The Later Imperial Period

It is easy to understand how the sumptuous type of scenery described by ancient sources would have appealed to a popular audience, many of whom lived otherwise drab and economically precarious existences. People who were close to starvation at home, demanded and delighted in the gorgeous and gaudy pomp of the performers. The provision of such entertainments was at the most basic level a manifestation of the "bread and the circus" approach to social control, but it went beyond that to enable the audience to participate, however marginally, in imperial grandeur. The theatre buildings themselves with their imposing architecture and decor were not only places of performance and religious shrines; they were also public monuments, meant to awe the viewer with the power of the state and its august ruler, but simultaneously to allow him his "moment of glory": a share in the pride and prestige of imperial achievement. Thus the theatre and its entertainments provided both an opiate and a form of highly persuasive propaganda.

In time, however, the means to provide them suffered severely. By the third century much of imperial society was in permanent crisis: wracked by famine, devastated by the consequences of continuous wars and political upheaval, crippled by the burden of taxation, and afflicted with severe economic dislocation. After 300 A.D. private benefaction, except in Rome itself, had almost entirely ceased. No longer were a large body of provincial citizens able or willing to finance the entertainments or to provide for maintaining their venues. The social mobility, so marked in the first centuries of the Empire, had ceased as wealth, no longer newly accumulating from expansive wars, had now instead to be expended for defence. Trade and commerce declined, and with it prosperity and inevitably, patronage. Changes in imperial administration, and in particular greater centralisation meant that local office was now more often viewed as a burdensome responsibility than a source of real power and prestige. With the decline of autonomy and control, local pride plummeted. The municipal councillors, the decurions, who had been made personally responsible for the collection (and liable for payment) of taxes, often complained bitterly of their lot, while seeking to avoid what were now seen as onerous duties with little benefit to those bearing them.

Christianity and the Roman Theatre

Provincial support for traditional games was further eroded by the disapproval of the Church which saw little merit in entertainments associated by venerable tradition with paganism, and considered some of them an abomination. Imperial interests could to a considerable degree ignore or at least moderate such opposition, but were only inclined to do so for their own games or those taking place at the seat of government in Rome. Tertullian had railed against the spectacles early in the third century and the theme was pursued energetically by others. In the course of the fourth century condemnation on moral grounds was joined by pragmatic economic arguments.

As a consequence of such factors, by around A.D. 400 provincial games which earlier had flourished throughout Italy, were infrequent, and restricted to a few towns. Fifty years later the Christian polemicist Salvianus noted (evidently with mixed feelings) that despite the public's lingering desire for them, "such shows no longer can take place because of the misery and poverty of the present age". In 425 the Church had succeeed in having games banned on Sundays and Christian holidays. (Salvianus, De Gub.Dei, 6.39-45. For the ban, Cod. Theo., 15.5.5.)

At Rome, however, the situation was fundamentally different. Here both private and, most significantly, imperial patronage remained very strong. At the end of the Republic, the number of days set aside for ludi featuring scenic entertainment had been about fifty-five, having risen from around a dozen two centuries earlier in the time of Plautus. But by 354 A.D. some one hundred days a year were devoted to such spectacles, and this would normally have been increased further by special votive and funeral games, as well as the obligatory repetitions (instaurationes) consequent upon mishaps in any aspect of rite or presentation. A law passed that same year compelling provincial senators to attend the games at Rome indicates the significance the state attached to them, while a revolt in A.D. 356, sparked off by the arrest of a popular charioteer, suggests their importance to the general populace. Three years earlier, when Rome had been wracked by famine, vast numbers of people deemed idlers were expelled from the City, (including "professors of the liberal arts"!), but 3,000 dancing girls together with their teachers and choral accompanists were allowed to remain.( Ammianus Marcellinus, 14.6.19).

If anything, in the later Roman Empire when the political ethic and imperial cult of the Principate set up by Augustus could no longer fulfil the intellectual, spiritual or moral needs of its peoples, officials at Rome resorted ever more frequently to games, spectacles, and the debased pastimes of the circus and arena to divert an increasing troubled and restive urban population. As the alienation of society (particularly its most desperate and oppressed elements) from the Roman state increased, the games functioned as an important, if sometimes volatile means of releasing tensions. Moreover, in contrast to the decline in importance of provincial administrative posts, the concentration of power at Rome continued to encouraged wealthy residents to seek official positions. As in centuries past, huge amounts were still spent voluntarily on games by aspiring candidates, as well as by those who having achieved office were legally obliged to provide them. Even after membership in the Senate and the position of consul had become an honour empty of power prestige lingered about them and their attendant pomp and ceremony.

Christian polemicists saw both in the attitude of the rulers that at all costs the shows must go on, and in the veritable obsession with such diversions by the general population, irrefutable evidence of the moral collapse of paganism and its approaching destruction. Yet even in the Christian community when the games were on, the churches were deserted. Later, with barbarians literally at their gates, the public still mobbed the spectacles. In its resentment the Church conceived a hatred and horror of the theatre which endured for centuries, was reactivated in the Renaissance, and indeed, in some circles is still evident today.

For Christian leaders the games were an affront and annoyance, and morally repugnant; the pagan religion however, was a present danger, even potentially a threat to survival. In the course of the fourth century, under pressure from the Church measures of increasing severity were taken to suppress pagan cults and practices. Imperial decrees banned public worship of the pagan deities in A.D. 346, and a decade later, the temples were closed. The temple revenues were confiscated in 364, and those supporting the pagan cults in 382. In 391 the cults themselves were totally banned, and four years later the great Roman families were forced to convert (some with great reluctance) to Christianity. In 408 the temples and other buildings associated with the old religion were ordered put to secular use; many of them were already badly deteriorated from neglect. Nevertheless, between 393 and 402, under the Emperors Honorius and Arcadius, the theatre of Pompey (which was in a dangerous condition) was comprehensively restored and refurbished. In 404 Honorius was able to use it for games celebrating a consulate and victory over the Goths.

Slow Demise of the Theatre

Despite the systematic suppression of paganism, throughout the forth and fifth centuries A.D. the spectacles continued, their variety and scale still impressive. In 342 Constantius II, though a Christian, ordered that certain pagan temples be restored so that the spectacles traditionally associated with them could be maintained. At a time when imperial coffers were depleted by the refusal of the senatorial class to bear its share of financial obligations, its members were still content to expend vast sums on public games.

Although extensive descriptions and details of performances are lacking, the general state of play is tolerably clear. What it conveys is a picture not of decisive change but rather of remarkable continuity from earlier epochs. Despite the ascendancy of a new religion, and massive social and political upheaval, at the end of antiquity we find similar genres, the same mixture of sophistication and vulgarity, and the same conjunction of diverse entertainments which were first evident in Roman theatrical practice seven centuries before. In the first century A.D. Apuleius listed mimes and dancers, comic and tragic performers, tight-rope-walkers and magicians; the same variety of holiday entertainments which first shaped the taste of the Roman audience and gave form to its theatre when Plautus and Terence (and their predecessors) had produced their plays in the midst of competing fairground entertainments. (Apuleius, Florida, 17)

Much later, at the beginning of the fifth century, Claudian describes scenic celebrations which provide a veritable playbill of traditional Roman theatrical fare.

"[Following an account of wild beast hunts]...Nor let gentler games lack in our delights: the jester who makes us laugh with his happy wit; the mime whose language is in his nods and gestures; the musician who sets the tibia pulsating with his breath, and the lyre, with his fingers; the slippered comedian with whom the stage echoes; or the tragedian raised on his loftier boots...or acrobats who throw themselves like birds through the air and build a swiftly rising pyramid with their entwined bodies."

And, lest we think that the scenic display and technical virtuosity referred to by Seneca centuries earlier has lapsed, he continues,

"Let the counterweights be removed and the mobile pegma descend, and on the lofty stage let men circle like a chorus, scattering flames; let Vulcan mould balls of flame to roll harmlessly over the panels and swift flames play about the painted beams, and a tame fire, not allowed to rest, roam amongst the untouched towers..." (Claudian Claudianus, Panegyricus Dictus Mallio Theodoro Consuli, 323-330.)

In A.D. 410, a decade after the festivities described by Claudian, Rome was attacked by a raiding party of Visigoths under Alaric, and sacked for three days. Despite widespread looting, there was no massacre and only limited damage to the fabric of the City. But the shock reverberated throughout the Empire, East and West, with the awesome realization that Rome, which for more than a thousand years had been the cultural capital of the civilized world had fallen to barbarians.

In 476 the last Roman Emperor of the West, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by the German mercenary leader Odoacer, who proclaimed himself King of Italy, sent Romulus to live on a pension in Campania and proceeded to stage a great variety of entertainments at Rome. Under his successor (and murderer) Theodoric the Ostrogoth, who ruled from A.D. 493, the supremacy of the Eastern emperor was recognised and strenuous attempts were made to preserve imperial administration, practices and institutions, including the customary scenic entertainments. Although for a period under Odoacer the office of consul had lapsed, it was eventually renewed and continued under Theodoric, probably at the insistence of the Roman aristocratic families themselves for whom its only remaining offical duty, that of providing lavish games, was essential to maintain their prestige in the traditional manner. The tradition of private sponsorship for building and repairs, however, seems now to have dwindled, and its burden fell predominantly upon the central administration, which also provided its own games from time to time. The last case on record of private benefaction for a public building is the comprehensive repair of Pompey's theatre carried out by a member of an old senatorial family around A.D. 500.

Theodoric and his administrators were concerned (so far as their means allowed) to show themselves worthy of the classical legacy for which they had now become the responsible -- if somewhat unlikely -- heirs. In addition to a programme of structural repairs to the great antique edifices, their sponsorship of games served (as they had under the emperors before them) both as useful diversion, and as an important ceremonial display of power and prestige. Theodoric's chancellor, the Roman senator Cassiodorus, used public funds to sponsor the mimes and pantomimes while (also traditionally) attempting to curb the violent disorders which broke out from time to time among their partisan supporters. He recorded with pride that the opulence of the official games amazed even the ambassador from the Byzantine court of Constantinoble. Early in the sixth century A.D., Cassiodorus visited the theatre of Pompey, which had now been standing for over half a millennium, and described with admiration its "caves vaulted with hanging stones, so cleverly joined into beautiful shapes that they resemble more the grottoes of a huge mountain than anything wrought by human hand". Cassiodorus, Chron. for A.D. 519; Variae; 3.39; 4.51; 5.25; 7.10; 1.20; 1.31; 1.33.

The Ostrogoths were not alone amongst the barbarians in continuing to favour traditional Roman entertainments. During the century in which the Vandals ruled north Africa before it was re-conquered by the Byzantine forces in 533, the population was able, as before, to pass their time in theatres and hippodromes and in the amphitheatres as well. Meanwhile in the East, the games continued to fulfill their pragmatic and ceremonial function, although they were increasingly subject to careful regulation, particularly under Justinian. By as early as A.D. 400 gladiatorial shows seem to have disappeared throughout the Empire (probably due in large part to Christian opposition), and the animal hunts if not wholly eliminated, were certainly rare after 500.

The last consul in the West served in 534, when the office was suspended by Justinian. The last citizen consul in the East held office in 541, and thereafter, during the remaining twenty-five years of Justinian's reign, no further consuls were appointed, nor did he again take the office himself. Consequently there were no consular games; indeed, continuous warfare on all fronts left less money for games of any type. In fact, Justinian had ordered the public theatres closed in 526, although this may have been only a temporary measure, and would have been valid in Italy only after most of it was re-conquered by him in the Gothic wars between 535 and 540.

This struggle however (which was not finally resolved until 553), greatly impoverished Italy, and destroyed the wealth of its great land-owning families. Thereafter the ancient senatorial class of Rome disappears from history, together we surmise with the last of its festive patronage. The last recorded games at Rome were given in 549 by King Totila to celebrate his brief success in restoring Ostrogothic power in the City after it had earlier fallen to Justinian's forces, who in turn retook it in 552.

In any case, at Rome the formal presentation of theatre appears certainly to have ceased -- just short of a thousand years from the date recorded for its birth -- with the occupation of Italy by the Lombards from 568 and the final fading of Byzantine power in the West.

In the Eastern Empire, following Justinian's death, the new Emperor, Justin II, revived the consularship as an office held by himself, a practice which was followed by his successors until 642. This evidently was a deeply popular measure, perhaps in large part because it may have allowed the vestiges of traditional games to continue. In general however, formal theatrical activity including the mimes and pantomimes, appears to have withered, and was officially banned by the Trullan Council in 692.