Actors in ancient Rome confused politics with comedy.

Anti-Roman sentiment may have spread to Askulon, a city on the Adriatic coast of the Roman Empire, but it's still not funny. In the first century BC, when Italian tribes such as Askulun rebelled against the empire in the so-called social war, politics was no joke.

But this still can't stop Eden people and actors from injecting politics into their performances, usually at their own risk. In The Library of History, Dior Dorus Sikurus tells a story in which a performer depicts an anti-Roman stance and is killed by Roman soldiers. In the following scene, an Eden announced to the audience, "I am not a Roman either. I traveled around Italy, seeking help by making people laugh and making people happy. So, please forgive this swallow. God allows it to nest safely in all your houses. " Fortunately, his request was answered and he survived the experience.

The ancient Romans liked a lot of theatrical performances, from classical drama teaching to improvisation by actors. They made short sketches and used body humor. The earliest known performance came from a small town in southern Italy called Atla in the 4th century BC. It was not until 346 BC that the Roman historian Levy took the performance in Rome as part of a religious festival and asked the gods to resist the plague. But generally speaking, drama and Ed are not liturgies.

The performance was staged in a temporary theater, which was different from the amphitheater performance in Greece. In 55 BC, Pompeii became the first person to build a permanent theater in Rome. This theater is made of stone and can hold thousands of people. With the development of the theater, Edie began to perform in public games. According to george duke Voss' The Essence of Roman Comedy, most people in the Garden of Eden have low incomes, but outstanding people like Aesop and Rossius can make a lot of money.

Several problems should be paid attention to in understanding the political education in ancient Rome. First of all, no matter how much we want to interpret Romanesque humor from the perspective of modern taste and culture, the gap in 2000 still separates us. Even the humor that was popular decades ago failed to cause people to giggle today, so it is unfair to expect Eddie who was two thousand years ago to stick to it. As Gregory Hayes, a professor of classical literature, wrote in the New York Book Review, "In the process of studying other cultures, as Clifford Gilds, an anthropologist, once said, we are trapped between comforting piety and worrying suspicion. The former thinks that we are all similar to each other, while the latter thinks that ... we are not similar."

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The second problem is that the Romans made and consumed ed. C.W.Marshall, a professor of Greek at the University of British Columbia, said: "In Rome, the existing records give inappropriate privileges to men, citizen men and educated citizen men." . "Records are biased towards a small part of society."

Regardless of their social status, "edy" does not necessarily mean that edy and edian, as we think today, are usually performers who deal with non-tragic works. Comedy poets use puns and word games, just like pantomime. They are not silent performers like Marcel Marceau, but are equivalent to sketching the Garden of Eden, and their number even includes women. Their performances are mostly improvisation, imitating and laughing at everyone, from grandiose politicians to rural tourists, with facial expressions and costumes.

At the beginning of the 20th century BC and at the end of 100, ic playwrights Proutes and Terence combined the earliest Latin texts to create more than 25 plays. Alison Schallock, a professor of classical literature at Manchester University, wrote in her book Reading Roman Comedy: Poetics and Playfulness of Prouters and Terrence: "Comedy mocks us for wanting to stick to ourselves and thinks that our identity is stable." . In other words, Eddie is interesting in part because it subverts Rome's expectations, whether it means disguising himself as a lady or making Sean a slave, he is smarter than their master.

Hundreds of years after Eddie's two fathers died, their successors subverted people's expectations with humor, opposed Roman society and participated in political discussions at that time. Take young seneca as an example. He was a philosopher and adviser to Emperor Nero. In 54 BC, seneca wrote a short story called Endless Samsara, mocking the newly murdered emperor Claudius. Classical H.Mac L.Currie wrote

Seneca "cleverly and viciously" laughed at Claudius's many physical and mental diseases, including language barriers and physical weakness. Seneca took advantage of Claudius' love of dice games (the late emperor once wrote a book about it, and even equipped him with a carriage so that he could play while walking) as a bad punishment for the late emperor: a bottomless dice cup. Seneca was able to escape the assassination because his patron was the heir of the emperor.

While seneca caused laughter and ridicule with his pen, he was relatively unpunished, and other Eden people were not so lucky. Being a law enforcer rather than a writer has one major disadvantage: it means that you can't be a citizen. The performer is one of the notorious figures. They can't claim to be Roman citizens, and they can't get any related benefits, just like the limited forms of political representation enjoyed by others. This means that most Eden people engaged in such activities are former slaves or people who have no civil rights to lose.

For Eden people who seldom engage in writing activities, there is no guarantee that they will maintain this high social status. In 46 BC, Julius Caesar asked De simos Rabilo, one of the great pantomime writers at that time, to perform some form of pantomime "Decisive Battle". Rabillo will confront former Syrian slave Epilius. Rabilo was in no hurry to lose his rank, but how could he say no to Caesar? So the rabbi came out, put on the clothes of Syrian slaves, laughed at his pettiness and said, "Citizens, we are losing our freedom." "Those who are afraid of many people must be afraid of many people." Rabinius didn't have any books, but he was actually rewarded by Caesar so that he could buy back his citizenship.

"This is an interesting example. Eden people spontaneously participate in critical political discussions and oppose the most powerful people in the world," Marshall said. "Things may not be like this, but the values advocated by the story are exactly what the Romans think that Ed's purpose should be to' tell the truth to power'.

However, laughter is not just a tool for the oppressed. Mary Beard, a classical historian, wrote in the book Laughter in Ancient Rome: Joking, Tickling and Laughing: "Every laugh in the face of dictatorship is another laugh at the expense of the weak." . The Romans laughed at the deformed and the weak with jokes and laughter. In many plays, the recurring role of "parasite" is only because a patron laughs at his jokes and sometimes tells them.

In modern liberal democratic countries, Eden people can freely express themselves politically. But in ancient Rome, the risk of "punching and kicking" for Ed reflects the story of Eden, an authoritarian country today. Take Eden basem Yusuf as an example. The former surgeon hosted a program aimed at Egyptian President Morsi and religious leaders, accusing Morsi of failing to fulfill his campaign promises and the Brotherhood of * * * abusing its power. When Sicily (led by a president who came to power through a coup) began to interrupt or postpone the broadcast of Yusuf's program and then announced that he owed millions of dollars to his old network, Yusuf fled.

Still, sometimes a smile is better than nothing. When life treats your dictators, sometimes you have to turn them into a joke. "One of D's answers is influenced by violence, conspiracy or rebellion," Beard wrote about ancient Rome. The other is refusing to take it seriously.