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A Phlyax play ( grc, φλύαξ, also phlyakes), also known as a hilarotragedy, was a
burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.
dramatic form that developed in the
Greek colonies Greek colonization was an organised colonial expansion by the Archaic Greeks into the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea in the period of the 8th–6th centuries BC. This colonization differed from the migrations of the Greek Dark Ages in that it ...
of
Magna Graecia Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; these re ...
in the 4th century BCE. Its name derives from the Phlyakes or “Gossip Players” in
Doric Greek Doric or Dorian ( grc, Δωρισμός, Dōrismós), also known as West Greek, was a group of Ancient Greek dialects; its varieties are divided into the Doric proper and Northwest Doric subgroups. Doric was spoken in a vast area, that included ...
. From the surviving titles of the plays they appear to have been a form of
mythological Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
burlesque, which mixed figures from the Greek pantheon with the stock characters and situations of Attic New Comedy. Only five authors of the genre are known by name:
Rhinthon Rhinthon ( grc-gre, Ῥίνθων, ''gen''.: Ῥίνθωνος; c. 323 – 285 BC) was a Hellenistic dramatist. The son of a potter, he was probably a native of Syracuse and afterwards settled at Tarentum. He invented the '' hilarotragoedia,'' a ...
and Sciras of
Taranto Taranto (, also ; ; nap, label= Tarantino, Tarde; Latin: Tarentum; Old Italian: ''Tarento''; Ancient Greek: Τάρᾱς) is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto, serving as an important com ...
, Blaesus of
Capri Capri ( , ; ; ) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. The main town of Capri that is located on the island shares the name. It has been ...
,
Sopater Sopater Orr, James, M. A., D. D. General EditorSopater ''International Standard Bible Encyclopedia''. 1915. Retrieved December 9, 2005. ( el, Σώπατρος, ''Sṓpatros'') was the son of Pyrhus,Paphos Paphos ( el, Πάφος ; tr, Baf) is a coastal city in southwest Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In classical antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: Old Paphos, today known as Kouklia, and New Paphos. The current city of Pap ...
and Heraklides. The plays themselves survive only as titles and a few fragments. A substantial body of South Italian vases are thought to represent scenes of the phlyakes, giving rise to much speculation on Greek stagecraft and dramatic form.


Characteristics of the genre

Nossis Nossis ( grc-gre, Νοσσίς) was a Hellenistic Greek poet from Epizephyrian Locris in today's Calabria (Southern Italy). She seems to have been active in the early third century BC, as she wrote an epitaph for the Hellenistic dramatist Rhinthon ...
of Locri provides the closest contemporary explanation of the genre in her
epitaph An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...
for Rhinthon:
Pass by with a loud laugh and a kindly word
For me: Rhinthon of Syracuse am I,
The Muses’ little nightingale; and yet
For tragic farce I plucked an ivy wreath.
Textual and archaeological evidence give a partial picture of these burlesques of mythology and daily life. The absence of any surviving script has led to conjecture that they were largely
improvised Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...
. The vase paintings indicate that they were performed on a raised wooden stage with an upper gallery, and that the actors wore grotesque costumes and
masks A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance, or entertainment and often they have been employed for rituals and rights. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practi ...
similar to those of Attic Old Comedy. Acrobatics and farcical scenes were major features of the phlyax. The phlyakes seems to die out by the late 3rd century, but the
Oscan Oscan is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy. The language is in the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic branch of the Italic languages. Oscan is therefore a close relative of Umbrian. Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including th ...
inhabitants of
Campania Campania (, also , , , ) is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islands and the i ...
subsequently developed a tradition of farces, parodies, and satires influenced by late Greek models, which became popular in Rome during the 3rd century BCE. This genre was known as
Atellan farce The Atellan Farce (Latin: ''Atellanae Fabulae'' or ''Fabulae Atellanae'', "favola atellana"; ''Atellanicum exhodium'', "Atella comedies"), also known as the Oscan Games (Latin: ''ludi Osci'', "Oscan plays"), were masked improvised farces in Ancient ...
,
Atella Atella was an ancient Oscan city of Campania, located 20km directly north of Naples. Remains The ruins of the city walls, private houses, the so-called ''garden of Virgil'' and many tombs remain, on sites in the ''comuni'' of Frattaminore, Ort ...
being the name of a Campanian town. Atellan farce introduced a set of
stock character A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a fictional character in a work of art such as a novel, play, or a film whom audiences recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition. There is a wide range of st ...
s such as Maccus and Bucco to Latin comedy; even in antiquity, these were thought to be the ancestors of the characters found in
Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the gen ...
, and perhaps distantly of those of ''
commedia dell'arte (; ; ) was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is also known as , , and . Charact ...
''. Although an older view held that Attic comedy was the only source of
Roman comedy The architectural form of theatre in Rome has been linked to later, more well-known examples from the 1st century BC to the 3rd Century AD. The theatre of ancient Rome referred to as a period of time in which theatrical practice and performance t ...
, it has been argued that Rhinthon in particular influenced Plautus’s ''
Amphitruo Amphitryon (; Ancient Greek: Ἀμφιτρύων, ''gen''.: Ἀμφιτρύωνος; usually interpreted as "harassing either side", Latin: Amphitruo), in Greek mythology, was a son of Alcaeus, king of Tiryns in Argolis. His mother was named ei ...
''.


The vase paintings

The so-called Phlyax vases are a principal source of information on the genre. By 1967, 185 of these vases had been identified. Since depictions of theatre and especially comedy are rare in fabrics other than the South Italian, these have been thought to portray the distinctly local theatre tradition. The vases first appeared at the end of the 5th century BCE, but most are 4th century. They represent grotesque characters, the masks of comedy, and the props of comic performance such as ladders, baskets, and open windows. About a quarter of them depict a low wooden temporary stage, but whether this was used in reality is a point of contention. Some scholars view the vases as depicting Attic
Old Comedy Old Comedy (''archaia'') is the first period of the ancient Greek comedy, according to the canonical division by the Alexandrian grammarians.Mastromarco (1994) p.12 The most important Old Comic playwright is Aristophanes – whose works, with thei ...
rather than phlyakes. The Wurzburg Telephus Travestitus vase (
bell krater A krater or crater ( grc-gre, , ''kratēr'', literally "mixing vessel") was a large two-handled shape of vase in Ancient Greek pottery and metalwork, mostly used for the mixing of wine with water. Form and function At a Greek symposium, krat ...
, H5697) was identified in 1980 as a phlyax vase, but Csapo and TaplinO. Taplin, Classical Philology, Icongraphic Parody and Potted Aristophanes, Dioniso 57, 1987, 95–109, taking the vase as evidence that Attic Old Comedy was performed outside Athens after death of Aristophanes. independently have argued that it actually represents the '' Thesmophoriazousai'' of
Aristophanes Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states ...
.


References

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Bibliography

*Rudolf Kassel and Colin Austin. ''Poetae Comici Graeci'', 2001. *Klaus Neiiendam. ''Art of Acting Antiquity: Iconographical Studies in Classical, Hellenistic and Byzantine Theatre''. *Oliver Taplin. ''Comic Angels: And Other Approaches to Greek Drama Through Vase-Paintings''. *Arthur Dale Trendall. ''Phlyax Vases'', 1967. *AD Trendall and TBL Webster. ''Monuments Illustrating Greek Drama'', 1971. Ancient Greek vase painting Magna Graecia Ancient Greek comedy Ancient Greek theatre Doric Greek