Laberius
- name of a Roman gens; so esp. D. Laberius, a knight, celebrated as a composer of mimes, Cic. Fam. 7, 11; 12, 18; Hor. S. 1, 10, 6; Suet. Caes. 39; Sen. de Ira, 2, 11; Macr. S. 2, 7.—Hence,
- II Lăbĕrĭānus, a, um, adj., of or belonging to D. Laberius, Laberian: versus, Sen. de Ira, 2, 11, 4.
a Roman eques, and a distinguished writer of mimes. He was born about B. C. 107, and died in January 43 (Hieron. in Euseb. Chron. Olymp. 184. 2), at Puteoli, in Campania. At Caesar's triumphal games in October, B. C. 45, P. Syrus, a professional mimus, seems to have challenged all his craft to a trial of wit in extemporaneous farce; and Caesar, to whom Laberius may have been known through his friend Cn. Matius, himself a mimiambic poet, offered him 500,000 sesterces to appear on the stage. Laberius was sixty years old, and the profession of a mimus was infamous, but the wish of the dictator was equivalent to a command, and he reluctantly complied. Whether, by this somewhat wanton exercise of power, the usually indulgent Caesar meant to disgrace Laberius personally, or the equestrian order generally, or merely to procure for the spectators of the games an unusual spectacle, is uncertain. Laberius, however, had revenge in his power, and took it. His prologue awakened compassion, and perhaps indignation : and during the performance he adroitly availed himself of his various characters to point his wit at his oppressor. In the person of a beaten Syrian slave he cried out,-- Marry ! Quirites, but we lose our freedom, and all eyes were turned upon the dictator; and in another mime he uttered the pregnant maxim Needs must he fear, who makes all else adread.
Caesar, impartially or vindictively, awarded the prize to Syrus, saying to Laberius Though I favoured you, Laberius, Syrus bears the palm away.
He returned to him, however, his equestrian ring, and permitted him to resume his seat among the equites. As Laberius was passing by the senatorian benches to the equestrian, Cicero called to him, " Were we not so crowded here, Laberius, I would make room for you,"--a double allusion to the degradation of the histrionic eques and to the number of low-born and foreign senators created by Caesar. But Laberius parried the hit by replying, " I marvel, Cicero, you should be crowded, who usually sit on two stools,"-- Cicero being at the time unjustly suspected of wavering in his politics. As Laberius was leaving the stage at the conclusion of a mime Syrus said to him, Whom upon the stage you strove with, from the benches now applaud.
In the next mime, Laberius, alluding at once to Syrus' victory, and to Caesar's station, responded in graver tone,-- None the first place for ever can retain-- But, ever as the topmost round you gain, Painful your station there and swift your fall. I fell -- the next who wins with equal pain The slippery height, falls too -- pride lifts, and lowers all.
(Macr. 2.3, 7, 7.3; Cic. Fam. 7.11, 12.18; Hor. Sat. 1.10, 6; Suet. Jul. 39; Sen. de Ira, 2.11, Controv. 3.18; comp. Ziegler, de Mim. Roman. Götting. 1788; Fabric. Bibl. Lat. 1.16.3.) Works Mimi
If the prologue of Laberius, the longest fragment of his works (Macr. 2.7), may be taken as a specimen of his style, he would rank above Terence, and second only to Plautus, in dramatic vigour, and Horace's depreciation of him (Sat. 1.10, 6) might stand beside Pope's sneer at Chaucer, and " such writing as is never read." But there is reason to infer that the diction of Laberius abounded in unauthorised words (Gel. 16.7) and in antitheses and verbal jokes (Sen. Contr. 18), allowable in a farce-writer, but beneath the dignity of comedy. He was, however, evidently an original thinker, and made great impression on his contemporaries. (Niebuhr, Lectures on Rom. Hist. vol. ii. p. 169.) Editions
The fragments of Laberius are collected by Bothe, Poet. Scen. Latin. vol. v. pp. 202-218. A revised text of the prologue has been published, with a new fragment by Schneidewin, in the Rheinisches Museum for 1843, p. 632, &c. Laberius in Martial
A writer of verses, named Laberius, is mentioned by Martial (Mart. 6.14.) [W.B.D]
a tribune of the soldiers in Caesar's army, fell in battle in the second invasion of Britain, B. C. 54. He is by mistake called Labienus by Orosius. (Caes. Gal. 5.15; Oros. 6.9.)
was procurator of Judaea in A. D. 73, 74, the third and fourth years of Vespasian's reign. After the destruction of Jerusalem the emperor sent Laberius orders to offer for sale all the lands in Judaea. (Joseph. Bell. Jud. 7.6.6.) A Laberius Maximus, whether the same is uncertain, was banished by Trajan on suspicion of aspiring to the purple (Spartian. Hadrian. 5); and a person of the same name is mentioned by Martial (Mart. 6.14) and by Pliny (Plin. Ep. 10.16). [W.B.D]
A Roman knight of good family, born about B.C. 107. He was famed for his talent in writing mimes, in the composition of which productions he occasionally amused himself. He was at length requested by Iulius Caesar, in B.C. 45, to appear on the stage and act the mimes which he had written (Macrob. Sat. ii. 7). Laberius was sixty years of age when this occurrence took place. Aware that the entreaties of a dictator were equivalent to commands, he complied; but, in the prologue to the first piece which he acted, he complained bitterly to the audience of the degradation to which he had been subjected. The whole prologue, consisting of twenty-nine lines, which have been preserved by Macrobius, is written in a lofty vein and with all the high spirit of a Roman citizen. He is said to have represented the feigned character with inimitable grace and spirit; yet in the course of the performance he could not refrain from expressing strong sentiments of freedom and detestation of tyranny. In one of the scenes he personated a Syrian slave; and, while escaping from the lash of his master, he exclaimed, “Porro, Quirites, libertatem perdidimus;”
and shortly after he added, “Necesse est multos timeat quem multi timent,”
on which the whole audience turned their eyes towards Caesar, who was present in the theatre (Macrob. l. c.). It was not merely to entertain the people, who would have been as well amused with the representation of any other actor; nor to wound the private feeling of Laberius that Caesar forced him on the stage. His sole object was to degrade the Roman knighthood, to subdue their spirit of independence, and to strike the people with a sense of his unlimited sway. This policy formed part of the same system which afterwards led him to persuade a senator to fight in the ranks of the gladiators. Though Laberius complied with the wishes of Caesar in exhibiting himself on the stage, and acquitted himself with ability as a mimetic actor, it would appear that the dictator had been hurt and offended by the freedoms which he used in the course of the representation, and, either on this or some subsequent occasion, bestowed the dramatic crown on Publilius Syrus in preference to the Roman knight. Laberius submitted with good grace to this fresh humiliation; he pretended to regard it merely as the ordinary chance of theatric competition. He did not long survive, however, this double mortification, but retired from Rome, and died at Puteoli about ten months after the assassination of Caesar. The titles and fragments of forty-three of the mimes of Laberius are still extant; but, excepting the prologue already cited, none is important. They will be found collected in Ribbeck's Comicorum Romanorum Fragmenta, pp. 279-302 (Leipzig, 1873).