“But where have all the slaves gone who were, with their masks, the main protagonists of ancient Roman theatre?” This time the controversy, raised by a researcher, Jessica Clarke, a PhD in History of Roman Theatre at UCL, the University of London, involves the new exhibition open at the Ara Pacis Museum, “Theatre, authors, actors and audiences in ancient Rome”.

The interactive exhibition goes beyond the stage, inside the production mechanisms, and into the dressing rooms of the actors. With exceptional finds such as the famous “Pronomos vase”, from the Archaeological Museum of Naples, perhaps the most important with a theatrical subject. As well as the cup of Attic production from the National Archaeological Museum of Florence with one of the very rare representations of a phallophoria, a procession in honour of Dionysus, the god of the theatre.

“I was excited to see the new exhibition,” Clarke writes in a letter. “But as I wandered around the exhibition I became increasingly uneasy. A persistent question nagged at me: Where were all the slaves? The main characters in Roman popular comedies were slaves, and these characters dominated the plots, from Plautus to Terence, manipulating their masters, scheming against villains, and working to gain their freedom.” But one detail makes Clarke concerned: “At first glance,” she writes, “the advertisement for the exhibition seems to address this essential and controversial aspect of Roman theatre. The poster that hangs high above the exhibition space is adorned with a carved statue of a seated slave character. It is an extraordinary object, exquisitely carved. Yet the exhibition labels it simply a ‘figurine of a seated actor.’”

This is incorrect. The sculpted actor wears a grotesque slave mask and is not sitting on a box but on an altar. It is a representation of a well-known comic scene in which the slave character seeks religious asylum at an altar to escape the threats of his master, who threatens to beat him severely. It is a scene that uses physical violence against slaves as a comic device. So why does its label not describe what is actually being represented? It is not possible to tell an accurate history of Roman popular theatre without examining the main character of the slave.” So far so good, the researcher, who otherwise speaks of “an otherwise well-made and intelligently interactive exhibition” but who leaves a question: “What if the slaves were intentionally excluded from the narrative?”

“If there is one person who cannot be accused of being insensitive to the problem of slavery, it is me who set up the only major exhibition, “Spartacus”, on Roman slavery» replies archaeologist Orietta Rossini who curated the exhibition with Lucia Spagnuolo, head of the museum. “The exhibition at the Ara Pacis also talks about the fact that actors were frequently recruited from among the slaves. It must also be said that not all of them were slaves, but there were also freedmen who had bought their freedom thanks to the proceeds of the theatre”. The mistake the scholar makes, she concludes “is one of perspective, she expected to find something at the centre, while the exhibition is more broad-spectrum on the theatre in Rome and its origins. But we also underlined a lot, in the panels and not on the plaques of the statues, the aspect, during the Republic, concerning the slaves, who were also stained with infamy precisely because they acted and could not even testify in trials. While during the empire things will get complicated and the Romans will be able to see their emperor, Nero, acting as an actor on stage”.