Terracotta figurine of two comic actors wearing masks Antikensammlung Berlin

''Fabula palliata'' is a genre of Roman drama that consists largely of Romanized versions of Greek plays.''OCD'', sv. palliata The name ''palliata'' comes from ''

pallium The pallium (derived from the Roman ''pallium'' or ''palla'', a woolen cloak; : ''pallia'') is an ecclesiastical vestment in the Catholic Church, originally peculiar to the pope, but for many centuries bestowed by the Holy See upon metropol ...

'', the Latin word for a Greek-style cloak. It is possible that the term ''fabula palliata'' indicates that the actors who performed wore such cloaks. Another possibility is that the ''fabula'' itself is metaphorically "cloaked" in a Greek style.''OCD'', sv palliata As in all

Roman drama The architectural form of theatre in Rome has been linked to later, more well-known examples from the 1st century BC to the 3rd Century AD. The theatre of ancient Rome referred to as a period of time in which theatrical practice and performance t ...

, the actors wore masks that easily identified which of the

stock characters A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a fictional character in a work of art such as a novel, play, or a film whom audiences recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition. There is a wide range of st ...

they represented.

Style

The only complete, extant ''fabulae palliatae'' are the comedies of

Terence Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as Terence (), was a Roman African playwright during the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time around 166–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought ...

and

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the g ...

. Plautus introduced Roman manners and customs to the plays and filled the plays with boisterous humour and musical performances, while Terence kept his plays close to their Greek originals and sometimes combined two plays into one. Consequently, a common misconception is that the genre is inherently comedic. In fact, any Roman play that is based on Greek

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

qualifies as a ''fabula palliata''. The extant ''fabulae palliatae'' adhere to the style of Greek

New Comedy Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece (the others being tragedy and the satyr play). Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods: Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, an ...

, but references to and fragments of the works of

Livius Andronicus Lucius Livius Andronicus (; el, Λούκιος Λίβιος Ανδρόνικος; c. 284 – c. 204 BC) was a Greco-Roman dramatist and epic poet of the Old Latin period during the Roman Republic. He began as an educator in the service of a ...

Gnaeus Naevius Gnaeus Naevius (; c. 270 – c. 201 BC) was a Roman epic poet and dramatist of the Old Latin period. He had a notable literary career at Rome until his satiric comments delivered in comedy angered the Metellus family, one of whom was consul. ...

, and

Ennius Quintus Ennius (; c. 239 – c. 169 BC) was a writer and poet who lived during the Roman Republic. He is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was born in the small town of Rudiae, located near modern Lecce, Apulia, (Ancient Calabri ...

indicate that all three wrote tragic ''fabulae palliatae.'' ''Fabulae palliatae'' are usually set in Greece, feature mostly Greek characters, and, as far as we can tell, base their plots on Greek originals. The plays usually featured musical performances and boisterous humour. They were often more tame versions of their Greek counterpart that featured family problems, political criticisms and Roman sensibilities. The stories were usually disjointed, illogical and were out of chronological order. This was opposite to their Greek counterparts which were more condensed and straightforward. Roman plays' main deviations from the Greek source material are the absence of a

chorus Chorus may refer to: Music * Chorus (song) or refrain, line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse * Chorus effect, the perception of similar sounds from multiple sources as a single, richer sound * Chorus form, song in which all verse ...

and a willingness to have more than three characters on stage simultaneously.

Definition and history of the concept

Knowledge of the genre comes from a 1st-century BC literary critic named Volcacius Sedigitus, of whom nothing is known except his report in

Aulus Gellius Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book, ...

. Livius Andronicus was one of the first playwrights to bring the idea of ''fabula palliata'' to ancient Rome. Of the writers whose works have survived at all Sedigitus identifies as well Naevius,

, Caecilius and

as contributors to the genre. In addition were Licinius, Atilius, Turpilius, Trabea and Luscius Lanuvinus. Out of all of fabula palliata only twenty-one plays still survive.

References

External links

* S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth, & E. Eidinow (eds.) (2012) ''The Oxford Classical Dictionary'', 4th ed. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK. * Smith, William; Anton, Charles (July 9, 2006). A new classical dictionary of Greek and Roman biography, mythology, and geography. * Jürgen Blänsdorf "Palliata" in: ''Brill's New Pauly'', Antiquity volumes edited by: Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider. Consulted online on 21 July 2017 * Evangelos, Karakasis. Terrence and the language of Roman Comedy. Cambridge University Press. 197-198 2005. * Manuwald, Gesine. Roman Republican theatre. Cambridge University Press. 144-149 2011 * Conte, Gian Biagio, Latin Literature: A History. The Johns Hopkins University Press 125-127 1994 * Gill, N.S., Types of Plays in Ancient Roman Theatre. Thoughtco. March 8, 2017 * {{cite journal, journal=Leeds International Classical Studies, volume=3, number=3, date=2003–2004, first=Eckard, last=Lefèvre, title=Asides in New Comedy and the Palliata, issn=1477-3643, url=http://www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/lics/200304/20030403.pdf, format=pdf, access-date=2008-09-18, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091221192132/http://www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/lics/200304/20030403.pdf, archive-date=2009-12-21, url-status=dead Latin-language literature History of theatre