[Sidenote: The Histrionism] With this brief discussion of the condition,
incentive and motive of the Plautine actor, let us pass on to a more
detailed consideration of his methods and technique. Naturally by far the
most important part of this was gesture. Here again, while some of our
evidence is somewhat unreliable, practically every shred of extant
testimony indicates an extreme liveliness and vivacity. In the
rhetoricians frequent warning is issued to the forensic neophyte to avoid
the unrestraint of theatrical gesticulation. Cicero says (_De Or._ I. 59.
251): "Nemo suaserit studiosis dicendi adulescentibus in gestu discendo
histrionum more elaborare." Quintilian echoes (I. 11. 3): "Ne gestus quidem
omnis ac motus a comediis petendus est.... Orator plurimum ... aberit a
scaenico, nec vultu nec manu nec excursionibus nimius." And in the _Auctor
ad Herennium_ we find (III. 15. 26): "Convenit igitur in vultu et pudorem
nec acrimoniam esse, in gestu et venustatem nec turpitudinem, ne aut
histriones aut operarii videamur esse."[70] That the nature and liveliness
of gesture on the stage was determined by the character portrayed, it is
almost needless to say.[71]

Cicero's analysis (_de Or._ III. 59. 220) of the difference between
theatrical and forensic gesture implies that the former illustrates
individual words and ideas, while the latter comprehends more broadly the
general thought and sentiment.[72] It is most unfortunate that we have
lost Cicero's treatise _De Gestu Histrionis_.[73]

By Cicero's time a more restrained mode of acting was evidently considered
good taste; witness _de Off._ (I. 36. 130): "Histrionum non nulli gestus
ineptus non vacant, et quae sunt recta et simplicia laudantur."[74] But
the passages cited above bear ample testimony to the vigor of histrionic
gesticulation even at this later and far more cultivated epoch. Again we
repeat, what must have been the energy and abandon of the original