The Life of Comedy after the Death of Plautus and Terence

Hanses, Mathias

doi:doi:10.3998/mpub.10216885

Mathias Hanses

2020

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The Life of Comedy after the Death of Plautus and Terence documents the ongoing popularity of Roman comedies, and shows that they continued to be performed in the late Republic and early Imperial periods of Rome. Playwrights Plautus and Terence impressed audiences with stock characters as the young-man-in-love, the trickster slave, the greedy pimp, the prostitute, and many others. A wide range of spectators visited Roman theaters, including even the most privileged members of Roman society: orators like Cicero, satirists like Horace and Juvenal, and love poets like Catullus and Ovid. They all put comedy's varied characters to new and creative uses in their own works, as they tried to make sense of their own lives and those of the people around them by suggesting comparisons to the standard personality types of Roman comedy.

Scholars have commonly believed that the plays fell out of favor with theatrical audiences by the end of the first century BCE, but The Life of Comedy demonstrates that performances of these comedies continued at least until the turn of the second century CE. Mathias Hanses traces the plays' reception in Latin literature from the late first century BCE to the early second century CE, and shines a bright light on the relationships between comic texts and the works of contemporary and later Latin writers.

ISBN(s)

978-0-472-13225-6 (hardcover)
978-0-472-12810-5 (ebook)

Subject

Classical Studies:Roman

Citable Link

Terracotta statues of comic actors

From Introduction

Fig. 1. Terracotta statues of comic actors, each about 115 cm tall, wearing soleae, full-body tights, tunics, masks, and wigs; Pompeii, late first century BCE; MANN, inv. 22248 and 22249. The performer on the left portrays a young man and accordingly wears a pallium. The one on the right plays a young woman and hence wears the stola and palla. The photographs are my own, used by permission of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

Fig. 2. Silver denarius by Quintus Pomponius Musa; 66 BCE; American Numismatic Society.

Silver denarius minted by Q. Pomponius Musa

From Chapter 1

Fig. 2. Silver denarius by Quintus Pomponius Musa; 66 BCE; American Numismatic Society, ANS 1986.161.81 (RRC 410/9b). Image is in the public domain.

Columbarium tablet of Asticus comoedus

From Chapter 1

Fig. 3. Columbarium tablet of Asticus comoedus; Rome, first century BCE or CE; Norton-Van Buren Archaeology Study Collection, American Academy in Rome, inv. 009360. The photograph is my own, used by permission of the American Academy in Rome.

Columbarium tablet of Atimetus comoedus

From Chapter 1

Fig. 4. Columbarium tablet of Atimetus comoedus; Rome, first century CE; Musei Capitolini, Palazzo Nuovo, Galleria, inv. NCE 1740. The photograph is my own, used by permission of the Musei Capitolini. © Roma, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali.

Columbarium tablet of Milanio comoedus

From Chapter 1

Fig. 5. Columbarium tablet of Milanio comoedus; Rome, first century CE; Museo Nazionale Romano, inv. 30571. Photo used by permission of the Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali e per il turismo—Museo Nazionale Romano.

Fig. 6. Relief from the Bay of Naples depicting a comedy in performance.

Relief depicting comic performance

From Chapter 1

Fig. 6. Relief from the Bay of Naples depicting a comedy in performance; MANN, inv. 6687. The photograph is my own, used by permission of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

Gravestone of C. Plinius Eutychus

From Chapter 2

Fig. 7. Gravestone of C. Plinius Eutychus; Rome, turn of the second century CE; Museo Nazionale Romano, Giardino dei Cinquecento, inv. 258. Photo used by permission of the Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali e per il turismo—Museo Nazionale Romano.

Fig. 8. Comic actor dressed as slave and seated on altar; Rome, first or second century CE.

Statue of comic actor on altar

From Chapter 2

The Life of Comedy after the Death of Plautus and Terence

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Terracotta statues of comic actors

Silver denarius minted by Q. Pomponius Musa

Columbarium tablet of Asticus comoedus

Columbarium tablet of Atimetus comoedus

Columbarium tablet of Milanio comoedus

Relief depicting comic performance

Gravestone of C. Plinius Eutychus

Statue of comic actor on altar