[d] Roscius, in the last period of the republic, was the comedian, whom all Rome admired for his talents. The great esteemed and loved him for his morals. Æsop, the tragedian, was his contemporary. Horace, in the epistle to Augustus, has mentioned them both with their proper and distinctive qualities.
----Ea cum reprehendere coner Quæ GRAVIS ÆSOPUS, quæ DOCTUS ROSCIUS egit.
A certain measured gravity of elocution being requisite in tragedy, that quality is assigned to the former, and the latter is called DOCTUS, because he was a complete master of his art; so truly learned in the principles of his profession, that he possessed, in a wonderful degree, the secret charm that gave inimitable graces to his voice and action. Quintilian, in a few words, has given a commentary on the passage in Horace. Grief, he says, is expressed by slow and deliberate accents; for that reason, Æsop spoke with gravity; Roscius with quickness; the former being a tragedian, the latter a comedian. _Plus autem affectus habent lentiora; ideoque Roscius citatior, Æsopus gravior fuit, quod ille comœdias, his tragœdias egit._ Lib. xi. cap. 1. Cicero was the great friend and patron of Roscius. An elegant oration in his behalf is still extant. The cause was this: One FANNIUS had made over to Roscius a young slave, to be formed by him to the stage, on condition of a partnership in the profits which the slave should acquire by acting. The slave was afterwards killed. Roscius prosecuted the murderer for damages, and obtained, by composition, a little farm, worth about eight hundred pounds, for his particular share. FANNIUS also sued separately, and was supposed to have gained as much; but, pretending to have recovered nothing, he sued ROSCIUS for the moiety of what he had received. One cannot but observe, says Dr. Middleton, from Cicero's pleading, the wonderful esteem and reputation in which Roscius then flourished. Has Roscius, says he, defrauded his partner? Can such a stain stick upon such a man; a man who, I speak it with confidence, has more integrity than skill, more veracity than experience? a man whom the people of Rome know to be a better citizen than he is an actor; and, while he makes the first figure on the stage for his art, is worthy of a seat in the senate for his virtue. _Quem populus Romanus meliorem virum quam histrionem esse arbitratur; qui ita dignissimus est scená propter artificium, ut dignissimus sit curiá propter abstinentiam. Pro Roscio Comœdo_, s. 17 In another place, Cicero says, he was such an artist, as to seem the only one fit to appear on the stage; yet such a man, as to seem the only one who should not come upon it at all. _Cum artifex ejusmodi sit, ut solus dignus videatur esse qui in scená spectetur; tum vir ejusmodi est, ut solus dignus videatur, qui eo non accedat. Pro Publ. Quinctio_, s. 78. What Cicero has said in his pleadings might be thought oratorical, introduced merely to serve the cause, if we did not find the comedian praised with equal warmth in the dialogue DE ORATORE. It is there said of Roscius, that every thing he did was perfect in the kind, and executed with consummate grace, with a secret charm, that touched, affected, and delighted the whole audience: insomuch, that when a man excelled in any other profession, it was grown into a proverb to call him, THE ROSCIUS OF HIS ART. _Videtisne, quam nihil ab eo nisi perfectè, nihil nisi cum summâ venustate fiat? nihil, nisi ita ut deceat, et uti omnes moveat, atque delectet? Itaque hoc jam diu est consecutus, ut in quo quisque artificio excelleret, is in suo genere Roscius diceretur._ _De Orat._ lib. i. s. 130. After so much honourable testimony, one cannot but wonder why the DOCTUS ROSCIUS of Horace is mentioned in this Dialogue with an air of disparagement. It may be, that APER, the speaker in this passage, was determined to degrade the orators of antiquity; and the comedian was, therefore, to expect no quarter. Dacier, in his notes on the Epistle to Augustus, observes that Roscius wrote a book, in which he undertook to prove to Cicero, that in all the stores of eloquence there were not so many different expressions for one and the same thing, as in the dramatic art there were modes of action, and casts of countenance, to mark the sentiment, and convey it to the mind with its due degree of emotion. It is to be lamented that such a book has not come down to us. It would, perhaps, be more valuable than the best treatise of rhetoric.