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The theatre of ancient Rome was diverse, ranging from festival performances of street theatre and acrobatics, to the staging of Plautus's broadly appealing situation comedies, to the high-style, verbally elaborate tragedies of Seneca. Although Rome had a native tradition of performance, the Hellenization of Roman culture in the 3rd century BC had a profound and energizing effect on Roman theatre and encouraged the development of Latin literature of the highest quality for the stage.

The Roman historian Livy wrote that the Romans first experienced theatre in the 4th century BC, with a performance by Etruscan actors. Beacham argues that they had been familiar with "pre-theatrical practices" for some time before that recorded contact. Roman drama began in 240 BC with the plays of Livius Andronicus. It remained popular throughout Late Antiquity, by the mid 4th century AD, 102 out of 176 ludi publici being dedicated to theatre, besides a considerably lower number of gladiator and chariot racing events.

Origins of Roman Theatre

Rome was founded in 753 B.C as a monarchy under Etruscan rule, and remained as such throughout the first two and a half centuries of its existence. Following the expulsion of Rome's last king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, or "Tarquin the Proud," circa 509 B.C., Rome became a Republic, and was henceforth led by a group of magistrates elected by the Roman people. It is believed that Roman theatre was born during the first two centuries of the Roman Republic, following the spread of Roman rule into a large area of the Italian peninsula, circa 364 B.C.

Following the devastation of widespread plague in 364 B.C., Roman citizens began including theatrical games as a supplement to the Lectisternium already being performed, in a stronger effort to pacify the gods. In the years following the establishment of these practices, actors began adapting these dances and games into performances by acting out texts set to music and simultaneous movement.

As the era of the Roman Republic progressed, citizens began including professionally performed drama in the eclectic offerings of the ludi (celebrations of public holidays) held throughout each year -- the largest of these festivals being the Ludi Romani, held each September in honor of the Roman god Jupiter. It was as a part of the Ludi Romani in 240 B.C. that author and playwright Livius Adronicus became the first to produce translations of Greek plays to be performed on the Roman stage.

Types of theatrical performance

Mime

In addition to the comedies and tragedies of the era, mimetic performance rose in popularity as an inclusion at Roman festivals.

Works Cited

Beacham, Richard C. The Roman Theatre and Its Audience. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1992.

Bieber, Margarete. The History of the Greek and Roman Theater. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1961.

Brown, John Russell. The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995.

Chourmouziadou, K., and J. Kang. “Acoustic Evolution of Ancient Greek and Roman Theatres.” Applied Acoustics, vol. 69, no. 6, 2008, pp. 514–529. doi:10.1016/j.apacoust.2006.12.009.

Csapo, Eric. Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theater. Chichester, U.K., Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

Harrison, George W. M., and Liapēs Vaios. Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre.

Manuwald, Gesine. Roman Republican Theatre. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Simon, Erika. The Ancient Theatre. London, Methuen, 1982.

Slater, William J. Roman Theater and Society: E. Togo Salmon Papers I. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1996.

Vince, Ronald W. Ancient and Medieval Theatre: a Historiographical Handbook. Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 1984.