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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 March 2020
The purpose of this paper is to examine the evidence commonly claimed to show the presence of slaves in the audience of Plautus’ comedies (above all the evidence of his prologue to Poenulus) and to argue that it more probably shows the opposite, that slaves were not present, or at least were expected not to be. The question is given some urgency by the appearance of Amy Richlin's new book, which takes the presence of slaves in the audience for granted and builds on it to develop a view of Plautine comedy as addressing the experiences, hopes and fears of those slaves. Richlin cites the Poenulus prologue at pages 89–90, accepting it without detailed discussion as indicating the presence of slaves in the audience; and it has been cited similarly in standard handbooks from which I quote a representative sample of remarks below. Some scholars have said things in passing which suggest a different conclusion, but they too have not discussed the question in detail or examined the other evidence that has been thought relevant to the issue. I think that the time is ripe for closer scrutiny of all this evidence.
Peter Brown died in November 2018. His widow Lesley Brown is grateful to Costas Panayotakis for expert copy-editing and proof-reading.
1 Richlin, A., Slave Theater in the Roman Republic: Plautus and Popular Comedy (Cambridge, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This is a fuller account of views she had presented in publications to which I shall refer below: ‘Role-playing in Roman civilization and Roman comedy courses: how to imagine a complex society’, CJ 108 (2013), 347–61, and ‘Talking to slaves in the Plautine audience’, ClAnt 33 (2014), 174–226.
2 Richlin (n. 1 [2017]), 379–80.
3 See Goldberg, S.M., Constructing Literature in the Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2005), 62–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marshall, C.W., The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy (Cambridge, 2006), 257–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 See Taylor, L.R., ‘The opportunities for dramatic performances in the time of Plautus and Terence’, TAPhA 68 (1937), 284–304Google Scholar, at 303–4; Richlin (n. 1 [2014]), 214–15, 220.
5 Zwierlein, O., Zur Kritik und Exegese des Plautus I: Poenulus und Curculio (Stuttgart, 1990), 206–15Google Scholar argues convincingly for the genuineness of most of the Poenulus prologue, against the attempt of Jocelyn, H.D., ‘Imperator histricus’, YClS 21 (1969), 95–123Google Scholar to show that it was ‘an editor's conflation of several acting scripts’ (at 123). Jocelyn allowed that lines 3–49 ‘come from a poet of considerable skill and imagination’ (at 122), and he gave no reason for hesitating to identify that poet as Plautus himself.
6 Duckworth, G., The Nature of Roman Comedy (Princeton, 1952; repr. Bristol, 1994), 82Google Scholar, citing the prologue to Poenulus.
7 W. Beare, The Roman Stage (London, 19643), 173.
8 Manuwald, G., Roman Republican Theatre (Cambridge, 2011), 98CrossRefGoogle Scholar, suitably cautious at the end about the accuracy of this view, but reproducing it all the same.
9 Jocelyn, H.D., ‘Code-switching in the comoedia palliata’, in Vogt-Spira, G. and Rommel, B. (edd.), Rezeption und Identität (Stuttgart, 1999), 169–95Google Scholar, at 169.
10 Fontaine, M., Funny Words in Plautine Comedy (Oxford, 2009), 185CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 McCarthy, K., Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy (Princeton and Oxford, 2000), 17Google Scholar n. 27; in the same note she proceeds to argue against ‘the possibility that it voiced the viewpoint of slaves in some allegorical way’.
12 Richlin (n. 1 [2013]), 356.
13 Richlin (n. 1 [2014]), 208, 218–19.
14 It is now accepted that sitting was the norm for audiences in the time of Plautus and Terence: see Manuwald (n. 8), 105–6.
15 Goldberg, S.M., ‘Plautus on the Palatine’, JRS 88 (1998), 1–20Google Scholar, at 7: ‘It cannot be otherwise. There is no other place to seat the crowd.’
16 Wiseman, T.P., The Roman Audience (Oxford, 2015), 55–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with references at 207–9.
17 Wiseman (n. 16), 56, though at 102 he speaks of ‘an ad hoc theatre in the Forum’ for the Megalesian Games in the mid first century b.c.e.
18 Cic. Har. resp. 24: ante templum in ipso Matris Magnae conspectu.
19 Wiseman (n. 16), 56.
20 Roselli, D.K., Theater of the People (Austin, 2011), 74–5Google Scholar. See also Sommerstein, A.H., ‘How ‘popular’ was Athenian comedy?’, QUCC 116 (2017), 11–26Google Scholar, at 17–18.
21 Passages from Plautus are taken from the Loeb edition by Wolfgang de Melo (5 vols.) (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 2011–13); translations are my own.
22 Isabel Ruffell has suggested to me that illic ultimus might alternatively mean ‘the man at the end there’.
23 Ritschl, F., Parergon Plautinorum Terentianorumque volumen I (Berlin, 1845), 224Google Scholar translates these words as ‘ist ihm das nicht recht, so möge er ein andermal nicht so lange schlafen’ [‘if he doesn't like that, he'd better not sleep in so late another time’] (cf. below, section 4[b], on Most. 357). But this reads rather a lot into uel.
24 Lindsay, W.M., The Captivi of Plautus (London, 1900; repr. Cambridge, 1961), 117Google Scholar.
25 Richlin would not agree that they are usually ignored!
26 Moore, T.J., ‘Seats and social status in the Plautine theatre’, CJ 90 (1994–5), 113–23Google Scholar, at 118; cf. Moore, T.J., The Theater of Plautus (Austin, 1998), 195Google Scholar.
27 See Panayotakis, C., Decimus Laberius: The Fragments (Cambridge, 2010), 282CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘exoleto: […] already in Plautus’ time the word had become almost a technical term for male prostitutes who had passed their prime.’ This is supported here by the masculine quis, since Plautus could have used the feminine form of the indefinite pronoun, even if ‘almost a technical term’ may be hard to justify. However, the sex of the prostitutes is not important for the purposes of this paper.
28 On the different categories of lector, see Wiseman (n. 16), 53, with the references at 206.
29 Moore (n. 26 [1994–5]), 116.
30 Beare (n. 7), 174: ‘Apart from the reservation of special places for the senators after 194 b.c., the rule seems to have been first come, first served.’ Manuwald (n. 8), 106–7: ‘Originally seats seem to have been allocated on a “first come, first served” basis.’
31 Ritschl (n. 23), 224 again translates as ‘ist ihm das nicht recht, so möge er aufhören Sklav zu sein (= sich frei kaufen)’ [‘if he doesn't like that, he'd better stop being a slave (= pay for his freedom)’].
32 Cf. the paraphrase by John Henderson, ‘Hanno's Punic heirs: der Poenulus-Neid des Plautus’, in Henderson, J., Writing Down Rome (Oxford, 1999), 3–37Google Scholar, at 11: ‘Slaves bagging the seats and squeezing out non-slaves. Scram, or else.’
33 Wiseman (n. 16), 54, 206 reports an unpublished suggestion by Michael Fontaine that the slaves were saving seats for their late-rising masters.
34 Cf. Henderson (n. 32), 11: ‘Children are not welcome.’ On the possible presence of children other than infants, see section 5 below.
35 Prizes were almost certainly awarded to actors rather than plays; see Manuwald (n. 8), 88 n. 161.
36 Moore (n. 26 [1994–5]), 117 n. 17.
37 G. Maurach, Der Poenulus des Plautus (Heidelberg, 19882), 53: ‘Theater für den priviligierten freien Mann’.
38 Henderson (n. 32), 11. Also 9–10: ‘The play does not describe, but prescribes the constitution of its audience. And as it goes on to proscribe the clutter of representative groups among its spectators, it outlines them as the butts of its humour.’
39 Slater, N.W., ‘Plautine negotiations: the Poenulus prologue unpacked’, YClS 29 (1992), 131–46Google Scholar, at 138.
40 Hurka, F., ‘Plautus und die Erschaffung des Zuschauers: Publikumsnormierung und narrative Perspektivensteuerung im Prolog des Poenulus’, in Moore, T.J. and Polleichtner, W. (edd.), Form und Bedeutung im lateinischen Drama / Form and Meaning in Latin Drama (Trier, 2013), 33–51Google Scholar, at 36–43.
41 Fitzgerald, W., Slavery and the Roman Literary Imagination (Cambridge, 2000), 42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
42 Richlin, A., Rome and the Mysterious Orient: Three Plays by Plautus (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 2005), 253Google Scholar n. 44.
43 Fontaine (n. 10), 185. Richlin (n. 1 [2014]), 217 n. 52 points out that it is wrong to talk of ‘legislation’ and that the separation of senatorial seats is attested for the Games as a whole, not specifically for dramatic performances; the latter point is also emphasized by Dwora Gilula in her fuller discussion of the matter: Gilula, D., ‘The allocation of seats to senators in 194 b.c.e.’, in Katzoff, R., Petroff, Y. and Schaps, D. (edd.), Classical Studies in Honor of David Sohlberg (Ramat Gan, 1996), 235–44Google Scholar.
44 This was the self-confessedly speculative suggestion of E. Fraenkel, Elementi Plautini in Plauto, transl. F. Munari (Florence, 1960), 431 = Plautine Elements in Plautus, transl. T. Drevikovsky and F. Muecke (Oxford, 2007), 417. Richlin (n. 1 [2014]), 191–2 acknowledges the metatheatricality of Bacch. 213–15, but also sees the passage as an inspiration for slaves in the audience; see also Richlin (n. 1 [2017]), 224–5 on Chrysalus, 317 on Marx, Gripus. F., Plautus Rudens (Berlin, 1928; repr. Amsterdam, 1959), 213Google Scholar took Rud. 1249–53 to be incontrovertible evidence that slaves were allowed to attend theatrical performances in the Greek world in the time of Diphilus, the author of the Greek original.
45 The same perhaps applies to Naevius, Tarentilla fr. 1, where it looks as if a slave character speaks of having applauded something in the theatre, but since it is extremely uncertain what that is actually about I shall not discuss it here. There is a very full discussion of it in M. Barchiesi, La Tarentilla rivisitata: studi su Nevio comico (Pisa, 1978), 2–66. Richlin (n. 1 [2017]), 144–5 also adduces Plaut. Amph. 41–4, where Mercury claims to have seen tragedies; but Mercury here speaks as the son of Jupiter rather than as a slave (cf. 40 et ego et pater, 44 meus pater, 46 patri meo). Some knowledge of the theatre in a general way is also shown by slaves at Persa 465–6 and Poen. 581; and at Truc. 931–2 the (female, non-slave) prostitute Phronesium quotes a line she says was spoken by an actor in the theatre. In addition, the slave Sceparnio at Rud. 86 says ‘It wasn't a wind but Euripides’ Alcumena’ (non uentus fuit, uerum Alcumena Euripidi). No doubt a version of Euripides’ Alcmene had recently been put on at Rome (see Jocelyn, H.D., The Tragedies of Ennius [Cambridge, 1967], 6–7Google Scholar); Sceparnio does not claim to have seen it, but he shares the audience's knowledge of it as a cultural reference-point, just as (for example) Chrysalus is able to echo Roman tragedy at Bacch. 933. It does not necessarily follow from this evidence that real-life slaves or prostitutes went to the theatre at Rome.
46 Fraenkel, E., Plautinisches im Plautus (Berlin, 1922) 141Google Scholar = (n. 44 [1960]), 134 = (n. 44 [2007]), 95.
47 Gratwick, A.S., Plautus Menaechmi (Cambridge, 1993), 149Google Scholar: ‘Men. addresses us directly, asking all the adulterers […] in the audience to “stand up, please”. This way of singling out sections of the audience is a specially Plautine comic ploy, cf. Fraenkel (1960) 134.’
48 ‘oder vielmehr’ (Lorenz, A.O.F., Ausgewählte Komödien des T. Maccius Plautus, zweites Bändchen: Mostellaria [Berlin, 1883 2]Google Scholar); ‘vel potius, atque adeo’ (Ussing, J.L., T. Macci Plauti Comoediae III pars altera, Epidicum, Mostellariam, Menaechmos continens [Copenhagen, 1888 2, repr. in Commentarius in Plauti Comoedias, vol. II, Hildesheim and New York, 1972Google Scholar], on line 349 in his numbering); ‘or rather’ (Sonnenschein, E.A., T. Macci Plauti Mostellaria [Oxford, 1907 2]Google Scholar). So too de Melo in his Loeb edition translates ‘or rather’.
49 Marshall (n. 3), 75, translating quae pueri sciunt as ‘as boys know’; cf. Richlin 2017 (n. 1 [2017]), 171–2.
50 At Cist. 89–90 (in a passage evidently modelled on Menander, fr. *337 K.–A.) Selenium is explicit that it was the Dionysiac procession that her mother took her to watch. The same could be true of the Curculio passage, in spite of Beare (n. 7), 243.
51 Similarly, at Men. 29 one of the Menaechmus twins was kidnapped at the age of seven after being separated from his father at the ludi at Tarentum; there is no suggestion that they had gone to watch plays.
52 ut pompa, ludis atque eius modi spectaculis teneantur ob eamque rem uel famem et sitim perferant (ed. Reynolds [Oxford Classical Texts] [Oxford, 1998]).
53 See Rawson, E., ‘Discrimina ordinum: the Lex Julia Theatralis’, PBSR 55 (1987), 83–114Google Scholar (reprinted in Rawson, E., Roman Culture and Society [Oxford, 1991], 508–45Google Scholar), at 91–2 (= 518–19).
54 Manuwald (n. 8), 100–1. See also Gilula, D., ‘Where did the audience go?’, SCI 4 (1978), 45–9Google Scholar; Sandbach, F.H., ‘How Terence's Hecyra failed’, CQ 32 (1982), 134–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Parker, H.N., ‘Plautus vs. Terence: audience and popularity re-examined’, AJPh 117 (1996), 585–617Google Scholar, at 592–601.
55 The Latin text is taken from the Loeb edition by John Barsby (vol. 2) (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 2001); the translation is my own.
56 Lada-Richards, I., ‘Authorial voice and theatrical self-definition in Terence and beyond: the Hecyra prologues in ancient and modern contexts’, G&R 51 (2004), 55–82Google Scholar, at 58.
57 I am not quite convinced by Ricottilli, L., ‘Il cosiddetto primo prologo della Hecyra di Terenzio’, Dioniso 6 (2007), 108–25Google Scholar that lines 1–8 were not written for performance as a prologue but were an accompanying poem addressed to the aediles: in particular, line 8 seems more appropriately addressed to an audience. Ricottilli brings out well the ways in which these lines lack features found in Terence's other prologues; could this be because on this occasion Adelphoe (with a fuller prologue) was also being put on? (Raffaelli, R., Esercizi plautini [Urbino, 2009], 62Google Scholar n. 20 is also unconvinced.) It makes no difference to the question I am discussing, in any case.
58 Goldberg, S.M., Terence Hecyra (Cambridge, 2013), 16–17Google Scholar. At 17 n. 49 he adds: ‘There is no evidence, pace H.N. Parker (1996 [cf. n. 54]: 594–5), that, in the case of Hecyra, the populus intent on these activities at the Megalensia [i.e. at the first performance] was any other than the crowd already gathered for the play.’ J.L. Penwill, ‘The unlovely lover of Terence's Hecyra’, in A.J. Boyle (ed.), Rethinking Terence (Ramus [33.1–2], 2004), 130–49, at 149 n. 62 takes the same line as Goldberg.
59 utrum eos comites dicit, qui sunt pugilum assectatores an seruos qui dominos sequuntur? (Wessner's Teubner text, 1905).
60 Nor does Goldberg appear to believe that they had, since his note considers the possibility that they are ‘the retainers of an aristocrat (OLD 4b) whose entourage created a commotion as he made his way to a seat’ (Goldberg [n. 58], 93).
61 Text from Peterson's Oxford Classical Text (Oxford, 1911).
62 Rawson (n. 53 [1987]), 87–8 (= n. 53 [1991], 513–14).
63 See Gilula, D., ‘The crier's routine (Plaut. Asin. 4–5; Poen. 11–15)’, Athenaeum 81 (1993), 283–7Google Scholar.
64 Cf. also Amph. 75–7, Asin. 15, Cist. 197–202, Rud. 82, all wishing the audience success in war and/or celebrating its previous successes.
65 Ritschl (n. 23), 224–5. Ritschl believed the entire Poenulus prologue to be post-Plautine, for reasons no longer accepted by anyone, but did not think it showed slaves to be regular audience members at the time of its composition.
66 Rawson (n. 53 [1987]), 88 (= n. 53 [1991], 514); Richlin (n. 1 [2014]), 215. See also section 5 (c) above for paedagogi in the audience under Augustus. Rawson (this note at n. 26) also adduces Hor. Epist. 1.14.15 (to the slave who managed his country estate) nunc urbem et ludos et balnea uilicus optas; as with the passage from the Digest, we cannot tell which aspects of the ludi were the attraction.
67 See Manuwald (n. 8), 119.
68 Rawson (n. 53 [1987]), 86–7 (= n. 53 [1991], 512).
69 Manuwald (n. 8), 102 indicates briefly some reasons why such drama might have been particularly prized.
70 See Manuwald (n. 8), 62 on Pompey's theatre, completed the year after Clodius’ aedileship.
71 I am particularly grateful to Amy Richlin for her constructive comments on an earlier draft of this paper, generously offered in spite of our coming to very different conclusions. I also thank Isabel Ruffell and CQ's two anonymous referees for their suggestions. An earlier version of this article is referred to in Richlin, Amy's Slave Theater in the Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar as Brown (2013), with the different title ‘The Audiences of Roman Comedy’.
