Atellanæ Fabulæ (Atellan Fables), also known as “Oscan Games” (Ludi osci), were a collection of theatrical pieces of low or buffoonish comedy popular in Ancient Rome. Named after Atella, an Oscan town in Campania, where they were invented, they were originally written in Oscan and imported into Rome in 391 BC. In later Roman versions, only the ridiculous characters read their lines in Oscan, while the others used Latin. History - Ancient history - Ancient Rome This is a List of Ancient Rome-related topics, that aims to include aspects of both the Ancient Roman Republic and Roman Empire. ... Atella was an ancient city of Campania, half way between Naples and Capua. ... Oscan, the language of the Osci, is in the Sabellic branch of the Italic language family, which is a branch of Indo-European and includes Umbrian, Latin and Faliscan. ... Campania is a region of Southern Italy, bordering on Lazio to the north-west, Molise to the north, Puglia to the north-east, Basilicata to the east, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. ... Oscan, the language of the Osci, is in the Sabellic branch of the Italic language family, which is a branch of Indo-European and includes Umbrian, Latin and Faliscan. ... Location within Italy The Roman Colosseum Rome (Italian and Latin: Roma) is the capital city of Italy and of its Latium region. ... Centuries: 5th century BC - 4th century BC - 3rd century BC Decades: 440s BC 430s BC 420s BC 410s BC 400s BC - 390s BC - 380s BC 370s BC 360s BC 350s BC 340s BC 396 BC 395 BC 394 BC 393 BC 392 BC - 391 BC - 390 BC 389 BC 388...

Played by young men of good family, the stock characters included Macchus (a Pulcinella-type figure), Bucco (the fat man), Manducus (the glutton), Sannio (a Harlequin-type figure), and Pappus (an old man), which later formed the basis for characters of the Commedia Dell'Arte, as well as Punch and Judy. Largely improvised, the Atellan Fables were performed after tragedies and represented the habits and mores of the lower classes as the upper classes saw them. Karel Dujardins set his closely-observed scene of a travelling troupes makeshift stage against idealized ruins in the Roman Campagna: dated 1657 ( Louvre Museum) Commedia dellarte, ( Italian, meaning comedy of professional artists) was a form of improvisational theater which began in the 16th century and was popular until... A stained glass illustration of Mr. ...

In regards to authorship, it is believed that the dictator Sulla wrote some; Quintus Novius, who flourished 50 years after the abdication of Sulla, wrote some fifty Atellan Fables, including Macchus Exsul (“Exiled Macchus”), Gallinaria (“The Henhouse”), Surdus (“The Deaf One”), Vindemiatores ("The Harvesters"), and Parcus (“The Treasurer”). This page is about the Roman dictator Sulla, for the Brythonic goddess sometimes called Sulla, see Sul. ...

Lucius Pomponius, of Bologna, is known to have composed a few, including Macchus Miles (“Macchus the Soldier”), Pytho Gorgonius, Pseudo-Agamemnon, Bucco Adoptatus, and Æditumus. Fabius Dorsennus and Memmius (Mummius) were also authors of these comedies; Ovid and Pliny the Younger found the work of Memmius to be indecent. Fragments of the Atellan Fables can be found in the Poetarum latinorum scen. fragmenta, Leipzig, 1834; M. Meyer, Sur les Atellanes; Manheim, 1826, in-8°; Schober, Sur les Atellanes, Leipzig, 1825, in-8°; M. Meyer, Etudes sur le théâtre latin, Paris, 1847, in-8°. The works of Pomponius and Novius can be found in Ribbeck's Comicorum Romanorum Reliquiae and Munk, De Fabulis Atellanis (1840). Bologna (from Latin Bononia, Bulaggna in the local dialect) is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, between the Po River and the Apennines. ... Gaius Memmius (incorrectly called Gemellus, The Twin), Roman orator and poet, tribune of the people (66 BC), friend of Lucretius and Catullus. ... For other uses, see Ovid (disambiguation) Engraved frontispiece of George Sandyss 1640 London edition of Ovids Metamorphoses Publius Ovidius Naso, ( March 20, 43 BC – AD 17) Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. ... Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (63 - ca. ...

Sources

Meyer, Maurice, “Études sur le théâtre latin” (http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/livres/meyer/un.htm#82)

Imago Mundi -Atellanes (http://www.cosmovisions.com/textAtellanes.htm)

See also

• improvisational comedy
• improvisational theatre