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Drama and Theatrum in Ancient Rome: Continuation and Expansion
Ancient Roman performance traditions: Latin drama, fabula and ludi Since the 3rd century BC, the republican Romans conquered the Greek states, but the forces of Greek culture in turn conquered Rome
During this period, a large number of Greek words entered Latin directly in the process of learning and translation by the Romans
As the Romans' own cultural awareness became more and more awakened, more and more Roman intellectuals began to consciously study Latin writing, and Greek writers did not stop writing
From about the 2nd century BC, in Greek texts under Roman rule, "δρᾶμα" and "θέατρον" basically maintained their original meaning
For example, Plutarch's Treatise on Morality tells the story of Alitafila: after Alitafila's rehabilitation, "she acted in a play composed of different parts (δρᾶμα), which eventually won the laurels"; Another example is the phrase "θέατρον" used by the Greek scholar Libanius in the 4th century when studying the tragedy of Sophocles: "The theater (referring to the audience of the theater) saw Deaniela, but also Onus, Acroos, Hercules and Nessos"
Drama is extremely rare in Latin literature as a transcription of the Greek δρᾶμα, and it was not until the 4th century that Christian theologians and grammarians commonly used drama and its derivatives when commenting on ancient Roman poetry and drama
For example, the grammar scholar Diomedes explains the contrast between drama and fabulae [drama/story]: "Dramata is considered to be a tragedy or comedy, derived from 'δρᾶν', i.e. 'to act', and in Latin it is called fabulae or fatibulae" The 4th-century bishop Donatus explained Horace's satirical poem: "The whole dramatic dialogue is characterized by characters speaking in turn" Donatus's interpretation of the play of Tyrontius appears in its adverbial form: "He said in his own dramatic way" In addition, Servius used "dramatico/dramaticum" to mean "dramatic" in his commentary on Virgil, and Porfirion in his commentary on Horace
In addition to grammar commentaries, there is a "drama" in the 4th-century Roman poet Osonius's "To AdUrsullum": "[He received as many coins] as the theatrical story of a [poet] brought to the stage and lying in the middle of the arms of Arcadia (Aus.Ep.18, 15)", and the man buried in Arcadia here is the Roman comedy writer Terentius of the 2nd century BC
The Latin texts mentioned above are all from the 4th century, and before that, when the Romans were in contact with and choreographed Greek drama in the early days, and later when Roman theater flourished, Latin rarely used drama transliterated from Greek to describe drama
In Rome, the most common words for "theater" are fabula and ludi, in addition to scaena [stage, scene], spectaculum [public performance, spectauralum] associated with theater, etc
The word "fabula" in Rome, which refers to dramatic productions in general, is derived from the verb root for [言說]
The basic meaning of fabula is related to speech and can refer to "gossip, story", etc
When expressing the meaning of a play, fabula originally meant the dialogue that took place on stage
The main genres of Rome, although they all belong to "drama", are only called fabula rather than drama, such as the two tragic forms of Rome, "sandals play" and "purple robe drama"; Comedies include the aforementioned Shawl and Fabulatoga, which tells the story of Italy and Rome, as well as smaller plays such as Atra Comedy and Mimicry
Roman writers of the Republic and the early Empire also used the word fabula when talking about "drama" (e.g., Horace's Poetry 190), and in order to discuss theatrical issues, they used tragoedia [tragedy] and comoedia [comedy] directly when emphasizing tragedy or comedy forms
For example, Cicero mentions Homer's views on the foreknowledge of souls in legends such as Homer's epic poems, and a Roman tragedy (1.64-67), before concluding that "I seem to have mentioned some tragedies and legends."
It can be seen that although fabula can refer to various forms of theater, its meaning is much broader than that of tragoedia and comoedia
Another common term, ludi [theatrical performance], has a much older origin, and ludi was used to refer to public performances in Rome before standard Greek theater entered Roman culture
From the 6th century BC, the Romans began to hold an annual ludiromani (carnival), and began to join various performances in 364 BC
According to the accounts of the ancient Greeks, the Lydia people moved to Etruscania, Italy, and brought their own religious drama to Italy, and the Romans borrowed the form and name of Etruscan acting and called it ludi
Varro believes that the word originated from ludus [play, play]
Early Roman festivals of worship included circus races, probably influenced by the Greeks living in southern Italy, where the Romans performed "actors" in addition to athletic competitions, which later continued to be "stage plays" on more Roman worship festivals
In the 3rd century BC, the Romans came into contact with Greek theater and the Attica tragedy in Tarentum and Syracuse
After the fall of Tarentum, a Greek became a captive of the Roman family of Livi and was later given the name Livius, the most famous Livius Andronicus in the history of Roman literature
Andronicus translated some of the ancient Greek classics such as narrative poems and plays into Latin, and he translated and adapted a comedy that was staged at the Great Carnival in Rome in 240 BC
This was the earliest Latin drama on the ancient Roman stage, and the format continued to be carried forward by Nevius, Ennius, Tyrontius and Proutus
This type of comedy written in the form of a Greek drama is called comoediapalliata or fabulapalliata, which means "draped play"
As Broquette pointed out, "drama in the Greek sense occupies only a small part in Rome, because drama in the Roman sense includes all kinds of entertainment", from the Republic to the imperial era, Roman drama has a strong function, when the Romans use the broad meaning of "drama" and "theater", it often refers to the Greek mime-style comprehensive entertainment "performance"
In short, in terms of meaning and pragmatics, the Latin "drama" transcribed from Greek in ancient Rome had strict extension and certain genre restrictions, and was basically only used when proofreading and commenting on classical poetry, or deliberately emphasizing antiquity rather than the drama of the time
The words fabula and ludi commonly used in Latin have certain semantic differences with δρᾶμα in the context of ancient Greek theater, and are more "entertainment"
Theatre and Public Politics: "theatrum" in Latin, and the Latin neutral noun theatrum is directly derived from the Greek θέατρον from pronunciation to basic meaning
In contrast to the word drama, whose meaning was directly overridden and replaced by the native Roman vocabulary, theatrum entered the commonly used Latin
theatrum [theatre; The basic meaning of theatrical performance place] is no different from the Greek θέατρον
For example, Cicero's Epistle to Arteticus mentions a play in the Roman theater against Pompey: "The feelings of the people are expressed to the greatest extent in the theater and in the performance."
Another example is Pliny the Elder's "Natural History": "Pompey placed portraits of some famous miracles in the decoration of the theater he built" The Latin meaning of theatrum is not limited to theatrical architecture, but can also refer to the open-air place where performances and competitions are watched, such as the competition in Virgil's Aeneid "Aeneid" describing the anniversary of Aeneas's father's death: "In the center of the valley, there is a circular stand" The word theatrum written by Roman writers also refers to the "viewer" in the theater in a metonymous way. For example, the genitive form used in Cicero's Anti-Philipus "I ask you to recall the unanimity of the theater that day...", and "There is still no audience more important to virtue than the heart" in the Debates of Tusculum"
It is worth noting that the theater architecture of Rome is not only a place to watch performances and competitions, but also a place to watch "politics"
In The Defense of Thestius, Cicero mentions three types of places where the Romans expressed their public views and wishes: preparatory meetings, popular assemblies, and "gatherings during performances and gladiatorial fights."
During the Roman Republic, political leaders may have gone into public theater to agitate the common people, for example, in Cicero's writing, "friends of citizens" such as Gracchus could "win applause in the theater" and arouse the political support of the population; In 59 BC, Kurio, who opposed the former three-headed alliance, was warmly embraced by the people in the theater, and when Caesar entered, the applause became weak
In addition, some playwrights write about current affairs directly in the form of comedy, and some stage performances also allude to current political figures by giving special meaning to specific lines (mostly tragedies).
By the time of the imperial regime, "although public gatherings were abolished and popular assemblies ceased to exist, the people insisted on expressing their approval or opposition to the emperor's actions in theaters and competitions"
Based on the function of this type of public political life, theatrum can further refer to the meaning of "public", as in Quintilian's Principles of Eloquence, Book I: "For any best teacher is proud to have many pupils and considers himself worthy of openly having a more distinguished audience."
It can be seen that the semantics of the Latin theatrum have been extended from specifically referring to "places of theater viewing", to "places of public performance/athletics", and to places and states that can refer to arbitrary "public action"
In the writings of Cicero and others, the political implications of theatrum, which has the meaning of "public place," become stronger
Whether playwrights and performers express political opinions directly through the play itself, or people and political leaders use the theater as a spatial vehicle for political activities, the passionate emotions of the theater audience are a powerful public political expression of Roman society
In general, the original meaning of ancient Greek drama barely entered the everyday language of Latin, and it was not until the 4th century that a few Romans would use the term to refer to ancient drama and express the meaning of "dramatic, exaggerated" in its derived form; Theatrum continued to take root in the Latin world, and the meaning of the word was closely integrated with Roman culture, and extended many usages that fit Roman political and secular life