History Of Roman Drama

Sixth grade celebrates Greco-Roman drama

The 6 Yellow Team at Middlebrook presented their parents and peers with a Greco-Roman Festival on Tuesday, May 24.

A 6Y tradition, the festival coincides with the sixth grade curriculum’s focus on ancient Greece and Rome. The plays presented are therefore educational for the students, allowing them to learn about Greco-Roman theater and poetry in an interactive way.

The festival began with an overview of the ancient theater by narrators Scott Brown and Nikki Scamuffo. Nikki began, telling the audience how theatrical presentations made in the ancient world were in honor of the god Dionysus, followed by Scott’s description of the tragic hero: a man in a high position who falls because of some major character flaw.

Abbreviated versions of five prominent Greco-Roman plays, myths and events were then presented by the sixth graders, including Agamemnon, The Furies (the third part of Aeschylus’ Orestia trilogy), Pandora’s Box, Romulus and Remus, and Julius Caesar.

The students all wore homemade togas and big smiles and showed an understanding of the myths and stories they presented. Narrator Scott Brown explained to the audience that such myths were created by the Greeks and Romans with morals. The moral of Pandora’s Box is that hope can overcome all misfortune and the moral of Romulus and Remus is that the greedy never prosper.

Agamemnon and The Furies showed the students’ understanding of justice, not only in the ancient world, but in the ways that Americans understand it today, detailing the democratic means by which Orestes is acquitted of the charges against him (killing his mother Clytemnestra).

Luisa Nanos, 6Y’s social studies teacher and the coordinator of the event, said this festival helps students to better understand and connect with Greco-Roman culture and ideology.

“It helps bring the history alive for the students and makes their learning more authentic,” she said. This educational benefit is the main reason why 6Y has put on this festival for so many years.

The productions were presented in chronological order, demonstrating the course of the sixth graders’ studies, and were all directed by a different teacher from the 6 Yellow team over the past few weeks.

Ms. Nanos then made the concluding remarks and parents were invited to enjoy a Greco-Roman feast, consisting of traditional Greek and Italian foods and summing up the event in a fittingly cultural way.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review: 2011.03.24

[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]

The purpose of Gesine Manuwald's Roman Drama: A Reader is to facilitate "the understanding and appreciation of Roman drama and its development over the centuries of its existence" (ix). Accordingly, the heart of her book is an anthology of excerpts from complete plays, and of selected fragments which attest to the various dramatic genres of the Republic and early empire. and a selection of pertinent testimonia . Readers interested in reception will not be disappointed: Manuwald concludes her reader with a "very selective" section on the reception of Roman drama by poets in England. An ample bibliography lists 177 items, grouped by author and topic, for those who wish to read further. Alongside her aim of facilitating an "appreciation of Roman drama…over the centuries of its existence," Manuwald also hopes to return "Roman drama as a whole to a wider audience" (ibid.): to this end, she has provided facing-page translations for all Latin texts, and included with each a separate introduction and explanatory notes.

The Introduction is divided into 10 sections (see the table of contents below for details) which address, broadly, the early literary history of Roman drama (I 1-3); Roman drama in its performance context (I 4-6), its literary qualities (I 7-8), developments during the imperial period and, finally, reception (I 9-10). It clearly presents the standard views on most of the topics raised. Since the target audience is students and teachers not already familiar with Roman drama, Manuwald intentionally omits footnotes and references to scholarly discussion in this introduction (ix-x). Nevertheless, scholars and advanced students might miss these references, especially when the author discusses such topics as the use of masks, reasons for the senate's curious refusal to build permanent theaters in Rome for most of the Republican era, and the composition and tastes of the Roman audience. One of the most important contributions of Manuwald's book therefore is to collect these testimonia in one place. They are grouped according to seven themes: (i.) ancient writers on the early literary history of Roman drama, (ii.) literary criticism, (iii.) theater buildings, (iv.) revivals, (v.) the growing tendency towards the spectacular in Roman dramatic performances, (v.) ancient grammarians' schemas of the Roman dramatic genres, (vi.) 'metapoetic' and 'metatheatrical' commentary as found in the plays of Terence and Plautus, and finally (vii.) excerpts from Cicero's philosophical and rhetorical works on translating Greek literature into Latin.

Roman drama and Roman history

A history of Roman literature, from Livius Andronicus to Boethius : with special regard to its influence on world literature

The making of theatre history

Roman Republican Theatre, A History

A history of Roman lierature, from the earliest period to the death of Marcus Aurelius