DOWNFALL OF THE CLASSICAL
DRAMA |
THE
ignoble end of the Roman--and with it of the ancient classical--drama
has been already foreshadowed. The elements of dance and song,
never integrally united with the dialogue in Roman tragedy, were
now altogether separated from it. While it became customary simply
to recite tragedies to the small audiences who continued (or,
as a matter of courtesy, affected) to appreciate them, the pantomimus
commended itself to the heterogeneous multitudes of the Roman
theatre and to an effete upper class by confining the performance
of the actor to gesticulation and dancing, a chorus singing the
accompanying text. The species was developed with extraordinary
success already under Augustus by Pylades and Bathyllus; and
so popular were these entertainments that even eminent poets,
such as Lucan (d. A.D. 65), wrote the librettos for these fabulae
salticae (ballets), of which the subjects were generally
mythological, only now and then historical, and chiefly of an
amorous kind. A single masked performer was able to enchant admiring
crowds by the art of gesticulation and movement only. In what
direction this art tended, when suiting itself to the most abnormal
demands of a recklessly sensual age, may be gathered from the
remark of one of the last pagan historians of the empire, that
the introduction of pantomimes was a sign of the general moral
decay of the world which began with the beginning of the monarchy.
Comedy more easily lost itself in the cognate form of the mimus,
which survived all other kinds of comic entertainments because
of its more audacious immorality and open obscenity. Women took
part in these performances, by means of which, as late as the
6th century, a mima acquired a celebrity which ultimately
raised her to the imperial throne, and perhaps occasioned the
removal of a disability which would have rendered her marriage
with Justinian impossible.
Meanwhile, the regular drama had lingered
on, enjoying in all its forms imperial patronage in the days
of the literary revival under Hadrian (117-138); but the perennial
taste for the spectacles of the amphitheatre, which was as strong
at Byzantium as it was at Rome, and which reached its climax
in the days of Constantine the Great (306-377), under whom the
reaction set in, determined the downfall of the dramatic art.
It was not absolutely extinguished even by the irruptions of
the northern barbarians; but a bitter adversary had by this time
risen to power. The whole authority of the Christian Church had,
without usually caring to distinguish between the nobler and
the looser elements in the drama, involved all its manifestations
in a consistent condemnation (as in Tertullian's De spectaculis,
200 c.), comprehended them all in an uncompromising anathema.
When the faith of that Church was acknowledged as the religion
of the Roman empire, the doom of the theatre was sealed. It died
hard, however, both in the capitals and in many of the provincial
centres of the East and West alike. At Rome the last mention
of spectacula as still in existence seems to date from
the sway of the East-Goths under Theodoric and his successor,
in the earlier half of the 6th century. In the capital and the
provinces of the Eastern empire the decline and fall of the stage
cannot be similarly traced; but its end is authoritatively assigned
to the period of Saracen invasions which began with the Omayyad
dynasty in the 7th century.
It cannot be pretended that the doom which
thus slowly and gradually overtook the Roman theatre was undeserved.
The remnants of the literary drama had long been overshadowed
by entertainments such as both earlier and later Roman emperors--Domitian
and Trajan as well as Galerius and Constantine--had found themselves
constrained to prohibit in the interests of public morality and
order, by the bloody spectacles of the amphitheatre and by the
maddening excitement of the circus. The art of acting had sunk
into pandering to the lewd or frivolous itch of eye and ear;
its professors had, in the words of a most judicious modern historian,
become "a danger to the peace of house-holders, as well
as to the peace of the streets"; and the theatre had contributed
its utmost to the demoralization of a world. The attitude taken
up by the Christian Church towards the stage was in general as
unavoidable as its particular expressions were at times heated
by fanaticism or distorted by ignorance. Had she not visited
with her condemnation a wilderness of decay, she could not herself
have become--what she little dreamt of becoming--the nursing
mother of the new birth of an art which seemed incapable of regeneration.
Though already in the 4th century scenici
had been excluded from the benefit of Christian sacraments, and
excommunication had been extended to those who visited the theatres
instead of churches on Sundays and holidays, while the clergy
were absolutely prohibited from entering a theatre, and though
similar enactments had followed at later dates--yet the entertainments
of the condemned profession had never been entirely suppressed,
and had even occasionally received imperial patronage. The legislation
on the subject in the Codex Theodosianus (accepted by
both empires in the earlier part of the 5th century) shows a
measure of tolerance indicating a conviction that the theatrical
profession could not be suppressed. Gradually, however, as they
lost all footing in the centres of civic life, the mimes
and their fellows became a wandering fraternity, who doubtless
appeared at festivals when their services were required, and
vanished again into the depths of obscurity which has ever covered
that mysterious existence--the stroller's life. It was thus that
these strange intermediaries of civilization carried down such
traditions as survived of the acting drama of pagan antiquity
into the succeeding ages.
This article was originally
published in Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Volume
VIII. Anonymous. Cambridge: University Press, 1910. p. 496.
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