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Roman Theatre
The Swaggering Soldier
by Plautus
Origins of Roman Theatre
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Like most things in Rome, the ideas came
from Greece, in the 3rd century BC.
- layout of theatre
- definition of comedy
- ‘stock’ characters
Layout
Meanings of words
Pulpitum - stage
 Vomitoria - exits
 Scenae – backdrop behind stage (stage
building)
 Orchestra – semi-circular area in front of
stage for dancers and chorus
 Praccinto – passages from which actors
enter and leave
 Porticus - colonnade

Theatre Marcellus
A definition of comedy

“A play written chiefly to amuse its
audience by appealing to a sense of
superiority over the characters.”

“A comedy will normally be closer to the
representation of everyday life than
tragedy, and will explore common human
failings rather than tragedy’s disasterous
crimes.”
-Oxford dictionary of literary terms
New Comedy

Romans adopted ‘New Comedy’.

Young lovers go through misadventures
among other stock characters.
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A stock character is one easily recognised
by the audience because they appear
again and again.
Stock characters

Greek actors wore masks so that the
audience would be able to recognise their
emotions from far away (anger, sadness
etc…)

However, in Rome, they wore mask so
that the audience could recognise the
stock characters.
Examples of stock characters
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The Fisherman
The Farmer
The Superstitious Man
The Peevish Man
The Promiser
The Heiress
The Priestess
The False Accuser
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The Misogynist
The Hated Man
The Shipmaster
The Slave
The Concubine
The Soldiers
The Widow
The Noise-Shy Man
Stock characters in ‘The
Swaggering Soldier’.

Pyrgopolynices – the over-confident
soldier

Philocomasium – the concubine or
prostitute

Palaestro, Sceledrus, Lurcio – the slaves
From Greece to Rome

The Romans called their adaptations of Greek
comedies fabulae palliatae ('plays in a Greek
cloak').

The fabulae palliatae had characters with Greek
names in Greek settings, but the audience
understood that the characters were essentially
Roman.

This practice allowed the playwright to turn
Roman mores upside down without upsetting
the audience or undermining Roman morality.
Ch-ch-ch-changes

Perhaps the most common inversion of Roman
values in Roman comedy is the mockery of the
father.

In real Roman society, the father's power (patria
potestas) was legally undisputed.

A father had the power of life and death over his
family and his household (especially slaves).

In comedy, however, the son with the help
of a brash slave regularly outwit the father
and make a fool of him.

In many plays, the slave is the central
character who dominates the action.

The Greek setting of the plays and the
Greek names of the characters made this
situation suitable for Roman audiences
and authorities.