CH APTER EIGHT

Acting down’: the ideology o f Hellenistic performance

Richard Hunter

CULTURED MOVEMENTS

In Chapter 26 o f the Poetics Aristotle raises the question o f whether epic

or tragic mimesis is ‘superior’ (|3eAtigov):

One might pose the question whether epic imitation or tragic is superior. If the
less vulgar (f)TTOv c()opTiKf)) art is superior, and in all cases what is addressed
to a superior audience is less vulgar, then it is perfectly clear that the art which
imitates indiscriminately is vulgar. Assuming that the audience is incapable of
grasping what the performer does not supply in person, they engage in a great
deal of movement (as second-rate pipers (oi <f>auAoi auAt)Ta() spin round if
they have to imitate throwing a discus, and drag the chorus-leader about if
they have to play the Scyllci). Tragedy is like that. This is in fact the opinion
which older actors held about those who came after them; Mynniskos used to
call Kallippides ‘monkey’ because of his excesses, and Pindaros was viewed in
much the same way. The whole art of tragedy stands in the same relation to
epic as these do to the others. So it is argued that epic is addressed to decent
audiences (Oeoctocs ettieikeis) who do not need gestures, while tragedy is addressed
to second-rate audiences (cf>auAous); if, then, tragedy is vulgar, clearly it must be
inferior (xeipoov).
First of all, this is not a criticism of the art of poetry but of the art of per­
formance. A rhapsode performing epic poetry can make exaggerated use of
gestures (like Sosistratos); so can a singer (this is what Mnasitheos of Opus used
to do). Next, not all movement is to be disparaged (any more than all dance is),
but only that of inferior (<f>auAcov) persons. This is the objection that used to be
made against Kallippides, and is made now against others, on the grounds that
the women they imitate are not respectable. Also, tragedy has its effect without
movement, just as epic does: its quality is clear from reading. So if tragedy is su­
perior (k p e ( t t c o v ) in other respects, this criticism at any rate does not necessarily
apply to it. (.Poetics I46ib26-i462ai4, transl. Heath 1996).

This fascinating text, also discussed by Gsapo and Sifakis earlier in

this volume, links ‘realistic’ acting in the form o f imitative gestures to

I8g
igo Richard Hunter

the moral qualities o f the audience; such exaggerated gestures are the
tricks o f actors catering to vulgar tastes. So too, Aristotle elsewhere ob­
serves that hypokrisis (‘delivery’), in both drama and oratory, was rightly
considered vulgar (4>opTiKov), and therefore only the subject o f serious
study at a comparatively late date (Rhet. 3.i403b22-3o).1 For Aristotle,
tragic gestures are in fact vitally important and, as far as possible, are
to be visualised by the poet as he composes (Poet. 1455a29—34); they
are, however, also to be strictly controlled in the interests o f decorum
(to TrpETtov). W hen Kallippides played female roles in tragedy, he may
have made things too ‘realistic’ .2 Plato too had censured excessive ‘imi­
tative’ effects (cf. Rep. 3-3g6b5-g, 39723-7), but whereas Plato had been
principally concerned with what mimesis would do to the soul o f the im­
itator, Aristotle’s downplaying o f the performative element o f drama is
o f a piece with a whole elite attitude to personal bearing and the moral
qualities which that bearing reflects.3 Paul Zanker has expressed it thus:

In Classical Athens, the appearance and behaviour in public of all citizens was
governed by strict rules. These applied to how one should walk, stand, or sit, as
well as to proper draping of one’s garment, position and movement of arms and
head, styles of hair and beard, eye movements, and the volume and modulation
of the voice. . . Almost every time reference is made to these rules, they are linked
to emphatic moral judgements, whether positive or negative. They are part of a
value system that could be defined in terms of such concepts as order, measure,
modesty, balance, self-control, circumspection, adherence to regulations, and
the like. . . It is no wonder that the individuals depicted on gravestones, at least
to the modern viewer, look so stereotyped and monotonous.4

W ith Aristotle’s strictures on mimetic perform ance and the very marginal
place he gives to the staging o f plays we seem to be watching ‘the birth
o f a new form o f elite perform ance’.5 After Aristotle, the cultural elite o f
the later Hellenistic and Rom an world would in fact constantly repre­
sent themselves as reading or listening to readings o f ‘the literary classics’,

1 Cf. Wiles (1991) 19—20. For-the role o f gesture in fourth-century oratory and expressions o f similar
disapproval c f Dem. 18.232 (with the note o f Wankel (1976)), Hall (1995).
2 C f Janko’s note on Poetics 1462310-11 (Janko (1987)).
3 ‘Elites’ are, o f course, very hard to define and lie, to some extent, in the eye o f the beholder,
but Aristode’s division o f the citizen body (Politics 4.1291 b i7—30) into the demos, i.e. the ‘ordinary
people’, and the gnmmoi, the ‘known’/ ‘notable’ ones, who stand out for ‘wealth, nobility o f birth,
arete, education and the like’ serves well enough for the (elite) rhetoric (both Greek and Roman) o f
the whole timespan with which we will be concerned. For some relevant considerations cf. O ber
(1989)11-17.
4 Zanker (1995) 48-9. M uch relevant material is discussed in Bremmer (1991). Plutarch is a central
witness for this elite discourse; c f Hunter (2000).
5 I owe the phrase to M ary Depew.
 Acting down

including drama, rather than joining public audiences. In this (Platonic)

narrative o f cultural history, the tyranny o f an uneducated audience had
destroyed poetry’s civilising and educative force; in order to preserve
that force, the only proper audience for poetry now was either oneself,
or oneself and a few like-minded friends, who would give proper atten­
tion to the text, not to a frivolous performance in which it might be
clothed. T h e gradual change from a performative, communal culture to
the narrower circulation o f ‘texts’ paradoxically offered a way to preserve,
while reshaping to a less universal need, poetry’s didactic, communal
function.
T h e subsequent tradition took its cue from Plato and Aristotle and
carefully censored excessively ‘mimetic’ effects. M uch o f our evidence
comes from Rom an rhetorical writers who saw that actors had something
to teach the aspiring orator but, partly reflecting the contempt for actors
which is a standard element o f Rom an elite discourse,7 also took pains
to warn against excessive mimicry and ‘hyper-realism’; the orator was
to play the hardest role o f all — concealing his theatrical mastery. O f
particular importance is the distinction Quintilian draws between the
‘movements’ o f different characters in plays: infabulis iuuenum senum militum
matronarumgrauior ingressus est, semi ancillulaeparasitipiscatores citatius mouentur,
‘on the stage, young men, old men, soldiers and matrons move in a stately
fashion, whereas slaves, serving-girls, parasites and fishermen move more
rapidly’ (n.3.112).9 In part, such prescriptions are to be seen within the
long history o f elite self-fashioning, characterised by remarkably close
attention to ‘body language’, gait and gesture. Aristotle’s peyaAoyuxos,
‘great-souled m an’, ‘walks slowly, has a deep voice and speaks calm ly’
(isjV4.ii25ai2—14). A character in a play by Alexis comments specifically
on the importance o f gait:10

ev y a p vop(£co to u to tgov aveAeuOepcov

elvai, t o (3a 8 (£eiv appuOpcos ev Tais 0801s,
e£ov KaXcos' ou pr)Te irpdTTeTai teAos
pqSels y a p f|pas, pt|TE Tipqv SovTa 8eT

6 Cf. Dio 18.6-7 on the advantages o f having someone read Menander to you.
7 Cf. Edwards (1993) 98-136.
8 C f Cicero, De mat. 2.242, Quintilian i.m -13, 11.3.91, 181 -3 (011 the playing o f the opening of
Terence’s Eunuchus). O n this material c f Fantham (1982), this volume pp. 370-3. See also G ra f
(1991) and Connolly (1998).
9 Cf. 11.3.178 on the differing styles o f the comic actors Demetrius and Stratocles. For the Greek
background here c f Wiles (1991) 192-208.
10 For other relevant passages c f Arnott (1996b) 741.
l92 Richard Hunter

ETEpCp A a ^ E l V , $ E p £ l 8 £ T o T ? HEV X PC 0 |JI£V01S

5 o £ r |S t i v ’ o y x o v , to T s 8 ’ o p c o a i v r)8 o v f ) v ,
K oapov 8e t o o (3 ( c o , t o t o i o u t o v y E p a s
t i s o u k a v a u T c p k t c o t o <|>d<TKcov v o u v i y E i v ;
(Alexis fr. 265 K A )H

For this is one thing which I regard as unbecoming to any gentleman, namely
walking gracelessly in the street, when it is possible to do so with beauty. This
is something where no one exacts a tax from us, nor must one acquire it by
paying a fee to another. Those who do walk with finesse gain an increase in
their standing, those who see them are rewarded with pleasure, and /cosmos is
added to life. What man with any pretensions to common sense would not
acquire such a prize for himself?

T h e identity o f the speaker is unknown, but the concern with what befits
a free man, with doxa, ‘reputation/standing’, which involves the belief
that other people look at you in the street, and with ‘good order’ (/cosmos)
all suggest the values o f the elite. As the context is clearly something which
has happened or has been narrated in the play, and it is reasonable to
suppose that the speaker regards himself as a positive model o f how
to walk (and perhaps indeed parades around the stage in the approved
manner), it is tempting to understand ‘the onlookers’ here (v. 6) as, in part,
a metatheatrical reference to ‘the audience’. Be that as it may, in a very
similar passage o f Plautus12 a metatheatrical dimension is hard to resist:

liberos homines per urbem modico magis par est gradu

ire, seruile esse duco festinantem currere.
(Plautus, Poenulus 522—3)

Free men should proceed through the city at a moderate pace; I regard running
and hurrying as what slaves do.

T h e ‘running slave’ o f Rom an Comedy, who enters in haste with an

important message,13 carries a socio-political, as well as a theatrical,
resonance. Stage discussion o f ‘how to walk’ can thus shed light on what
actors actually did on the stage. H orace expresses his disdain for Plautine
farce in comparison with the sophistication and educative value o f Greek
tragedy (and perhaps also Menander) by representing Plautus as running

11 For the textual difficulties o f w . 3—5 cf. Arnott (1996b) 741 -2.
12 Arnott (1959) has argued that the Alexis fragment is the original o f the Plautine verses which are
spoken by the aduocati, but the matter seems to me unproven.
'3 For the seruns currens as a stock character cf. Ter. Em . 36, Haut. 37 . 1 do not mean to imply that
there is no Greek background here, cf. Csapo (1993).
 Acting down 193

in disorderly fashion across the stage, concerned not with art but with
getting paid:

aspice Plautus
quo pacto partis tutetur amantis ephebi,
ut patris attenti, lenonis ut insidiosi,
quantus sit Dossennus edacibus in parasitis,
quam non astricto percurrat pulpita socco.
gestit enim nummum in loculos demittere, post hoc
securus cadat an recto stet fabula talo.
(Horace, Epist. 2.1.170-6)14

See how Plautus maintains the role of the young man in love, of the careful father,
of the pimp who lays traps for you; see what a Dossennus he is among greedy
parasites, how he runs across the stage with his shoes loose. He’s desperate to
pocket the cash and beyond that doesn’t care what the play is like.

In view o f the persistence o f theatrical metaphors for the conduct o f ordi­

nary life, it is not surprising that theatrical traditions followed analogous
paths to those o f the elite’s concern with physical and moral deportment.
T h e actor’s prologue o f Terence’s Heauton Timoroumenos divides stage roles
into two broad types (30-40):

ne ille pro se dictum existumet

qui nuper fecit seruo currenti in uia
decesse populum: quor insano seruiat?
de illius peccatis plura dicet quom dabit
alias nouas, nisi finem maledictis facit.
adeste aequo animo, date potestatem mihi
statariam agere ut liceat per silentium,
ne semper seruus currens, iratus senex,
edax parasitus, sycophanta autem inpudens,
auarus leno adsidue agendi sunt seni
clamore summo, cum labore maxumo.

This is not to be regarded as a defence by that man who recendy made the
people in the street give way to a running slave: why be a slave to a madman?
The poet will speak further about that man’s errors in the course of future plays,
unless he put an end to his slanders. Give this play a fair hearing, and allow me
to perform a quiet play in silence, so that I don’t always have to act the running
slave, the angry old man, the greedy parasite, the shameless trickster, and die
rapacious pimp; I’m an old man, and those parts need a lot of shoudng and a
lot of physical effort.

14 O n this passage cf. Jocelyn (1995).

m Richard. Hunter

T h e point is not just that the actor claims to be too old for ‘lively’
parts, but that those parts somehow lack dignity; the line from this
theatrical concept o f a fabula stataria, ‘a stationary play’, one ‘lacking
violent movement’,15 to the privileged concepts o f elite ethics is shown
by a passage o f Cicero which adapts this language to the practices o f
oratory:

uolo enim ut in scaena sic etiam in foro non eos modo laudari, qui celeri motu
et difficili utantur, sed eos etiam quos statarios appellant, quorum sit ilia simplex
in agendo ueritas, non molesta. (Brutus 116)

As on the stage, so I wish that in the forum also praise should be bestowed
not only on those who accomplish rapid and difficult movements, but also on
those who are termed ‘stationary’, in whose acting there is a ‘truth’ which is
straightforward, not irksome.

simplex ueritas indicates a whole ‘m oral’ attitude, not just a style o f oratory;
so, Aulus Gellius castigates Caecilius for replacing what in M enander is
‘taken from the life o f men, and is simple and true and gives pleasure’
[de uita hominum media sumptum, simplex et uerum et delectabile) with buffoonery
more suited to mime {NA 2.23.12).
It is indeed the plays o f Menander, and to some extent N ew Com edy
as a whole, which hold a specially privileged place in this construction
o f an elite world. N o theme is more prominent throughout ancient writ­
ing about M enander than his pre-eminence in the reflection o f ethical
character ( t o t] 0 i k 6 v), and as such he was always likely to appeal to H el­
lenistic and Rom an elites, almost obsessively concerned with how they
looked and how they really were inside. For both Greek and Rom an elites
o f the early imperial period, much o f the experience o f M enander may
have com e through ‘readings’ at occasions such as dinner parties, rather
than in fully staged theatrical perform ances.16 M enander had been fully
appropriated into elite literary culture; drama has become literature. It
is indeed likely enough that readings or performances from drama at
dinner parties and other social gatherings avoided excessively imitative
effects; such an inference, at least, makes sense o f the extreme mimesis
that reigns in Trim alchio’s house o f horrors in the Satyrica.
We must not assume, o f course, that reality corresponded closely to
the picture painted by a literature concerned to mark out the proper

‘5 Cf. further Jocelyn (1995) 243-4.

16 Cf., e.g., Fantham (1984). For what can be said on the other side cf. Jones (1993) and Green
(1994a) 144—71. See also Handley, this volume.
 Acting down x95
space o f the educated. It is certainly possible to identify aesthetic tech­
niques and styles which seem to belong to the ‘book culture’ o f an elite,
rather than to a more widespread performance culture,17 and which
were presumably a prime weapon with which the elite marked itself off
from the chaos beneath it. Nevertheless, the construction o f any simple
‘elite’- ‘popular’ dichotomy within the rich patterns o f Hellenistic per­
formance would simply be untrue to the rich spectrum o f ‘theatre’ which
that world offered. Doubtless, some members o f the cultured elite stayed
away (? ostentatiously) from popular and often vulgar ‘mimes’, just as
they made clear in their writings what kinds o f sympotic entertainment
they enjoyed, but there is no reason to imagine great gulfs between the
classes in what was watched in the theatres: the elite attended and offered
enthusiastic patronage for all kinds o f theatrical performance. Neverthe­
less, the ideological picture, the portrait o f itself which the elite wished
to present, emerges clearly enough. As often, a letter o f Pliny, standing
in a long tradition o f discussion as to what type o f entertainment and
conversation is proper at gatherings o f cultured men (cf. PI. Prt. 3 4 7 b -
348a), suggests the issues with great clarity. With a demonstration o f
admirable ‘philosophical’ mildness, Pliny advises a correspondent not to
be too angry with the entertainment provided at a dinner party, though
he certainly shares his friend’s refined taste:19

I have received your letter, in which you complain of being highly disgusted lately
at a dinner, though exceeding splendid, by a set of buffoons, lewd entertainers
and clowns (scurrae dnaedi moriones) who were wandering around the tables. But
let me advise you to smooth your brow a little. I confess, indeed, I admit nothing
of this kind at my own house; however, I bear with it in others. ‘A nd why then’
(you will be ready to ask) ‘should you not have them yourself?’ The truth is,
because the soft gestures from a cinaedus, the pleasantries from a buffoon, or the
idiocies of a clown, give me no entertainment, as they give me no surprise. It
is my taste, you see, not my principles, that I plead against them. And indeed,
what numbers are there, think you, who find no pleasure in the entertainments
with which you and I are most delighted, and consider them either trivial or
wearisome! How many are there, who as soon as a reader, a musician, or a comic
actor is introduced, either take their leave of the company, or if they continue
at the table, show as much dislike to this kind of diversion, as you did at those
awfulnesses (prodigia), as you call them! Let us bear therefore, my friend, with

17 Cf. Hunter (1996) 7-13, comparing Theocritus 2 and the Fmgmentum GrmfdUanum.
Cf. below pp. 196-201.
19 For Pliny’s tastes in entertainment c f also Ep. 1.15.2, 3.1.9, 9.36.4. Plutarch speaks elsewhere o f
entertainment at symposia including ‘mime-actors, impersonators (f)0oA6yoi) and performers
o f Menander’ {Sympotic Questions 5 proem = Moralia 673B); for the subject in general cf. Jones
(1991), Davidson (2000).
ig 6 Richard Hunter

others in their amusements, that they in return may show indulgence to ours.
Farewell. (Pliny, Ep. 9.17, transl. Melmoth and Hutchinson (1915), adapted)

MIMING DRAMA

A standard move o f the discourse I have been tracing is a contrast be­

tween, on the one hand, texts and performance styles which are morally
improving and, on the other, the ‘debased’ traditions o f ‘mime’. In fact,
however, when we move away from elite texts which are concerned to de­
marcate the boundaries o f culture, those boundaries become very hard
to find.
‘M im e’ is a term used by modern scholars to cover a very wide range
o f ancient performances, from solo singing to ‘playlets’ performed by a
small group o f ‘actors’, almost anything in fact which does not fit the
classical categories o f tragedy, satyr drama, and comedy. In the present
context such looseness is useful, for it is true to the strategy o f elite
rhetoric.20 A crucial text here is a tantalisingly brief account, drawing on
Hellenistic sources, o f types o f perform ance in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistai
14.620a—62i f (c. A D 200). T h e passage repays detailed consideration.
Athenaeus begins with ‘perform ances’ o f H om er by the so-called
‘Homeristai’.21 T h e Hellenistic ‘perform ance’ o f H om er ranged from
private reading and recitation through singing and full-blown acting, and
this very spectrum reinforced within elite discourse a distinction between
‘serious’ study and reading and the theatrical pleasures o f the common
people. It is telling that Petronius has Trim alchio’s ‘Homeristai’ (Sat. 59)
engage in violent mimetic action. T h at such performances are seen as
debasements o f ‘high’, educative texts will emerge as a central leitmotif
o f the mode o f self-representation which we are considering. Athenaeus
then lists various kinds o f solo performer, about most o f whom we know
very little — hilardidoi, simdidoi, magoidoi, lysioidoi. It is typical o f elite atti­
tudes that Strabo (late first century b c ) views the last three o f these forms
as ‘corruptions’ o f the practices o f earlier lyric poets.22 About the magdidos
Athenaeus proceeds to report:

The player called a magdidos (paycoSos) carries tambourines and cymbals, and
all his clothes are women’s garments. He makes rude gestures (?),23 and all his
actions lack decency (/cosmos), as he plays the part o f adulterous women or bawds

20 For ‘m im e’ see Reich (1903), W iist (1932), Cunningham (1971) 3-11, W iemken (1972), M cK eown
(1979), Fantham (1989), Csapo and Slater (1995) 369—78, and the essays in Section in o f Benz,
Stark and Vogt-Spira (1995).
21 Cf. Husson (1993), N agy (1996) 158-86.
22 Strabo 14.1.41. T he verb Strabo uses is Trctpoc<|>0 eip6iv.
23 T he exact sense o f axivi^STai is uncertain.
 Acting down *97

or a man drunk and going on a revel to his mistress. Aristoxenus (fr. 110 Wehrli2)
says that hilaroidia is serious and derives from tragedy (trapa tt]v TpaycoSiav
elvai), whereas magodia derives from comedy (trapa Tf)v KcopcpBiav). For often
magdidoi took comic scenarios (uttoOectsis) and acted them in their own style and
manner.

Such performers scandalise by their absence o f decorum and taste, but

the hypothesised relation with ‘formal dram a’ sheds important light not
only upon mime itself, but also upon elite attitudes to it. W hatever the
exact nature o f this relationship,24 such performances are perceived as
a ‘perversion’ o f classical drama. With Athenaeus’ next category, the
ionikologoi and kinaidologoi, it is the explicit sexual nature o f both verses
and perform ance25 which elite discourse represents as vulgar, and indeed
subversive. It is striking that the most famous such performer, Sotades
o f M aroneia, was believed to have fallen foul o f Ptolemy Philadelphos
because he joked about Ptolemy’s marriage to his sister Arsinoe (Ath.
i4.62of-62ia).26 Just as Sotadean verse (an ionic tetrameter) ‘parodies’
the repetitive structure and regularity o f the hexameter, and the kinaidos
challenges the assumptions o f the male hierarchy by ‘perform ing’ as a
man who enjoyed the passive role in homosexual intercourse, so Sotades
is made to em body a threat to good ‘political’ discipline. It is o f funda­
mental importance that the discourse o f theatrical decorum and kosmos
is one in which the elite had a real political stake. T h e excessive theatri­
cality o f a Trimalchio threatens to lay bare what is hidden by this veil
o f ethical values: to turn the ‘theatre’ o f master—slave relations into real
theatre, as Trimalchio does, is potentially destabilising in ways which he
certainly would never have imagined.
If we turn from what is said in our sources about mimes to the chance
survival o f papyrus texts, a rather similar picture emerges. T h e stan­
dard collection27 begins with the so-called Fragmentum Grenfelliamm (sec­
ond century bc ), a solo song in which a woman (presumably played by
a man) adopts the role o f exclusus amator to complain bitterly that she has
been abandoned by her lover.28 Faint echoes o f familiar themes from high
poetry, but the substitution o f a ‘female’ voice, mark this text as analogous
to, but also pointedly distinct from, the modes o f high classical poetry.
Two prose texts (2 and 3 Cunningham) o f the second or first century
bc are ‘scripts’ for more than one actor, and show themes familiar from

24 Cf. Hunter (1995) 160-3.

25 N ote Strabo 14.1.41 on the ‘m im etic’ quality o f cinaedic verse.
26 Cf. Hunter (1996) 7 8 -9 . 27 Cunningham (1987) 36-61.
2 For more detailed discussion cf. Hunter (1996) 7-10. T he closest parallel may be the female role
in the ‘love duet’ o f Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazusae, cf. Olson (1988), Parker (1997) 546.
 Richard Hunter

Fie. go Three mime actors performing Mother-in-Law (Photo: B. Kohlen,

M. Gladbach)

N ew Com edy: hopeless infatuation and a man, the worse for drink, go­
ing on a homos to his beloved. Here we seem to have clear evidence for
the close relationship between ‘m im e’ and comedy, which is also asserted
by the scholastic tradition and suggested by a terracotta lamp (fig. 30)
o f the late third century b c showing three performers and inscribed
miioAoyoi, u n 60 Ecns'EKupd, ‘mime-speakers, plot, Mother-in-law’ (a fa­
miliar com ic title).29 So too, the best-known mime-text, the ‘Charition
m im e’ (6 Cunningham ),30 restages the escape-plot o f Euripides’ Iphigenia
in Tauris on the shores o f an outlandishly barbarian India; if the narrative
motifs, such as escape by intoxicating the enemy, are familiar enough, the
extreme ‘vulgarity’ o f what survives, in which farting plays a major role,
seems worlds removed from Euripidean melodrama. This is perhaps less
‘parody’ than ‘para-dram a’.

29 For hypothesis as a generic nam e for a kind o f dramatic mime cf. Plut. Sympotic Questions 7-8 =
Moralia 712E. For the lamp cf. Watzinger (1901); Bieber (1920) 176—7.
3° Cf. Santelia (1991).
 Acting down *99
A similar picture emerges again from the extant mimiamboi o f Herodas
(first h alf o f the third century b c ). These choliambic poems are a curious
cross between the traditions o f the dramatic mime and the archaic Ionic
iambos o f Hipponax, a cross forged by the literary—historical interests o f
the sophisticated poets o f the high Hellenistic period. Here too, however,
the ‘high’ traditions o f epic, forensic oratory (.Mim. 2),31 and com edy are
replayed at a ‘lower’ level which casts ambivalent light upon the model
texts: thus, for example, the high moral tone o f N ew Com edy is amusingly
stained by the common mime-scenario o f a mistress who forces her
male slaves to satisfy her lust {Mim. 5, Adesp. 7 Cunningham). T h e social
exchanges o f formal drama become revelations o f what women ‘really’
talk about when alone - adultery {Mim.i) and masturbation {Mim. 6). In
feeding o ff‘high’ culture, ‘lower’ performance traditions, and the literary
imitations o f them written by Herodas and Theocritus, dramatised the
ambivalent status o f epic, tragedy and comedy, which - partly because o f
a deadening fossilisation o f roles - could no longer deliver on the grand
moral and educational promises which they made and which were made
for them. Society had moved on. Elite rhetoric constantly drew attention
to the ‘lower’ traditions o f mime in order to advertise what it perceived
as its own superiority; mime itself constandy evoked ‘higher’ traditions,
but with a rather more complex agenda.
O f particular interest is a text preserved on a copy probably writ­
ten in the early first century a d , perhaps not far from its composition
date:

7r]ai6os EtJJuAaaCTEV o cf>fAos pou Tpv<j>cov

te]kvov TT|pobv ev Tats ayKaAais
diropoJOpai tto u (3a6(aco. r) vaus pou Eppdyrp
to v KjaraGupiov duoAEO-as opviGa pou kAouco
(J)]epe t o epviov TpocJ>f)v auTou TTEpiAdpco
toO payipou toO S'rrEpdorou toO TEAAtivikou.
ydpiv to u to u EKaAouprjv ptiyas ev tco (3ico
xai EAEyoprjv paxdpios, avSpES, ev toTs 4>iAoTpo<|nois.
y u y o p ax d )' o y a p aAEKTCOp ficrroxriKE pou
Kai GaKaOaAuaSos Epaa0Eis spev EyKaTEAnTE.
aXK ettiGeIs AiGov EpauToO etti tt]v KapSiav
K a0r|auxdaopai. upsTs 6’ uyiaivETE, cf>(Aoi.
(Frag. mim. fr. 4 Cunningham = GLP 75 Page)3'2

31 Cf. Hunter (1995).

32 Papyrological marks have been kept to a very minimum, and I will not consider here the many
problems o f the text which do not affect the argument. So too, the old problem o f whether or
not the text is rhythmical will be left out o f account, c f Cunningham ’s introductory note.
200 Richard. Hunter

From its childhood my friend (? Tryphon) guarded it, watching over it like a
baby in his arms. I know not whither I may go: my ship is wrecked. I weep for
the darling bird that I have lost! Come, let me embrace its chick, this child o f the
fighter, the beloved, the gallant Greek! For his sake I was accounted a success
in life, I was called a happy man, gendemen, among those who love their pets.
I fight for life —my cock has gone astray: he has fallen in love with a sitting hen
[or ‘with Thakathalpas’], and left me in the lurch. I will set a tombstone above
my heart, and be at rest. And you, my friends — goodbye to you! (trans. Page,
adapted)

This is a lament for a prize fighting-cock which has apparently not

died, but rather fallen in love (with a hen) and fled the coop; the final lines
seem to be a resolution to commit suicide. From the earliest days (i.e.
the Iliad), lamentation was a discourse which gave a special place to the
norms and consensual values o f society. T h e importance o f the family and
respect for parents, as well as the qualities o f the deceased, are standard
lament themes: the lament is a very public, communal discourse, and this
parodic lament obviously gestures towards such traditions. T h e speaker
alludes to his doxa-he was ‘called fortunate amongpet-lovers’ —and it is at
this moment that we get the address to the audience (avSpss, ‘gentlemen’),
because reputation and status is precisely a matter o f communal consent—
this is something which the audience will understand. T h e speaker is male
- it was males who indulged in cock-fighting—but public lamentation was
essentially a female discourse, and in the anguish o f our speaker we hear
distant echoes o f the heroines o f high literature (cf., e.g., Apollonius, Arg.
1.284-91). Here then is a further suggestion that one feature o f the mime
tradition, certainly not an inevitable or necessary one, was a change o f
gender voicing by role transference; one aspect o f the distinction between
‘high’ and ‘low ’ perform ance forms, if the hierarchical term inology is to
be retained, lay in the maintenance or subverting o f inherited roles and
voices. Such transference, as we have seen in the case o f kinaidologia, makes
such traditions (at least potentially) culturally and morally subversive; in
the context o f the elite rhetoric o f paideia, such traditions lack /cosmos, they
disturb proper social and moral hierarchies. As Plutarch memorably puts
it, ‘they throw one’s soul into greater confusion than any amount o f drink’
(.Sympotic Questions — Moralia 7 i2E-~¥). For a Plutarch, o f course, such distur­
bance is also connected with the frank eroticism o f some o f these perfor­
mances. W hereas the sexy Dionysus and Ariadne mime in X enophon’s
Symposium arouses the diners so much that ‘the unmarried swore that they
would get married, and the married men mounted their horses and rode
o ff to enjoy their own wives’ (Symp. 9.7), Plutarch outlaws mimetic paignia
 Acting down 201

from the dinner party as staging things which should not even be seen
‘by the slaves who fetch our shoes’ (Mor. 7 1 2 E —f).

M I M I C E L E M E N T S IN N E W C O M E D Y

N ew Com edy itself is, o f course, a major source for and reflection o f elite
values, particularly in its focus upon the continuity and stability o f the
oikos, i.e. o f the wider family unit and the property which went with it.
In the light o f the foregoing discussion, it may be worth asking whether
our extant N ew Com edy texts construct a truly homogeneous culture,
or whether the plays themselves foreshadow the later developments, and
in particular the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low ’ performance and
acting modes, which we have been tracing.
O f the plays which have survived, it is probably Dyskolos which is
most obviously concerned with social solidarity and cohesion. W hat is
at issue in Dyskolos is socialisation, some kind o f normative education,
the inculcation o f particular social and moral values. Through Knem on,
who shuns human society because o f his distaste for what he sees as the
hypocrisy o f human motives (cf. 447-53, 719—20), M enander explores
the difference between being picxoTrovripos ‘a hater o f wickedness’ and
being piaccvOpcoixos ‘a hater o f men’; in Knem on the difference may
be thought to have collapsed. T h e result, from one point o f view, is a
withdrawal which society simply cannot tolerate, because such a with­
drawal threatens society itself. A t another level, however, the apparently
bitter realism o f K nem on’s Weltanschauung is shown to be an inadequate
response in the face o f communal strategies, such as festive sacrificing,
which make up for in positive ‘social’ results what they may lack in
self-analytical frankness. Com edy itself is implicated in this ‘noble lie’,
through the fashioning o f a double end to the play around different
performance traditions.
A t 867-73 the two young men, Gorgias and Sostratos, take their leave
o f Knem on and o f the play, and proceed to join the party inside the cave:
Zco. t|heTs 8’ icofiEV. To. Zco<rrpa0 ’, u-TTEpaiaxuvopai
yuvai^iv ev tocutco — Zco. tis o Afjpos; ou upoEi;
oiKEia t o u t ’ f|8r| voiju^eiv -rrtivTa 8eT. (Dysk. 871-3)

so. Let’s go.

g o . Sostratos, I feel very embarrassed - there are women in there . . .
so. What nonsense! Get a move on. All o f this is oikeion to you now.

T h e ‘high com edy’ thus closes with an expression o f properly decent

manners and an affirmation that the oikos has been preserved and
202 Richard. Hunter

broadened (873, oikeia). T h e closing scene which follows, in which Sikon

and Getas tease K nem on mercilessly, functions not merely as a reprise
o f the earlier door-knocking scenes in which he had abused them, but
incorporates into the play a ‘low’ or farcical reflection o f the main ac­
tion, marked by the use o f nearly unparalleled iambic tetrameters to the
accom paniment o f the autos. T h e use o f music, the extravagant gesture
and dancing and the rare, perhaps old-fashioned metre seem something
o f a throwback to a livelier style o f comedy, as though M enander was
exploiting his awareness (and that o f his audience?) o f the general drift o f
com ic history. T h e values promulgated by the ‘high dram a’ are almost
parodied by the self-serving plans o f the slave:

06pu(3os ear i v §v8 o v ,

i r i v o u c r i v o u k ai< 7 0 f|cr£ T 5 o u S e i s ' t o 8 ’ o A o v e o t i v f | | i l v
avOpCOTTOS f)li£pCOTEOS' KT)8 £UO|i£V y a p OCUTCp,
o ik e io s f||Jiv y iv s r’- si 8’ ia r a i t o io Ot o s ocei,
spyov U T T E V E y K E lV . (DysL 901—5)

There’s a lot o f noise; they’re drinking — no one will notice. The main thing is
that we must make this man tame. We’re related to him by marriage, he is a
member o f the family (oikeios). I f he’s always going to be like this, it won’t be easy
to put up with.

Oikeios (904) picks up Sostratos’ closing words and marks the perverted
variation o f socialised values which we are about to witness. K nem on
must be ‘trained’ in the ways o f the elite symposium: com edy had in­
deed long used the correct conduct o f the symposium as the marker
o f correct social behaviour (cf. the finale o f Ar. Wasps). W hat Getas
and Sikon offer in fact is an extraordinary7 inversion o f the komos in
which the paraklausithyron (serenade) precedes the drinking; K nem on is
forced to witness ‘socialised behaviour’ turned upside down and made
ridiculous, very far from the tto to s kccAos, ‘jolly party’ (855-6), which
the other characters are now enjoying inside Pan’s cave. In what could
be taken for an almost paradigm atic confirmation o f ‘the two cultures’
view o f the Hellenistic world, the values o f com edy are both confirmed
and lightly ironised by a scene which derives a quite different kind o f
hum our from an exploitation o f the same com ic motifs; the smutty,
genital jokes o f 892 and 89533 offer a rather low-life perspective upon
the form al marriage formula o f 842—4:

33 Just as Sikon takes G etas’ question o f 891 as the opportunity for a sexual joke on Tracrxsiv, ‘suffer’
and ‘be penetrated anally’, so Getas in 895 puns on Sikon’s use o f dvacrrfjvoa, ‘get up’ and ‘get
it up ’, cf. H unter (1999) 107, on Theocr. 1.151-2.
 Acting doum 203

dAA’ eyyuoo ttouScov err’ ocpoTCp yvr|cncov

tt^v QuyocTEp’ f|6 r| peipocKiov aoi Trpoixa te
8 {5 co(ji’ err’ aurfi Tpia t&Acxvtcc.

I now betroth my daughter to you, young man, for the begetting (lit. ploughing]
of legitimate children, and I bestow a dowry of three talents upon her.

Knem on had wished to remove himself entirely from society; his ‘pun­
ishment’ consists o f removal from the realm o f ‘civilised’ comedy into
a quite different mode o f performance where parodic farce stains the
values o f the higher mode.
A suggestive parallel for this dramatic technique o f doubling and in­
version is to be found in Terence’s Adelphoe (‘T h e Brothers’), which was
based on a play o f the same title by Menander. Here the abduction
o f Ctesipho’s beloved and the subsequent rough handling o f the pimp
Sannio, which follows the opening confrontation o f the older pair o f
contrasted brothers, M icio and Demea, and which was, at least in part,
added by Terence from the Synapothnescontes (‘Those who die together’) o f
Diphilus (cf. w . 6—11), functions as a kind o f parodic reprise o f the open­
ing debate. Like the fathers, Sannio appeals to notions o f aequum (‘the
equitable’) and iniuria (‘wrong’), and like them, the pim p must put up
with iniuria adulescentium (‘the outrages o f young men’, 207); his threat to
exact the full measure o f his ius, ‘legal rights’ (163), is a farcical version o f
the strict legality to which D em ea had appealed in his complaints against
Aeschinus (84-6) and which M icio had rejected as inappropriate to the
business o f fatherhood (51—2, ‘I do not think it necessary to enforce the
full measure o f my rights in all things’). W hen Syrus advises Sannio that
it would be to his financial advantage not to insist on the strict letter o f his
rights, but rather to oblige his clients (adulescenti esses morigeratus, 218), we
can hardly fail to recall the differences between M icio and Dem ea which
the opening scenes had laid out with such clarity. W hen Sannio refuses
to follow the slave’s advice and Syrus observes that Sannio is destined
to be a failure as a pimp, nescis inescare homines ‘you don’t know how to
entrap men’, the language evokes the behaviour o f the flatterer and the
prostitute to foreshadow what will be an important theme at the close
o f play. There D em ea’s assertion that the point o f his final charade o f
generosity was to show M icio that his popularity nonfieri ex uera uita neque
adeo ex aequo et bono,\sed ex adsentando indulgendo et largiendo, ‘does not derive
from a sincere way o f life nor from the pursuit o f the equitable and good,
but from complaisance, indulgence and extravagant generosity’ (987-8)
makes the point that not only does M icio’s attitude turn others into
204 Richard Hunter

flatterers (cf. 87 7-80),34 but M icio himself is characterised by the

hypocrisy and feigned attitudes o f the flatterer. In D em ea’s view, M i­
cio has made the classic mistake o f confusing ‘friendship’ (philia) with
‘flattery’ (kolakeia or areskeia); his behaviour is that o f the Aristotelian
areskos35 or the more familiar kolax.36

ille suam semper egit uitam in otio, in conuiuiis,

clemens placidus, nulli laedere os, adridere omnibus.
(Ad. 863-4)

He has passed his entire life in ease and social jollity; always forgiving and calm,
never offended anyone, has a smile for everyon e_

These are the issues which are jokingly previewed in the banter o f Syrus
and Sannio. So too, Sannio’s disingenuous appeal to his own ‘free’ status
(182—3) and Aeschinus’ possibly improvised claim that the girl is free-born
(J93—4) moves to a farcical mode the ‘who is free?’ theme o f the central
drama, embodied rather more high-mindedly in M icio’s views about
the education o f liberi (57). So too, the debt o f reciprocal gratitude which
Aeschinus should owe M icio on the basis o f the first scene becomes, in
the second, a sum o f money owed to a greedy pimp. In short, the central
themes o f the fram ing play are here replayed in a ‘lower’, more farcical
mode.
From this perspective, Sannio bears an interesting name, which points
in two (related) directions. Sannion seems to be a word for the penis (cf.
Hesychius s.v.), and therefore appropriate to the pim p’s trade, but sannio
appears at Cicero, De oratore 2.251 as a word (apparently) for a performer
in a clownish and low entertainment; Cicero is discussing appropriate
types o f humour:

It is also important that not everything which is laughed at is witty. For what
could be more to be laughed at than a clown (sannio)? But he produces laughter

34 T h e best com m entary on these verses is A rist E N 8 .1159312, ‘Because o f love o f honour m ost
m en prefer to be loved rather than to love; that is why m ost m en like flatterers.’
35 Cf. £ A '4 .r i2 6 b i3- i 4 : ‘som e m en are thought to be obsequious (apaiKOi), viz. those who to give
pleasure praise everything and never oppose, but think it their duty to give no pain to the people
they m eet’ (transl. Ross ( 1 9 1 5 ) ) .
3® Cf. Plut. How to Tell a Flattererfrom a Friend 2 = Moralia 5 0 B : ‘Just 35 f a l s e and c o u n t e r f e i t i m i t a t i o n s
o f gold imitate only its brilliancy and lustre, so apparendy t h e f l a t t e r e r , m u t a t i n g t h e p l e a s a n t
and attractive characteristics o f the friend ( t o u <J>1A o u t o f) 5u Kcri K e y a p i c n j i v o v ) , a l w a y s p r e s e n t s
him self in a cheerful and blithe m ood ( l A a p o v Kcri a v d q p o v ) , with n e v e r a w h i t o f c r o s s i n g o r
opposition.’
 Acting down 205

with his face, his expression, his voice, his whole body. I could say this is amus­
ing, but in the way a mirne-actor is amusing, not as I would wish an orator
to be.

W hat is absurd about this ‘buffoon’ is precisely that excessive mimicry

which we have already seen to distinguish ‘serious’ from ‘clownish’ ac­
tors and actors from orators. Though Sannion and Sannon are attested
historical names, sannas is an old word for an idiot,37 and sannion appears
with this sense at Arrian, Epict. diss. 3.22.83. Am ong the known bearers o f
the name is a third-century komoidos who performed at Delphi (Stephanis
no. 2211), and the possibility that such names had ‘theatrical currency’
in the Greek world, as well as the Roman, is strengthened by the name
Sannyrion which Alciphron gives to one o f the leaders o f the mimoi at his
farcical ‘banquet o f the philosophers’.38 Be that as it may, Novius wrote
an Atellan farce called Sanniones and there are thus good reasons to
, 3 9

associate the name o f Terence’s leno, as well as the scene in which he

appears, with theatrical traditions o f a rather ‘lower’ kind than formal
comedy; unsurprisingly, brothel-keepers and slave-traders were familiar
characters in the mimic tradition. I f this analysis is correct, Terence has
pointed to the different levels inscribed in his play by giving his leno a
name from the traditions o f farce and mime. T h at the themes o f the leno’s
scene replay the themes o f the framing drama - a kind o f ‘play within
the play’ technique — reminds us o f what we have already learned from
both Athenaeus and the papyri, namely that ‘mimes’, both Greek and
Roman, often borrowed the plots o f ‘formal com edy’ and performed
them in their own style.
Both Dyskolos and Adelphoe are concerned with ‘education’ in be­
havioural and social norms, precisely those themes which later elite
moralists saw as most valuable in N ew Comedy. These plays, moreover,
highlight these themes by juxtaposing versions o f them as interpreted by
different traditions o f performance. Such an inclusive practice marks the
genuinely theatrical nature o f these scripts, a nature which was always

37 c f . KA on Cratinus fr. 489, Rhinthon fr. 20 KA (where it is tempting to see a ‘theatrical’

term).
38 Alciphron 3.9.10 Benner and Fobes, cf. Reich (1903) 4 2 9 -3 0 . ‘Sannyrion’ is listed am ong leg­
endary idiots at Aelian, VH 13.15. Alciphron’s other mime-leader, ‘Philistiades’, most likely
evokes the famous, though very mysterious, m im e-poet Philistion (cf Wiist, RE 19.2402 5), and
‘Phoibades’ the citharode can hardly fail to recall the divine citharode himself, Phoebus Apollo.
39 C f Frassinetd(i953)72; Rawson (1991)470, discussing Diod. Sic. 37.12 (agetdtopoioscalled Saunio
or Sannio).
206 Richard Hunter

likely to be obscured once the texts had moved from the stage to the
schoolroom.40

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

O n the relation between gesture and movement in ‘real life’ and on the
stage see Wiles (1991), the essays in Bremmer and Roodenburg (1991) and
Fantham (1982). O n Greek and Rom an mime see the bibliography listed
in n. 20; the standard collection o f texts is Cunningham (1987) 36—61.
There are helpful editions o f Terence’s Adelphoe by R . M artin (Cambridge
1976) and A. S. Gratwick (1987); modern discussion o f the play is most
usefully summarised in Goldberg (1986) and Hunter (1985).

40 I am much indebted to M ary Depew, Pat Easterling, Edith Hall, Susan Lape, D avid Wray, and
many seminar audiences for their helpful criticisms o f earlier versions o f this chapter.