rmanent theatre erected at Rome was that of Cn.
Pompeius (55 B.C.), which contained nearly 18,000 seats; but even of
this the portion allotted to the performers (_scaena_) was of wood; nor
was it till the reign of Tiberius (A.D. 22) that, after being burnt
down, the edifice was rebuilt in stone.

Actors.

Though a species of amateur literary censorship, introduced by Pompeius,
became customary in the Augustan age, in general the drama's laws at
Rome were given by the drama's patrons--in other words, the production
of plays was a matter of private speculation. The exhibitions were
contracted for with the officials charged with the superintendence of
public amusements (_curatores ludorum_); the actors were slaves trained
for the art, mostly natives of southern Italy or Greece. Many of them
rose to reputation and wealth, purchased their freedom, and themselves
became directors of companies; but, though Sulla might make a knight of
Roscius, and Caesar and his friends defy ancient prejudice, the stigma
of civil disability (_infamia_) was not removed from the profession,
which in the great days of the Attic drama had been held in honour at
Athens. But, on the whole, the social treatment of actors was easy in
the days of the early empire; senators and knights actually appeared on
the stage; Nero sang on it; and a _pantomimus_ was made _praefectus
urbi_ by Elagabalus.

The actor's art was carried on at Rome under conditions differing in
other respects from those of the Greek theatre. The Romans loved a full
stage, and from the later period of the republic liked to see it crowded
with supernumeraries. This accorded with their military instincts, and
with the general grossness of their tastes, which led them in the
theatre as well as in the circus to delight in spectacle and tumult, and
to applaud Pompeius when he furnished forth the return of Agamemnon in
the _Clytaemnestra_ with a grand total of 600 heavily-laden mules. On
the other hand, the actors stood nearer to the spectators in the Roman
theatre than in the Greek, the stage (_pulpitum_) not being separated
from the first rows of the audience by an orchestra occupied by the
chorus; and this led in earlier times to the absence of masks, diversely
coloured wigs serving to distinguish the age of the characters. Roscius,
however, is said (because of an obliquity of vision which disfigured his
countenance) to have introduced the use of masks; and the retrograde
innovation