History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Volume I Part 29

The same poet elsewhere calls the Mimes, "Imitantes turpia Mimos;" and Diomedes defines them to be "Sermonis cujuslibet, motusque, sine reverentia, vel factorum turpium c.u.m lascivia imitatio, ita ut ridiculum faciant."

These Mimes were originally represented as a sort of afterpiece, or interlude to the regular dramas, and were intended to fill up the blank which had been left by omission of the Chorus. But they subsequently came to form a separate and fas.h.i.+onable public amus.e.m.e.nt, which in a great measure superseded all other dramatic entertainments. Sylla (in whom the gloomy temper of the tyrant was brightened by the talents of a mimic and a wit) was so fond of Mimes, that he gave the actors of them many acres of the public land(544); and we shall soon see the high importance which Julius Caesar attached to this sort of spectacle. It appears, at first view, curious, that the Romans-the most grave, solid, and dignified nation on earth, the _gens togata_, and the _domini rerum_-should have been so partial to the exhibition of licentious buffoonery on the stage. But, perhaps, when people have a mind to divert themselves, they choose what is most different from their ordinary temper and habits, as being most likely to amuse them. "Strangely," says Isaac Bey, while relating his adventures in _France_, "was my poor Turkish brain puzzled, on discovering the favourite pastime of a nation reckoned the merriest in the world. It consisted in a thing called tragedies, whose only purpose is to make you cry your eyes out. Should the performance raise a single smile, the author is undone(545)."

The popularity and frequent repet.i.tion of the Mimes came gradually to purify their grossness; and the writers of them, at length, were not contented merely with the fame of amusing the Roman populace by ribaldry.

They carried their pretensions higher; and, while they sometimes availed themselves of the licentious freedom to which this species of drama gave unlimited indulgence, they interspersed the most striking truths and beautiful moral maxims in these ludicrous and indecent farces. This appears from the Mimes of DECIMUS LABERIUS and PUBLIUS SYRUS, who both flourished during the dictators.h.i.+p of Julius Caesar.

LABERIUS.

In earlier periods, as has been already mentioned, the writer was also the chief representer of the Mime. Laberius, however, was not originally an actor, but a Roman knight of respectable family and character, who occasionally amused himself with the composition of these farcical productions. He was at length requested by Julius Caesar to appear on the stage after he had reached the age of sixty, and act the Mimes, which he had sketched or written(546). Aware that the entreaties of a perpetual dictator are nearly equivalent to commands, he reluctantly complied; but in the prologue to the first piece which he acted, he complained bitterly to the audience of the degradation to which he had been subjected-

"Ego, bis trecenis annis actis, sine nota, Eques Roma.n.u.s lare egressus meo, Domum revertar Mimus. Nimirum hoc die Uno plus vixi mihi, quam vivendum fuit.

Fortuna, immoderata in bono aeque atque in malo, Si tibi erat libitum, literarum laudibus Floris cac.u.men nostrae famae frangere, Cur c.u.m vigebam membris prae viridantibus, Satisfacere populo, et tali c.u.m poteram viro, Non flexibilem me concurvasti ut caperes?

Nunc me quo dejicis? quid ad scenam affero, Decorem formae, an dignitatem corporis?

Animi virtutem, an vocis jucundae sonum?

Ut hedera serpens vires arboreas necat; Ita me vetustas amplexu annorum enecat(547)."

The whole prologue, consisting of twenty-nine lines, which have been preserved by Macrobius, is written in a fine vein of poetry, and with all the high spirit of a Roman citizen. It breathes in every verse the most bitter and indignant feelings of wounded pride, and highly exalts our opinion of the man, who, yielding to an irresistible power, preserved his dignity while performing a part which he despised. It is difficult to conceive how, in this frame of mind, he could a.s.sume the jocund and unrestrained gaiety of a Mime, or how the Roman people could relish so painful a spectacle. He is said, however, to have represented the feigned character with inimitable grace and spirit. But in the course of his performance he could not refrain from expressing strong sentiments of freedom and detestation of tyranny. In one of the scenes he personated a Syrian slave; and, while escaping from the lash of his master, he exclaimed,

"Porro, Quirites, libertatem perdidimus;"

and shortly after, he added,

"Necesse est multos timeat, quem multi timent,"

on which the whole audience turned their eyes to Caesar, who was present in the theatre(548).

It was not merely to entertain the people, who would have been as well amused with the representation of any other actor; nor to wound the private feelings of Laberius, that Caesar forced him on the stage. His sole object was to degrade the Roman knighthood, to subdue their spirit of independence and honour, and to strike the people with a sense of his unlimited sway. This policy formed part of the same system which afterwards led him to persuade a senator to combat among the ranks of gladiators. The practice introduced by Caesar became frequent during the reigns of his successors; and in the time of Domitian, the Fabii and Mamerci acted as _planipedes_, the lowest cla.s.s of buffoons, who, barefooted and smeared with soot, capered about the stage in the intervals of the play for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the rabble!

Though Laberius complied with the wishes of Caesar, in exhibiting himself on the stage, and acquitted himself with ability as a mimetic actor, it would appear that the Dictator had been hurt and offended by the freedoms which he used in the course of the representation, and either on this or some subsequent occasion bestowed the dramatic crown on a Syrian slave, in preference to the Roman knight. Laberius submitted with good grace to this fresh humiliation; he pretended to regard it merely as the ordinary chance of theatric compet.i.tion, as he expressed to the audience in the following lines:-

"Non possunt primi esse omnes omni in tempore.

Summum ad gradum c.u.m claritatis veneris, Consistes aegre: et citius quam ascendas, decides.

Cecidi ego-cadet qui sequitur(549)." --

Laberius did not long survive this double mortification: he retired from Rome, and died at Puteoli about ten months after the a.s.sa.s.sination of Caesar(550).

The t.i.tles and a few fragments of forty-three of the Mimes of Laberius are still extant; but, excepting the prologue, these remains are too inconsiderable and detached to enable us to judge of their subject or merits. It would appear that he occasionally dramatized the pa.s.sing follies or absurd occurrences of the day: for Cicero, writing to the lawyer Trebonius, who expected to accompany Caesar from Gaul to Britain, tells him he had best return to Rome quickly, as a longer pursuit to no purpose would be so ridiculous a circ.u.mstance, that it would hardly escape the drollery of that arch fellow Laberius; and what a burlesque character, he continues, would a British lawyer furnish out for the Roman stage(551)!

The only pa.s.sage of sufficient length in connection to give us any idea of his manner, is a whimsical application of a story concerning the manner in which Democritus put out his eyes-

"Democritus Abderites, physicus philosophus, Clypeum const.i.tuit contra exortum Hyperionis; Oculos effodere ut posset splendore aereo.

Ita, radiis solis aciem effodit luminis, Malis bene esse ne videret civibus.

Sic ego, fulgentis splendore pecuniae, Volo elucificare exitum aetatis meae, Ne in re bona esse videam nequam filium(552)."

According to Aulus Gellius, Laberius has taken too much license in inventing words; and that author also gives various examples of his use of obsolete expressions, or such as were employed only by the lowest dregs of the people(553). Horace seems to have considered an admiration of the Mimes of Laberius as the consummation of critical folly(554). I am far, however, from considering Horace as an infallible judge of true poetical excellence. He evidently attached more importance to correctness and terseness of style, than to originality of genius or fertility of invention. I am convinced he would not have admired Shakspeare: He would have considered Addison and Pope as much finer poets, and would have included Falstaff, and Autolycus, and Sir Toby Belch, the clowns and the boasters of our great dramatist, in the same censure which he bestows on the _Plautinos sales_ and the Mimes of Laberius. Probably, too, the freedom of the prologue, and other pa.s.sages of his dramas, contributed to draw down the disapprobation of this Augustan critic, as it already had placed the dramatic wreath on the brow of

PUBLIUS SYRUS.

The celebrated Mime, called Publius Syrus, was brought from Asia to Italy in early youth, in the same vessel with his countryman and kinsman, Manlius Antiochus, the professor of astrology, and Staberius Eros, the grammarian, who all, by some desert in learning, rose above their original fortune. He received a good education and liberty from his master, in reward for his witticisms and facetious disposition. He first represented his Mimes in the provincial towns of Italy, whence, his fame having spread to Rome, he was summoned to the capital, to a.s.sist in those public spectacles which Caesar afforded his countrymen, in exchange for their freedom(555). On one occasion, he challenged all persons of his own profession to contend with him on the stage; and in this compet.i.tion he successively overcame every one of his rivals. By his success in the representation of these popular entertainments, he ama.s.sed considerable wealth, and lived with such luxury, that he never gave a great supper without having sow's udder at table-a dish which was prohibited by the censors, as being too great a luxury even for the table of patricians(556).

Nothing farther is known of his history, except that he was still continuing to perform his Mimes with applause at the period of the death of Laberius.

We have not the names of any of the Mimes of Publius; nor do we precisely know their nature or subject,-all that is preserved from them being a number of detached sentiments or maxims, to the number of 800 or 900, seldom exceeding a single line, but containing reflections of unrivalled force, truth, and beauty, on all the various relations, situations, and feelings of human life-friends.h.i.+p, love, fortune, pride, adversity, avarice, generosity. Both the writers and actors of Mimes were probably careful to have their memory stored with common-places and precepts of morality, in order to introduce them appropriately in their extemporaneous performances. The maxims of Publius were interspersed through his dramas, but being the only portion of these productions now remaining, they have just the appearance of thoughts or sentiments, like those of Rochefoucauld. His Mimes must either have been very numerous, or very thickly loaded with these moral aphorisms. It is also surprising that they seem raised far above the ordinary tone even of regular comedy, and appear for the greater part to be almost stoical maxims. Seneca has remarked that many of his eloquent verses are fitter for the buskin than the slipper(557). How such exalted precepts should have been grafted on the lowest farce, and how pa.s.sages, which would hardly be appropriate in the most serious sentimental comedy, were adapted to the actions or manners of gross and drunken buffoons, is a difficulty which could only be solved had we fortunately received entire a larger portion of these productions, which seem to have been peculiar to Roman genius.

The sentiments of Publius Syrus now appear trite. They have become familiar to mankind, and have been re-echoed by poets and moralists from age to age. All of them are most felicitously expressed, and few of them seem erroneous, while at the same time they are perfectly free from the selfish or worldly-minded wisdom of Rochefoucauld, or Lord Burleigh.

"Amicos res opimae pavant, adversae probant.

Miserrima fortuna est quae inimico caret.

Ingratus unus miseris omnibus nocet.

Timidas vocat se cautum, parc.u.m sordidus.

Etiam oblivisci quid scis interdum prodest.

In nullum avarus bonus, in se pessimus.

Cuivis dolori remedium est patientia.

Honestus rumor alterum est patrimonium.

Tam deest avaro quod habet quam quod non habet.

O vita misero longa-felici brevis!"

This last sentiment has been beautifully, but somewhat diffusely expressed by Metastasio:

"Perche tarda e mai la morte Quando e termine al martir?

A chi vive in lieta sorte E sollecito il morir."-_Artaserse_.

The same idea is thus expressed by La Bruyere: "La vie est courte pour ceux qui sont dans les joyes du monde: Elle ne paroit longue qu'a ceux qui languissent dans l'affliction. Job se plaint de vivre long temps, et Salomon craint de mourir trop jeune." La Bruyere, indeed, has interspersed a vast number of the maxims of the Roman Mime in his writings,-expanding, modifying, or accommodating them to the manners of his age and country, as best suited his purpose. One of them only, he quotes to reprehend:

"Ita amic.u.m habeas, posse ut fieri inimic.u.m putes."

This sentiment, which Publius had borrowed from the Greeks, and which is supposed to have been originally one of the sayings of Bias, has been censured by Cicero, in his beautiful treatise _De Amicitia_, as the bane of friends.h.i.+p. It would be endless to quote the lines of the different Latin poets, particularly Horace and Juvenal, which are nearly copied from the maxims of Publius Syrus. Seneca, too, has availed himself of many of his reflections, and, at the same time, does full justice to the author from whom he has borrowed. Publius, says he, is superior in genius both to tragic and comic writers: Whenever he gives up the follies of the Mimes, and that language which is directed to the crowd, he writes many things not only above that species of composition, but worthy of the tragic buskin(558).

Cneius Matius, also a celebrated writer of Mimes, was contemporary with Laberius and Publius Syrus. Some writers have confounded him with Caius Matius, who was a correspondent of Cicero, and an intimate friend of Julius Caesar. Ziegler, though he distinguishes him from Cicero's correspondent, says, that he was the same person as the friend of Caesar(559).

Aulus Gellius calls Matius a very learned man, (_h.o.m.o eruditus et impense doctus_,) and frequently quotes him for obsolete terms and forms of expression(560). Like other writers of Mimes, he indulged himself a good deal in this sort of phraseology, but his diction was considered as agreeable and highly poetical(561).

The Mimes of Matius were called Mimiambi, because chiefly written in iambics; but not more than a dozen lines have descended to us. The following verses have been praised for elegance and a happy choice of expressions-

"Quapropter edulcare convenit vitam, Curasque acerbas sensibus gubernare; Sinuque amicam recipere frigidam caldo Columbatimque labra conserens labris(562)."

The age of Laberius, P. Syrus, and Matius, was the most brilliant epoch in the history of the actors of Mimes. After that period, they relapsed into a race of impudent buffoons; and, in the reign of Augustus, were cla.s.sed, by Horace, with mountebanks and mendicants(563). Pantomimic actors, who did not employ their voice, but represented everything by gesticulation and dancing, became, under Augustus, the idols of the mult.i.tude, the minions of the great, and the favourites of the fair. The _Mimi_ were then but little patronized on the stage, but were still admitted into convivial parties, and even the court of the Emperors, to entertain the guests(564), like the Histrions, Jongleurs, or privileged fools, of the middle ages; and they were also employed at funerals, to mimic the manners of the deceased. Thus, the Archimimus, who represented the character of the avaricious Vespasian, at the splendid celebration of his obsequies, inquired what would be the cost of all this posthumous parade; and on being told that it would amount to ten millions of sesterces, he replied, that if they would give him a hundred thousand, they might throw his body into the river(565). The audacity, however, of the Mimes was carried still farther, as they satirized and insulted the most ferocious Emperors during their lives, and in their own presence. An actor, in one of these pieces which was performed during the reign of Nero, while repeating the words "_Vale pater, vale mater_," signified by his gestures the two modes of drowning and poisoning, in which that sanguinary fiend had attempted to destroy both his parents(566). The _Mimi_ currently bestowed on Commodus the most opprobrious appellation(567). One of their number, who performed before the enormous Maximin, reminded the audience, that he who was too strong for an individual, might be ma.s.sacred by a mult.i.tude, and that thus the elephant, lion, and tiger, are slain. The tyrant perceived the sensation excited in the Theatre, but the suggestion was veiled in a language unknown to that barbarous and gigantic Thracian(568).

The Mimes may be traced beyond the age of Constantine, as we find the fathers of the church reprehending the immorality and licentiousness of such exhibitions(569). Tradition is never so faithful as in the preservation of popular pastimes; and accordingly, many of those which had amused the Romans survived their dominion. The annual celebration of Carnival prolonged the remembrance of them during the dark ages. Hence, the Mimes, and the Atellane fables formerly mentioned, became the origin of the Italian pantomimic parts introduced in the _Commedie dell' arte_, in which a subject was a.s.signed, and the scenes were enumerated; but in which the dialogue was left to the extemporary invention of the actors, who represented buffoon characters in masks, and spoke the dialect of different districts. "As to Italy," says Warburton, in an account given by him of the Rise and Progress of the Modern Stage, "the first rudiments of its theatre, with regard to the matter, were profane subjects, and with regard to the form, a corruption of ancient Mimes and Atellanes."-Zanni is one of the names of the Harlequin in the Italian comedies; and Sannio, as we learn from ancient writers, was a ridiculous personage, who performed in these Latin farces, with his head shaved(570), his face bedaubed with soot(571), and clothed in party-coloured garments-a dress universally worn by the ancient Italian peasantry during the existence of the Roman Republic(572). The lowest species of mimic actors were called _planipedes_, because they performed without sock or buskin, and generally barefooted, whence Harlequin's flat unsho'd feet. A pa.s.sage of Cicero, in which he speaks of the Sannio, seems almost intended to describe the perpetual and flexible motion of the limbs, the ludicrous gestures, and mimetic countenance of Harlequin. "Quid enim" says he, "potest tam ridiculum quam Sannio esse? qui ore, vultu, imitandis motibus, voce, denique corpore ridetur ipso(573)." Among the Italians, indeed, this character soon degenerated into a b.o.o.by and glutton, who became the b.u.t.t of his more sharp-sighted companions. In France, Harlequin was converted into a wit,-sometimes even a moralist; and with us he has been transformed into an expert magician, who astonishes by sudden changes of the scene: But none of these was his original, or native character, which, as we have seen, corresponded to the Sannio of the Mimes and Atellane fables. In the year 1727, a bronze figure of high antiquity, and of which Quadrio gives an engraving(574), was found at Rome; and it appears from it, that the modern Pollicinella of Naples is a lineal descendant of the _Mimus Albus_ of the Atellanes(575). Ficoroni, who, in his work _Larve Sceniche_, compares his immense collection of Roman masks with the modern Italian characters, was possessed of an onyx, which represented a Mime with a long nose and pointed cap, carrying a bag of money in one hand, and two bra.s.s b.a.l.l.s in the other, which he sounded, as is supposed, like castanets when he danced. These appendages correspond to the attributes which distinguished the Italian dancer of Catana, known by the name of Giangorgolo. Another onyx exhibits a figure resembling that of Pantalone.

It is also evident from the Antiques collected by Ficoroni, that the Roman _Mimi_ were fond of representing caricatures of foreign nations, as we find among these ancient figures the attires of the oriental nations, and the garb of old Gaul-a species of exhibition in which the _Commedia dell'