Audience participation

In stark contrast to the hushed respectful silence of the modern courtroom audience, the ancient audience felt free to make known its opinion concerning all aspects of the case, including both the skill of the advocate and the guilt of the litigants.

Audience participation took many forms, but verbal exclamations were fre­quent. From a vivid scene constructed by Martial we learn a number of the phrases actually used on such occasions: “Effecte! graviter! cito! nequitur! euge! beate! hoc volui!”, “Good going! Weighty hit! And swift! And nasty! Well done! Beautiful! That's what I wanted!”⁷² In another epigram Martial men­tions a freedman who “tergeminum mugiet... sophos”, “will bellow â€?Bravo!' three times”.⁷³ Teachers of rhetoric urge students to practise their skill in noisy places, so they will be able to continue their speech in the noise of the court­room and Quintilian reminds his students that for this purpose Demosthenes practised on the seashore.⁷⁴ Members of the audience even went so far as to give their opinion on the verdict. When a man was convicted of forgery in Claudius' court, “someone cried out”, “proclamante quodam” that the man's hands ought to be cut off.

Verbal participation was not always favorable. We learn of one man who had a reputation for shouting abuse repeatedly during advocates’ speeches — indeed, with such enthusiasm that some paid him to keep quiet.⁷⁷ Martial offers his own freedman for such a job: “lis erit, ingenti faciet convicia voce: esse pudor vetuit fortia verba mihi", “If you have a legal suit, he will pour out insults in a monstrous voice: decency prevents me from such strong language.”⁷⁸ But perhaps not all succumbed to mudslinging, as Seneca tells us that contradic­tions were frequently tossed around the courtroom.⁷⁹

The audience also used less articulate methods of communicating their opinions. They frequently broke out into laughter, sometimes directed at the advocate. Quintilian recounts the story of an advocate wanting to display a picture of the deceased at various points during his peroration. Unfortunately, the person holding the picture did not know what a peroration was, so he dis­played the portrait every time the advocate looked at him. By the time the correct occasion did come, the effect was meaningless and the audience roared.⁸⁰ Quintilian even goes so far as to say that an advocate must be very sure of himself before undertaking a particularly risky type of defence, because if he misses a step the audience will laugh.⁸¹ Seneca the Elder, when describing why so many declaimers cannot handle the transition into the courtroom, mentions the interruptions created by laughter.⁸² Noises other than laughter are also mentioned. Pliny, reporting the participation of audi­ences of his day, describes their contribution as “ululatus" (howling).⁸³ Laughter could also be meant by this term; however, it is equally possible that the noise was to indicate disagreement or hostility.

Did the audience restrict their participation solely to comments, laughter, and howling, or did they clap as well? In most modern translations of the rel­evant texts audience participation is translated as “applause”. Perhaps this is used as a convenient catch-all, but it leaves the impression that the audience at a hearing did clap. The Latin, however, does not easily support such a con­clusion. The Latin vocabulary subsumed under the English “applause” is quite diverse. Most frequently, the ancients use some form of the verb laudare and the noun laus to indicate the audience’s participation.⁸⁴ Also common are clamare and clamor⁸ While these verbs allow some room for interpretation, they point to verbal exclamations of the type Martial recorded, rather than to clapping.⁸⁶

The most common specific verb for clapping, plaudire, and the noun, plausus, almost never appear in reference to a courtroom environment. In his description of current audience participation, Pliny states that the “ ululatus", (howling) lacked only of “plausus... cymbala et tympana", “clapping... cymbals, and tambourines" to make it a complete shambles.⁸⁷ The implied absence of clapping is clear. It is interesting that plaudire is in fact used almost exclu­sively in descriptions of applause at theatrical and spectacular events;⁸⁸ at one show clamor is found, but it is so closely tied to voces that it must be inter­preted to indicate verbal activity.⁸⁹

Arguably relevant is the most famous description of hired claque activity outside of the courts, found in Suetonius’ account of Nero's formation of the Augustani, an Alexandrian-styled claque group, in which clapping was cer­tainly an integral activity.⁹⁰ The vocabulary includes plausuum and makes mention of what must be clapping methods, since hands must be kept free of rings:

Neque eo segnius adulescentulos equestris ordinis et quinque amplius milia e plebe robustissimae iuventutis undique elegit, qui divisi in factiones plausuum genera condiscerent — bombos et imbrices et testas vocabant — operamque navarent cantanti sibi, insignes pinguissima coma et excellentissimo cultu, puris ac sine anulo laevis.

Not content, he selected from all over youths from the equestrian order and more than five thousand of the strongest plebeian youths, who were divided into groups and taught the types of applause called “the bees”, “the roof-tiles”, and “the bricks”. They worked zealously whenever he sang, and were distinguishable by their luxuriant hair, quite outstanding clothes, and their left hands, bare and without rings.⁹¹

It is also clear that this claque served in Nero’s theatrical displays.

When one looks at mentions of the claque outside of the theater, the vocabulary changes in that one never sees any form of plaudire. At a public reading, Juvenal remarks that a patron will “dare libertos extrema in parte seden­tis ordinis et magnas comitum disponere voces", “give freedmen and a claque to sit at the ends of the rows and distribute loud voices.”⁹² In the courtroom, the claque also appears to be tied to verbal activity, and various forms of laudare and clamare are scattered throughout the sources. In Juvenal’s thirteenth satire, for instance, a personified sportula â€?fflaesidium laudat vocalis agentem”, “praises some lawyer arguing a case.”⁹³ Quintilian notes how a listener at a hearing can be swept up by the praise of others in the audience: “ille laudan­tium clamor extorquet”, “the clamour of those praising sweeps [him] away” and how advocates are used “ad clamorem dispositae vel etiam forte circumfusae multi­tudinis”, “to the uproar of the crowd either arranged or having come together by chance”.⁹⁴ Pliny reports that “infiniti clamores”, “countless shouts” are raised by the claque when the mesochorus gives the signal.⁹⁵ Quintilian states that “laus”, “praise” in the courtroom is better if not bought.⁹⁶ Martial com­ments that an advocate should take “laudantem Selium”, “praising Selius” with him to court.⁹⁷ Also noteworthy is the name given to the claque, which

Pliny supplies: “laudiceni" (dinner-praisers) and “So^oxXelg” (bravo­callers).⁹⁸ Predictably, there is always at least one reference that does not fit what appears to be a pattern.

Unus inter haec dicenti aut alter adsistit, et res velut in solitudine agitur. Oratori autem clamore plausuque opus est, et velut quodam theatro...

One or two are standing by this speaker, and the hearing goes on as if in solitude. However, an orator needs uproar and applause, as if in the theater....⁹⁹

Again, this indicates that clamor was considered something different from clapping. Troublesome is Maternus' suggestion that an orator received applause. It is possible, however, to argue that in his desire to draw a compar­ison with the theater, Maternus uses plausus, which has clear ties to the theater, in a situation where it does not specifically apply. Perhaps his inclu­sion of the type of praise that an orator really was used to, clamor, was meant to gloss over this laziness for proper terminology.

In Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome, Aldrete strikingly compares the dynamics between a Roman speaker and his audience to the interaction between speaker and audience found in many revivalist churches today.¹⁰⁰ This interactive form of communication has been termed “call-response” and defined as “spontaneous verbal and non-verbal interaction between speaker and listener in which all the speaker's statements are punctuated by expres­sions from the listener.”¹⁰¹ This parallel also seems very apt for the Roman courtroom. The audience's participation there was primarily restricted to ver­bal statements and rarely, if ever, included any form of clapping.¹⁰²