It should be observed, however, that our English word “act” conveys a misleading impression in this connection. The Greek word was simply “part” (μέρος) and denoted merely a division of the play as determined by choraldivertissement, whetherwritten or interpolated. These “parts,” therefore, depended upon the more or less accidental and haphazard activity of the chorus and often two or three of them would be required to make up an act in the modern sense. In other words the modern notion of an act as an integral part of the story, marking a definite stage in the unfolding of the plot, was for the most part yet to be developed, especially in comedy.
The leveling effect of the five-act rule is seen in the modern editions of Plautus and Terence. It is certain that neither four nor any other fixed number of pauses was employed at the premier performances of these dramatists’ works. In some cases they seem to have been given continuous representation with neither choral intermezzi nor pauses at the points where the Greek originals had hadentr’actes. From this, however, we must not infer that Plautus and Terence did not know where the acts or the “parts” began and closed. If for no other reason, the recurrence of ΧΟΡΟΥ in at least most of the Greek comedies which they were translating and adapting would not have permitted them to be ignorant on this point, for in my opinion, so far as pauses were inserted in the Roman performances, they coincided with the corresponding points of division in the Greek plays. But by this I do not mean that the Latin divisions were always as numerous as the Greek; in my judgment, owing to contamination and other modifying influences they were uniformly fewer. Moreover, when these comedies were first published for the use of a reading public, it seems that the manuscripts contained no indication of act divisions. Within a century of Terence’s death, however, partisans of the five-act dogma were already attempting to force their Procrustean theory upon his works. A later effort of this sort is preserved to us in the commentary of Donatus (fourth centuryA.D.) and passed into the printed editions, with some modifications, about 1496A.D.Likewise, the Renaissance scholars, obsessed by the tradition of what had come to be considered an inviolable law, proceeded to divide each of Plautus’ twenty plays into five acts; cf. Pius’ edition of 1500A.D.The divisions in both poets restupon no adequate authority and are easily shown to be incorrect. Yet, unfortunately, it is now impossible to re-establish the acts as known to their Latin authors. If we revert to the Greek terminology, however, somewhat more definite results may be obtained, though, even so, agreement is not possible in every case. Technical criteria now at our disposal would indicate that the original “parts” (μέρη) in these comedies ranged from a minimum of two or three to a maximum of seven or eight.