-
koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi:
10.1163/9789004270978_013
Oral Textuality as a Language ofExclusive Communication in
Terences Prologues
Sophia Papaioannou
Introduction
Terences prologues address two different audiences
simultaneously, the oneversed in Greek literature, the other with
very limited, if any, knowledge ofwriting. Set at the opening of
all six plays, the prologues strive to transmitinformation
appealing to the members of both audiences. The layers or
qual-itative difference in interpretation of the information
communicated throughTerences prologues, and the reception of this
information by the two differenttypes of spectators, sit at the
core of the present study. The prologues trans-mit two types of
information: firstly, a defense against a series of accusationsfor
plagiarism or inappropriate tampering with the rules of model
reception;and secondly, and more subtly, a statement about the
introduction of a newmethodology of palliata composition. The
novelty of the latter is underscoredby a series of allusions to
certain poetically significant texts from the Greek lit-erary
tradition.
The two types of information reach illiterate audiences or those
of limitedaccess to the culture of writing, as well as audiences
broadly read, highly edu-cated, who are most likely bilingual and
have access to written Greek litera-ture. Both groups may have
similar and extensive experience with attendingdramatic
performances of palliatae, or may have attended oratorical
perfor-mances such as trials. Hence both would be in a position to
comprehend thesignificance of themethodological novelty
introducedanovelty based on theextensive use of writing. Yet, only
the educated audiencewould be able to com-prehend the multiple
levels of Terences engagement with poetics as they arearticulated
in the allusions to Greek literature throughout. The
uneducated,illiterate audience members, with little or no exposure
to written texts, wouldbe attracted to the art of Terences
comic-writing through his meticulouslycrafted language that uses
the techniques of oral poetrynamely the recurrentuse of key words,
phrases, themes and figures of speech, which are often remi-niscent
of epic formulas. The employment of language from the technology
oforality is delivered in a style that deliberately echoes
oratorical performances.This display communicates to the
spectators, whomight otherwise be uninter-ested in the literary
nuances of the comic speech, the promise of a spectacle as
-
oral textuality as a language of exclusive communication 219
fascinating, exciting and entertaining as a successful
performance in court bya master orator. Not least, the extensive
use of the techniques of orality under-scores, by juxtaposition,
Terences great contribution to the evolution of fabulapalliata:
full scriptwriting.
Rapportwith the audience is initially established bymeans of a
conspicuouscapitatio benevolentiae. The prologues are introduced by
an actor, the impre-sario Ambivius Turpio, the prologus speaker of
Terences plays. He is also theleading actor of the company that
will subsequently stage the play. Ambiviusspeaks on behalf of the
playwright and deliberately uses language distinctlyrhetorical and
reminiscent of the courts.1 The actor is self-introduced, in
twoprologues, as an orator (Hecyra 9; Heaut. 11), advocate, and the
members ofthe audience are addressed as judges (Heaut. 12 iudicium
vostrum fecit; Ad. 4vos eritis iudices). Furthermore, the opponents
bring charges against the poet;notably, one of the charges is
defined as furtum, burglary, in deliberate evoca-tion of the
criminal act (Eun. 28; Ad. 13).2 The oratorical terminology
transformsTerences appeal for benevolence into a situation
comparable to a trial, not onlyin character but also in
significance: the outcome of the dramatic competitionwill determine
Terences future as playwright.
Roman Comedy allows for a unique examination of the
manifestation oforalcy in Roman literature, as well as a look at
the earliest expression of theanxiety of intercultural and
intertextual influence at Rome. Oralcy is a liminalstate where both
oral and literate modes of literary expression thrive at thesame
time.3 The definition of oralcy at Romeduring themiddle Republic,
whenthe beginnings of Latin literature are set, is tied to an
additional factor, the
1 The performative aspect is further underlined by the fact that
these opening pieces are
entitled prologuesa technical term of Classical Greek drama,
either for the part before
the entry of the chorus (Arist. Po. 1452b19), or for the
monologue containing a narrative of
facts introductory to the main action (e.g. Ar. Fr. 1119).
2 On the relation of Terences prologues to contemporary oratory,
see foremost Leo (1960:
135149), and more recently Goldberg (1986: 3160); also Focardi
(1972 and 1978), which
demonstrate Terences reliance on legal language, and trace
similarities of style between the
prologues and the texts of the orators. Worth consulting,
finally, is the comparison between
Terences rhetorical style and the precepts of the Rhetorica ad
Herrenium and Ciceros De
Inventione Rhetorica, in Barsby (2010: 3943).
3 Oralcy is the liminal stage in a societywherebothoral and
literatemodes of expression exist.
The term is used interchangeably with orality in contexts of
literary narrative in general (cf.
Ong 1982; Derrida 1976) and specifically for the archaic Greek
epic, as the intermediate stage
in a societys progressive transition from an oral culture to a
culture of writing (cf. Dederian
2001: 67, 11, 1314, 96, 117, 139, 189).
-
220 papaioannou
systematic reception of Greek literature and culture. The
traditionally set origi-nary date of Roman literature, the year
240bce, is identified with the festival ofthe ludi Romani of that
year when plays modeled on Greek ones were first cel-ebrated in
Rome.4 The development of Roman literature, accordingly, shouldbe
approached also as a development of a form of antagonismwhich
graduallybecomes more sophisticated. Perhaps viewed as an ongoing
practice of liter-ary polemic and creative aemulatioa practice
understood and appreciatedin Terences day by Romans across the
social spectrum, since a steadily grow-ing number of Roman
farmers/soldiers were forced to serve longer periods oftime in
theHellenophone areas of Southern Italy and Sicily,5 and inGreece,
andtheir contact with Greek culture in the course of the third
century was increas-ing in frequency, intensity and depth.6
Terences prologues, as will be pointedout, therefore, appropriatein
the Roman contextprogrammatic passagesof poetic self-consciousness
which transcribe the anxiety of influence as felt bykey Greek
authors, specifically Aristophanes and Callimachus.
Assessment of Knowledge Communicated through the ProloguesA
leading premise of the present argument is that Terences prologues,
as wellas the scripts of the rest of Terences plays, were written
in full from the verybeginning and were delivered on stage without
changes to the original scriptbefore a socially and culturally
heterogeneous audience, obviously aiming atestablishing rapport
with as many members of this audience as possible.7The same texts,
however, do not communicate the same information to allmembers of
the audience. A substantial part of the knowledge recorded inthese
prologues may be controlled only by those among his audience
whohave access to literacy. Literate spectators, many of them quite
erudite withaccess to the sameGreek sources Terence had,
appreciated the prologuesmuchdifferently than the illiterate
audienceswhomissed out on this intertextuality.8
4 E.g. Gruen (1990: 84) characterizes the ludi Romani of 240 as
a cultural landmark in the history
of Rome, for it announced Romes participation in the
intellectual world of the Greeks.
5 On Greek theaters in southern Italy and Sicily, see Sear
(2006: 4849); on the staging of
dramatic performances in Southern Italy in the third century,
see Gentili (1979: 1632).
6 On the receptivity of the Roman soldiers to Greek culture, see
Bernstein (1998: 234251) and
Horsfall (2003: 4863).
7 Gilula (1989) is the first to read the prologues as theatrical
scriptswritten for delivery on stage.
8 The lack of education of the great majority of the theater
audiences is commented upon by
Cicero, who in his (now fragmentary) Pro Gallio pokes fun at a
poorly educated mime writer
by comparing his lack of education to that of his
audience:multos enim condiscipulos habet in
theatro, qui simul litteras non didicerunt (for he hasmany
fellow-students in the theater who,
-
oral textuality as a language of exclusive communication 221
For the latter, the prologues (and the plays following them)
were above allperformances; to the former, they represented much
more than that.
The elite spectators, aristocrats well versed in Greek
literature and, by Ter-ences time, the third generation of
importers of Greek culture to Rome, werefamiliar with Greek New
Comedy plays in writing, and may even have ownedscripts of the very
Greek plays Terence and the other Roman dramatists ofthe palliata
were using.9 These men were in a position to properly assess
theimportance of Terences contribution to Roman comic dramaturgy
upon hisstaging plays from finalized scripts. Terence confronted
the actors with scriptsto be memorized in full. Before Terence,
comic performances built either onmere plot outlines which the
actors then took upon themselves to developby adding words, a
technique that was certainly used in the case of the non-literary
forms of Roman drama, namely the fabula Atellana and the
Romanmime;10 or on suggestive scripts, which the actors were free
to alter in per-formance and develop by improvisation, as it has
been claimed for the palliataof Naevius, and later, of Ennius and
Plautus generation (and, by association, ofTerences accusers).11
The implementation of this new technique by Terence is
like him, have not been schooled in literature) the fragment and
its context is mentioned
in Goldberg (2005: 90 n. 6), and is discussed in detail in
Crawford (1994: 145158).
9 On the multilayered influence the culture of Greece exercised
upon Republican Roman
aristocrats in the course of the 3rd and 2nd centuries bce, see
Gruen (1986: 251260).
10 On the fabula Atellana, see most recently Manuwald (2011:
169177) with n. 129 where
ample earlier bibliography is cited; on the Roman mime, Manuwald
(2011: 178183), with
n. 153 for earlier bibliography.
11 The textual fixidity of the palliata is seriously debated
nowadays. In his study of Roman
literary literacy in the Middle Republic, Goldberg (2005,
especially Chapters 2 and 3),
sensibly argues that comedies did not become literature per se
at the very time they
were put on stage, but rather generations later, at the end of
the second century bce
and onwards. This was the achievement of scholars who converted
scripts composed for
utilitarian purposes and destined for performance into texts for
study (Goldberg 2005: 81).
The plays staged during the golden era of Roman comedy were not
considered literary
texts; it was not their textual dimension that mattered but
their performative aspect,
namely their effective transference on stage. As a result, the
fixity of the text was not an
issue to be accounted for. Marshall discusses improvisation as
the dominant feature of
Plautus plays in the last chapter of his 2006 book. He argues
that when Plautus playswere
originally performed, they were not based on a full scriptor the
actors did not have to
observe faithfully any given script. Plautus actors built on the
script they received while
they performed; after the performance, the script of the play
that circulated for future
staging was altered to include successful improvisations devised
by the actors during the
performance. Plautus is crafting a play, constructed from
different pieces over time with
-
222 papaioannou
communicated in language that echoes the programmatic statements
ofAristophanes and Callimachus, and temptingly casts Terence in
similar light.The approval of the elite and politically powerful
audience was all the moreimportant given that Terences initiative
to curb the actors improvisatory riffsand take over himself, the
auctor, the control of the performance in everyrespect, alarmed his
rivals, the earlier generation of comic professionals.12 Thethreat
behind the prospect of a wide embrace of this new type of comic
dra-maturgy at Rome13 may well be the leading motive behind the
attack Terencereceived fromhis unnamed opponentsor at least, this
is what the poet wantshis audience to believe.
the help of his associates, and not simply writing a document
that remains unchanged
(Marshall 2006: 263).
Marshalls view is, of course, impossible to prove, but in light
of Marshalls skepticism
for the complete scriptedness of Plautus plays in their original
form and given the indu-
bitable influence of the Atellena and the other
non-literaryunscriptedformsof Italian
drama, so is the view that Plautus wrote down a completed script
and handed it over to
the actors in written form, or that the script that circulated
after the first performance
of the play was the same as the one composed by Plautus prior to
the first performance.
The element of improvisation in Plautus has been studied
extensively in the past quarter
century by Eckard Lefvre and his school, who have shown the lack
of uniformity and the
infelicities in language and style in Plautus plays, which
destabilize the text and the idea
of authorship, and favor instead a fluid view of the comedies
that survive under Plautus
name. Representative publications of Lefvres school on Plautus
improvisation include:
Benz, Strk, Vogt-Spira, and Lefvre (1995); Benz and Lefvre
(1998); Lefvre (1999 and
2001); also the kindred views in Slater (1993: 113124).
12 Luscius Lanuvinus is identified as Terences main opponent by
Donatus; Terence never
names his opponent; instead, he confronts him as a paradigmatic
representative of a par-
ticular way of writing, which allows him to attack this style
more forcefully (Manuwald
2011: 251).
13 Lefvre (1978: 43, 55, 66) has suggested Roman tragedy, too,
did not have an organically
developing action;Manuwald (2011: 138n. 34), however, is
skeptical about this, owing to the
insufficient evidence of fragments and later testimonia
commenting on the structure of
the Republican tragoedia. More interestingly, it has been often
argued that the praetexta,
the type of Roman tragedy that dramatized episodes from Roman
history, had a long,
unscripted tradition that reached back to the Etruscan era
(Rawson 1991: 470471); that
there have been composed far more praetextae than those attested
(only ten titles are
known from the Republican era); cf. mainly Wiseman (1994: 122
and 1998: 116 and
passim). The very lack of ancient sources, however, on the
existence of this unscripted
tradition, especially if this traditionused tobepopular and
long, has raised concerns about
its validity; cf. Flower (1995: 173175); Manuwald (2001: 9194
and 2011: 141).
-
oral textuality as a language of exclusive communication 223
Illiterate audiences probably could not appreciate the fact that
Terencespalliatae are orally performed texts. They appreciated them
as performances,that is, spectacles along the same lines as, for
example, Plautus plays, or ropewalking and boxingtwoother types of
spectacular performance rivalingwiththe palliatae for the attention
of the same audience. To these spectators, theliteracy-determined
character of the play is hardly an issueas are the accusa-tions on
Terences plagiarism, and by association, Terences elaborate
defenseagainst them.14 It is unlikely that the Roman plebs cared at
all whether Terencehad contaminated two different Greek plays.
Logically, the politics of assessingan orally performed text, as
well as the accusations against Terences compo-sition practices,
concern a special rapport a young and ambitious dramatistwishes to
build with the politically and financially powerful members of
hisliterate audience.
Some of the members of this elite audience belonged to a special
subgroupthat played a pivotal role in the performance business and
was not only inter-ested in being entertained by the play.15 This
special audience included: theaediles, the magistrates who chose
the plays to be performed following nego-tiations with the
impresarios with whom they agreed upon the terms of thepurchasing
contract; the impresarios themselves, who were scouting for
tal-ented playwrights who had the potential to compose popular and
hence profit-generating plays;16 the Roman elites, who were likely
to patronize a talentedplaywright; and of course, the various
dramaturges, who rivaled for a spoton the magistrates performance
lists since their own careers and livelihoods
14 Recently Umbrico has argued that Terences focus of attack is
not on a singularmaleuolus
uetus poeta but on a whole group of poet-detractors (who have
obscura diligentia at An.
21), amongwhomLanuvinus stood out;more specifically, for
Umbrico, Lanuvinus acted as
magister of the collegium scribarum histrionumque (the
corporazione dei poeti teatrali)
set up by senatus consultum in honor of Livius Andronicus in 207
or 206bce. Hence, in
previewing the Eunuch, Lanuvinus exercises his magisterial
potestas inspiciundi, what we
might think of as quality control. Terence, an outsider to the
collegium, and acting on his
patrons behalf, espouses a controversial new philhellenic
poetics similar to what we find
in the works of Ennius (Umbrico 2012: 8590). Terences take on
hismalevoli antagonists
will be discussed below.
15 See Beacham (1999: 244), for an extensive discussion on
public entertainment in Rome,
including various technical aspects of the organization of the
ludi; on the latter, see also
Brown (2002: 229231); on the function of the stage manager, see
Beare (1964: 164165);
Duckworth (1952: 74); Gratwick (1982: 82); Barsby (1986: 78);
Manuwald (2011: 8183).
16 On Ambivius as scout investing in Terences talent, see Ter.
Hec. 157; Didascalia on Ter.
Hec.; Ter. Phorm. 3034.
-
224 papaioannou
depended on maintaining participation in the ludi. Without
denying the non-erudite audience the ability to enjoy and
appreciate a Roman comedy with acertain degree of sophistication
resulting from their considerable experiencewith
palliata-attending,17 it should be acknowledged that only the
membersof the Roman elite, next to the professionals of the theater
business, wereable to assess the many levels of engagement with the
Greek literary tradi-tion in the background of a transference of
one or more Greek models inLatin.
In 167bce, just a year before Terence staged his first play, the
Macedonianroyal library was brought to Rome by the victor over king
Perseus, the gen-eral L. Aemilius Paulus. From that year onwards,
the rich collection of thislibrary was potentially available to the
professional comedians who could nowhave access to a great number
of Greek model texts. This library most likelyenabled Terence, who
had close ties with the Paulus family, to read the playsof
Menander, who was, unlike his contemporaries, popular with the
Macedo-nian court.18 The ready accessibility of Menanders plays, in
writing and in theoriginal Greek, may explain Terences special
attraction to Menander, and alsohis decision to embrace fully
written-out, author-controlled scripts and foregoa long and very
successful tradition of palliatamaking that relied on the
actorsability to improvise their lines during performance and drew
on multiple NewComedy models.
The Special Rapport with the Literate AudienceThe opening of the
Andria, Terences first play, with a prologue that developsaround a
polemic hardly justified by realism (the prologue defends
Terenceagainst accusations for improper playwriting, yet the Andria
about to beginis the very first play of a nineteen-year-old
dramatist) has rightly raised doubtsabout the actual existence of
these rivals. Instead, the recurrence of the same
17 On the capabilities of thepalliata audience seeHandley (1975:
117132); thepaperdiscusses
specifically Plautus audience, but the argument applies more
soundly to the more expe-
rienced theatergoers of Terences generation.
18 On L. Aemilius Paulus transporting of Perseus library to Rome
for the education of his
two sons, see the testimony in Plut. Aem. Paul. 28.6. The
library had a full collection of
Menander, andvery likelyplays of otherGreekdramatists,
soTerence,whomusthavebeen
particularly close to the family of Paulus given that twoof his
plays, the (successful)Hecyra
and the Adelphoe were staged specially, at the funeral games in
the honor of Aemilius
Paulus in 160bce, as recorded in the didascaliae of the plays,
could have ready access to
Menanders texts; cf. e.g. Wiles (2011: 6061); on Menander as the
favorite author of the
Macedonian rulers, see Umbrico (2012: 109110).
-
oral textuality as a language of exclusive communication 225
polemic rhetoric in every prologue, often in identical
phraseology,19 urges fora less literal reading of Terences poetic
rivalry, in light of the kindred literaryantagonism that
distinguishes important pieces of Greek literature of program-matic
literary character.20
In their deliberate resemblance to pieces of judicial oratory,
the prologuesshare striking analogies with the parabases of
Aristophanic comedy as state-ments of comic agonism. The same
agonistic element engrosses Terences con-sistent reference to his
antagonists in his prologues, and the need to defendones own status
as a professional dramatist, and it is expressed through
setphraseology that is artfully arranged in the prologue text,
often in the samepartof the prologue. The language as a whole is
strongly reminiscent of the com-petition between Aristophanes and
his rivals, most notably Cratinus.21 Aristo-phanes and Cratinus
transferred to the comic stage their conflicted views
onthemethodology, objectives and aesthetics of comic composition.
Intriguingand instructive for reassessing the antagonistic
interaction between Terenceand his rivalsis the likely hypothesis
that Aristophanes and Cratinus drama-tized in reality the rivalry
between themselves on purpose, upon realizing thatthis excited the
audience and generated popularity.22 The dramatization of aliterary
rivalry by Aristophanes and Cratinus started a tradition in Attic
Com-edy, creating a motif: gibes and counter-gibes of
collaboration, plagiarism andthe like had by [the end of the fifth
century bce] become a stock comic toposa recurrent motif in the
twin techniques of self promotion and denigration ofothers that
played an explicit part in the rivalry of comic poets competing
for
19 Noted already in Donatus, who ad Eun. 1 (Si quisquam est qui
placere studeat bonis) notes:
attendenda poetae copia, quod in tot prologis de eadem causa
isdem fere sententiis variis
verbis utitur (Wessner 1962/3 I: 270).
20 My analysis owes much to the recent discussion on the
agonistic character of Terences
prologues in Sharrock (2009: 6396), who reads the six pieces as
a comic way of making a
programmatic statement. Sharrocks analysis rightly identifies
the kinship of Terences
prologues to the agonistic language of Aristophanes, Callimachus
Aetia prologue, and
Plautus prologizing monologues.
21 Cf. Sharrock (2009: 7778); on the antagonism between
Aristophanes and Cratinus as
typical among competing comic dramatists in the Old Comedy era,
see recently Bakola
(2010, esp. chapter 1, Poetic Persona and Poetic Voice in
Cratinus Comedy) and Biles
(2011). On the agonistic character of Old Comedy more broadly,
see Harvey and Wilkins
(2000).
22 This hypothesis has been argued convincingly in Luppe (2000:
1523), depicting the
explicit rivalry between Aristophanes and Cratinus as
bothmutually exploited and highly
creative.
-
226 papaioannou
public prizes.23 The extent to which these direct metatheatrical
references todramatic competitionwere true is not possible to
ascertain, and itwas probablynever expected to be. The
internationalization of Attic Comedy and the com-position of plays
beyond the scope of local (Athenian) dramatic competition,in the
next century, however, caused self-referential comments on rivalry,
self-praise for originality, and accusations for plagiarism to
disappear even thoughconscious intertextuality was as close and
openly pursued as ever.24 The rea-sons for this are obvious: before
an international audience unfamiliar with themodels of a givenplay,
charges of plagiarismwould simply be difficult to conveyand of
little interest.
Terence seems to reach backwards in time to the Old Comedy
rivalry motif;hence the close resemblance in his description of the
dramatic rivalries inearly second century bce Republican Rome to
the conventions of the comicagondetected inAristophanes: poetic
antagonismwith competitors, defendingones own status as
professional dramatist, charting ones own new coursein the
evolution of the performance genre and engaging the audience,
thuslinking real world to stage world. The reasons for this
decision to revive thelanguage of dramatic rivalrywill be examined
below. Presently one should notethat the detection of
intertextualitymay be appreciatedmore thoroughly by anaudience able
to access the preexisting literary Greek tradition of
dramatizedpoetic antagonism and the advertizing of ones own status
as a dramatist, aswell as his novel contribution to the particular
category of the genre. It is likelyboth that Terence was familiar
with the conventions of Old Comedy and thatthe Roman elite had
access to the plays of Aristophanes and his rivals.25 This
23 Halliwell (1989: 519); cf. Slater (1985 and 1995: 33).
24 Slater (1995: 3334); Hunter (1983: 155 ad Eubulus fr. 67 K-A)
and earlier bibliography on
the extensive literary borrowing in Middle Comedy.
25 Admittedly, there is no substantial evidence to sustain such
a hypothesis; the heavily
politicized content and the topicality of Aristophanes plays
resulted in the drastic reduc-
tion of Old Comedy plays from the repertories of the travelling
Hellenistic thiasoi, yet
performances of Aristophanic playswere held in 4th c. Southern
Italy. Themost important
relevant evidence is the depiction of a performance of
AristophanesThesmophoriazousae
on a South Italian vase; see Taplin (1987a, 1987b, and 1993:
3641, and 1993: 4445 on other
depictions of Aristophanes plays on South Italian vases); Green
(2003: catalogue no. 2);
Rusten (2011: 434435); cf. Slater (1995: 33n. 14): Surely
themajority, indeed the vastmajor-
ity, of Greek performances in South Italy were of contemporary
plays. One would assume
that Aristophanes was no larger a proportion of the current
repertoire in the fourth cen-
tury than G.B. Shaw is todaya classic, not a staple, in other
words. Other well-known
plays of Old Comedy that were likely performed in Southern Italy
as they seem to be
depicted on vases of the 4th century, include CratinusNemesis
(Taplin 1993: 8283; Green
-
oral textuality as a language of exclusive communication 227
realization invites one to revisit Terences commentary on poetic
rivalry (andalso his recurrent mention of the charges and the
threats of the rivals in everyprologue) and consider themaspart of
a literary discussiononengagingoneselfdynamically and creatively
within a long literary tradition.
Terences proximity to Callimachus and his pioneering poetics
articulated inthe context of self-defense against his poetic
rivals, the Telchines, give furtherreason to see the rivalry theme
in the prologues as poetically determined. Theproximity is observed
in theway Terence seems to paraphrase key phrases
fromtheprogrammatic texture of the Aetiaprologuephraseswhich stress
particu-larly the spirit of poetic agonism. Tomention just a few
pointed examples. Theword poeta in the opening of the prologue to
the Andria, Terences first play,evokes the vocative that opens
Apollos address to Callimachus in Aet.1.23. All of Terences
prologues emphasize writingscribere, a no less program-matic
termfeatures in the first line of the Andria prologue and becomes
thetechnical term to signify playwriting for Terence and recalls
Apollos placingof a deltos, a writing tablet, on Callimachus knees
in Aet. 1.22. Other Calli-machean elements are the naming of the
opponent as malevolus (cf. Ad. 15,malevoli; malevolent decrepit
poet, in An. 6 f., malevoli veteris poetae; Heaut.22, malevolu vetu
poeta) in evocation of the Callimachean for theTelchines; and, most
importantly for our purposes, the defense of a differentstyle of
comic poetics, indirectly extracted from the dismissal of what is
con-sidered acceptable comic writing in e.g. the Phormio prologue
(68).26
2001: catalog no. 10; Rusten 2011: 190191) and EupolisDemes
(Storey 2003: 117; Green 2008:
212213; Rusten 2011: 232). On the evolution of comic drama in
the 4th century as a result
of the pan-Hellenization of Comedy, see most recently
Konstantakos (2011). On the other
hand, the rarity of Old Comedy revivals in the repertories of
the ludi does not mean that
the Romans of the Middle Republic were ignorant of Aristophanes
plays as texts: several
among the Roman elites who occupied the front seats in Terences
theater likely owned
copies of Greek texts not widely circulating in Rome, including
copies of Aristophanes.
Lucilius, the father of Roman Satire and Terences contemporary,
was traditionally held
in antiquity to have modeled his caustic speech under the
influence of the Old Comedy
language (cf. Hor. Sat. 1.4.1 ff.), and his deep knowledge of
Aristophanes is firmly acknowl-
edged nowadays; cf. Zimmermann (2001); Sommerstein (2011).
Lucilius modeled his style
on theAristophanic verse knowing that hewould gainpopularity by
embracing a language
of social criticism already popular with his fellow-countrymen.
It is logical that Terence
wouldhavehad first-handknowledgeofAristophanes plays, aswell;
copiesmayhavebeen
supplied to him by the travelling thiasoi, along with copies of
Greek New Comedy plays,
or by his aristocratic patrons (including Aemilius Paulus, who
had transported Perseus
library to Rome) who had copies in their personal
collections.
26 See most recently Sharrock (2009: 7883).
-
228 papaioannou
The rebuking of the malevoli opponents along with their poetics
deservescloser attention. On two occasions Terences malevolent
adversaries are addi-tionally described as old. The poetic
connotations of old age are alreadyfound inAristophanic agonistic
poetry. In several of his plays thewar of the gen-erations is at
once political and poetic.27 This is well illustrated in the
Knights.In this play, the Sausage-seller is anxious for a victory
over his rival, the Paphlag-onian. This victory is described
characteristically in a programmatic oracle setin the opening scene
(128143) as a political succession, where the Sausage-seller is
foretold that he will ascend after three other consecutive sellers
ofdifferent wares (the last of whom, a tanner, is a clear allusion
to Cleon). Onanother level, however, the same victory reflects the
struggle between Aristo-phanes, who stands as the youngest of four
comic poets, and his rivals to securethe favor of the audience. In
light of the Sausage-seller, Aristophanes opposesan established,
and thus hard to fight, tradition of older poets. The old age ofthe
rivals is emphasized by the repeated mention of the young age of
both theSausage-seller and Aristophanesa young age accompanied by
inexperience(178179, 182, 211212, 222224; and611 on the
youthfulness of the Sausage-seller;513516, 541, and 545 on the
young age of Aristophanes). In order to overcometheir inexperience
and succeed against their rivals, both the Sausage-seller
andAristophanes will need the succor of the chorus, the Athenian
demos (in termsof the political rivalry), or the audience (in terms
of the poetic one).28
In Callimachus the old age motif evolves. It does not actually
apply tothe poets themselvesliterallybut to their poetry: old age
represents theburden of tradition, specifically Homeric-style epic
and all epic literature pro-duced thereafter, while young is any
poet in Callimachus generation whowishes to compose poetrywith a
personal character. Thepoetically determineddichotomy of young vs.
old is particularly well-illustrated in the Aetia prologue.At Aet.
1.2124 Callimachus is introduced as a young poet just beginning
towrite poetry, when in his quasi-Hesiodic dream he is instructed
by Apollo to
27 In Old Comedy the conflict of generations is politically and
culturally determined, with
distinct forensic touches, as exemplified e.g. in the argument
between Philocleon and
Bdelycleon in the Wasps, but it also advances Aristophanes
poetics against that of his
rivals, most notably Cratinus; cf. Sidwell (1995) on the
politics and poetics articulated in
the Wasps as to parody Cratinus Pytine; and Sutton (1983) for
the conflict of generations
motif in Comedy.
28 On Aristophanes projecting his rivalry against his older
rivals on the political contest of
the Sausage-seller against his own opponents, see Biles (2011:
121126). For rivalry between
older and younger/new poets during the 420s in Athens, cf. Russo
(1994: 1920); Biles
(2001); Olson (2007: 2122).
-
oral textuality as a language of exclusive communication 229
apply himself to the service of the . And yet, a few lines
earlier(Aet. 1.56) he is an older poet, when he is accused by the
Telchines that despitehis advanced age he has not ceased from
playing with his verse-making justlike a boy does with his toys.
Finally, towards the end of the prologue (Aet. 1.3335) the poet
wishes to free himself from the burden of old age, like the
cicada.As iswidely established nowadays, the cicada is
associatedwith poetics as earlyas Sappho 58.29 In this poem, the
cicada symbolizes poetic rejuvenation andimmortality, while the
burden of old age is the burden of the epic past, but alsothe
burden of a long tradition of literary voices themselves, like
Callimachus,conscious of following a venerable tradition.30
Terence borrows from both traditions as he infuses the poetics
of rejuve-nation with the element of agonism. He interprets
Callimachus apology asa declaration that he is introducing a new
style of comic dramaa style thatis viewed antagonistically by the
established old order of palliata makers. Tothis end, he invites
his erudite audience to understand the prologues as pro-grammatic
pieces of a new trend in Roman dramaturgy, according to
whichliterary production intended for the stage is decidedly
scripted. For Terence, lit-eracy, understood as the production of
performances that reproduce faithfullythe playwrights original
script, is a key element that brands the originality ofCallimachus
verse, including epic, against the venerable, orally delivered
epictradition of the Homeric epics. In the Aetia prologue the young
Callimachusreceives Apollos epiphany and inspiration with a deltos,
a writing tablet, onhis knees (fr. 1.21Pf.). This emphasizes
writing and communication in writing,in direct contrast to oral
delivery and circulation as the distinct characteris-tic of
literary expression.31 Along this literacy-determined line of
argument,Terences prologues convey a polemic against opponents who
fight him vig-orously not only because he is a rival contestant but
because he is willing toexperiment with new poetics in the
reformation of the palliata genre. LusciusLanuvinus and the rest of
Terences opponents are worried because if Terences
29 See e.g. West (2005); Janko (2005); Greene (2011).
30 On the poetics of old age as a tradition beginning with
Hesiod but transformed into a
motif in Callimachus where for the first time it is juxtaposed
to young age in the context
of the desire for rejuvenation, see detailed discussionmost
recently in Harder (2012: 7071
[commentary ad Aet. 1.30] and 7982 [commentary ad Aet. 1.3536,
where ample earlier
bibliography is recorded]).
31 Nonetheless, it should be noted that the ancient Greeks
themselves were largely unaware
that the epics of Homerwere orally fashioned; theHellenistic
poets, like Callimachus, saw
him as a writer, like themselves, though they did note Homers
attention for oral delivery
(repetition instead of variation, etc).
-
230 papaioannou
experiment is proven agreeable to the refined tastes of the
elite spectators, prof-itable for the impresarios, and able to
generate popularity for the aediles, thissuccess will threaten
their own prospects and overall professional survival aspalliata
poets henceforth. In short, by evoking a token piece of
sophisticatedliteracy meaning to serve primarily as a literary
manifesto, Terence communi-cates that he may harbor similar
ambition, but also casts his opponents in theshadow of those
malevolent rivals of Callimachus, who embody crusty, anti-quated,
and unattractive poetics.32
In the same context of literacy-determined palliata performance
we shouldconsider the revival in Terences prologues of the
metatheatrical references tocomic agonism known from Old Comedy.
There references have a program-matic function. Terence invites his
rivals and critics to study his scripts and, asa result, identify
his textual debt to the plots of his Greek models, which hiserudite
audience might have known from a scripted version as well. To
Lus-cius and the other rivals, this provable plagiarism might be
culpable, evenagainst the rules, but Terence saw in it an
opportunity, first, for self-promotion,and second, for originality.
For Terence, the accusation of plagiarism essen-tially
advertizedevenmore prominently, through the projection of his
antag-onists admissionthat he utilized, by direct access, the full
spectrum of hisearlier sources. The young poet could publicize the
successful ways in whichhe adapted multiple earlier New Comedy
models, both Greek and Latin, butin ways so sophisticated that no
certain opinion could be formed, and he alsocould divulge and
debate upon these accusations for model mishandling inthe fashion
of the self-consciously dramatized literary criticism of Old
Com-edy. Then, the emphasis on the compositional methodology of his
plays thatinevitably would follow the charge of plagiarism enabled
Terence to illustratethe original character of his dramaturgy. By
ordering his actors to follow hisscript to the letter, Terence
impeded them from intervening in his composi-tion, and by extension
in his own, original reading of his earlier models. Also,he impeded
them from reproducing themselves. Stand-up comedy actors
todaytypically repeat their most successful gigswe have little
reason to doubt thatthe actors of the pre-Terentian comic stage did
not as well. Further, in demand-ing loyal observance of the script,
Terence implicitly places himself in theshoes of Aristophanes and
embraces the literary polemic of the latter, typicallyclaiming that
his rivals employ jokes that are stale, clichd and overused. He
32 See Goldberg (1986: 3160 and 1983, 198211), who rightly
reckons Terences quarrel with
Luscius Lanuvinus as more a dramaturgical device than a
historical record. On Luscius,
see the inventive reconstruction by Garton (1972: 41139).
-
oral textuality as a language of exclusive communication 231
also indirectly rejects the Plautine dramaturgy of
improvisatory, shtick-basedlaughter-production.
The promise of originality due to literacy-determined fixidity
is establishedin the text of the prologues. Terences initiative in
introducing fully written-outperformances justifies the recurrence
of scribere, to write, in various formsand no less than seventeen
times in the prologues alone. Moreover, these ref-erences are set
in prominent places throughout. For example, we find them inthe
first line of the Andria prologue, which also happens to be
Terences veryfirst words, in the opening lines of other prologues,
and even in the last line ofthe prologue to the Adelphoe, Terences
last play.33 Writing, thus, is paired tothe old vs. new poetics
dichotomy. These two themes, both effective rhetoricaltools,
holdprominentplaces inTerences programmatic texts andaddress
thoseamonghis audience able to appreciate the literary
discussionwithCallimachusand the Hellenistic tradition of
innovative poetics. The dismissive characteri-zations of Terences
comic speech, the phrases tenui oratione, thin of speech,and
scriptura levi, light in writing (Phorm. 5), may be read along
these lines,34as anticipatory to the literary meaning they will
acquire a century later whenthey will transfer the Callimachean
into a comparable Roman poeticcontext.35 Literacy is paramount for
the production of groundbreaking dramabecause this new poetics of
palliata-composition, Terence claims, is to be styl-ized, codified.
Codification is best realized through writing. The semiotics
ofwriting as code for denoting poetic originality is part of the
message delivered
33 The seventeen attestations of scribere and its various forms
are: An. 1 ad scribendum
adpulit; 5 in prologis scribundis; Phorm. 3ne scribat parat; 5
scriptura levi; 6 insanumscripsit
adulescentulum; Hec. 13 cum poeta scriptura evanescerent; 24
scripturam sprevissem; 27 ne
alias scriberet;Heaut. 7 nunc qui scripserit; 15 orationemhanc
scripsit; 43 novas qui scribunt;
Eun. 7 et easdemscribendomale; inThesauro scripsit; 36 licet
currentemservumscribere; Ad.
1 poeta sensit scripturam suam; 17 adsidueque una scribere; 26
poetae ad scribendumaugeat
industriam.
34 Terence in turn accuses his literary opponent of extravagant
tragic coloring not befitting
the comic style (Phorm. 68; cf. Barsby 2001: 13; Sharrock 2009:
8183; Bianco 2009).
35 The programmatic use of the Latin translation of , tenuis, to
express Callimachean
allegiance is widespread. See e.g. Verg. Ecl. 1.2, tenui avena,
in a particularly programmatic
position, the second verse of Vergils entire corpus; also Verg.
Ecl. 6.8 (in a Callimachean
context): agrestem tenuimeditaboharundineMusam (I
nowwillmeditate the rusticMuse
on slender reed, tr. Lee); likewise, in Verg. Ecl. 5.2, tenuis
is replaced by levis as modifier
of the Vergilian pipe (metaphor for poetry): tu calamos inflare
levis; see e.g. Reitzenstein
(1931: 3437); Clausen (1964 and 1987: 3); Schmidt (1972: 2126);
Ross (1975: 2627); Toohey
(1996: 75); and Hubbard (1998: 101) on tenuis as translation of
.
-
232 papaioannou
in Terences prologues.36 Literacy is at the core of Terences
self-defense againsthis opponents charges of inappropriate
playwriting.
The two principal charges hurled at Terences originality and
authenticityare furtum, theft, burglary, and contaminatio,
inappropriate mixing of differ-ent Greek models. Contaminatio is
mentioned in the prologues of the Andria(1621), and the Heauton
Timorumenos (1618). On both occasions the poetdenies that he has
committed any violation; on the contrary, on both occasionshe
defends himself in a similar way, by saying that he is following a
prece-dent. This precedent in the Heauton Timorumenos concerns the
existence ofan exemplum bonorum (Heaut. 20). These boni in the
Andria are identified:they are the great comic dramatists of the
earlier generation, Plautus, Naeviusand Ennius. Furtum is mentioned
in the prologues of the Eunuch (28) and theAdelphoe (13), and
refers to the use of material which has already appearedin a Latin
play. In light of this strong precedent, Terence rightly claims to
beabsolved from the charge that he tampered with his models in an
inappropri-ate way.37
36 Terences employment of the vocabulary of writing with the
Callimachean, literarymean-
ing of the term, as code for the new type of epic poetry that
distances itself from the
Homeric archetype, calls tomindCatullus projection of themeaning
of the Callimachean
code word onto the use of the same word in Sappho fr. 31; on the
latter, cf. Kubiaks
comments on Catullus translating in Sappho fr. 31 with tenuis in
his own trans-
lation of the Sapphic poem in his carmen 51 ( /
~ tenuis sub artus / flamma demanat): A further Alexandrian
reference may be present
here as well. It was a happy accident that Sapphos poem
contained the adjective ,
a word that was to acquire for the Alexandrian poets a very
specific meaning, and which
became a part of the vocabulary of the Callimachean literary
programme When Catul-
lus found the word in Sappho he translated it with a Latin
equivalent which was to have
equal significance for the neoteric poets and their successors
(Kubiak 1979: 139140).
37 FromTerences text it seems that contaminatio is a culpable
thing onlywhen it involves the
inappropriate mixing of several Greek texts, not the mixing
itself, given that, as Terence
points out in Andria 1821, all the famous comic dramatists prior
to Terence (Ennius,
Plautus, and Naevius) practiced it. What exactly was appropriate
and what inappropriate
in the model-mixing process is not clearly stated in the
prologues; Terence describes
the use of the practice by his predecessors with the term
neglegentia, carelessness,
implying the absence of some specific and rule-determined
process. The contaminatio
in Terences prologues is discussed also in Heaut. 1621 and Eun.
2534, the other two
plays in which Terence mentions the mixing of two different
models. On contaminatio
and furtum in Terence, see Goldberg (1986: 91122, esp. 9197);
Gratwick (1982: 116121);
Sandbach (1977: 139141); Arnott (1975: 4850); Ludwig (1968:
171175); Simon (1961); Beare
(1959) on contaminatio; Duckworth (1952: 202208).
-
oral textuality as a language of exclusive communication 233
The recurrent mention of the charges in the prologues and the
effort todismiss themunderscores Terences conscious effort to
stress the importanceofusing written models received through their
written versions rather than stageacting. It is possible to
ascertain the extent to which Terence contaminatedhis plays by
infusing his principal Greek model with parts of a second Greekplay
only after consulting a written version of both texts. Only the
educatedelite in the audience were able to do this, and more
specifically, only thoseamong them who owned copies of Menanders
plays or had access to them.To these audience members, Terence is
anxious to communicate the attackshe has received along with his
defenses against them. An illiterate audiencemay have had
opportunity to attend performances of the Greek and Latin
playsmentioned by Terence, but it is highly unlikely that their
memories servedthemwell enough to recall particular details of
these plays and so to be able tounderstand the literary
allusions.Whether Terence committed contaminatio orfurtum can only
be shownwhen the spectators have the opportunity to consultwritten
versions of the original Greek plays of Menander and the Latin
allegedmodels of Ennius, Naevius and Plautus, and compare them side
by side withTerences scripts.
Passing judgment on a dramatic performance at a ludus event,
then, is adecidedly literate activity. A judgment, moreover, does
not refer only to theappreciation of the performance once the play
has been staged, as the epi-logue to the Andria seems to observe.
Much more important was the initialdecision of the aediles, the
presiding officers of the performances, who pur-chased the plays
directly from the playwrights38 and had their names insertedin the
didascaliae. A successful play made the aediles who chose it
popular,and earned for them a reputation for sophistication among
their aristocraticand well-educated peers. Terences effort to
interpret the charges, then, may beseen to function as a code of
exclusive communication between himself andthe aediles as no less
sophisticated individuals. Therefore, the dramatist, who isaccused
of plagiarism, appeals to the erudition of themagistrates who
selectedhis play for performance prior to becoming aware of the
attack against the playthey chose. He presumes their familiarity
with themodels but also their abilityto check the plagiarism
charges due to their owning copies of the texts he isaccused of
handling inappropriately; as he flatters them by taking their
erudi-
38 We are precisely informed by the ancient sources that Terence
sold at least two plays
directly to the aediles on separate occasions: the Andria and
the Eunuchus. Andria: Suet.
Vita Ter. 1.3: qui primam Andriam ante quam aedilibus venderet;
Eunuchus: Ter. Eun. 20:
Menandri Eunuchum, postquam aediles emerunt.
-
234 papaioannou
tion for granted, Terence challenges them to stand by their
initial decisionavery intelligent form of captatio
benevolentiae.39
The Appeal to the Illiterate
By far the greater part of the audience consisted of illiterate
Romans, who couldnot have been able to partake of the subtle games
of literary culture Terencedesigned for his elite spectators.
Still, the illiterate audiences, by the powerof their numbers,
could cause a palliata to succeed or fail. The majority ofthe
people were watching the performances standing, and their attention
waseasily distracted by other, more exciting spectacles; to
captivate the audiencesand convince them to watch a palliata to the
end required more than thepromise of an entertaining play.40
Terence succeeds in this by describing theattack against him by
Luscius as a personal assault reminiscent of a trial. Thesuccess of
Terences plea then relies as much on his argument as on his
castingof Ambivius Turpio (the most famous actor of his day)41 for
the part of theorator (Heaut. 11; Hec. 9; also 10 [exorator]). The
prologue becomes a role ina separate imaginary play, an agon, in
which Ambivius, an individual morerenowned than the young Terence,
undertakes to fight in order to defend theoriginality of Terences
compositions.
The language and structure of the prologues, further, readily
recall the styleof Plautus informativemonologues. Terences
prologue-speakers employmanyfigures of speech previously favored by
Plautus, such as alliteration and asso-nance, and, at the end of
all prologues, they use similar traditional formulae forcalling the
audience to attention andasking for their approval.Other
importantfigures, such as the formal delivery of the prologue and
the direct appeal to theaudience outside the context of the plot,
or the consideration of the speakerin the Plautine informative
monologues as a reflection of Plautus himself, sug-
39 Sharrock (2009) rejects any idea of a Callimachean-type
appeal to an elite on Terences
part, which seems at odds with her arguments elsewhere in her
book, as for instance
when she parallels the appeal of Terences prologues to an
audience of informed spec-
tators through an illuminating comparison to prefaces Henry
James wrote for a special
edition of his novels addressing an upmarket New York audience
(26 n. 14), or when she
claims that the overall purpose of the book is to demonstrate
the plays literary sophisti-
cation.
40 Marshall (2006: 7382) discusses variousways bywhichPlautus
kept his audience engaged
and manipulated them into becoming part of the action on
stage.
41 Tac. Dial. 20; Symmachus, Ep. 1.31.3; 10.2.
-
oral textuality as a language of exclusive communication 235
gest that we consider Terences prologues-speakers in light of
the Plautine servicallidi and their extradiegetic informative
opening speeches. Terences plays donot offer long informative
monologues for the plays narrative background. Inthis respect,
Terences prologues are suggestive, alternative versions to
thosepieces in Plautus plays that communicate crucial information
toward the sto-ryline, the characters, and the plot about to
unfold.42 Terences prologues, inotherwords, are as informative
about theobjectives of theplay asPlautus infor-mativemonologues,
only the informationeachplaywrightwishes to emphasizeis different.
The Plautine character of Terences prologues was intended to
benoticed by literate and illiterate audiences alike, and this
anticipatory tech-nique enforced the competitive aspect of the new
comic style. Terence is moreconcerned with emphasizing the factor
of competition with Plautus and theearlier dramatists than
instructing his audience on the details of his storyline.He invites
his audiences to appreciate a unique agonistic performance on
twoseparate levels. The invitation is appealing, and probably more
attractive to arestless audience eager to choose some fighting
contest over attending a poten-tially less exciting
performance.
Notably, the enduring impression of the success, on Terences
part, in mak-ing the audience envision the prologue as an attack
against Luscius, with eliteprofessional performer Ambivius taking
the stand for the inexperienced Ter-ence, is suggested by a
depiction of the prologue in Vat. Lat. 2205, a c. 1100cemanuscript
of Terence.43 The author of Vat. Lat. 2205 sets at the opening of
theAndria a picture of a stage performance which depicts not an
episode from theAndria, but the prologue, which the author
understands as an agon betweenLuscius and Terence. The dominating
top portion depicts Terence seated onthe left and Luscius on the
right, with Calliopius, an early redactor of Terencesplays, playing
the part of the referee. Calliopius here personifies the reader
ofthe codex, and is accordingly projected as a kind of a literary
judge, mediat-ing between the two opponents and reading from a
book. This book on his lapshould logically be themanuscript to
follow the depiction, the Andria text, butactually it is the
prologue to the Andria, not the text of the play; and the Roman
42 On the Plautine character of Terences prologues, see Sharrock
(2009: 6875).
43 The medieval manuscripts of Terence probably derive from
Calliopius copy, which dates
from the 4th or 5th century ce. The manuscripts in Calliopius
recension are divided into
two groups, one of which is distinguished by being illustrated
with miniatures, evidently
depicting scenes of the play. The most convenient collection and
discussion of these
illustrations is found in Jones and Morey (1931) and more
recently in Wright (2006). The
miniatures on the manuscripts originated, most likely, in
Calliopius 5th-century edition,
and transcribe the contemporary perception of staging a
Terentian play.
-
236 papaioannou
public in the middle register watching that spectacle, in
reality watches thedebate between Terence and Luscius, not the
Andria.44
Rhetorical speech is effective because it follows structure.
Argumentationis compartmentalized in distinct sections arranged in
specific order, whilestylistic consistency is pivotal in terms of
employment of set programmaticterminology and figures of speech,
and is even a marked feature of trial lan-guage. Such stylistic
consistency is omnipresent in Terences prologues. Thiscarefully
charted use of language presupposes a culture with a long
traditionin the study of the technology of oral performance. In the
Homeric epics wehave ample material to understand how an oral
tradition can work and ana-lyze the techniques of theoral
performers. Thebards orally performedpoemsofgreat length, which
they reproduced in-performance in revised form. In orderto be able
to reproduce frommemory hundreds of verses, the bards
developedtechniques of memorization based, among other things, on
devising a collec-tion of stereotyped descriptive words and
phrases, often of set metrical valuefor specific metrical
placement, but also images, themes, and concepts, evenset scenes
and whole narratives. The formulaic character of these verbal
andconceptual/narrative schemes is determined by their recurrence.
These stockexpressions served the twofold function of lightening
the oral poets task intelling the story, but also of making it
easier for the audience to follow, whiletheir repetitive character
enhanced the effect of familiarity among the audi-ence. The same
effect of familiarity and the forging of rapport are sought bythe
recurrence, in the prologues of all six Terentian plays, ofwords,
phrases, andconcepts. Taken together they compose a code of
quasi-formulaic orality thatinfuses the prologues with the
spontaneity and immediacy of an oral deliveryin-performance. This
simulation of bardic oralitywas expected to appeal to anyaudience
trained to process complex knowledge received orally. In addition
tothe recurring accusations and the dismissal of the opponents as
malevolentand old, the following examples are representative of
this mannerism.
Fiveof the sixprologues (theHecyraprologuebeing the sole
exception) openwith a subordinate clause, aimed at drawing in the
audience andmaking themattentive and welcoming of more information
as they subconsciously wait forthemain clause and the full sense.45
Similarly, a set of closural phrases (appeals
44 Otter (2010: 165ff.).
45 Cf. Sharrock (2009: 68) for further analysis on the oral
style of the prologues: In three
Terentian cases (An., Ph., Ad.) the subordination is one of
time, as is appropriate to the
beginning of an oral story and to the creation of the world that
is greater than the world
of the play. Two prologues throw the play and its issues out
into the world, most explicitly
-
oral textuality as a language of exclusive communication 237
to pay attention and show equanimity toward the upcoming
performance)feature in all six prologues, and as noted earlier,
play and draw upon Plautusprologues.
To refer to his plays, Terence employs two terms, fabula and
comoedia. Themore common of the two, fabula, appears ten times in
the six prologues; in allbut two it occupies the last three
syllables of the verse (An. 3, 16; Phorm. 4, 11a;Eun. 23, 25; Ad.
7, 22). The second term, comoedia, occurs four times, and in
allfour cases it occupies the end of the line (An. 26; Phorm. 25;
Heaut. 4; Ad. 6);in Hec. 45 a periphrasis for the comedy, ludos
scaenicos, is set at the end of theline, as well.
The word poeta naturally is a pivotal one, with fifteen
attestations in totalin the six prologues (An. 1, 7; Phorm. 1
(twice), 13, 29; Hec. 13, 21; Heaut. 2,22; Eun. 3, 23, 28; Ad. 1,
25); it features in the opening line of three of them,and on the
first three lines in five of them (the prologues to the Hecyra
beingthe only exception). In five of the six prologues (except the
Andria prologue),the second attestation of the term poeta is set
between the 22nd and the29th line from the top. The omnipresence of
the term is further enhancedin light of the realization that it
occupies every possible metrical positionin Terences versethe only
recurring term to do so. Even more dominanta term, scribere, the
activity emphasized as the core of Terences demiurgicidentity, in
various forms of conjugation as noted above,46 never opens a
verse,and on only three occasions is it the concluding word of the
verse. In severalcases it clusters with fabula in scribere
fabulam/s, an expression that is usedinterchangeably with facere
fabulam/s and facere comoediam/sall phrasesrecasting Terences poeta
creator identity47 and as such referring not merelyto the
composition of comic plays but specifically to the production of
scriptsaccording to Terences particular style.
Codified speech had as great an effect on the literate
spectators as on theilliterate, since they lived in the same,
primarily oral culture, and they wereequally keen in detecting
polished speech. Their assessment of the stylisticallypolished
orality of the prologues, however, is filtered through the
conscious-ness that this orality is indeed polished, that is,
designed to seem oral innature. At the same time, these informed
audiences are able to identify the
in theHeauton Timorumenos, with the implicit question about the
identity of the speaker,
but also in the Eunuchus, with the universalizing si quisquamst
qui .
46 See note 33 above.
47 On the concept of the poeta creator, including its genesis
and evolution in ancient litera-
ture and thought, see Lieberg (1982); also Tigerstedt
(1968).
-
238 papaioannou
multiple layers of interliterary and intercultural discourse
that accompany theartful simulation of orality. For instance, the
systematic placement of the termpoeta at the opening lines of the
prologues in conjunction with the completeabsence of Terences
ownnameobviously communicates to a learned spectatorthat the
dramatist wishes to introduce himself (and be known and
addressedhenceforth) as the mastermind of a new trend in Roman
comic dramaturgy.
Conclusion
When Terence appeared on the comic stage in 166bce, he was fully
aware thatif he was going to succeed he needed to confront a long
and very successful tra-dition of comic dramaturgy at Rome, which
had reached its peak a few yearsearlier with Plautus. Terence did
not follow the traditional method of comicplaywrights who relied
considerably on improvisation in performance andfrequently altered
their original scripts after their performances to incorpo-rate
successful jokes improvised by the actors during performance;
instead, hechose to present his actors with completed scripts and
instruct them to mem-orize the fully written-out parts, and not
improvise. Anticipating the strongreaction from his rivals and
possibly the negative reception by the audience,Terence invented a
clever technique to stifle potential opposition even before ithad
the chance to ignite: he opened his play with an prologue that
would com-municate the originality of the production about to be
performed along with adefense against an alleged systematic and
vicious attack already at workanattack that would make him appear
as an innocent victim before the eyes ofhis spectators.
In order to create this desired strong rapport with his
audience, Terence hadto address a diverse array of expectations.
The spectators included membersof the Roman plebs, who had little
or no knowledge of literacy and were, con-sequently, not in a
position to appreciate the ties to the literary tradition ofNew
Comedy; and members of the aristocratic elite, including the
magistratesfor the financing of the production of his plays. The
plebs expected an enter-taining spectacle full of excitement and
action on stage; these expectationsTerence addressed by situating
at the core of his prologues the attack of hisrivals onhis
playwriting andhis defense in return, and also by articulating
theseprologues in language reminiscent of Plautus informative
monologues. Theerudite spectators were treated to a double
intertextual discourse with themesof programmatic significance
conspicuously articulated previously in the textsof Aristophanes
and Callimachus. To both audiences, Terence transmitted
newinformation that involved a revolutionary transition in the
technology of pal-
-
oral textuality as a language of exclusive communication 239
liata production, from orality to literacy. Since the two
audiences had vastlydifferent opinions about the quality of a
performance and received the infor-mation accordingly, it stands as
a great accomplishment on Terences part tohave forged successful
separate andmeaningful dialogueswith each group, andto have secured
their approval.48
Bibliography
Arnott, W.G. 1975. Menander, Plautus, Terence. New Surveys in
the Classics 9. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Bakola, E. 2010. Cratinus and the Art of Comedy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Barsby, J. 1986. Plautus. Bacchides. Edited with Translation and
Commentary. Warmin-
ster: Aris and Phillips.
. 2001. Terence Vol. II: Phormio, the Mother-in-Law, The
Brothers. Loeb Classical
Library 23. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
. 2012. Native Roman Rhetoric: Plautus and Terence, in W.
Dominik and J.M.
Hall, eds., A Companion to Roman Rhetoric. Malden,
MA/Oxford/Chichester: Wiley-
Blackwell, 3853.
Beacham, R.C. 1999. Spectacle Entertainments of Early Imperial
Rome. NewHaven/Lon-
don: Yale University Press.
Beare, W. 1959. Contaminatio, The Classical Review 9: 711.
. 1964. The Roman Stage. Third Revised Edition. London:
Methuen.
Benz, L., E. Strk, G. Vogt-Spira, and E. Lefvre, eds. 1995.
Plautus und die Tradition des
Stegreifspiels (ScriptOralia 75). Tbingen: Narr.
Benz, L. and E. Lefvre, eds. 1998. Maccus barbarus: Sechs
Kapitel zur Originalitt der
Captivi des Plautus (ScriptOralia 74). Tbingen: Narr.
Bernstein, F. 1998. Ludi publici. Untersuchungen zur Entstehung
und Entwicklung der
ffentlichen Spiele im republikanischen Rom. Historia,
Einzelschriften 119. Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner Verlag.
Bianco, M.M. 2009. Il Phormio e le intemperanze di Terenzio,
Aevum 83: 6988.
Biles, Z. 2011. Aristophanes and the Poetics of Competition.
Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
48 I would like to thank Professor Ruth Scodel, for invitingme
to present an earlier version of
this paper to the 10thConference onOrality andLiteracy in
theAncientWorld atAnnArbor,
and benefit from the comments of the participants; and no less,
for reading this chapter
in draft form and offering a number of important suggestions
which have substantially
improved the argumentation.
-
240 papaioannou
. 2001. Aristophanes Victory Dance: Old Poets in the Parabasis
of Knights,
Zeitschrift fr Papyrologie und Epigraphik 136: 195200.
Brown, P.G. McC. 2002. Actors and Actor-managers at Rome in the
Time of Plautus
and Terence, in P. Easterling and E. Hall, eds., Greek and Roman
Actors: Aspects of
an Ancient Profession. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
225237.
Clausen, W. 1964. Callimachus and Latin Poetry, Greek, Roman and
Byzantine Studies
5: 181196.
. 1987.VirgilsAeneidand theTraditionsofHellenistic Poetry.
Berkeley:University
of California Press.
Crawford, J.W. 1994. M. Tullius Cicero: The Fragmentary
Speeches. An Edition with Com-
mentary. American Classical Studies 33. Atlanta: Scholars
Press.
Dederian, K. 2001. Leaving Words to Remember: Greek Mourning and
the Advent of
Literacy. Mnemosyne Supplement 209. Leiden: Brill.
Derrida, J. 1976. Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak. Baltimore and
London: Johns Hopkins (Original edition: De la grammatologie.
Paris: Les ditions
de Minuit, 1967).
Duckworth, G.E. 1952. The Nature of Roman Comedy. Princeton:
Princeton University
Press.
Flower H. 1995. Fabulae praetextae in context: when were plays
on contemporary
subjects performed in Republican Rome?, Classical Quarterly 45:
170190.
Focardi, G. 1972. Linguaggio forense nei prologhi terenziani,
Studi Italiani di Filologia
Classica 44: 5588.
. 1978. Lo stile oratorio nei prologhi terenziani, Studi
Italiani di Filologia Clas-
sica 50: 7089.
Garton, T. 1972. Personal Aspects of the Roman Theater. Toronto:
Hakkert.
Gentili, B. 1979. Theatrical Performances in the Ancient World.
Hellenistic and Early
Roman Theatre. London Studies in Classical Philology 2.
Amsterdam/Uithoorn:
Gieben.
Gilula, D. 1989. The First Realistic Roles in European Theatre:
Terences Prologues,
Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 3: 95106.
Goldberg, S.M. 1983. Terence, Cato, and the Rhetorical
Prologue,Classical Philology 78:
198211.
. 1986. Understanding Terence. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
. 2005. Constructing Literature in the Roman Republic.
Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Gratwick, A.S. 1982. 5. Drama, in E.J. Kenney and W.V. Clausen,
eds. The Cambridge
History of Classical Literature II: Latin Literature.
Cambridge/London/NewYork, etc.:
Cambridge University Press, 77137.
Green, J.R. 2001. Comic Cuts: Snippets of Action on the Greek
Comic Stage, BICS 45:
3764.
-
oral textuality as a language of exclusive communication 241
. 2003. Smart and Stupid: The Evolution of Some Masks and
Characters in
Fourth Century Comedy, in J. Davidson and A. Pomeroy, eds.,
Theaters of Action:
Papers for Chris Dearden. Auckland: Polygraphia, 118132.
. 2008. Theater Production 19962008, Lustrum 50: 7302.
Greene, E. 2011. Sappho 58: Philosophical Reflections on Death
and Aging, Classics@
Vol 4: E. Greene and M. Skinner, eds. The Center for Hellenic
Studies of Harvard
University, online edition of March 11, 2011.
http://chs.harvard.edu/wa/pageR?tn=
ArticleWrapper&bdc=12&mn=3534.
Gruen, E.S. 1986. The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome.
Berkeley/Los Angeles:
University of California Press.
. 1990. Studies in Greek Culture and Roman Policy. Leiden/New
York/Cologne:
Brill.
Halliwell, S. 1989. Authorial Collaboration in the Athenian
Comic Theatre, Greek
Roman and Byzantine Studies 30: 515528.
Handley, E.W. 1975. Plautus and His Public: Some Thoughts on New
Comedy in Latin,
Dioniso 46: 117132.
Harder, A. 2013. Callimachus: Aetia. 2 vols. Oxford/New York:
Oxford University Press.
Harvey, F.D. and J.M.Wilkins (eds). 2000. TheRivals of
Aristophanes: Studies in Athenian
Old Comedy. London/Swansea: Duckworth and Classical Press of
Wales.
Horsfall, N. 2003. The Culture of the Roman Plebs. London:
Duckworth.
Hubbard, T.K. 1998. The Pipes of Pan: Intertextuality and
Literary Filiation in the Pastoral
Tradition from Theocritus to Milton. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
Hunter, R.L. 1983. Eubulus: The fragments. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Janko, R. 2005. Sappho Revisited, Times Literary Supplement
December 23.
Jones, L.W. and C.R. Morey. 1931. The Miniatures of the
Manuscripts of Terence Prior to
the Thirteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Konstantakos, I.M. 2011. Conditioning of Playwriting and the
Comic Dramatists Craft
in the Fourth Century, Logeion 1: 145183.
Kubiak, D.P. 1979. Cicero, Catullus, and the Art of Neoteric
Translation. Diss. Harvard
University, Cambridge, MA.
Lefvre, E. 1978. Versuch einer Typologie des rmischen Dramas, in
E. Lefvre, ed.,
Das rmischeDrama. Darmstadt:Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft
(Grundri der
Literaturgeschichten nach Gattungen), 190.
. 1999. Plautus Amphitruo zwischen Tragdie und Stegreifspiel, in
Thomas
Baier, ed., Studien zu Plautus Amphitruo (ScriptOralia 116).
Tbingen: Narr, 11
50.
. 2001. Plautus Persa zwischen na und Stegreifspiel, in Stefan
Faller, ed.,
Studien zu Plautus Persa (ScriptOralia 121). Tbingen: Narr,
1194.
Leo, F. Analecta Plautina de Figuris Sermonis II. Gttingen 1898;
reprinted in Aus-
gewhlte kleine Schriften. Rome 1960, 123162.
-
242 papaioannou
Lieberg, G. 1082. Poeta creator: Studienzueiner Figur der
antiken Dichtung. Amsterdam:
Gieben.
Ludwig, W. 1968. The Originality of Terence and his Greek
Models, Greek, Roman and
Byzantine Studies 9: 169182.
Luppe, W. 2000. The Rivalry Between Aristophanes and Cratinus,
in Harvey and
Wilkins 2000, 1521.
Manuwald, G. 2001. Fabulae praetextae. Spuren einer
literarischen Gattung der Rmer.
Munich: C.H. Beck.
. 2011. Roman Republican Theater. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge
University
Press.
Marshall, C.W. 2006. The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman
Comedy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Olson, S.D. 2007. Broken Laughter. Select Fragments of Greek
Comedy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Ong,W. 1982.Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of theWord.
New York: Routledge
(Second edition, 2002).
Otter, M. 2010. Vultus adest (the face helps): Performance,
expressivity and interiority,
in M.J. Carruthers, ed. Rhetoric Beyond Words: Delight and
Persuasion in the Arts of
the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
151172.
Rawson, E. 1991. RomanCulture and Society. Collected Papers.
Oxford: OxfordUniversity
Press, 468487; reprint of the original: Theatrical life
inRepublicanRomeand Italy,
PBSR 53 (1985) 97113 [quoted from the reprint].
Reizenstein, E. 1931. Zur Stiltheorie des Kallimachos, in E.
Frnkel and H. Frnkel eds.,
Festschrift Richard Reizenstein. Leipzig/Berlin: Teubner,
2369.
Ross, D.O. 1975. Backgrounds to Augustan Poetry: Gallus, Elegy,
and Rome. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Russo, C.F. 1994. Aristophanes: AnAuthor for the Stage. Trans.
KevinWren. London/New
York: Routledge [Revised and expanded English edition of
Aristofane autore di
teatro, Firenze 1962; revised Italian edition 1992].
Rusten, J. ed. 2011. The Birth of Comedy: Texts, Documents, and
Art from Athenian Comic
Competitions, 486280. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Press.
Sandbach, F.H. 1977. The Comic Theatre of Greece and Rome.
London: Chatto and Win-
dus.
Sear, F. 2006. Roman Theaters: An Architectural Study. Oxford:
Oxford University
Press.
Schmidt, E.A. 1972. Poetische Reflexion: Vergils Bukolik.
Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
Sharrock, A. 2009. Reading Roman Comedy: Poetics and Playfulness
in Plautus and
Terence, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sidwell, K. 1995. Poetic Rivalry and the Caricature of Comic
Poets, in A. Griffiths, ed.,
Essays in honour of E.W. Handley. London: Institute of Classical
Studies, 5680.
-
oral textuality as a language of exclusive communication 243
Simon, M. 1961. Contaminatio und furtum beiTerenz. Verhltnis zu
Vorbildern und
Vorgngern, Helikon 1: 487492.
Slater, N.W. 1985. Play and Playwright References in Middle and
New Comedy, Liver-
pool Classical Monthly 10: 103105.
. 1993. Improvisation in Plautus, in G. Vogt-Spira, ed., Beitrge
zurmndlichen
Kultur der Rmer (ScriptOralia 47). Tbingen: Narr, 113124.
. 1995. The Fabrication of Comic Illusion, in G.W. Dobrov, ed.,
Beyond Aristo-
phanes: Tradition and Diversity in Greek Comedy. Atlanta, GA:
Scholars Press, 2945.
Sommerstein, A. 2011. Hinc Omnis Pendet? Old Comedy and Roman
Satire, Classical
World 105: 2538.
Storey, I. 2003. Eupolis, Poet of Old Comedy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Sutton, D.F. 1993. Ancient Comedy: TheWar of the Generations.
New York: Twayne/Max-
well Macmillan International; Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan.
Taplin, O. 1987a. Classical Phallology, Iconographic Parody, and
Potted Aristophanes,
Dioniso 57: 95109.
. 1987b. Phallology, Phlyakes, Iconography and Aristophanes,
Proceedings of
the Cambridge Philological Society n.s. 33: 92104.
. 1993. Comic Angels and Other Approaches to Greek Drama through
Vase-
Paintings. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tigerstedt, E.N. 1968. The Poet as Creator: Origins of a
Metaphor, Comparative Litera-
ture Studies 5: 455488.
Toohey, P. 1996. Epic Lessons: An Introduction to Latin Didactic
Poetry. London: Duck-
worth.
Umbrico, A. 2010. Terenzio e i suoi nobiles. Invenzione e realt
di un controverso legame.
Testi e studi di cultura classica, 44. Pisa: Edizioni ETS.
West, M.L. 2005. The New Sappho, Zeitschrift fr Papyrologie und
Epigraphik 151: 19.
Wiles, D. 2011. Theater and Citizenship: the History of a
Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Wiseman, T.P. 1994. Historiography and Imagination. Eight Essays
on Roman Culture.
Exeter: Exeter University Press.
. 1998. Roman Drama and Roman History. Exeter: Exeter University
Press.
Wessner, P. 1962/3. Aeli Donati Commentum Terenti. 3 vols.
Stuttgart: Teubner.
Wright, D.H. 2006. The Lost Late Antique Illustrated Terence.
Documenti e riproduzioni,
6. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.
Zimmermann, B. 2001. Lucilius und Aristophanes, in G. Manuwald,
ed., Der Satiriker
Lucilius und seine Zeit. Mnchen: C.H. Beck, 188195.