Overview

The NY Journal American described the play this way: "The authors have installed Romulus, last of the Roman Emperors, in a creaky villa on the outskirts of Rome in the year 476 A.D. The barbaric Goths, storming in from the North, are beating on the gates of the city. But his highness is not perturbed, being much more concerned with watering his plants and tending to his hobby of raising chickens. He was born to a world of bloodshed and decadence; he is convinced that Rome has had it, and is prepared to sacrifice himself and relinquish the Empire in final payment for the sins committed by Roman civilization. He even rejects the overture of a wealthy trouser manufacturer to buy off Ottakur, the Gothic commander, in return for his daughter's hand. Into this crumbling household steps Ottakur, somewhat resembling a Russian officer of high rank. But the violent end Romulus had promised himself fails to eventuate; the Goth, it appears, respects him for the history of the Roman Empire that was, and he refuses to contemplate a future which he cannot judge. There is obviously an analogy here with the present: The grass is apt to look greener in the other fellow's civilization—until you get there. And wars are silly—then, as now. The entire evening is filled with wry and witty observations which (Romulus) takes pains to have recorded for posterity, and the general atmosphere of the threadbare court is wonderfully well suited to the hilarious machinations of a Greek art dealer, the pants tycoon, a wily monarch from Byzantium, the effeminate keeper of the household and the uncompromising queen."