Slave Theater in the Roman Republic
Plautus and Popular Comedy

Brings the voices of Roman slaves in early comedy to the history of theater and the history of slavery.

Amy Richlin (Author)

9781316606438, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 May 2019

579 pages, 1 map 4 tables
23 x 15.3 x 4 cm, 0.8 kg

Roman comedy evolved early in the war-torn 200s BCE. Troupes of lower-class and slave actors traveled through a militarized landscape full of displaced persons and the newly enslaved; together, the actors made comedy to address mixed-class, hybrid, multilingual audiences. Surveying the whole of the Plautine corpus, where slaves are central figures, and the extant fragments of early comedy, this book is grounded in the history of slavery and integrates theories of resistant speech, humor, and performance. Part I shows how actors joked about what people feared - natal alienation, beatings, sexual abuse, hard labor, hunger, poverty - and how street-theater forms confronted debt, violence, and war loss. Part II catalogues the onstage expression of what people desired: revenge, honor, free will, legal personhood, family, marriage, sex, food, free speech; a way home, through memory; and manumission, or escape - all complicated by the actors' maleness. Comedy starts with anger.

1. History and theory
Part I. What Was Given: 2. The body at the bottom
3. Singing for your supper
Part II. What Was Desired: 4. Getting even
5. Looking like a slave-woman
6. Telling without saying
7. Remembering the way back
8. Escape
Conclusions: from stage to rebellion.

Subject Areas: Slavery & abolition of slavery [HBTS], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], European history [HBJD], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Literature & literary studies [D], Theatre studies [AN]