out the egg which was laid by
Leda. The events take place on a stage with elements of
set design such as a usable door; BC
Nossis of Locri provides the closest contemporary explanation of the genre in her
epitaph for Rhinthon: Pass by with a loud laugh and a kindly wordFor me: Rhinthon of Syracuse am I,The Muses' little nightingale; and yetFor tragic farce I plucked an ivy wreath. Textual and archaeological evidence give a partial picture of these burlesques of mythology and daily life. The absence of any surviving script has led some to conjecture that the plays were largely
improvised. On the other hand, others have argued that it is more likely for the phlyax plays to have been in fact performed by itinerant actors who carried with them their own stage, necessary props, and costumes. Those actors would have had their own repertory of plays which they performed and might have adapted their plays, either Athenian and local productions, in order to better fit each occasion. The vase paintings indicate that they were performed on a raised wooden stage with an upper gallery, and that the actors wore grotesque costumes and
masks similar to those of Attic Old Comedy. Acrobatics and farcical scenes were major features of the phlyax. The standard costume of the phlyax actors was made of tight fits that represented nudity and a large padding on the back and front, on which a phallus was attached. The actors could wear additional clothes, such as
cloaks, which are sometimes shown painted with various colors, while their faces were covered with masks. For female roles in particular, the actors wore typical long dresses, while their masks were often painted in white. The phlyakes seems to die out by the late 3rd century, but the
Oscan inhabitants of
Campania subsequently developed a tradition of farces, parodies, and satires influenced by late Greek models, which became popular in Rome during the 3rd century BCE. This genre was known as
Atellan farce,
Atella being the name of a Campanian town. Atellan farce introduced a set of stock characters such as Maccus and Bucco to Latin comedy; even in antiquity, these were thought to be the ancestors of the characters found in
Plautus, and perhaps distantly of those of ''
commedia dell'arte''. Although an older view held that Attic comedy was the only source of
Roman comedy, it has been argued that Rhinthon in particular influenced Plautus's
Amphitruo. ==Vase paintings==