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While most ancient Greek and Roman plays have been lost to history, a significant number still survive. These include the comedies of Aristophanes and Menander, the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and the Roman adaptations of Plautus, Terence and Seneca.
In total, there are eighty-three mostly extant plays, forty-six from ancient Greece and thirty-seven from ancient Rome. Furthermore, there are seven lost plays with extensive surviving fragments, as well as thirteen mimes. They range from the 472 BC tragedy The Persians, written by the Greek playwright Aeschylus, to Querolus, an anonymous Roman comedy from late antiquity.
Ancient Greek comedy is conventionally divided into three periods: Old, Middle and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives through the eleven extant plays of Aristophanes and New Comedy through two mostly extant works of Menander. While Old Comedy parodied contemporary Athenian politics, leaders, and institutions, New Comedy features average citizens and parodies the cultural practices of the time. Middle Comedy is largely lost, preserved only in short fragments.[1][2][3][4]
Ancient Greek tragedies were most often based upon myths from the oral traditions, exploring human nature, fate, and the intervention of the gods. They evoke catharsis in the audience, a process through which the audience experiences pity and fear, and through that emotional engagement, purges these emotions. Greek tragedy survives through the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.[5][6][7][8][9]
Satyr plays feature mythological-heroic stories in a style of language similar to that of the tragedies, while sharing with comedy plots, titles, themes, characters, and happy endings. They feature a chorus of satyrs, with costumes that focus on the phallus, and use wordplay and sexual innuendos that do not occur in tragedy. The vast majority of satyr plays have been entirely lost: only one, by Euripides, survives complete.[10][11][12]
Mimes were a popular, informal type of entertainment in which a small group of actors portrayed a short situation from everyday life in the lower levels of society, in a humorous or farcical manner. It concentrated on depiction of character and physical humor instead of plot, and use of sexual innuendos and obscene jokes were frequent. There are eight surviving mimes attributed to Herodas, and three of Theocritus' idylls have been described as "urban mimes".[13][14][15][16]
The ancient Roman comedies that have survived can be categorized as fabula palliata (comedies based on Greek subjects). Roman comic dramatists made several structural changes, such as the removal of the previously prominent role of the chorus as a means of separating the action into distinct episodes and the addition of musical accompaniment to the plays' dialogue. Action usually took place in the streets, and plot complications were often a result of eavesdropping by a minor character. It survives through the works of Plautus and Terence.[17][18][19][20]
Most surviving ancient Roman tragedies can be categorized as fabula crepidata (tragedy based on Greek subjects). Senecan tragedy specifically features a declamatory style, and most of his plays use exaggerations in order to make his points more persuasive. They explored the psychology of the mind through monologues, focusing on one's inner thoughts, the central causes of their emotional conflicts, dramatizing emotion in a way that became central to Roman tragedy. Besides Seneca's works, a single example of fabula praetexta (tragedy based on Roman subjects) survives.[21][22][23][24]
^Aeschylus. The Complete Aeschylus: Volume I: The Oresteia. Ed. Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro. Greek Tragedy in New Translations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
^Sophocles. The Complete Sophocles: Volume I: The Theban Plays. Ed. Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro. Greek Tragedy in New Translations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
^Euripides. The Complete Euripides: Volume I: Trojan Women and Other Plays. Ed. Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro. Greek Tragedy in New Translations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
^Griffith, Mark. Greek Satyr Play; Five Studies. California. pp. 14–16. ISBN9781939926043
^Shaw (C. A.) "Satyric Play. The Evolution of Greek Comedy and Satyr Drama." The Classical Review, 65 (2014): 358–360. (Print). ISBN978-0-19-995094-2. DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X15001250.
^Sophocles. The Ichneutae of Sophocles. Trans. Richard Johnson Walker. With Notes and a Translation into English. London: Burns and Oates, 1919.
^Theocritus. Idylls. Trans. Anthony Verity. Introduction by Richard Hunter. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
^Theophrastus; Herodas; Sophron. Characters. Mimes. Other Mime Fragments. Trans. Jeffrey Rusten and I. C. Cunningham. Loeb Classical Library 225. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.
^Brockett, Oscar; Hildy, Franklin J. (2003). History of the Theatre. Allyn and Bacon.
^Bieber, Margarete (1961). The History of Greek & Roman Theater. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 151–171.
^Plautus. Amphitryon. The Comedy of Asses. The Pot of Gold. The Two Bacchises. The Captives. Edited and translated by Wolfgang de Melo. Loeb Classical Library 60. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.
^Zimmermann, Bernhard, and Thomas Baier. “Tragedy.” In Brill’s New Pauly: Antiquity Volumes, ed. Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
^Seneca. Tragedies, Volume I: Hercules. Trojan Women. Phoenician Women. Medea. Phaedra. Edited and translated by John G. Fitch. Loeb Classical Library 62. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.
^Ferri, Rolando, ed. Octavia: A Play Attributed to Seneca. Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries 41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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