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On the use of Masks in Roman Comedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Extract

Since the appearance of C. Hoffer's dissertation De personarum usu in P. Terenti comoediis (Halis Saxonum, 1877) the view that masks were not worn at the original performances of the plays of Plautus and Terence has become universally accepted. This dissertation is usually cited by recent writers, who have for the most part been content to accept Hoffer's conclusions in their entirety, and the only independent investigators since the publication of the dissertation have also arrived at very similar conclusions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © A. S. F. Gow 1912. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 65 note 1 Friedlaender (in Mommsen and Marquardt, 2 vol. vi, p. 546), Oehmichen (in Müller's, IwanHandbuch, v, 3, p. 250Google Scholar), L. C. Purser (s. v. Persona in Smith's Dict. Ant.). A. Müller (Griech. Bühnenalt. p. 288) accepts Hoffer's view without naming him.

page 65 note 2 I. van Wageningen (Scaenica Romana, pp. 33, ff.), O. Navarre (s. vv. Histrio and Persona in Daremberg & Saglio's Lexicon).

page 65 note 3 De Art. Gramm. iii, 9, 7, (p. 489, Keil: Kaibel, C.G.F. p. 50.)

page 65 note 4 For eversis, perversis is usually read. The best suggestion for the last clause seems to be that of Hoffer who reads qui, quod … decorus, in, etc. I suggest that we should read in the first sentence aut albi aut nigri vel rufi, since the distinction in colour between red and black is not, even by convention in comedy, a criterion of age.

page 65 note 5 Nat. Deor. i, 79.

page 66 note 1 De Orat. iii, 221.

page 66 note 2 Whether a mask would be efficacious in hiding a squint might be doubted. Cicero implies in the passage we have considered that it would: elsewhere (de Orat. ii. 193) he speaks as if the expression of the eyes was still visible through a mask.

page 66 note 3 This comes perhaps from Varro (cf. Charisius, p. 80, Keil). The galearia seem to have been wigs. It is probable that something has fallen out before this statement in Diomedes: at least the extant context furnishes no explanation of the word itaque.

page 66 note 4 vi, 3.

page 66 note 5 Egere L. Atilius Prenestinus, Minutius Prothymnus.

page 66 note 6 The MSS. of the preface to the Eunucbus give Numidio or Munidio and Prothymio, Prothinio, Prochimo and Prothino: those of the de Comoedia, Prothimus, Protinthus, Prothintus and Protimius. Presumably the same person is meant: I shall in the following pages call him Prothymus (Wolff's correction of the de Comoedia). If the identity is not admitted, the de Comoedia becomes useless for our enquiry as we have no other information as to the person there named.

page 67 note 1 The supplement is due in the first instance to Wilmanns. <Atilio Prenestino> has however equal claims to consideration.

page 67 note 2 Rhein. Mus. xx (1865), pp. 570Google Scholar, ff, xxi (1866), pp. 64, ff.

page 67 note 3 In the following pages I shall refer to the Donatan commentaries as “Donatus,” though I am aware that they contain much from other sources. The argument remains essentially the same even if the de Comoedia and the prefaces are by different hands.

page 68 note 1 Which Hoffer rather half-heartedly proposed to read.

page 68 note 2 See Hand's Tursellinus, ii, 596, ff.

page 68 note 3 Leo, (Rhein. Mus. xxxviii, p. 343Google Scholar) wished to account for the statements of the prefaces by the hypothesis that Donatus was misled by miniatures of masked actors in the manuscripts he was using. He makes no attempt to explain why only two of the plays should have been so decorated, and Donatus's Manuscripts since we know nothing about them afford, as we shall see, a suitable ground for more or less ingenious guessing.

page 68 note 4 This is perhaps not absolutely necessary. At least Friedlaender and Ribbeck seem to accept the manuscript reading. In this case assumptions about Cincius Faliscus and his relations with Prothymus are necessary.

page 68 note 5 Two attempts have been made to reconcile Diomedes and Donatus. Ribbeck (Röm. Trag. P. 661), followed by Leo (l.c.), supposes that Roscius was the chief actor in Prothymus's company. This fourth assumption is however rendered improbable by the fact that the manager of the company seems himself to have been the chief actor (Rhein Mus. xx, p. 590: cf. Cic. Off. i, 114). Van Wageningen suggests that Roscius was the first Roman actor to wear a mask, Prothymus being a Greek. If Prothymus it really the man's name (it is, as has been said, a conjecture), this hypothesis may be accepted by those who believe in the Prothymus-tradition and think it worth while to reconcile it with Diomedes's statement.

page 69 note 1 The assumption that the practice with regard to masks was identical in tragedy and comedy, is tacitly made by Hoffer and others but seems unjustifiable.

page 69 note 2 It should be said that Naevius's name is due to emendation: the manuscript apparently has quaedamnę ut. The correction seems practically certain, and I shall assume that it is right. The passage as it stands in the manuscript is useless for our purpose since it supplies no evidence as to date.

page 69 note 3 Coeperunt MS. Mueller wished to read post multos annos acta sit quam … coeperunt, which restores consistency to the passage. Hoffer's objection on the score of sense, as our examination of the Donatus' passages shows, cannot be maintained, but for the purpose of this enquiry I will confine my attention to the reading accepted by Hoffer himself.

page 69 note 4 The distinction appears to be based on some right of spectators to compel actors to remove their masks, but nothing else is known of it.

page 70 note 1 As has been said above, the passage becomes perfectly lucid if we retain coeperunt and insert acta sit quam after annos.

page 70 note 2 An alternative view would of course be that the explanation of the name personati is an addition to the original statement, though without some such explanation the statement would be very incomplete. In this case we have one view for and one against the use of masks in early times and a statement as to the name personati which, if pressed, would favour the view that they were worn. In any case an oversight has occurred, but that involved by the explanation suggested in the text seems to me more readily explicable.

page 71 note 1 This is a convenient place to mention Navarre's theory. He says: “Dans la tragédie ainsi que dans la comédie latines le masque ne fut adopté qu'assez tard. Le fait s'explique, non par des raisons d'art mais par un préjugé de caste. Comme la jeunesse romaine qui bien longtemps avant l'introduction du drame grec se divertissait à jouer l'atellane sous des masques entendait ne pas être confondue avec les histrions de métier, défense officielle fut faite a ceux-ci de paraitre masqués.” This theory seems to be the invention of Munk (de Fab. Atell. pp. 70, ff.), and it is held also by van Wageningen. It is based on an amplification and misrepresentation of Livy, vii, 2, and need not be discussed in detail here. Navarre holds that the introduction of masks was due to Roscius and attributes this view, inaccurately, to Cicero.

page 71 note 2 Ar. Lys. 7, f. cf. Vesp. 655. Av. 1671, Thesm. 221, Pherecrat fr. 158 K. and, for tragedy, (e.g.) Eur. Alc. 773; Med. 1012.

page 71 note 3 Livy, vii, 2.

page 72 note 1 De Orat. iii, 22, 83.

page 72 note 2 I.O. xi, 3, 86; cf. ibid. xi, 3, III; xi, 3, 181; Cic. de Orat. iii, 59, 220; Rhet. ad. Her. iii, 15, 26, 27. In the elaborate description of a slave's gestures, attitudes, etc. in Plaut. Mil. 201, ff. the face is barely mentioned.

page 72 note 3 Adducing Ter. Ad. 643 erubuit : salva res est as evidence against masks.

page 72 note 4 Epist. xi 7.

page 72 note 5 Ter. Phorm. 210, f.

page 73 note 1 It is perhaps hardly necessary to point out that this assumption differs in kind from Hoffer's assumption with regard to references to facial expression. If parts were habitually doubled by an unmasked actor, it is the ability of the spectators to follow the play (owing to the difficulty of distinguishing the characters), not their tolerance of convention, which I call in question.

page 73 note 2 Plaut. Poen. 126. See Steffen's article on this subject (Act. Soc. Phil. Lips. ii, pp. 109, ff.); Steffen is, however, in error ia regarding the Greek letters affixed to the names of characters in manuscripts as theatrical directions as to the distribution of parts.

page 73 note 3 ll. 142, ff.

page 73 note 4 The most striking examples are As. 400, f. Capt. 647, f. Pseud. 1218, f. Rud. 317, f. Navarre, with a strange inconsistency seeing that he denies the use of masks to Plautus and Terence, wishes to recognise in some of these descriptions masks mentioned by Pollux. The evidence is however insufficient to justify the identifications.

page 73 note 5 ad And. 552.

page 74 note 1 ad And. 978.

page 74 note 2 ad Eun. 307, Hec. 665.

page 74 note 3 ad And. 720, Eun. 46, Phorm. 190.

page 74 note 4 e.g. ad Ad. 586.

page 74 note 5 e.g. ad Ad. 323, 727.

page 74 note 6 ad Eun. 821.

page 74 note 7 ad Eun. 1072.

page 74 note 8 ad Phorm. 211.

page 74 note 9 ad And. 28.

page 74 note 10 The proem is preserved (Philologus, xxiv, p. 154).

page 74 note 1 ad Phorm. 184.

page 74 note 2 For recitations of comedies cf. Plin. Epist. vi, 21Google Scholar, and perhaps v, 3.

page 74 note 3 Cf. Plin. Epist. ix, 34.

page 74 note 4 ad And. 716.

page 74 note 5 Tac. Dial. xx, nec magis perfert [sc. vulgus] in iudiciis tristem et impexam antiquitatem quam si quis in scaena Roscii aut Turpionis Ambivii exprimere gestus velit.

page 74 note 6 Cf. Suet. Gramm. i, antiquissimi doctorum, qui iidem et poetae et semigraeci erant, Livium et Ennium dico quos utraque lingua domi forisque docuisse adnotatum est, nihil amplius quam Graecos interpretabantur aut si quid ipsi Latine composuissent, praelegebant.

page 74 note 7 Gloss. Salom. (Rhein. Mus. xxii, p. 446, xxiii, 676, ff. xxviii, p.419. Kaibel C.G.F. p.73).

page 74 note 8 De Com. viii.

page 74 note 9 iv, 119, 120.

page 75 note 1 iv, 143, ff. As I have said, attempts to identify these masks in Plautus's descriptions will be found in Navarre's article persona in Daremberg and Saglio's Lexicon.

page 75 note 2 Navarre, who regards this play as a solitary exception in the early history of Roman comedy, ingeniously suggests that it contained attacks on influential Roman families and that the actors were anxious to conceal their identities. We need evidence, however, that Naevius used the drama for satirical purposes (see Gellius. N.A. iii, 3, 15Google Scholar, Augustin, C.D. ii, 9 and 12Google Scholar).

page 75 note 3 Röm. Trag. p. 661.

page 75 note 4 The phrase in the Donatan preface to the Adelphi: qui cum suis gregibus etiam tum personati agebant, might conceivably be held to imply that the masking of the whole east was not in the writer's opinion a necessary corollary to the masking of the chief performers.

page 75 note 5 We might suppose that masks were worn in the early productions, which were presumably on a small scale only where necessary. If one is to guess where they were considered essential, we may conjecture that they were used for female parts, for Parts where close physical resemblance to another character is required and, if parts were doubled, for all but one of the Parts Played by one man. For the other parts the wigs mentioned by Diomedes would serve. The fact that Diomedes took the wigs for precursors of masks hardly admits of discussion. It is possible that the wigs were actually used before masks, if the latter were used first in Naevius's play. It is however also possible that someone seeing wigs and masks together, took the wigs for mere rudimentary masks.

page 77 note 1 That he used a mask is known from Fronto, p. 147, N. Cic. de Div. i, xxxvii, 80, is held, on inadequate grounds, to prove that he sometimes acted unmasked.

page 77 note 2 I.O. xi, 3, 74.

page 77 note 3 ibid. xi, 3, 178.

page 77 note 4 iii, 93, ff.

page 77 note 5 Anach. 23, Gallus, 26, De Salt. 29.

page 77 note 6 De Salt. 28.

page 77 note 7 The monumental evidence (frescoes, reliefs, statuettes, etc.) does not, so far as I am aware, help to solve the chronological question.