Empty Voices

When considering the history of ancient Western cities such as Rome, Italy, there are a few things that frequently come to mind. Generally, when thinking of ancient Rome, many people will associate it with Jesus Christ, Roman mythology, some of the ancient architecture such as the Colosseum and a few of the major political figures such as Julius Caesar. The other common aspect of the ancient culture that is typically remembered today is the drama of the time. And while the way plays were presented and how they were incorporated to society is entirely different from the way it is today, many of the plays from the time are still produced on today’s stage. Theatre is one of the popular attractions for many of the guests staying in one of the hotels in Rome and it’s particularly inviting when they have the chance to see one of the ancient plays onstage.

This is the age where the two genres of theatre known as Comedy and Tragedy were in effect and Tragedy had been written about as the perfect form of drama by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. However, the comedies were generally hits with audiences and Rome had its favored comedy writers. Plautus and Terence were the two primary comedy playwrights in Ancient Rome for which we still have existing scripts.

Plautus lived from approximately 254-184 BC and most, or all, of his comedies were based on earlier Greek plays from the New Comedy format. His plays were popular and generally expressed stories from Roman middle and lower classes. Terence was alive from either 195 or 185 to 159 BC. The most likely date is around 195 because his comedies had begun being performed around 170. He was bought as a slave by the Roman senator Terentius Lucanus who educated him and later freed him due to his literary abilities. He didn’t live long and wrote six plays during his career, all of which still survive.

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