Roman Pantomime

Sous le règne de l'empereur Auguste, vers 22 av. J.-C., apparut à Rome un genre dramatique nouveau dont le succès, fulgurant et durable, résiste aujourd'hui encore à l'analyse historique. Ses acteurs, des danseurs solistes accompagnés d'un choeur et d'un orchestre qui mimaient les grandes 'scènes' de la mythologie, fascinèrent, six siècles durant, le public de tout l'Empire romain. Pantomimi à Rome, orchestai en Grèce, ces acteurs d'un nouveau genre furent récompensés, adulés, détestés, condamnés, bannis. La pantomime antique, genre dramatique à la fois raffiné et populaire, concurrent de la tragédie qu'il supplanta, méritait une synthèse qui lui rendît sa vraie place dans l'histoire du théâtre antique. Comprendre un phénomène aussi surprenant que l'engouement de tout un Empire, de Syrie jusqu'en Gaule et de Germanie jusqu'en Afrique, pour des spectacles sans texte véritable, qui faisaient appel à l'image et au son, supposait un dépassement des problématiques habituelles. Abandonnant tous les a priori et jugements de valeur, le présent ouvrage ne souhaitait pas évaluer le genre mais l'analyser comme un fait de civilisation unique dans notre culture occidentale. Notre documentation est pauvre (nous n'avons aucun texte, aucune partition), parfois anachronique, presque toujours marquée par des parti pris sociaux ou politiques. L'iconographie est rare. Elle permet difficilement d'imaginer l'apparence du danseur. Aucune image ne permet de reconstituer le spectacle. L'étude des inscriptions permet de construire quelques parcours artistiques, mais avec tant d'incertitudes qu'il eût été impossible de prétendre proposer au lecteur une Vie quotidienne des danseurs à Rome. Il était passionnant en revanche de parcourir des textes souvent contradictoires, ceux des historiens latins et grecs, ceux des poètes, des auteurs d'épigrammes de l'Anthologie Grecque, ceux des auteurs chrétiens aussi, et de se pencher sur les textes émouvants d'épitaphes en vers. Cette synthèse a d'abord pour objet la mise en lumière de la mutation culturelle importante dont témoigne la naissance de ce 'drame moderne', la pantomime. Tragédie, poésie lyrique, épopée, mythologie en général se trouvaient convoqués par une langue gestuelle compréhensible par tous, qui rappelait aux Grecs et aux Latins leur patrimoine commun. L'ouvrage s'addresse à un public averti, qu'il soit spécialiste des textes antiques ou de l'histoire du théâtre occidental.

Paper on a little funerial altar from Laus Pompeia (now in the Ambrosiana Library), representing the pantomime Teocritus Pylades performing in two different costumes. The paper examines the history of the image of the pantomime, its inspiration from the iconographic tradition of the actor and the close relationship between iconographic and danced schemata. The altar offers an important contribution to understand the visual aspects of the pantomime's performance. About also collecting of Antiquities in modern Lombardia (Talenti collection).

Popular Spectacles in Rome  from the Late Republic to the Early Imperial Age.
The aim of the present contribute is to provide an outline of the theatralical forms in Rome during the first century BC, collecting literary texts with contemporary archaeological sources, epigraphic documents and papyri. The data are framed in the social context in which the traditional forms of theatre - tragedy and comedy - and other entertaining shows, such as pantomime and mime have developed.
Keywords
Roman theater, Tragedy, Comedy, Mimes, Pantomime, Recitals and Reperformances. Archaeological and papyrological documents.

‘No one knows so little of Homer, so as not to know that the best of the heroes are parasites’ (Par. 44). This bold claim comes from Simon, an interlocutor in a dialogue by the second century CE author Lucian of Samosata, titled De parasito (On the Parasite). Simon’s argument in this piece is that the parasitic art deserves to be considered a technē because the Homeric heroes invented the practice. De parasito is a clear parody of the genre of encomium, but it also takes aim at the efforts of myth rationalizers, from Prodicus (fifth century BCE) to Heraclitus (second century CE), to explain (origin) myths by explaining the origins of origin myths. In this chapter I will argue that De parasito, together with such pieces as De saltatione (On the Dance), De astrologia (On Astrology), Electrum (Amber), and Muscae encomium (Praise of the Fly), represents Lucian’s playful response through parody to rationalizing aetiologies of myth.

Kuin, I.N.I. 2021. ‘Patroclus Was a Parasite: Lucian’s Satirical Aitia,’ in J.J.H. Klooster; A.B. Wessels (eds.), Inventing Origins: The Function of Aetiology in Antiquity. Brill, Leiden, 183—198.

https://brill.com/view/title/61226?rskey=fxopYP&result=1

This paper investigates the mythological wall paintings decorating the room known as the tablinum in atrium houses at Pompeii and Herculaneum. Scholars have considered the tablinum part of the “public” section of the house and have linked this room to the formal morning greeting, or salutatio, despite the fact that no ancient literary source mentions the tablinum in connection with this daily ritual. These assumptions have conditioned the way in which scholars have interpreted the decoration, which is analyzed in relation to the social activities supposedly associated with this type of room or discussed in terms of moral ideals and social values. This study demonstrates that the figurative imagery within the tablinum does not necessarily relate to social practices in that space but instead informs us about a common visual vocabulary shared by different strata of society.

two bronze inscription from Halaesa (Sicily), of the Augustan age, testify to the involvement of more than 800 priests of Apollo. The international net of Apollonian priests is mirrored by Propertius and other poets, who mention contributions and presents to Apollo Palatinus from famous temples of the Greek world

The subject of this article is the monumental tomb of the pantomime artist Krispos which is found the necropolis area of the ancient Heraclea Pontica city and which is protected in the garden of the Karadeniz Ereğli Museum. 19 line Greek inscription on the marble forming the monumental tomb is located. There is also a bust in the aedicula shaped temple which today is missing. The inscription has been previously published by Sencer Şahin. Trilby hat with a similar goods located, in the upper part of the aedicula is located in the middle of the pediment. From this point of view on this motif and inscription, the art of pantomime will be analyzed in this
article.

Our purpose here is to examine why Lucian of Samosata in The Dance and Libanius in On Behalf of the
Dancers consider that tragedy and dance are related, what elements they share and how these authors
understand tragedy as spectacle, because in their times it had not the same meaning as we understand
nowadays the classical tragedy.

Popular Spectacles in Rome  from the Late Republic to the Early Imperial Age.
The aim of the present contribute is to provide an outline of the theatralical forms in Rome during the first century BC, collecting literary texts with contemporary archaeological sources, epigraphic documents and papyri. The data are framed in the social context in which the traditional forms of theatre - tragedy and comedy - and other entertaining shows, such as pantomime and mime have developed.

The aim of this paper is to offer an analysis of the Christian intellectual perspective of choreutic gesture, putting forward the hypothesis that by regulating dancing, late antique bishops became spokesmen for an anthropology of gesture which on the one hand demonised all forms of performative dancing and on the other hand encouraged men to become perfect imitators of an angelic choreia in the Platonic framework. This choreia was supposed to guide the behavioural movement and schemata of men’s bodies. However, it was more than just a characteristic of a presumed Ideal City; it also had to be realised in life on earth, the anticipatory mirror image of the heavenly city.

In the eighteenth century the neoclassical reflection on the artwork as an imitation of nature translates into the necessity of a radical reform for the choreutical art, which must recover a dramaturgical meaning. The practical model to follow for an imitative reconsideration of the dance is the ancient pantomime, the perfect example of the union between poetry, dance and music, aspiring to represent on scene a complete story and the emotions of the characters; the philosophical model which stands at the basis of the debate is the dialogical treatise on dance by Luciano di Samosata. The ancient reflection on the saltatio represents the start point for the neoclassical re-elaboration of the ballet d’action
codified by Franz Anton Hilverding, Gasparo Angiolini and Jean-Georges Noverre.

Short paper on three statues now in the collection of the Museo Archeologico of Milano. They were discovered in Caesarea Maritima by the Italian archaeological mission in the sixties. The hand with a pantomime mask belongs to a statue of a Muse (Polymnia) erected in the theater; the statue of a Nymph peplophoros belongs to the sculptural decoration of the theater too. The statue of a fisherman could belong to the decoration of a domus.

This article aims to show the close link between the representation of Trajan’s deeds in Pliny the Younger’s Panegyric and those of Augustus as described in the Res gestae. The analysis, developed through an in-depth reading of the most relevant passages, defines Trajan’s twofold attitude towards his model: on the one hand a singular effort to broaden Augustus’ successes, on the other the tendency to manifest his own self-restraint in contrast to the predecessor’s behaviour. The final section of the article is devoted to Pliny’s treatment of the word saeculum, which powerfully invokes the presence of another Augustan theme: the return of the Golden Age.

In this paper we aim to analyze an inscription regarding an anonymous pantomime, Ann.
épigr. 1956, 67, whose importance for our understanding of the organization of pantomime shows in the Antonine and Severan period in Rome as well as in Italy and western provinces is exceptional, since it contains the entire career of the artist, although in a very fragmentary state. We develop the statements made by previous scholars about the text on this inscription and explore the possibilities that such implications may have. Finally we propose some new textual reconstructions.

Throughout the Vitae XII Caesarum references to theatrical  performances and the relation between performers and principes are constant. The abundance of anecdotal information is one of the
defining traits of ancient biography and, thus, of the Suetonian Vitae; they provide us with detailed information on the intimacy of the emperors which cannot be found in other genres, for instance in the annalistic historiography. Moreover, the presence of this sort of news in the Vitae and its distribution throughout the work it is not due to chance, but, as some studies on the Suetonian production have shown, to the conscious determination of the author of subtly modelling the psychology of its characters by means of anecdotes which contribute to shape their figures. In this work we aim to analyse Suetonius’ Vita Divi Augusti in order to discover the procedure used by the biographer to outline the personality of the first Roman emperor from the
references to the performances and theatrical artists, with special attention to both mime and pantomime.

Il rinvenimento di una nuova iscrizione onoraria per il pantomimo L. Aelius Aurelius Apolaustus, con evidenti tracce di erasione del nome, permette di identificarlo con certezza con l'Apolaustus fatto uccidere da Commodo verosimilmente nel 189 d.C.

Alcestis barcelońską oraz centon Alcesta można bez przesady uznać za najważniejsze przykłady wykorzystania mitu o Alcestis w literaturze łacińskiej, przynajmniej jeśli ograniczymy się do tekstów zachowanych do naszych czasów, a nie tych znanych nam jedynie z niewielkich fragmentów lub poświadczeń u innych autorów. Są to zarazem – jeśli weźmiemy pod uwagę czas powstania – poematy obrazujące sposób czytania tego mitu u schyłku antyku, w okresie już naznaczonym kulturą chrześcijańską, jakkolwiek, co nie mniej intrygujące, żaden z nich nie oferuje nam stricte chrześcijańskiej reinterpretacji historii Alcestis i Admeta. […] Te dwa niewielkich rozmiarów utwory w znakomity sposób egzemplifikują również cechy, które można uznać za typowe dla poetyki i estetyki literackiej późnego antyku. Chodzi tu właśnie o kwestie kompozycyjne, o właściwości estetycznoliterackie, o warstwę intertekstualną, ową grę z tradycją, pełną finezji, uczoności i tego, co często w studiach literaturoznawczych określane jest jako swoista ‘samoświadomość poetologiczna’. Jeśli dodamy jeszcze fakt, że być może przynajmniej jeden z tych utworów wprowadza nas w świat antycznej literatury kobiecej (zresztą ze względu na sam temat przynależą tu w jakimś stopniu oba), chyba nie trzeba już dalej przekonywać, że zasługują na większą niż dotąd atencję z naszej strony.
The Barcelona Alcestis and the cento Alcesta can be considered – with no exaggeration at all – two very important examples of the exploitation of the Alcestis myth in Latin literature. In addition – if we take into account the period when they were composed – they both show how the Alcestis myth was read in late antiquity, in a period already marked by the influence of the Christian culture, even though – and this is no less intriguing – none of them offers us a strictly Christian reinterpretation of the story of Alcestis and Admetus. […] The two minor poems on Alcestis exemplify remarkably well the features that might be considered typical of late antique poetics and literary aesthetics, with their compositional idiosyncrasies, rich intertextual texture, playfulness, finesse, learnedness, and an additional quality, often described in literary studies as ‘poetological self-consciousness’. If we add to all that the fact that at least one of the poems in question (possibly) introduces us into the world of ancient female literature (though, as a matter of fact, because of their specific topic this is peculiar to them both), we need not find further arguments to show that they deserve more scholarly attention on our part.

Gérard de Nerval rattachait directement le théâtre d'ombres aux atellanes latines : « Aussi bien Caragueuz lui-même n'est-il autre que le Polichinelle des Osques, dont on voit encore de si beaux exemplaires au musée de Naples ». Un demi-siècle plus tard, le grand helléniste Salomon Reinach faisait la relation entre les mimes du monde ottoman, leurs homologues italiens et ceux de l'Antiquité, via Byzance : « Il semble bien établi que le Karagà¶z turc a hérité du mime byzantin, comme aussi, par d'autres voies, la Commedia dell'arte et le théâtre des marionnettes ». Sans doute la filiation n'est-elle pas aussi directe. La continuité est frappante cependant : à  la différence de la tragédie antique, qui dut attendre la Renaissance pour être réinventée à  l'opéra puis au théâtre, la comédie et ses masques, relayés par les marionnettes, connurent une fortune moins illustre mais ininterrompue. C'est cette permanence que le volume souhaite illustrer, en privilégiant la portée familière du théâtre, qui dessine une nouvelle carte de l'Europe des spectacles. Sur cette carte, dans ce domaine comme dans tant d'autres, l'Empire ottoman se révèle une puissance de premier plan, bien intégrée au jeu européen. Les voyageurs ne manquent pas de s'intéresser à  ses silhouettes familières, où ils scrutent l'héritage des Anciens. Notre époque a considéré ces spectacles avec la condescendance réservée au pittoresque. Au XIXe siècle, les spécialistes de l'Antiquité et de l'Orient étaient mieux avertis de leur importance. Cet ouvrage, qui réunit des historiens de la littérature, du théâtre, de l'art et de l'archéologie, remet au centre de la scène une tradition injustement marginalisée.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses, as scholars have demonstrated, can be read in dialogue with Roman pantomime dance, and the tale of Echo and Narcissus is one of its most ‘pantomimic’ episodes. While others have focused on the figure of Narcissus in this vein, I turn instead to Echo, whose vocal mimicry can be seen as a mirror of the pantomime’s art, and whose juxtaposition with Narcissus seems emblematic of the body-voice relationship in pantomime. Echo’s desire for Narcissus engages with an existing lyric tradition of depicting the relationship between singing voice and dancing body in erotic terms. In such situations, the desire is fulfilled if the performers are both singing and dancing, uniting body and voice in performance. The thwarted union of Echo and Narcissus, however, embodies instead the dynamics of pantomime: the subordination or absence of the voice in favor of the body, and the connection created between dancer and audience.

A part of the 10th book of Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, often defined as his liber de spectaculis, is devoted to a description of a pantomimic spectacle. Set in a theater in Corinth and narrated by Lucius the ass, this performance relates the story of the judgment of Paris. The very fact that Apuleius inserted a similar motif into his novel is hardly surprising as pantomime was by far the most important mythological spectacle known to the Roman public. In North Africa, its popularity continued throughout late antiquity. Saint Augustine (among others) referred to such shows many times and even mentioned iudicium Paridis as their typical subject. Lucius the ass as the viewer of the performance (and, from our perspective, its main teller) styles himself as an objective
‘connoisseur’ of the art of pantomime, emphasizing its alluring beauty, but also the artificiality of the staging. Upon a closer look, however, one realizes that Lucius has been absorbed by the scenic illusion, to the extent that he takes it for his own reality. Paris’s story, in his view, is an excellent excuse for all human faults, including his own. Thus, rather than reflecting upon all his misdeeds that have deprived him of his human status, he merely lectures his audience and eventually insults
them as ‘sheep of the courts’ and ‘vultures in togas’. Yet if, in his opinion, all humankind is just beasts, the reader (especially if s/he does feel offended) can conclude that Lucius the ass, for all his philosophizing, should perhaps be more accurately described as an asinine philosopher.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses is enriched in many respects by reading it in dialogue with Roman pantomime dance, a distinctively chameleonic art form in which a single, silent dancer enacts many roles in quick succession (see e.g. Ingleheart 2008, Lada-Richards 2013 and 2016). From its mythological subject matter to its focus on gestures, bodies and transformation, many clear points of contact emerge between his work and this (at the time) newly popular storytelling art. In this talk, I will argue that the connection with pantomime is also profoundly relevant to one of the thorniest issues of Ovidian scholarship and pedagogy: the many disturbing tales of rape and sexual assault depicted in the Metamorphoses (on which see e.g. Curran 1978, Richlin 1992).
Using the tales of Procne and Philomela (6.424-674) and of Daphne and Apollo (1.452-567) as examples, I will show how understanding Ovid’s sensibilities as “pantomimic” alters our readings of these episodes in multiple ways: first, it encourages us to look more deeply at body language and gesture, rather than speech, as a central locus of communication and power. Second, it helps to make sense of a feature of many stories in the Metamorphoses that is particularly difficult to grapple with in the context of sexual violence: the oscillation of perspectives between an eroticized, voyeuristic complicity with the assailant and a harrowing sympathy with the victim. Imagining these stories told in pantomime performance, with a single performer acting out the roles of rapist and victim in turn, lends a new coherence to the perspective of the poem in these instances—and, I would finally assert, has a valuable impact on the ways in which we might understand and teach this text.

Presented at CAAS Annual Meeting, Silver Spring, MD (October 11, 2019).

It is undeniable that in late antique literature, next to long hexametric compositions, there is a strong tendency toward miniaturization, and indeed within various narrative forms. At the same time, most such poems, despite their minor format, have quite major ‘ambitions’, so to speak, aiming to explore themes so far reserved for grand genres. The two texts on Alcestis, i.e. the one referred to as Alcestis Barcinonensis and the cento Alcesta, are representative of this trend. Both are extremely short (122 and 162 hexameters, respectively), and yet concern themselves with a (par excellence) tragic protagonist, presenting her story in extenso, though understandably with major shortcuts. Both are composed in narrative mode, and yet show similarities with dramatic forms, thus provoking intriguing questions concerning their performative contexts. In addition, one of these texts, the Alcesta, happens to be a Virgilian cento. This material provides excellent grounds for a discussion on late antique approaches to genres and generic divisions, on the applicability of certain generic labels (those coined in antiquity and those invented by modern scholars), and – last but not least – on the reinterpretations of a classical myth in a culture that was already, if not wholly Christianized, at least strongly permeated by Christian concepts of familial love, sacrifice, and (im)mortality.

https://www.recherche-creation-avignon.fr/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Corps-enscene-complet.pdf

"Dans le texte de Ruth Webb, nous découvrons tout un
pan disparu de notre histoire des représentations, avec la
danse de l’Antiquité, car de ces temps qui ont fonde´ notre
histoire de la représentation il ne nous reste le plus généralement
que la connaissance d’un théâtre par ses textes. De là
un changement radical dans le rapport au personnage, non
plus assujetti, avec ou sans masque, a` son dire, mais au
contraire libéré par le mouvement qui va rendre son identité.
Peut-être la notion même d’identité et d’identité sexuelle en
a-t-elle été affectée. Les commentaires de ce théâtre dansé
sont ici un témoignage de la plus haute importance sur
l’origine de l’idée d’individu et d’identité que le christianisme,
associant l’âme et le corps bouleversera."
(Préface d'Olivier Py, p. 11.)

This paper presents a new discovery on the Theonoe Mosaic from Zeugma and reassesses its evaluation in mythical and architectural context. This discovery pertains to two inscriptions found on the mosaic: Βά⌈κ⌉χαι and [-]..κε|[κ]α̣ρμέ|νη, both of which provide important clues for reconstructing the myth of Theonoe and the image’s possible connection to literary sources. The characters’ iconography, when studied closely and analyzed in light of the remaining inscriptions, speaks for a possible relationship between the Theonoe mosaic and a lost theatrical performance, possibly a mime. ∗ We would like to thank J. Balty, I. David, M.-R. Falivene, K. Gutzwiller, T. Özhan, A. Piqueux and B. Yıldırım for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. All mistakes remain our own. For epigraphical conventions, we have followed Panciera 1991. Some Observations on the Theonoe Mosaic from Zeugma 20 The Theonoe mosaic was found in 2002, in the triclinium of a Roman house in Zeugma. The o...