Chapter 6 - Why Is Ariadne Naked?

Summary

In his description of the coverlet in poem 64 Catullus describes Ariadne on the shore with her clothes falling off, a scene not required by the story but explicable if the text was the libretto for a danced performance, as suggested in Chapter 4. This chapter collects the evidence for erotic entertainment on the Roman stage, occasions when actresses and dancers (mimae) might perform naked. The sources make it clear that the modern distinction between poetry and performance did not apply in the Roman world: poetry was categorized as ‘dramatic’, ‘narrative’ or a ‘common or mixed type’ in which ‘the poet himself speaks and speaking characters are introduced’. Just as epic was an example of ‘the common or mixed type’, so too was Catullus 64, too short to be an epic in the Homeric sense but still a mythological narrative to be performed, whether in speech, song, dance or any combination of the three. As was normal in the ancient world, the written text on papyrus was a secondary phenomenon.