged as serious competition for traditional forms of theatre, a phenomenon which persisted at least into the third and fourth centuries AD.Footnote 142 So although the architecture of the theatre building was in evidence throughout the Hellenistic and Roman Empires, the ‘architecture’ of the drama was dissolved and merged with other genres. The subtle philosophy of tragedy and the sarcastic social criticism of comedy yielded to a certain tendency towards lasciviousness, vulgarity and farce designed for urban, lower-class audiences. Only the mystery of masqued dancers in pantomime kept the grandeur of tragedy’s cultural heritage in the public consciousness.
There were theatres throughout the Greek-speaking world, and with the rise of the Roman Empire, theatromania moved further outside the theatre and into society and public life in general. Parallel to this, extant texts of ancient dramas were cultivated mainly for their language and poesy; they were used both in scholarship and in the school tradition, studied, copied, taught and critiqued, to be passed down to the Late Roman and Byzantine Empires, and beyond.Footnote 143 Such was the state of affairs when Christianity appeared; a radically different worldview distinct from Hellenistic syncretism and polytheism, it was radically opposed to the theatricality of Hellenistic and Roman culture. In the light of divine revelation and the knowledge of truth, any hypocrisis (play-acting) was rejected as blasphemous. Christianity would put its own stamp on a process of dissolution that had started long before; but the closure of public theatres would not occur straightway.
Scholarship and Further Readings
A good overview of recent developments in research on Greek theatre of the fourth century is Csapo, E. / H. R. Boette / J. R. Green / P. Wilson Reference Csapo, Boette, Green and Wilson2014. For the scanty evidence on Hellenistic drama see Sifakis Reference Sifakis1967, Xanthakis-Karamanos Reference Xanthakis-Karamanos1993, Easterling/Miles Reference Easterling, Miles and Miles1999, Ghiron-Bistagne 1974, Lesky Reference Ghiron-Bistagne and Welskopf1953 (Gyges drama).
The scholarship on Dionysiakoi technitai as a basic exponent of Hellenistic show business is not that extensive. The collection of inscriptions and prosopography by Stefanis Reference Stefanis1988 is of fundamental importance, but see also in connection with the specialization of the stage professions Chaniotis Reference Chaniotis1990. A good overview of later show business can be found in Webb Reference Webb2008a; basic are also the monographs of Le Guen Reference Le Guen1995, Reference Le Guen1997, Reference Le Guen2001, Reference Le Guen, Hugoniot, Hurlet and Milanezi2004, and the studies of Aneziri Reference Aneziri2003, Reference Aneziri and Wilson2007, Reference Aneziri, Hunter and Rutherford2009. See further Ghiron-Bistagne Reference Ghiron-Bistagne1976: 163–71, 179–91, 205–6, more specifically Pöhlmann Reference Pöhlmann1997and Longo Reference Longo1990; in a more general way Schneider Reference Schneider1969: II 237–71; and from the older bibliography Lüders Reference Lüders1873, Poland Reference Poland1934, and Pickard-Cambridge Reference Pickard-Cambridge1962: 279–305. For a broader context see also the influential book of Winkler/Zeitlin Reference Winkler and Zeitlin1990. For dramatic performances in the third and fourth centuries AD see Nervegna Reference Nervegna and Revermann2014, Reference Nervegna, Csapo, Goette, Green and Wilson2014a and Barnes Reference Barnes and Slater1996.
Mime The older bibliography on mime should be treated with caution. Essential was Reich Reference Reich1903, but his work contains many misinterpretations; see subsequently Müller Reference Müller1909, Friedländer Reference Friedländer1920: II 124–34, Wüst Reference Wüst1932, Guarducci Reference Guarducci1929, Corbato Reference Corbato1947, Bonaria Reference Bonaria1955/6, Reference Bonaria1959, Reference Bonaria1965, Vretska Reference Vretska1969. There is a whole series of recent studies on mime: on pictorial graffiti in Ephesus Roueché Reference Roueché2002, on mime and circus factions Cameron Reference Cameron1976, on mime in Syria in the sixth century AD Cramer Reference Cramer1980, on females in mime Webb Reference Webb2002, on scenic masques at the propylon of Sebasteion at Aphrodisias Jory Reference Jory2002 and Chaisemartin Reference Chaisemartin2006, Reference Chaniotis, Basch and Chuvin2007, on mime and prostitution Edwards Reference Edwards, Judith, Hallet and Skinner1997, on private performances at dinners Jones Reference Jones and Slater1991, on baptism and crucifixion in mimic parody Panayotakis Reference Panayotakis1997. See also, mostly for Rome, McKeown Reference McKeown1979 on elegy and mime, Fantham Reference Fantham1989 on mime as a missing link in Roman literary history, Csapo/Slater Reference Csapo and Slater1995: 369–78 in the context of ancient drama, Leppin Reference Leppin1992 for histriones, Puppini Reference Puppini1988 on anonymous mime, Cicu Reference Cicu1988 on the structure of mime performance, Zucchelli Reference Zucchelli1995 on the Latin terminology of mime, Dupont Reference Dupont1985 on actors and acting in Rome (Reference Dupont2003: 361–70 specifically on mime), Rieks Reference Rieks and Lefèvre1978 on mime and atellana, Beacham Reference Beacham1999 about the public audiences, Gianotti Reference Gianotti1993, Reference Gianotti, Pecere and Stramaglia1996 on different spectacles. These studies are very different in scope, quality and methodology. Ploritis Reference Ploritis1990 is a sort of ‘apologia mimorum’ as ‘alternative theatre’ in antiquity.
Literary Mime Concerning the bibliography on the Mimiambs of Herodas see ‘Herodas – A Hellenistic Bibliography’ http://sites.google.com/site/hellenisticbibliography/hellenistic/herodas; for an older bibliography see J. Sitzler Jahresberichte über die Fortschritte der Classischen Altertumswissenschaften 75 (1893) 157–200, 92 (1899) 52–104, 104 (1900) 102–4, 133 (1907) 152–9, 174 (1919) 80–9, 191 (1922) 46; for the state of research see Specchia Reference Specchia1979 and Arnott Reference Arnott and Belloni1995. For scholarship see also Mandilaras Reference Mandilaras1986: 277–96, Cunningham Reference Cunningham1987: XIII–XXV and Mastromarco Reference Mastromarco1984: 5–19. Editions: Kenyon Reference Kenyon1891, J. A. Nairn, Oxford 1904 (Paris 1960), Cunningham Reference Cunningham1971, Reference Cunningham1987, Rusten/Cunningham Reference Rusten and Cunningham2002: 179–283, Gammacurta Reference Gammacurta2006, Zanker Reference Zanker2009 (with English translation); German translation by O. Crusius, Die Mimiamben des Herondas, Göttingen 1893 (1926), French by P. Groeneboom, Les mimiambes d’Hérodas I-VI, Groningen 1922, English in Herodas, The Mimes and Fragment with notes by W. Headlam, edited by A. D. Knox, Cambridge 1922, an Italian by N. Terzaghi, Eroda. I Mimiambi, Torino 1925, another French one by L. Laloy, Hérondas. Mimes, Paris 1928, another German one by K. and U. Treu, Menander. Herondas, Berlin/Weimar 1980, etc.
Theatrical Mime The most important recent scholarship is Wiemken Reference Wiemken1972, Webb Reference Webb2008a: 95–138 and Tsitsiridis Reference Tsitsiridis2011; for Moicheutria Hall Reference Hall and Tsitsiridis2010. Editions: Grenfell/Hunt Reference Grenfell and Hunt1903, more recently Andreassi Reference Andreassi2001a with Italian translation and Gammacurta Reference Gammacurta2006. For Charition see Santelia Reference Santelia1991. As is apparent here, there is a great deal of room for further investigation.
Pantomime For older research see Grysar Reference Grysar1834, Latte Reference Latte1913, Grassi Reference Grassi1920, Robert Reference Robert1930, Kyriakidis Reference Kyriakidis1934, Weinreich Reference Weinreich1948, Wüst Reference Wüst1949, Rotolo Reference Rotolo1957, Bonaria Reference Bonaria1955–6, Reference Bonaria1959, Reference Bonaria1965. A more recent wave of research begins with the study of Robinson Reference Robinson1979 on Lucian; there are essential contributions on specific aspects of imperial pantomime by Jory Reference Jory1981, Reference Jory and Slater1996, Reference Jory, Hillard, Kearsley, Nixon and Nobbs1998, Reference Jory2002, Reference Jory2004; Branham Reference Branham1989 on Lucian; there are also studies on pantomime and mime by Gianotti Reference Gianotti1991, Reference Gianotti1993, Reference Gianotti, Pecere and Stramaglia1996, with the archeological evidence presented by Roueché Reference Roueché1993, Reference Roueché2002; on a feminine actress Traina Reference Traina and Fraschetti1994, on the pantomime in Rome Garelli-François Reference Garelli-François1995; about Libanius on the dancers Molloy Reference Molloy1996; see also Naerebout Reference Naerebout1997, Bernstein Reference Bernstein1998, Lightfood Reference Lightfood and Taplin2000, Reference Lightfood2002, Webb Reference Webb2002; on female dancers, Bergmann/Kondoleon Reference Bergmann and Kondoleon2000, Vesterinen Reference Vesterinen, Pietilä-Castrén and Vesterinen2003; on Lucian, Cairns Reference Cairns2005, and Hall/Wyles Reference Hall2008, which covers a wide spectrum of important, focused studies (Wyles, Wiseman, Jory, Hunt, Zimmermann, Zanobi, Hall, Lada-Richards, Schlapbach). See also Dupont Reference Dupont1985, Reference Dupont2003: 486–98.
On the theatricality of public life in the Hellenistic age, the studies of Chaniotis Reference Chaniotis1997, Reference Chaniotis and Erskine2003, Reference Chaniotis, Steinicke and Weinfurter2007 and Reference Chaniotis2009 are absolutely essential.
