Atellan Farce

The Atellan Farce (Latin: Atellanae Fabulae or Fabulae Atellanae,[1] "favola atellana";[2] Atellanicum exhodium, "Atella comedies"[3]), also known as the Oscan Games (Latin: ludi Osci, "Oscan plays"), were masked improvised farces in Ancient Rome.[4] The Oscan athletic games were very popular, and usually preceded by longer pantomime plays.[5] The origin of the Atellan Farce is uncertain, but the farces are similar to other forms of ancient theatre such as the South Italian Phlyakes, the plays of Plautus and Terence, and Roman mime.[6] Most historians believe the name is derived from Atella, an Oscan town in Campania.[7][8][9] The farces were written in Oscan and imported to Rome in 391 BC. In later Roman versions, only the ridiculous characters speak their lines in Oscan, while the others speak in Latin.

History and surviving evidence

The Atellan Farce was a masked farce that originated in Italy by 300 B.C.and remained popular for more than 500 years. Originally, the farces were improvised and not recorded.[6] Evidence of the original forms is scarce, primarily found in the depictions of scenes and characters on ancient vases.[6]

The extant literary evidence contains only fragments of the Atellan Farce with 400 lines and the titles of approximately 115 farces are recorded from the first century BC by the dramatists Lucius Pomponius and Quintus Novius.[6] With the evidence that does remain, historians believe the plays were between 300 and 400 lines and lasted from 15 to 28 minutes.[6]

Surviving titles indicate that the Atellana or short sketches were meant to entertain the audience on holidays and market days. The names of some of these extant titles include The Farmer, The She-goat, The Woodpile and The Vine-Gatherers.[10] While the actors in Atellan Farce were known to be Oscan, evidence of language-switching from Oscan to Latin is evident in a literary Atellana.[11] We can also surmise that the plots of the sketches included ridiculous situations consisting of puns, horseplay and riddles of a vulgar and crude nature.[12]

Stock characters and origins

Some of the hypothesized stock characters included:

  • Maccus – Believed derived from either the Greek term makkoan, meaning "to be stupid" or the Greek prefix mac-, that denotes greed.[6] The character Maccus makes the most appearances of all stock characters in the works of Pomponius and Novius and includes the play Maccus The Maid where confusion ensues from "twin subjects."[6] Maccus was a most popular clown and the leading character in many Atellan plays[6] including The Fool, as a hunchback with a beak nose.[13][14]
  • Buccus – Although the origin of this name is not definitely known, the Latin word bucca, meaning "cheek" or "mouth" is a common consideration.[6] and implies a "country booby" [14] "fat- cheeked, gluttonous braggart."[6]
  • Manducus – Deriving from the Latin for "The chewer", Manducus is a hypothesized stock character that does not appear in any of the surviving titles[15] Possibly Manducus and Dossennus are the same character and Manducus is simply the description for Dossennus.[6] as the arrogant soldier.[14]
  • Pappus – The name is considered derived from the Greek pappos meaning "grandfather."[6] Pappus was easy to deceive often falling victim to either his daughter or wife, the character appears in five extant plays. Pappus is the only character from Atellan Farce that has a name of Oscan origin as the [16][6] old man.[14]
  • Centunculus – The name of a comic slave.[14]
  • Dossennus – The origin of the name Dossennus is believed to have originated from the word dorsum or "back" as the character was hump backed [6] as the pompous doctor [14] or "hump backed, crafty cheat."[17]

The characters may have connections to similar roles in Commedia dell'arte and Punch and Judy. Both Atellan Farce and Commedia were improvised masked comedies. Stock characters in Atellan Farce are speculated as the beginnings of the Commedia dell'arte stock characters. For example, theorized character progressions include:

However, these connections remain speculative and are contested in ongoing research.[23] There are similarities between Punch and the Commedia dell'arte character Pulcinella, however, there is no consensus that Punch's derivation can be traced back to Pulcinella.[24][25] The character Cicirrus, the Oscan word for "gamecock", is thought to be a stock character.[26]

Authorship

The subjects and characters were decided upon just before the performance began and the dialogue was improvised. The performers were the sons of Roman citizens who were allowed to serve in the army: professional actors were excluded. The simple prose dialogues were supplemented by songs in Saturnian metre, the common language, accompanied by lively gesticulation. The plays were characterized by coarseness and obscenity.[27] Atellan play acting contained much pantomiming. All roles were played by males.[6] The plays did not have elaborate scenery and were performed in normal theaters.[28]

Atellan plays first became popular in Rome in the 3rd century B.C, with a revived popularity in literary form in the 1st century B.C.[6] and included the stock characters in written verse.[6]

Later, the dictator Sulla wrote some Atellan Fables. The dramatist Quintus Novius, who lived and wrote 50 years after the abdication of Sulla, wrote fifty fables, including Macchus Exul (Exiled Macchus), Gallinaria (The Henhouse), Surdus (The Deaf One), Vindemiatores (The Harvesters), and Parcus (The Treasurer). When the Atellan plays were revived in the 1st century B.C. professional actors were no longer excluded from playing the stock characters' roles.[29]

Lucius Pomponius of Bologna, influenced by Palliata Fabius Dorsennus composed several Atellan plays, including Macchus Miles (Macchus the Soldier), Pytho Gorgonius, Pseudoagamemnon, Bucco Adoptatus, and Aeditumus. Quintus Novius and a "Memmius" also authored these comedies. Ovid and Pliny the Younger found the work of Memmius to be indecent.

Pomponius is speculated to be the "founder" of the Atellan Farce plays.[6]

Controversy and suppression

Taken from Tacitus ( Annals, Book 4): "...after various and often fruitless complaints from the praetors, the emperor Tiberius finally brought forward a motion about the licentious behavior of the players. "They had often," he said "sought to disturb the public peace, and to bring disgrace on private families, and the old Oscan farce, once a wretched amusement for the vulgar, had become at once so indecent and popular, that it must be checked by the Senate's authority. The players, upon this, were banished from Italy".

Suetonius (Tiberius, 45, 1) reports that Tiberius himself was mocked for his lecherous habits in an Atellan farce, after which the saying "the old goat lapping up the doe" (hircum vetulum capreis naturam ligurire) became popular.

In the 20s AD, the growth in popularity and revival of the Atellan plays met the disapproval of an older generation of patricians and senators. The performances became so obnoxious that, in 28 AD, all who performed in the farces were banished from Italy.

The Augustan History records that Hadrian furnished performances of Atellan Farces at banquets.[30]

Contemporary comparisons

Due to the outlandish nature and brevity that the Atellan Farces are believed to have, they are comparable to the sketches that one would see on a variety show such as Saturday Night Live or Whose Line Is It Anyway?[31] Oftentimes the improvised play would center on an uncomplicated situation such as eating too much, becoming intoxicated or stealing.[31] Such as in popular television shows as Saturday Night Live and Whose Line Is It Anyway, they would include adult content and done for the entertainment of others.[31]

See also

Sources
  • Fragments of the Atellan Fables can be found in the Poetarum latinorum scen. fragmenta, Leipzig, 1834
  • Maurice Meyer, Sur les Atellanes; Manheim, 1826, in-8°;
  • C. E. Schober, Über die Atellanen, Leipzig, 1825, in-8°;
  • M. Meyer, Etudes sur le théâtre latin, Paris, 1847, in-8°.
  • Jürgen Blänsdorf “Atellana fabula”, in: Brill's New Pauly, Antiquity volumes edited by: Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider. Consulted online on 21 July 2017

The works of Pomponius and Novius can be found in

References
  1. Smith, Winifred (1964). The Commedia Dell'Arte. New York: Benjamin Blom. p. 24. The extemporary compositions called Fabulae Atellanae...
  2. Kennard, Joseph (1964). The Italian Theatre: From Its Beginning to the close of the Seventeenth Century. New York: Benjamin Blom. pp. 5. Another early form of drama, was the Atellanian fable (favola atellana), so called from the Etruscan city Atella.
  3. Oreglia, Giacomo (1968). The Commedia dell'Arte. New York: Hill and Wang. p. 78. ...the Pappus of Atella comedies
  4. Smith, Winifred (1964). The Commedia Dell'Arte. New York: Benjamin Blom. p. 26. Atellnae were farces marked by improvisation and masked personages,
  5. Duchartre, Pierre (1966). The Italian Comedy. New York: Dover Publications, INC. pp. 25. ISBN 9780486216799. They were later called Exodiae, because they were often given at the end of the performance.
  6. Trapido, Joel (December 1966). "The Attellan Plays". Educational Theatre Journal. 18 (4): 381–389. doi:10.2307/3205265. JSTOR 3205265.
  7. Kennard, Joseph (1964). The Italian Theatre: From Its Beginning to the close of the Seventeenth Century. New York: Benjamin Blom. pp. 5. Another early form of drama, was the Atellainian fable, so called from the Etruscan city Atella.
  8. Duchartre, Pierre (1966). The Italian Comedy. New York: Dover Publications, INC. pp. 25. ISBN 9780486216799. The ancient city of Atella, now known as Aversa, was one of the first to have a theatre, in fact.
  9. Ducharte, Pierre (1966). The Italian Comedy. New York: Dover Publications INC. p. 25. When performed in Rome they were called Atellanae, which became their accepted name.
  10. W Beare "Quintilian VI lii 47 and the Fabula Atellana" The Classical Review, vol 51, no 06, 1937, pp 215- 218
  11. W Beare "Quintilian VI lii 47 and the Fabula Atellana" The Classical Review, vol 51, no 06, 1937, pp 213- 215
  12. J Adams "A Passage of Varro, De Lingva Latina and An Oscan Fragmen of Atellan Farce." Mnemosyne, vol 57, no3, 2004, pp 352- 358
  13. Smith, Winifred (1964). The Commedia Dell'Arte. New York: Benjamin Bloom. p. 22. A grotesque statuette representing a beak-nosed, hunchbacked individual, was unearthed at Herculaneum in 1727, which by a slight stretch of imagination could be identified with Maccus
  14. Byrom, Michael (1972). Punch and Judy: Its Origin and Evolution. Aberdeen: Shiva Publications. p. 4. ISBN 0902982028. There was the old man (Pappus), the old woman, the comic slave (Centunculus), the country booby (Buccus), the arrogant soldier (Manducus), the pompous doctor (Dossenus), and the sharp-tongued hooked nosed hunchback (Maccus).
  15. J.Trapido The John Hopkis University Press, Educational Theatre Journal
  16. P. Hartnoll, P. Found, Oxford University Press, The Oxford Concise Companion to The Theatre
  17. J. Trapido, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Educational Theatre Journal
  18. Duchartre, Peirre (1966). The Italian Comedy. New York: Dover Publications, INC. pp. 17. ISBN 9780486216799. The ancestor of Pantaloon, and his son Harpagon, is Pappus, the lecherous old miser of the Antellane
  19. Oreglia, Giacomo (1968). The Commedia dell'Arte. New York: Hill and Wang. p. 78. In the ancient theatre the characters which recall this Mask are those of the various old men of Aristophanes, Plautus, Terence, and the Pappus of the Atella comedies
  20. Duchartre, Pierre (1966). The Italian Comedy. New York: The Dover Publications, INC. pp. 18. ISBN 9780486216799. The cradle of the family was the ancient city of Atella, in the Roman Campangna, and the gallery of ancestors shows, among others Bucco and the sensual Maccus, whose lean figure and cowardly nature reappear in Pulcinella
  21. Duchartre, Pierre (1966). The Italian Comedy. Dover Publication, INC. pp. 29. ISBN 9780486216799. Pulcinella was always dressed in white like Maccus, the mimus albus, or white mime
  22. Duchartre, Pierre (1966). The Italian Comedy. New York: The Dover Publications, INC. pp. 18. ISBN 9780486216799. Next there is the ogre Manducus, the Miles Glorious in the plays of Plautus, who is later metamorphosed into the swaggering Captain, or Captain.
  23. Smith, Winifred (1964). The Commedia Dell'Arte. New York: Benjamin Blom. p. 21. page 21 Not a little nonsense has been written about the "evolution" of the commedai dell'arte. Of the three main theories that attempt to account for our farces the hoariest and most outgrown is that concerning their putative Roman father, surely a ghost that by now ought to be permately laid.
  24. Smith, Winifred (1964). The Commedia Dell'Arte. New York: Benjamin Blom. p. 23. The identification of the statuette with a future in the Mimes or even with a stage character at all is very uncertain, nor is it safe to press its resemblance to the English Punch; there is no doubt that it looks like Punch but this, I think, is vest explained by the fame of the figure at the time of its discovery and by the influence of its peculiarities on the face and figure of the English villain-clown.
  25. Byrom, Michael (1972). Punch and Judy: Its Origin and Evolution. Aberbeen: Shiva Publications. p. 5. ISBN 0902982028. In 1662, Pulcinella crossed the English Channel and became 'Punchinello' later to be known simply as Punch.
  26. J. Trapido The Johns Hopkins University Press, Educational Theatre Press
  27. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Atellanae Fabulae". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 824.
  28. j. Trapido The Johns Hopkins University Press, Educational Theatre Journal
  29. J. Trapido The Johns Hopkins Press, Educational Theatre Journal
  30. HA Hadrian 26.
  31. D Nardo The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Ancient Rome, San Diego, California, 2002, pp 39- 351, Greenhaven Press
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