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Imagination and "Evidence": A Scene From Terence VICTOR CASTELLANI The modern student of old literature misses a great deal, in particular when that "literature" was primarily intended for performance. Conventions and the nature and expectations of an audience change over the centuries and millennia; the music, where there was music, and the colors of the very words are sometimes irrecoverably lost, sometimes recoverable only in part and without certainty. The further back one looks the more acute the problems become. In some respects Greek and Roman drama are downright embarrassing to deal with. Despite die noble efforts of scholars to make sense out of mangled lines and lyrics, to draw conclusions about ancient music and dance, and to reconstruct theater, stage, and scenery, many details remain incomprehensible in the light of documentary and archaeological evidence and cautious deductions therefrom. Some very important items have been matter for controversy or despair. How active were Athenian actors on their "buskins"? How rapidly were the Greek trimeters and Latin senarii spoken? How sensitive were their audiences to Aristophanes' and Plautus' literary allusions? Were the Senecan tragedies designed for some kind of enactment at all ? Other questions have left—perhaps only temporarily — the arena of learned debate. The "three actor rule" for Greek tragedy does seem to stand. Women probably did attend the Theater of Dionysus. Roman comic actors most likely wore both Greek dress and Greek masks. Such conclusions, however, often raise new difficulties, not only for audientic production (e.g., how clear should it be that the same actor Victor Castellani is chairman of the Classical Studies Program at the University of Denver. ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW21 must play Odysseus, the merchant, and Heracles in Sophocles' Philoctetes ?) but for the exegete as well. This article will consider one such problematic scene in what may be Terence's finest play, die Phormio of 161 B.C. Part of the traditional Act I, Scene iv (lines 205-212) goes this way: GETA: nam si senserit te timidum pater esse, arbitrabitur commeruisse culpam. PHAEDRIA: hoc verumst. ANTIPHO : non possum inmutarier. GE.: quid faceres si gravius aliquid tibi nunc faciundum foret? AN.: quom hoc non possum, illud minus possem. GE.: hoc nil est, Phaedria: ilicet. quid hie conterimus operam frustra? quin abeo. PH: et quidem ego? AN.: obsecro, (210) quid si adsimulo? saunest? GE.: garrís. AN.: voltum contemplamini : em, satine sic est? GE.: non. AN.: quid si sic? GE.: propemodum. AN.: quid sic? GE.: sat est: em, istuc serva . . . I would translate this as follows: GE.: If your father senses you're afraid, he'll think you've acted wrong. PH.: That's right. AN. : I can't change myself. GE.: What would you do if you had something more difficult than this to do? AN. : Since I can't do this, I'd manage that even less. GE.: It's useless, Phaedria. We're going. Why waste our effort here? Yes, I'm going. PH. : And I with you. AN.: Please! Suppose I pretend? Is this okay? GE.: You're kidding! AN. : Look at my face — here, is this okay ? GE.: No. AN.: This maybe? GE.: Almost. 22IMAGINATION AND "EVIDENCE" AN.: This? GE.: That's enough — there, keep that one. As stated above, this scene was evidendy played widi masks.1 Up until a generation ago scholars were not so sure about this. The ancient evidence is not unanimous. We learn from Cicero that his friend die actor Roscius had a squint (de Nat. D. I, 79) and diat he wore a mask on stage (de Or. Ill, 221) ; but it is only the fourdi-century grammarian Diomedes who records— what he may merely infer— a connection between these two facts. He declares that Roscius introduced die use of a mask to conceal his squint.2 Anodier late and dubious, possibly confused informant tells us that die odierwise unknown Cincius Faliscus introduced masks to Roman comedy and Minucius Prothymnus to Roman tragedy; while according to Donatus, the fourth-century commentator on Terence, the same Minucius was a masked actor/stagemanager for the Eunuchus (produced earlier in 161 B.C.).3 Cincius is so utterly obscure that one cannot even guess about his chronological position; even...

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