Dance in Rome

The Influence of Etruria.

The city of Rome in 364 b.c.e. was suffering from a plague. Believing the plague to be the result of the anger of the gods, the Romans brought in Etruscan dancers in an effort to appease the gods and gain some relief from the plague's devastation. The Etruscans danced to the music of the aulos, the precursor to the oboe, without any songs or gestures, but their graceful movements entranced the Romans, who began to imitate them. There is much about the Etruscans which is still a mystery—the riddle of their language has not yet been solved—but in the ancient world, they were known for their love of luxury, to which the paintings found in their tombs of the magnificence of their festivals and banquets can attest. In one tomb, the Tomba dei Cacciatori (Tomb of the Huntsmen), men dance in the open air, most of them nude except for a loincloth. They are shown separated from each other by trees or shrubs, dancing wildly to the music of the double-aulos. In another tomb, the Tomba delle leonesse (Tomb of the Lionesses), a naked man is shown dancing opposite a scantily-clad woman. On opposite walls of the Tomba del Triclinio (Tomb of the Dining Couch), there are two groups of five dancers each, alternating in gender. In one corner, a musician plays the double-aulos, and in the other, a man plays the lyre. Another tomb shows a man apparently dancing in armor to the music of the aulos. Like the Greeks, the Etruscans knew the pyrrhike ("war dance") or something like it.

Roman Attitudes Towards Dance.

Roman character had a strong ascetic streak. The Etruscans may have introduced Romans to the dance, but it retained the reputation of a foreign import for years after. Plato may have said that a man who did not know how to dance was uneducated, but Plato was a Greek, and his Roman contemporaries would have thought the sentiment ridiculous. The art of the dance did eventually come to Rome along with the rest of Greek culture, but for the Romans, dancing always remained entertainment. It was never part of a Roman's formal education. By the end of the third century b.c.e., upper-class Romans did start to send their children to dancing-masters for lessons, and in the first half of the second century b.c.e., while Greece itself was falling under Roman domination, Greek dancers, most of them probably brought to Rome as slaves and then freed, set up dancing-schools. From the Roman perspective, the creation of dancing schools gave dance a status far beyond that of mere entertainment, and its possibilities for the corruption of character led to a backlash against this art form. In the middle of the second century b.c.e., Scipio Aemilianus, a Roman aristocrat who generally admired Greek culture, moved to close the schools down, but his success was short-term at best. Yet Scipio's view of dance persisted in Roman culture into the first century b.c.e.: it was permissible for Romans to know how to dance, but knowing how to dance expertly was a symptom of depravity.

Native Dances of Rome.

Nonetheless there were dances native to early Rome. One called the bellicrepa was supposedly instituted by Rome's founder, Romulus, and was a dance in armor performed by warriors drawn up in battle ranks. The cult of the god Mars Ultor ("Avenger") involved dances by armed men, and on a number of surviving medals and gems, as well as one bronze statuette, there are representations of Mars dancing. There were also ancient priestly brotherhoods with ritual dancers. The best-known are the Salians, priests of Mars Gradivus ("Marches Forth to War") who, according to tradition, were established by Romulus' successor as king of Rome, Numa. They wore helmets and breast-plates over embroidered tunics, and they carried swords and the sacred shields of Mars. To the music of trumpets they paraded through the city of Rome, making stops at places hallowed by religion, and there performing the Salian dance. They shuffled from left to right, then from right to left, and all the while they beat the earth with their feet and made leaps into the air as they beat their shields. The Roman historian Livy mentions another ancient dance performed to propitiate Juno in 207 b.c.e., during the long and difficult Second Carthaginian War. Twenty-seven young girls made their way to the forum while singing a hymn, and there they took hold of a rope and danced with it through the streets on their way to the temple of Juno. Ancient rope dances were also found in Greece; a fragment of a Mycenaean fresco shows men wearing donkey-headed masks in procession carrying a rope.

Introduction of Pantomime.

The historian Zosimus, who wrote in Greek in the reign of the emperor Theodosius II (408–450 c.e.) on the decline of Rome from the time of the first emperor Augustus (r. 27 b.c.e.–14 c.e.) to his own day, has little to say about Augustus, but he does note an important development in dance that occurred during Augustus' reign.

In those days the pantomime dance was introduced, which did not exist earlier. Pylades and Bathyllus were the first to introduce it, though there are other reasons too for the many evils that have survived up to the present day.

DEATH OF A ROMAN IMPRESARIO

introduction: Excavations which took place under St. Peter's basilica in the Vatican in the 1950s have turned up an ancient cemetery which was once on the Vatican hill before the emperor Constantine built a church there over the tomb of St. Peter. Numerous mausoleums, burial urns and inscriptions marking the graves of the dead have been found there, among them the one quoted below. Aurelius Nemesius was evidently the master of a troupe of pantomime dancers. The date of the inscription is uncertain but sometime in the third century c.e. is likely.

To Aurelius Nemesius, spouse most dear and well-deserving, who lived 53 years 9 months 11 days, who won the highest praise for his art served as master of chorus, dance and pantomime. To him his wife Aurelia Eutychiane has dedicated and erected [this stone].

source: "Tombstone of an Impressario," in The Empire. Vol. 2 of Roman Civilization: Selected Readings. Ed. Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990): 145.

Zosimus was still a pagan writing at a time when the pagan religion had become a small minority in a largely Christian empire, but he reflected the old-fashioned belief that the decline of Rome was caused by moral decay, and dancing was a symptom of decay. The old Roman attitude towards dance died hard. Pliny the Younger, a writer of elegant letters in the later first century c.e., commented in one of his letters on the death of an eighty-year old woman, Ummidia Quadratilla, who owned a troupe of pantomime dancers, and enjoyed their performances more than was proper for a woman of her social station. She did not allow her grandson to see them—to that extent she remained faithful to the old Roman view that dance corrupted the youth. Since Quadratilla was enormously wealthy, she could afford to have her pantomime troupe put on private performances for her own entertainment, but by that time Rome had permanent theaters built of stone—the first of them opened in 55 b.c.e., long after many towns in Italy had them—and it was pantomime dance rather than tragedy and comedy that filled them.

Antecedents of Pantomime.

Before pantomime was invented, there was mime. In Greece, a mime was a short dramatic skit that could be sung and danced on stage. The banquet which Socrates attended after the Great Panathenaic festival of 421 b.c.e., which Xenophon described in his Symposium, was entertained by a mime in which two dancers performed the story of Dionysus and Ariadne. Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete, helped Theseus escape the Minotaur and accompanied him on his homeward voyage as far as the island of Naxos where he deserted her, and Dionysus arrived to make her his bride. This mime seems to have had at least some of the features of the later pantomime. The subject was a tale from mythology, which was the stock-in-trade of pantomime. Mimes came to Rome in the third century b.c.e., where they became very popular, and they covered a wide range of subjects. Women regularly appeared in them as mimae ("mime actresses") as well as men. One popular feature of the festival known as the Floralia (Flower Festival) was a mime in which mimae appeared naked. The masses loved mimes, and Roman emperors favored them. The emperor Domitian (r. 82–96 c.e.) catered to the bloodthirsty taste of the Roman public by ordering a genuine crucifixion inserted into a mime. Troupes of mime artists, some owned by impresarios who were mime performers themselves, toured the towns and cities of the empire, and played in the local theaters at festivals which well-to-do local citizens financed to advertise their public spirit. By the time of the late Roman Empire, it was hard to distinguish between mime and pantomime, and the Christian church frowned on both of them. In 22 b.c.e., however, two pantomine artists, Pylades and Bathyllus, invented the Roman pantomime, and whatever its antecedents, it was recognized as something new.

LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA ARGUES THE VIRTUES OF THE PANTOMIME DANCE

introduction: Lucian of Samosata in Syria who lived in the second century c.e. wrote essays and dialogues often from the viewpoint of a satirist, but his dialogue on dancing is a serious vindication of the pantomime. He imagines that a fan of pantomimes is talking with a Cynic philosopher who scoffs at them, but is eventually won over. The dialogue was probably written in Antioch in the years 162–165 c.e. when the emperor Lucius Verus, until his death in 168 the colleague of Marcus Aurelius, and an aficonado of pantomimes, was in Antioch ostensibly leading a campaign but actually enjoying the delights of the city. In this passage, Lucian compares the pantomime to contemporary productions of tragedy.

As far as tragedy is concerned, let us form our first opinion of its character from its outward appearance. What a repulsive and at the same time frightful spectacle is a man tricked out to disproportionate stature, mounted upon high clogs, wearing a mask that reaches up above his head, with a mouth that is set in a vast yawn as if he meant to swallow up the spectators! I forebear to speak of pads for the breasts and pads for the paunch to make himself look obese so that his body will not be too slender in proportion to his height. Then, inside the costume is the actor himself shouting his lines, bending forwards and backwards, sometimes even singing the poetry, and—this is really shameful—making a song out of his misfortunes.

[Lucian gives some examples of ridiculous tragic performances, and then contrasts them with pantomime.]

On the other hand, there is no need for me to say that the dancer is seemly and becoming, for it is clear to everyone who is not blind. The mask itself is very attractive and suitable to the theme of the dramatic presentation. Its mouth is not wide open like the masks of tragedy and comedy, but closed, for the pantomime artist has many actors to take the speaking parts for him. In the past, to be sure, the pantomime artists did both sing and dance. But when their panting as they danced interfered with their singing, it seemed better that others should sing for them.

source: Lucian, "The Dance," in Lucian. Vol. 5. Trans. A. M. Harmon (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936): 239–243. Text modified by James Allan Evans.

Describing Pantomime.

Pantomime created a new kind of dance performance by marrying three arts: song, music, and mime. Song and dance had been part of Roman theatrical productions ever since the first playwright, Livius Andronicus, produced plays in Rome. Livius Andronicus had lost his voice singing, and his audience allowed him to mime the songs while a boy sang for him. In pantomime, song was provided by a choir, not a solo performer. The piercing notes of the double-aulos had provided the music in the past, but Pylades added more instruments. Pantomime musicians soon developed into an orchestra, with musicians playing the aulos, the panpipes, cymbals, kithara (a kind of lyre), the lyre, and the trumpet. The conductor of the choir marked out the beat with a scabellum ("iron shoe")—a clapper with a sound-box which could be worked with the foot. While the choir sang and the orchestra played, the pantomime artist mimed the plot of the drama. He used masks, but unlike the masks used by a tragic or comic actor which had a gaping mouth to allow the actor's voice to project, the pantomime masks had closed mouths, for the pantomimus ("pantomime actor") did not speak. Behind him stood an assistant who might be an actor with a speaking part, but he also gave the pantomimus help when needed—when the pantomimus switched roles, he changed masks, and a little assistance was sometimes necessary. The favorite plots of pantomimes were taken from mythology and the audiences were familiar with them.

THE PANTOMIME DANCER, PYLADES

introduction: Macrobius, the author of the Saturnalia from which this excerpt is taken, lived at the end of the fourth century c.e., and we know little about him, except that he was not a native of Italy—he may have come from Africa. However he was deeply attached to the traditions and literature of ancient Rome at a time when they were under threat. In his Saturnalia, he imagines the leaders of Roman society of his day, many of them still pagans or at least sympathetic to paganism, gathered for the festival of the Saturnalia in December, and their conversation ranges over various antiquarian topics, such as dancing, indigestion, and drunkenness, among others. In the passage quoted below, Macrobius looks back four centuries before his own day to Pylades, the dancer who, along with Bathyllus, revolutionized the pantomime in the reign of the emperor Augustus (27 b.c.e.–14 c.e.).

Having once begun to talk about the stage, I must not omit to mention Pylades, a famous actor in the time of Augustus, and his pupil Hylas, who proceeded under his instruction to become his equal and his rival. On the question of the respective merits of these two actors popular opinion was divided. Hylas one day was performing a dramatic dance the closing theme of which was The Great Agamemnon, and by his gestures he represented his subject as a man of mighty stature. This was more than Pylades could stand, and from his seat in the pit he shouted, "You are making him merely tall, not great." The populace then made Pylades perform the same dance himself, and, when he came to the point at which he had found fault with the other's performance, he gave the representation of a man deep in thought, on the ground that nothing became a great commander better than to take thought for all.

On another occasion, when Hylas was dancing Oedipus, Pylades criticized him for moving with more assurance than a blind man could have shown, by calling out: "You are using your eyes."

Once, when Pylades had come on to dance Hercules the Madman, some of the spectators thought that he was not keeping to action suited to the stage. Whereupon he took off his mask and turned on his critics with the words: "Fools, my dancing is intended to represent a madman." It was in this play too, the Hercules Furens, that he shot arrows at the spectators. And when, in the course of playing the same part in a command performance at a banquet given by Augustus, he bent his bow and discharged arrows, the Emperor showed no annoyance at receiving the same treatment from the actor as had the populace of Rome.

He was said to have introduced a new and elegant style of dancing in place of the clumsy fashion popular in the time of our ancestors, and when asked by Augustus what contribution he had made to the art of dancing, he replied, in the words of Homer,

The sound of flutes and pipes, and the voices of men.—Iliad 10.13.

source: Macrobius, The Saturnalia. Trans. Percival Vaughan Davies (New York and London, England: Columbia University Press, 1969): 183–184.

The Great Players.

Two great pantomimi were associated with the invention of the new pantomime: Pylades, an ex-slave of the emperor Augustus, and Bathyllus, an ex-slave of Augustus' minister of public relations, Maecenas, who also supported a stable of writers. They may have cooperated in the introduction of this new entertainment around 22 b.c.e. The performances of Bathyllus were more joyous and light-hearted performances than those of Pylades, and his dances were livelier. Pylades created the tragic pantomime: a spectacle with choir, full orchestra, scenery, and even a second pantomimus when the plot demanded it. Both Pylades and Bathyllus had enthusiastic supporters who sometimes fought pitched battles in the streets. The emperor Augustus even banished Pylades from Rome for a period but relented and allowed him to return in 17 b.c.e. at a time when the emperor's popularity was sagging. For the Roman masses, the recall of Pylades made up for other measures that were unpopular.

The Stars.

The rivalry between the stars of the pantomime was intense. Pylades quarreled not only with Bathyllus, but also with a pupil of his, Hylas, whose talent on stage challenged his master's. Pylades became wealthy. He owned his own troupe of pantomimes and in 2 b.c.e. he financed a festival himself, though by that time he was too old to perform, and sat in the audience. The emperor Nero, who had ambitions as a pantomime dancer himself, killed a pantomimus named Paris because he thought him a rival. The names of great pantomime dancers lived on, for later dancers assumed them, hoping to inherit some of their fame. There was a Paris in Nero's reign, another in the reign of Domitian (81–96 c.e.) and another in the reign of Lucius Verus (161–169 c.e.), co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius. Five pantomime dancers with the name of Pylades can be traced, and six with the name of Apolaustus. By the time of the fourth century c.e., women were dancing in pantomimes. They had always played in mimes, and the distinction between the two was breaking down. In the sixth century c.e. the empress Theodora (527–548) was a pantomime dancer in her youth in Constantinople, which was by then a Christian city, and respectable women could not attend the theater. Yet once Theodora became empress, she did not forget her old friends in the theater. They were welcome as her guests in the imperial palace, and she arranged good marriages for their daughters.

sources

Mario Bonaria, "Dinastie di Pantomimi Latini," Maia 11 (1959): 224–242.

E. J. Jory, "Associations of Actors in Rome," Hermes 98 (1970): 224–253.

—, "The Literary Evidence for the Beginnings of Imperial Pantomime," Bulletin of the Institute for Classical Studies 28 (1981): 147–161.

O. Navarre, "Pantomimus," in Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines. Vol. IV, pt. 1. Eds. Charles Daremberg and Edmund Saglio (Graz, Germany: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1962–1963): 316–318.

Charlotte Rouché, Performers and Partisans at Aphrodisias in the Roman and Late Roman Periods (London, England: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 1993).

Louis Séchan, "Saltatio," in Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines. Vol. IV, pt 1. Eds. Charles Daremberg and Edmund Saglio (Graz, Germany: Akademische Druck und Verlaganstalt, 1962–1963): 1049–1054.