Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:27:28.214Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Theatrical Life in Republican Rome and Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Elizabeth Rawson
Get access

La vita teatrale nella roma repubblicana

Nell'articolo si esamina la vita teatrale in Italia, in particolare in Campania e nel Lazio dal III secolo a.C. fino alla fine della Repubblica, e si sostiene che tra queste regioni e Roma vi fosse in questo campo uno scambio maggiore di quanto normalmente si creda. Le compagnie che parlavano in greco, osco e latino venivano a Roma, e quelle romane facevano tournées fuori Roma, come dimostra un passo frainteso di Lucilio. La Campania guidava ed influenzava Roma non solo nell'architettura teatrale, ma anche sotto altri aspetti: molti autori ‘Romani’, in particolare Titinio, autore delle togatae ambientate nelle città a sud di Roma, forse non nacquero nella capitale, ma solo vi rappresentarono per la prima volta le loro commedie. Molti attori inoltre, a giudicare dal loro nome, sembrano italiani invece che latini, oppure liberti da padroni che lo erano.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 53 , November 1985 , pp. 97 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 ‘Domi Nobiles and the Roman Cultural Éilite’, in Les ‘Bourgeoisies’ Municipales Italiennes au IIe et Ier Siècles avant J. -C. (Naples, 1983) 299Google Scholar; J. Ch. Dumont, ‘Les gens de théâtre originaires des Municipes’, ibid. 333 (he sees reflections of the Italian interest in Bacchic religion in surviving plays and fragments; but there was interest in this in Rome too, and one does not know how much comes from the Greek originals).

2 Gellius, A., NA I 24. 2Google Scholar, plenum superbiae Campanae. It was Capua itself that the Romans found arrogant, and Campanus is the normal ethnic of Capua.

3 Horace, , Ep. 2. 1. 139 ffGoogle Scholar. and other sources regard the prehistory of the Roman theatre as rustic, but they are thinking of songs and dances from the immediate vicinity of Rome (and are influenced by the Attic model).

4 Diod. Sic. 37. 12; cf. Appian, , BC 1. 38Google Scholar, Obsequens 54, Florus 2. 6. 9; source, now Malitz, J., Die Historien des Posidonios (Munich 1983) 390Google Scholar.

5 Cicero, , Brutus 169Google Scholar.

6 Malitz, op. cit. (n. 4), with others thinks the Italians are to blame.

7 Surely not only from the 50s B.C., as Frézouls, E., ‘La construction du theatrum lapideum et son contexte politique’, in Théâtre et Spectacles dans l'Antiquité: Actes du Collogue de Strasbourg, 5–7 Nov. 1981 (Strasburg 1983) 193Google Scholar (owing to the abolition of collegia and their games). Cic., pro Sest. 106Google Scholar (56 B.C.) fairly clearly refers to a long-established custom that the people expressed its feelings in the theatre; and note the demonstration against Roscius Otho in 63, only a few months after the abolition of the collegia, Plutarch Cic. 13 and those for Livius Drusus in 91, Pliny, NH 25. 52Google Scholar.

8 ‘Sannio’ means clown or buffoon, and is sometimes a name given to one of the species. As a slave name, Terence, , Eun. 780Google Scholar, ILLRP 732 (Minturnae)Google Scholar; as a clown, Cic., De Or. 2. 251Google Scholar, and perhaps ad fam. 9. 16. 10 (pace Shackleton Bailey; but the letter is full of theatrical jokes). Sanniones is an Atellane by Novius. Pliny, NH 7. 55Google Scholar has a mime Sanius or Sannius, known as Paris; this could be a real nomen (conceivably this is the famous Paris, but see PW sv. Sannius). Cf. σαννίων and cognate words in Greek. A third-cent. Greek comic actor of the name at Delos, , IG XI 105. 20.Google ScholarChorus-trainer, , Vit. Aesch. 2Google Scholar.

9 For the phrase ‘in the theatres’ cf. Plut., Brut 21. 3Google Scholar; here too it is not clear if Rome is included, but it may be in fact that a common circuit is implied. At Asculum, its citizens and visitors doubtless sat separately, see E. Rawson, Lex Julia Theatralis, forthcoming.

10 Naevius wrote both a Lupus on Romulus, and a Clastidium on very recent history, setting precedents for the two kinds of praetexta found thereafter. Campanian politics and the theatre, Purcell, N. in Frederiksen, M. W. (ed. Purcell, N.), Campania (London 1984) 336Google Scholar. Political demonstrations were not unheard of in the Greek world; see Philo, , Quod omn. prob. lib. 141Google Scholar, an audience at Alexandria rises and cheers a reference to freedom in Euripides' Auge.

11 Lauter, H., ‘Die Hellenistische Theater der Samniten und Latiner in ihrer Beziehung zur Theaterarchitektur der Griechen’, in Hellenismus in Mittelitalien, ed. Zanker, P. (Göttingen 1976) 413Google Scholar; Frézouls, E., ‘Aspects de l'histoire architecturale du théâtre romain’, ANRW II 12. 1. (1982) 343Google Scholar.

12 Johannowsky, W., ‘La Situazione in Campania’, in Hellenismus in Mittelitalien 267Google Scholar (see last n.); Nuceria, Johannowsky in Atti del XVIII Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Graecia (Taranto 1978)Google Scholar is referred to in de Caro, S. and Greco, A., Campania: Guida Archeologica Laterza (Rome-Bari 1981) 137Google Scholar, but I have not seen it; Capua, , ILLRP 719Google Scholar, cf. 708, 710.

13 Almagro-Gortbea, M., ed., El Santuario de Juno en Gabii (Rome 1982), 61, 610 ffGoogle Scholar. (in fact the traditional ascription of the temple to Juno is unwarranted); Coarelli, F., Dintorni di Roma: Guida archeologica Laterza (Rome-Bari 1981) 110Google Scholar. A possibly second century antefix of a masked slave at Lanuvium, T. B. L. Webster, Monuments Illustrating New Comedy2 (London 1969) 138Google Scholar.

14 Hanson, J. A., Roman Theater-Temples (Princeton 1959)Google Scholar. There is also one at Cagliari in Sardinia.

15 Cic., ad. fam 7. 1Google Scholar; yet note the language of Tiro on Pompey's theatre: aedem Victoriae … cuius gradus vicem theatri essent (ap. Gellius, A.NA 10. 1. 7Google Scholar). Pompey's own edict avoided calling the building a theatre, Tert., Spect. 10. 5Google Scholar.

16 Hanson, op. cit (n. 14); Coarelli, F., Bull. Com. 80 (1965–1967) 69ffGoogle Scholar, noting an intermediate phase of semi-permanent seats but temporary stages, as attested by Varro ap. Serv., Georg. 3. 24Google Scholar.

17 ILLRP 680, porticum pone scaenam.

18 Vitruv. 5. 5. 7 says that many wooden theatres are still built every year in Rome; Tab. Herc. 77 (FIRA I 18Google Scholar) refers to building a scaena or pulpitum in Rome or within a mile of Rome; its date used to be thought Caesarian, but may be earlier; ILS 5050, 156–7, 161 the ludi Graeci at Augustus'; Secular Games took place in theatro ligneo near the Tiber; Jos, . AJ 19. 90Google Scholar, temporary theatre each year for the Ludi Palatini.

19 Webster, T. B. L., Greek Theatre Production (London 1956) 97Google Scholar; Gigante, M., Civiltà delle forme letterarie nell'antica Pompei (Naples 1979)Google Scholar. Naturally most of the evidence is later. It is sometimes suggested that masks, etc. were simply a traditional decorative motif, or that they merely evoke Bacchic religion, or refer to the ‘all the world's a stage’ metaphor. There may be some truth in these suggestions, but a basic knowledge of the theatre would seem to be a necessary presupposition for all of them.

20 Webster, T. B. L., Monuments Illustrating New Comedy2 (London 1969) 124Google Scholar; Monuments Illustrating Tragedy and Satyr-Play (London 1969) 83 ff.Google Scholar; Frederiksen, M., ‘Republican Capua: A Social and Economic Study’, PBSR 14 (1959)Google Scholar and now Campania 264 ff.

21 ILLRP 727.

22 Prof. T. P. Wiseman points out to me a meeting of all citizens, women included, at Syracuse in Chariton, 's Chaereas and Callirhoe 8. 7. 1Google Scholar; perhaps not wholly unrealistic. Lectures, concerts etc., are common: for Rome, see e.g. Varro, , Sat. Menipp. 218, 561BGoogle Scholar (before the first permanent theatre).

23 The Lex Col. Gen. Iul. Ursonensis LXXI envisages ludi scaenici in the circus or forum (FIRA I 121Google Scholar). Ludi scaenici at Rome originally in the Circus, Livy 7. 3. 2. Stage in Circus Maximus in 167 B.C., Polyb. ap. Athen. 615 a-e.

24 Vitruv. 5.1.1 only assumes gladitorial munera will be in the forum and expects a town to have a proper theatre.

25 Index Stoicorum Herculanensis, ed. A. Traversa, col. LXXV, Nysius' invention of σπουδαιο-παρώδων—the word is Croenert's emendation. Philhellenism, Strabo 5. 4. 12.

26 Cicero, De Or 3. 43Google Scholar, pro Arch. 5.

27 Cicero, , Brutus 169–70Google Scholar.

28 Index Stoicorum (see n. 25), ib.

29 D'Arms, J. A., Romans on the Bay of Naples, (Cambridge, Mass. 1970)Google Scholar; Rawson, E., Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (London 1985), 20 ffGoogle Scholar.

30 T. B. L. Webster, op. cit. (n. 19), 146; Sifakis, G., Studies in the History of Hellenistic Drama (London 1967)Google Scholar. A ῤωμαιστης called Agathodorus (IG XI(2) 133. 81Google Scholar) performed there, presumably in Latin, in the earlier second century; possibly he was the protagonist of a troupe, Sifakis 20.

31 Plutarch, , Marius 2Google Scholar; Cic., ad fam 7. 1. 3 (55 B.C.)Google Scholar, ad Att. 16. 5. 1 (44 B.C.). Note also Dam, Nic.. (FGH no. 90) 127.9Google Scholar, Caesar's games in 46 (and see n. 35 below). Fraenkel, E., Elementi Plautini in Plauto (Florence 1960) 439Google Scholar suggested that Greek-speaking troupes came up from Magna Graecia even before 240 B.C. Historians, unsurprisingly, only note visits by artists from the Greek East: Livy 39. 22. 1, Polybius 30. 22 with Livy 45. 43. 1, perhaps Appian, BC I 99Google Scholar (suggesting Sulla brought actors from Greece for his victory games, though the ludi that continued to celebrate his victory were circenses). It is likely that some Greek actors were resident in Rome; so perhaps young Eucharis, possibly a mime, who appeared Graeca in scaena, ILLRP 803, cf. the cantores Graeci, ILLRP 771.

32 Plutarch, , Brutus 21. 3Google Scholar: Cannutius, whom he was especially keen to get, is described as a Greek in spite of his Italian name and may well be a Neapolitan too.

33 In Sat. 1. 5. 63Google Scholar the scurra Sarmentus tells the Oscan Messius Cicirrus that he looks so horrid he could dance the Cyclops without a mask and tragic buskins. Buskins would hardly be worn in pantomime, or in the various non-dramatic forms of dance in which satyrs at least appeared (for Rome, Dion. Hal. 7. 72. 10–12). The episode may be fictitious, but would Horace have put an implausibly learned and so ineffective insult into Sarmentus' mouth? For the revival of satyr-plays, Sifakis, op. cit. in n. 3, 124 (they can surely not have shared the decline of dancing as a part of tragedy and comedy, for which see his p. 121).

34 For Blaesus, see Gigante, M., Rintone e il Teatro in Magna Graecia (Naples 1971) 82Google Scholar. ‘Blaesus’, bent, is a Latin cognomen; but Blaesius is the Latin form of an Oscan name which could well be Hellenised as Blaisos (also meaning bent or crooked). Some Greek oracular literature did call Italy ‘Saturnian’, Hal., Dion.Ant. Rom. 1. 19. 3, 34. 5Google Scholar Capreae still Greek, Suet.Aug. 98. 3Google Scholar, cf. Strabo 5. 4. 9.

In 155 a certain Novius, also with a good Oscan name, won a prize with a comedy at the Lenaea in Athens, IG II 22325Google Scholar col. 8. He might be resident in Athens, perhaps the wholly Hellenised son of a negotiator, and we cannot be sure his play was ever produced in Italy. The first known Italian author of plays in Greek seems to be Mamercus, tyrant of Catania when Timoleon reached Sicily, who prided himself on his poems and tragedies, Plut., Tim. 31. 1Google Scholar; in 34. 2 he returns to Italy to seek Lucanian aid. Cf. Nepos, , Tim. 2. 4Google Scholar, Italicum ducem.

35 Strabo 5. 3. 6; Suet., DJ 39. 1Google Scholar, Aug. 43. 1; Cic., ad fam. 7. 1. 3Google Scholar: Graecos aut Oscos ludos. It seems doubtful whether he would refer to Latin Atellanes as Oscan in a context where ‘Greek’ must mean ‘in the Greek language’.

36 Marx, , PW 2. 1915Google Scholar sv. Atellanae fabulae; Frassinetti, P., Fabula Atellana (Genoa 1953) 46Google Scholar.

37 See the collections of inscriptions by Vetter and Pocetti. But Strabo (n. 35) talks of dramatic poems.

38 Italicus, Silius, Punica 11. 428Google Scholar: variasque per artes/scenarum certant epulas distinguere ludo. Silius was living in Campania when he wrote, but this is a topos conveying extreme luxury—cf. Sallust, Hist. II 70Google Scholar Maur., an almost blasphemous feast given for Metellus Pius in Spain, scenisque ad ostentationem histrionum fabricatis; also Cic., de fin II 23Google Scholar, ludi et quae sequuntur. Pairs of gladiators at Capuan feasts, also a proof of extreme luxury, Strabo 5. 4. 13, probably from a source of c. 100 B.C.

39 Val. Max. 2. 4. 6, whence Amm. Marc. 14. 6. 25.

40 Varro, Ant. Rer. Div. frag. 82 Cardauns (who comments ‘ganz ungeklärt ist die Angabe in oppido’). Graefe, R., Vela Erunt (Mainz 1979) 4Google Scholar does not know the passage, but notes Livy 27. 36. 8, in 208 the comitium was covered for the ludi Romani. Capua as an oppidum, Cic., de leg. agr. 2. 76Google Scholar; it had no true magistrates after 211. Holes in the ground at the theatre of Dionysius in Athens show that the priest of Dionysius, and perhaps later the two front rows, occupied by those with prohedria, had canopies, Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., The Theatre of Dionysius in Athens (Oxford 1946) 143, 263Google Scholar; dates uncertain, perhaps imperial.

ILLRP 713 cf. Frederiksen-Purcell (n. 10) 282 no. 15, before 94 B.C. shows women had special seats at Capua; this was not so in Rome in Plautus' time, but was before Augustus (it was not so for the gladiatorial shows). Suet., Aug. 44Google Scholar.

41 Vitruv. 5. 5. 7.

42 Gratwick, A., CHCL II (Cambridge 1982) 82Google Scholar: ‘by the 180s Rome, unlike any one Greek city, was maintaining her own internal and self-sufficient “circuit”’. But he only reckons about fourteen days per annum of official ludi scaenici, of all genres, including the mimes of the Floralia. Taylor, L. R., ‘The Opportunities for Dramatic Performances in the Time of Plautus and Terence’, TAPA 68 (1937) 284Google Scholar stresses that games were sometimes repeated (instaurati) and holds that plays were probably also performed at some of the games organized by the collegia, but accepts that Roman companies toured. (Ribbeck suggested that Roscius would have had to act on 125 days a year to reach the income attributed to him; but the figures both for this and for his top fee may be unreliable).

43 Polybius 31. 25. 4; Sallust, BJ 85. 39Google Scholar. Privately owned troupes may have been hired out for public as well as private performances on occasion; a number are attested in the imperial period. For the meaning of ἀκροάματα, Robert, L., ‘ΑΡΧΑΙΟΛΟΓΟΣ’, REG 49 (1936) 236Google Scholar: ‘un ἀκροάμα est un artiste, chanteur, musicien, acteur ou danseur’.

44 Roscius got 1000 den., Macr., Sat. 3. 14. 13Google Scholar.

45 P. Zanker, op. cit. (n. 11), esp. 16 ff, 337–9.

46 Cic., De Div. 2. 87Google Scholar.

47 Cassiod. Chron. under 115: the censors artem ludicram ex urbe removerunt praeter Latinum tibicinem cum cantore et ludo talario.

48 E.g. ILS 5181a, 5186, 5188–9, 5195. Some may have owned property in the towns honouring them, but it is unlikely that this explains all the cases. Greek cities had of course long given privileges to actors, though in the time of Cic., pro Arch. 10Google Scholar the custom seemed strange to the Romans.

49 Marx, F., Lucili Carminum Reliquiae (Leipzig 1904) 2. 331Google Scholar: line 1034. Cichorius, C., Untersuchungen zu Lucilius (Breslau 1908) 193Google Scholar; Rhet. ad Her. 2. 13. 19Google Scholar. It seems unlikely that satire had yet been defined as a genre holding a mirror to nature; comedy had. The line is thus not addressed to Lucilius himself; it is probably, though not certainly, hostile, and other lines, esp. 1036, suggest, if they do not prove, that Lucilius' opponent attacked him in verse.

50 Christes, J., Der Frühe Lucilius (Heidelberg 1971) 141Google Scholar.

51 Varro, , De LL 5. 153Google Scholar. In our line Krenkel in his ed. (1970; 1. 1104) punctuates circum, oppida lustrans, while Warmington (1938) suggests circi oppida. Note Livy, Ep. Oxy. Bk. 53Google Scholar, Mummius distributes spoils circa oppida, quite certainly Italian towns. Horace, , Sat. 1.6. 103Google Scholar does wander round the fallacem circum; but Prof. R. G. M. Nisbet points out to me, for the language of touring, Virgil, Georg. 2. 382Google Scholar, the Athenians institute theatrical competitions pagos et compita circum; Hor., Ep. 1. 1. 49Google Scholar, the inferior boxer who is circum pagos et circum compita pugnax; and Juv. 3. 35, equally inferior wind-players, notaeque per oppida buccae, now give games in Rome.

The MSS of Varro give quod a muris partem pennis turribus qui carceres olim fuerunt, usually emended to quod ad muri speciem pinnis turribusque carceres olim fuerunt. If however there was mention of ‘part of a city-wall’ only, my argument would be stronger than ever. Oppidum in Naevius' sense was perhaps soon obsolete; Ennius, twice speaks of the carcer, Ann. 80 and 463 skGoogle Scholar.

52 Mommsen, T., Die Unteritalische Dialekten (Leipzig 1850) 319Google Scholar.

53 MSS Ilaruba: Ribbeck's Insubra is often preferred.

54 Oscan and Volscian, Ribbeck3 175, Daviault, Comoedia Togata (1981) 103Google Scholar, from the Quintus. Oscan gloss, Bücheler, F., ‘Oskische Bleitafel’, Rh. M. 33 (1878) 42–3Google Scholar. Since Ferentinum had one of the first new monumental schemes of architecture and the names of leading families appear in the East, the statement in the Psaltria that the Ferentine people res Graecas studet need not mean simply that they are dissipated (as in pergraecari).

55 ILLRP 720, 728–31, 733–4; Plut., Marius 38. 4Google Scholar; Cic., ad Att. 7. 18. 4Google Scholar. See also (Q.) Pontius Titinianus, in Nicolet, C., L'Ordre Equestre (Paris 1974)Google Scholar II no. 289. Titinii abroad, Wilson, A. J. N., Emigration from Italy in the Republican Age of Rome (Manchester 1966) 110n., 131Google Scholar; leading eques in Rome in 91, Cic., pro clu. 153Google Scholar.

A later Titinius from Privernum, , CIL X 6445Google Scholar (the inscription is slightly doubtful) is pointed out to me by Mr. N. Purcell.

56 Beare, W., The Roman Stage (London 1950) 121Google Scholar; Smith, R. E., ‘The Aristocratic Age in Latin Literature’, in Essays on Roman Culture ed. Dunston, A. J. (Toronto 1976) 209Google Scholar. If we may trust Donatus, , Eun. 1. 1. 12Google Scholar it was not felt proper in the togata to show slaves as cleverer than their masters.

57 Mommsen, T., Römische Geschichte (Berlin 1908) I n. 908Google Scholar.

58 The idea that the togata emerged in Rome as a nationalist reaction to the Hellenizing palliata is now usually rejected, as there is some reason to think that Titinius is a contemporary of Plautus: Weinstock, S., PW VIA 1542Google Scholar. Rostagni, A, La Letteratura di Roma Repubblicana ed Augustea (Bologna 1939) 150Google Scholar does suggest that Titinius was ‘un superstite del passato, che praticava questo genere … come un residuo dell'antica costume italica sopravivente fuori dell'Urbe in terreno provinciale … in diretta aderenza con la tradizone indigena di Nevio'. It is uncertain however whether Naevius wrote anything that could be called togatae, as opposed to palliatae with anachronistic insertions about Italian life. There is also no reason to think Titinius especially primitive; Varro admired his character-drawing (GRF 203).

59 Cic., Brutus 167Google Scholar. Afranii hold office in second century Rome. Pompey's friend may have come from Picenum, where an inscription to him has been found (ILLRP 385). Afranii in Etruria may derive from the pr. 185 who was IIvir col. ded. for Saturnia.

60 So hardly in Capua, as Daviault (op. cit. n. 54) 177; but no suitable town is actually known.

61 Numerius is most common as an Oscan praenomen; for Numisius see n. 92 below. Amyclae, Lucilius 957 Marx.

62 Plays referring to forum and curia are not necessarily set in Rome, pace Daviault 27 n. 3.

63 Atta's cognomen needed explanation not long after his death, Festus 11L; but attempts to see it as Oscan have little basis.

64 Ps. -Acro ad Hor., AP 288Google Scholar.

65 Robson, D. O., ‘The Nationality of the Poet Caecilius Statius’, AJP 59 (1938) 301Google Scholar suggests that he was a Samnite settled in Cisalpine Gaul. But though Statius is an Oscan praenomen and nomen, it is often used as a slave name (pace Robson) and there is no reason to disbelieve Gellius', A. statement (NA 4. 20. 13)Google Scholar that the poet was a freedman, or indeed Jerome, 's (Chron. p. 138Helm)Google Scholar that he was an Insubrian Gaul, some said from Mediolanum.

66 Cic., Brutus 258Google Scholar, ad Att. 7. 3. 10.

67 Jerome, Chron. p. 148Helm.Google Scholar Jerome usually gives a writer's place of origin under his birth or clarus habetur, not death. He would not necessarily therefore have told us if Turpilius had died in or near his birthplace.

68 Obsequens 9; cf. Plut., Aem. Paull. 39Google Scholar, Paullus' retirement to the health resort of Velia (though he actually died in Rome).

69 Cic., ad Att. 14. 8.Google Scholar But see now Frederiksen-Purcell, op. cit. (n. 10) 39.

70 See Philodemus, De Morte 5. 55–6Google Scholar Bassi for the expectation of philosophers that after study and teaching abroad they would retire to their home towns.

71 ILLRP 593, 300, 685, 240; 82 Nemus Dianae; Sallust, BJ 69. 4Google Scholar—this must mean a Roman citizen from a Latin town, perhaps one who had gained the status per magistratum.

72 Donatus auct., ad vitam Terenti. One line has been ascribed to Terentius Libo, as it is said to be by ‘Terentius’, but is not found in Terence's plays; but the name may be emended to Juventius, which is elsewhere confused with Terentius (Ribbeck 94). Possibly Maecius knew about the poet from Fregellae because he came from the area; there are Maecii at Rome and elsewhere, but also Minturnae, , ILLRP 725Google Scholar.

73 Cic., Brutus 170Google Scholar; Strabo 5. 3. 6, 10; BCH 8. 89; cf. Rhet. ad Her. 4. 22Google Scholar, its former nitor.

74 Cic., ad Att. 12. 2Google Scholar, pro Plancio 63. Arrogance, Plautus, Bacch. 12Google Scholar.

75 Praeneste was certainly the home of a good many negotiatores in the late Republic; strigils with Greek names dating from the Middle Republic may be imports, but suggest Greek habits (Roma Medio-Repubblicana, Rome 1973, 282Google Scholar), and some of the engravers of cistae and mirrors of this period have been thought Greek. Like Tibur the city was given a Greek origin by some writers (Strabo 5. 3. 11 etc.) If the reference (to one Aristocles' Italika) is to be trusted, there was a story that Telegonus was told by an oracle to found a city where he saw rustics dancing garlanded with oak-twigs (πρινίνοις κλάδοις); this might be an αἴτιον not only for the city's name but for ludi scaenici there (Ps.-Plut., Parallel Histories 41Google Scholar; the authors mentioned are not necessarily invented).

76 Bieber, M., History of the Greek and Roman Theatre (Princeton 1961) 162, fig. 585Google Scholar.

77 Ritschl, F., Parerga (Leipzig 1845) 1. 196Google Scholar; Cic., de Fin 1. 5Google Scholar, cf. ad Att. 14. 20. 3.

78 Bücheler, F., ‘Poeta latinus ignobilis’, RhM. 33 (1878) 309Google Scholar, cf. Ribbeck 131: from a gloss. Vatronii in Praeneste, ILLRP 106, 264, 872, cf. Degrassi, A., ‘Epigraphica IV’, Mem. Acc. Line. XIV. 2 (1969) IIIGoogle Scholar, = id.Scritti vari di antichiti IV (1971) and in Studi su Praeneste (1978) 147; none elsewhere under the Republic.

Several minor comic poets who cannot be localised are mentioned by Fulgentius and others.

79 For Luscius see Garton, C., Personal Aspects of the Roman Theatre (Toronto 1972) 41Google Scholar. Roscius, Cic., de nat. deor. 1. 79Google Scholar, de div. 2. 66.

80 Syme, R., ‘Senators, Tribes and Towns’, Roman Papers II (Oxford 1979) 590Google Scholar.

81 F. Coarelli, op. cit. in n. 13. 171. Note the rationalising tale at Hal., Dion.Rom. Ant. 1. 84. 5Google Scholar that Romulus and Remus were educated and learned Greek at Gabii. It is on the route to Campania.

82 Plut., Numa 21Google Scholar. A much later freedman of a Pomponius in Bononia, , AE 1946 210Google Scholar.

82 Noster Pomponius, ad fam. 7. 31. 2Google Scholar, is surely Atticus, even though he was now strictly a Caecilius; cf. ad fam. 9. 8, 14. 5. 2 and 10, where no doubt is possible.

84 Vell. Pat. 2. 9. 6; 2. 16. 2 for descent from the Decii of Capua, and for the Velleii themselves, also from Capua, see Rawson, E., ‘More on the Clientelae of the Patrician Claudii’, Historia 26 (1977) 345Google Scholar.

85 Cic., de Or. 2. 255, 279, 285Google Scholar. Over-bold speculation makes Lucilius visit him in Campania, Frassinetti, op. cit. (n. 36), 120.

86 Athenaeus 6. 261C = Nic. Dam. fr. 75 (FGH no. 90). Brink, C., Horace on Poetry: The Ars Poetica (Cambridge 1971) 274Google Scholar is one of those who thinks AP 220 ff. must mean that Horace thought satyr-play ‘a viable Roman genre’. Perhaps; but if there had been Latin satyr-plays of any note at all the grammarians would hardly have attempted to represent Atellanes as such. That Nicolaus knew this grammatical tradition may, however certainly be doubted. Diodorus calls Sannio a σατυρικόν πρόσωπον (n. 4 above); but whether this is meant literally seems to me uncertain. For Sulla and the theatre see C. Garton, op. cit. (n. 79) 141 and Keaveney, A., ‘Young Sulla and the Decem Stipendia’, RFIC 108 (1980) 165Google Scholar. It might be added that in his last year Sulla was busy writing his memoirs (22 bks.) as well as hunting, etc. (Appian, BC 1. 104Google Scholar).

87 Petronius, Sat. 53Google Scholar, cf. 68; Juvenal, Sat. 3. 173 ffGoogle Scholar. (but see Syme, R., ‘The patria of Juvenal’, Roman Papers III (Oxford 1984) 1120Google Scholar).

88 ILLRP 804. Late second-century Cloulii probably from Terracina, Wiseman, T. P.CR 17 (1967) 263 ffGoogle Scholar, but there may have been others.

89 Cic., pro Plancio 30Google Scholar: raptam esse mimulam … vetere quodam in scaenicos iure maximeque oppidano.

90 Giancotti, F., Mimo e Gnome (Florence 1967) 143Google Scholar notes that Publilius need not have been brought up in Rome, as Skutsch thought; the ship bringing him from the East as a slave (Pliny, NH 35. 199Google Scholar) probably docked at Puteoli. Publilii at Minturnae (with Syrian slaves too!) ILLRP 728, 738, 740, and the probable slave-dealer M. Publilius Satyr on a Campanian Stele, perhaps late Republican, Frederiksen-Purcell 290 and pl. VIII (CIL X 8222Google Scholar).

91 J. D'Arms, op. cit. (n. 29) 204; he also notes the title Piscator. Lanuvium, : ILLRP 263Google Scholar, a Laberius there, cf. Sherk, , RDGE 12Google Scholar, one with the tribe Maecia, which is that of Lanuvium.

92 Münzer, , PW XVII (1937) 1239Google Scholar; cf. CIL VI 38676 (from Rome)Google Scholar. ILLRP 728, slave of a Numisius in Minturnae, unique in the corpus, but Minturnae is of course over-represented onomastically for the Republican period. However note a Campanian architect or architects, Cic., ad Q.f. 2. 2. 1Google Scholar with CIL X 1443, 1446Google Scholar, and Livy 8. 3. 9, an early Numisius of Circeii. Numisii in early Capua, Vetter 106 (in Tarquinia, Syme, Roman Papers II 582Google Scholar). Later, Minturnae, CIL X 6014Google Scholar, Formiae 6168.

93 W. Beare, op. cit. (n. 56) 156 and now A. Gratwick, op. cit. (n. 80). But ILLRP 744, a slave Turpio at Minturnae, , CIL V 3275aGoogle Scholar a freedman—of P. Clodius?; Turpio, P. Naevius, Cic., Verr. 2. 3. 90Google Scholar is regarded by Nicolet, op. cit. (n. 55) 325 as a freedman. Even the Turpio of ad Att. 6. 1. 15, unworthy to be a iudex, might be a rich freedman who had crept onto the lists.

94 ILLRP 927a from near Tusculum (possibly the man probably called Ambivius who had an inn on the Via Latina, Cic., pro Clu. 163Google Scholar). Cf. such names as the Praenestine Orchivius.

95 For a full list see C. Garton, op. cit. (n. 79) 231.

96 Pliny, NH 7. 184Google Scholar (ab antiquis traditur).

97 Hor., Sat. 2. 3. 61Google Scholar. Names in -ienus come from central Italy. Nicolet, op. cit. (n. 55) 832 tentatively suggests the Sabine area for at least some Catieni.

98 Cic., pro Rosc. com. 30Google Scholar, a bad actor. The famous Statilii were all Lucanian, the Statilii Tauri perhaps from Volcei; Livy 22. 42. 4, Val. Max 1. 8. 6, ILS 893a; Syme, Roman Revolution (Oxford 1939) 237Google Scholar.

99 Cic., de off. 1. 114Google Scholar; possibly Praenestine or Picene, see Nicolet, op. cit. 1008.

100 Hor., Sat. 2. 3. 61Google Scholar. ‘Typiquement Campanien’, Nicolet op. cit. 885, and note the Fufii Caleni from Cales, and ILLRP 715 and 720 from Capua.

101 A histrio vix sanus, Sallust, Hist. 2. 25Google Scholar Maur. The name is ‘portentously rare’; an imperial consular is honoured by his daughters' nurse at Minturnae, and is patron of the colony, but does not have the tribe of this town, CIL X 6006Google Scholar, cf. 6025.

102 C. Norbanus, cos. 82, has been called Etruscan, Campanian and even, in spite of the non-Latin termination of his name, supposed to come from Norba. In ‘Caesar, Etruria and the Disciplina Etrusca’ JRS 68 (1978) 149Google Scholar. 1 I did not note that Norbanus is the name given by Petronius (45. 10, 46. 8) to a candidate for office in Trimalchio's Campanian colony, but conceivably the name became linked with the area because Sulla settled his friend there (he gave actors land, Athenaeus 6. 261C). The mimeactor Norbanus Sorex was commemorated in the Augustan period at Pompeii as magister pagi, CIL X. 1. 814Google Scholar.

Antony is said to have settled mime actors and actresses on lands in Campania, Cic., Phil. 2. 101, 8. 26Google Scholar, perhaps not only because land was available but because they came from or worked in the area.

103 ORF no. 21 fr. 30; Cic., pro Rosc. Com. 28Google Scholar, de Or. 1. 129.

104 It may be felt odd that there has been no reference to Etruria, which has sometimes been thought to have a theatrical tradition, partly on the grounds that scenes which might have been taken from Greek tragedy appear on late funerary urns; but the most recent study, van der Meer, L. Bouke, Etruscan Urns from Volterra (Groningen, 1978)Google Scholar finds precedents in the Greek visual repertory. Statuettes of actors have been found (with a few other representations of masks, etc; see Webster, opp. citt. in n. 20) in a few places in S. Etruria; notably a group at Canino (Vulci), which M. Bieber, op. cit. (n. 76) 149, figs. 551–3, thinks are in native not Greek dress—Etruscan togata or Roman imports?

Certainly Varro knew (personally, it seems) a Volnius, who wrote tragoedias Tuscas, de LL 5. 55.Google Scholar I would suspect that drama was not unknown in the late Republican period, but was not a strong local growth.