Plays · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in Plays by Roswitha of Gandersheim.
Skim names here — open a free preview to see character cards and Character Web beside the page as you read.
Unknown
major
Also known as I, myself, mine
This narrator is Roswitha herself, the 'strong voice of Gandersheim,' who frames the plays with a confession that she loves Terence's polished style yet fears his wicked matter. That tension — between the seductive elegance of pagan drama and the demands of sacred writing — is the engine of the whole collection. She matters because her struggle to convert a dangerous inheritance into something holy is the same struggle her characters face on stage.
Gallicanus
major
Also known as Gallicanus, Constantine, Constance
Gallicanus is the empire's most valued soldier, and he wants Constance as the reward for his victories — a demand the emperor cannot easily refuse. His confidence is total, but Constance's counter-move, sending her almoners to live with him while his daughters lodge with her, quietly plants the seeds of a conversion he never anticipated. He matters because his courtship becomes the play's testing ground between earthly ambition and the virgin's unyielding vow.
Paphnutius
major
Also known as Paphnutius, Father Paphnutius, Paphnutius Man, Paphnutius Brother
Paphnutius is a man of vigils and fasts who cannot stop weeping over the damage one courtesan does to the souls of a whole city. His disciples think his plan is madness, but he insists that Christ went among sinners, and he trades his hermit's robe for a lover's disguise. He matters because his gamble — that divine love can outbid the world's — is the play's central wager, and the reader watches to see whether he is a saint or a fool.
Thais
major
Also known as Thais, Young Man Thais, Lovers Cruel Thais
Thais lives at the center of a whirl of lovers, gifts, and brawls, her house a byword for both pleasure and destruction. When Paphnutius reaches her, she does not resist; she renounces her lovers publicly, calls her possessions ashes, and asks him to be her lantern through the dark. She matters because her conversion is the play's whole arc — a spectacular fall reversed into a spectacular penance, and a test of whether the reader believes such a change is possible.
Sapientia
major
Also known as Sapientia, Charity, Hope, little Charity
Sapientia is a widow of noble Roman stock whose household is built entirely around her daughters' Christian formation. The play's tension is set the moment the emperor's persecution reaches them: her wisdom is not the kind that avoids danger but the kind that prepares her children to meet it. She matters because her calm, deliberate mothering is the counterweight to imperial power — the quiet force the whole martyrdom turns on.
Callimachus
major
Also known as Callimachus, Callimachus Drusiana, Callimachus Woman
Callimachus loves Drusiana with a feverish, absorbing intensity that the play's own preface singles out as startling for its era — the kind of love that leads to sin, madness, or self-slaughter. His pursuit collides with her Christian chastity and with the Apostle John's authority, setting up the play's central confrontation between erotic obsession and sacred restraint. He matters because his passion is the most human, most dangerous thing in the collection, and the reader watches to see whether it destroys him or is transformed.
Drusiana
major
Also known as Drusiana, Drusiana Venerable father John
A devout woman whose prayer for death, rather than becoming another's ruin, sets the Apostle John on a course toward resurrection and mercy.
Abraham
major
Also known as Abraham, Abraham Mary, Abraham Brother Ephrem
A hermit who disguises himself as a suitor to enter a brothel and win back the niece he raised in the desert.
Mary
major
Also known as Mary, Lady Mary, Mary Wretch
Raised in a hermit's cell, she trades holiness for a harlot's life, then finds her old self ambushed by a familiar fragrance.
Dulcitius
supporting
Also known as Dulcitius, The Governor Dulcitius, Governor Dulcitius
A Roman governor who woos three Christian virgins with flattery, then torture, and ends up caressing cookware in the dark.
Irena
supporting
Also known as Irena, Sisinnius Irena
The youngest of three martyr sisters, whose calm defiance turns soldiers, mountains, and a count's arrows into instruments of her triumph.
Sisinnius
supporting
Also known as Sisinnius, Count Sisinnius, Sisinnius Fools
A Roman official who hunts a girl across a mountain and finds his own men, his horse, and his reason deserting him.
John
supporting
Also known as John, blessed John, John Drusiana, John Calhmachus
John moves through these plays as the Church's living authority, summoned when Andronicus collapses over Drusiana's body and needed again when Callimachus's passion turns fatal. His tension is pastoral: he refuses to let mourners drown in sorrow, insisting that those whose souls rejoice should not be wept over bitterly, yet he must also confront desires he cannot simply bless. He anchors the early arc by turning private grief into public miracle, setting the terms for how conversion and resurrection will work in Roswitha's world.
Ephrem
supporting
Also known as Ephrem, Brother Ephrem, Ephrem Child, Ephrem Mary
Ephrem belongs to the small company of the faithful who assist Abraham's risky rescue of Mary, the girl raised in the desert and lost to a brothel. His role is quieter than Abraham's: he is the witness, the second set of hands, the one who keeps the mission from collapsing into solitary grief. He matters because Roswitha's best plays work through companionship as much as miracle, and Ephrem embodies the unglamorous support that makes the hermit's daring possible.
Antiochus
supporting
Also known as Antiochus, Hadrian Antiochus, Antiochus Sapientia
Antiochus wields the machinery of empire against Christians, and in Sapientia's story he becomes the face of a power that cannot tolerate a woman's unshaken conviction. His tension is the classic persecutor's: he wants submission, and the more he demands it, the more he exposes his own inability to command the soul. He matters to the early arc because he defines the stakes — what it costs, socially and bodily, to hold to belief when the state itself is the adversary.
Hadrian
supporting
Also known as Hadrian, the Emperor Hadrian, Hadrian Little
Hadrian functions in these plays as the imperial backdrop against which martyrdom and conversion unfold, the authority whose edicts shape what characters can safely say or do. He is less a personality than a pressure — the reason a vow, a refusal, or a prayer can become a capital matter. He matters to the early arc because Roswitha's drama needs a world where faith is not private comfort but public risk, and Hadrian supplies that world.
Constantine
supporting
Also known as Constantine, The Emperor Constantine
Constantine rules a court where Gallicanus's victories make his marriage suit hard to refuse, yet his daughter Constance has consecrated herself and will not be moved. His tension is genuinely double: as father he honors her vow, as sovereign he fears losing the sword that defends the Empire. He matters to the early arc because his dilemma sets the play's central negotiation in motion, forcing piety, politics, and paternal love into the same room.
Julian the Apostate
supporting
Also known as Julian the Apostate, Julian, Julian Soldiers
Julian the Apostate represents the return of pagan power after Christian hope, the ruler whose edicts turn faith into a matter of life and death for Gallicanus and his household. His tension is ideological: he cannot leave belief alone, and his persecution forces characters to decide whether their conversion was convenience or conviction. He matters to the early arc because he raises the cost of discipleship, making the play's miracles and martyrdoms feel like answers to a real threat rather than pious decoration.
Agape
supporting
Also known as Agape, Agape O Lord, Sisinnius Agape
The eldest of three Christian sisters whose unshakable faith turns a Roman persecution into a contest of wills the empire cannot win.
Chionia
supporting
Also known as Chionia
A Christian sister whose calm defiance under interrogation exposes the hollowness of Roman authority and steadies her younger siblings for what comes.
Diocletian
supporting
Also known as Diocletian, the Emperor Diocletian
The emperor whose edict against Christian virgins sets the machinery of martyrdom in motion and tests whether power can bend conviction.
Andronicus
supporting
Also known as Andronicus, Andronicus Drusiana, Andronicus Look
A grieving husband drawn into John's miracle-working orbit, he wrestles aloud with the baffling justice of a God who spares the schemer and not the accomplice.
Fortunatus
minor
Also known as Fortunatus
A servant of Callimachus who dies and is resurrected.
Antony
minor
Also known as Antony, old Antony, Brother Antony, Antony Brother
An elderly hermit who advises Paphnutius.
Terentianus
minor
Also known as Terentianus, Terentianus Soldiers
A Roman officer who executes Gallicanus and later converts.
Paul
minor
Also known as Paul, Paul O Christ, Paul Father
A Christian martyr executed alongside John under Julian.
Roswitha
minor
Also known as Roswitha, Théâtre de Roswitha, the Roswitha of Paphnutius
The author and narrator who appears in prefaces and notes.
Gerberg
minor
Also known as Gerberg, Gerberg Illustrious Abbess
The abbess to whom Roswitha dedicates her work.
Helena
minor
Also known as Helena, noble Helena
Mother of Constantine, mentioned in the Gallicanus play.
Bradan
minor
Also known as Bradan, Bradan Gallicanus
A soldier who serves Gallicanus.
Terence
minor
Also known as Terence
A Roman playwright mentioned in the preface.
Artemia
minor
Also known as Artemia, Artemia Hail
Daughter of Diocletian who converts to Christianity.
Laurence Humfrey
minor
Also known as Laurence Humfrey
A historical figure mentioned in the translator's note.
Conrad Celtes
minor
Also known as Conrad Celtes, Celtes
A humanist who rediscovered Roswitha's works.
Charles Magnin
minor
Also known as Charles Magnin, Magnin
A French scholar who wrote about Roswitha.
Anatole France
minor
Also known as Anatole France, M. Anatole France
A French author cited in the notes.
Miss Ellen Terry
minor
Also known as Miss Ellen Terry
A modern actress mentioned in the acting note.
