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 Rome. The Oscan athletic games were very popular, and usually preceded by longer pantomime plays. The origin of the Atellan Farce is uncertain, but the farces are similar to other forms of ancient theatre such as the South Italian Phlyakes, the plays of Plautus and Terence, and Roman mime. Most historians believe the name is derived from Atella, an Oscan town in Campania. The farces were written in Oscan and imported to Rome in 391 BC. In later Roman versions, only the ridiculous characters speak their lines in Oscan, while the others speak in Latin.
History and surviving evidence
The Atellan Farce was a masked farce that originated in Italy by 300 B.C.and remained popular for more than 500 years. Originally, the farces were improvised and not recorded. Evidence of the original forms is scarce, primarily found in the depictions of scenes and characters on ancient vases.
The extant literary evidence contains only fragments of the Atellan Farce with 400 lines and the titles of approximately 115 farces are recorded from the first century BC by the dramatists Lucius Pomponius and Quintus Novius. With the evidence that does remain, historians believe the plays were between 300 and 400 lines and lasted from 15 to 28 minutes.
Surviving titles indicate that the Atellana or short sketches were meant to entertain the audience on holidays and market days. The names of some of these extant titles include The Farmer, The She-goat, The Woodpile and The Vine-Gatherers. While the actors in Atellan Farce were known to be Oscan, evidence of language-switching from Oscan to Latin is evident in a literary Atellana. We can also surmise that the plots of the sketches included ridiculous situations consisting of puns, horseplay and riddles of a vulgar and crude nature.
Stock characters and origins
Some of the hypothesized stock characters included: Maccus – Believed derived from either the Greek term makkoan, meaning "to be stupid" or the Greek prefix mac-, that denotes greed. The character Maccus makes the most appearances of all stock characters in the works of Pomponius and Novius and includes the play Maccus The Maid where confusion ensues from "twin subjects." Maccus was a most popular clown and the leading character in many Atellan plays including The Fool, as a hunchback with a beak nose. Buccus – Although the origin of this name is not definitely known, the Latin word bucca, meaning "cheek" or "mouth" is a common consideration. and implies a "country booby" "fat- cheeked, gluttonous braggart." Manducus – Deriving from the Latin for "The chewer", Manducus is a hypothesized stock character that does not appear in any of the surviving titles Possibly Manducus and Dossennus are the same character and Manducus is simply the description for Dossennus. as the arrogant soldier. Pappus – The name is considered derived from the Greek pappos meaning "grandfather." Pappus was easy to deceive often falling victim to either his daughter or wife, the character appears in five extant plays. Pappus is the only character from Atellan Farce that has a name of Oscan origin as the old man. Centunculus – The name of a comic slave. Dossennus – The origin of the name Dossennus is believed to have originated from the word dorsum or "back" as the character was hump backed as the pompous doctor or "hump backed, crafty cheat."
The characters may have connections to similar roles in Commedia dell'arte and Punch and Judy. Both Atellan Farce and Commedia were improvised masked comedies. Stock characters in Atellan Farce are speculated as the beginnings of the Commedia dell'arte stock characters. For example, theorized character progressions include:
Pappus → Pantalone
Maccus+Buccus → Pulcinella
Manducus → il Capitano
However, these connections remain speculative and are contested in ongoing research. There are similarities between Punch and the Commedia dell'arte character Pulcinella, however, there is no consensus that Punch's derivation can be traced back to Pulcinella. The character Cicirrus, the Oscan word for "gamecock", is thought to be a stock character.