Acroama
ἀκρόαμα
Acroama (ἀκρόαμα), anything heard, and especially anything heard with pleasure, signified properly a musical piece, e.g. vetera acroamata (Suet. Vesp. 19); but also a play, a dance (Plin. Ep. 6.31, 13), or a recitation, such as were common at meals. The word is also applied to the actors and musicians who were employed to amuse guests during an entertainment (Cic. Ver. 4.22, 49; pro Arch. 9, 20; Suet. Octav. 74; Macr. 2.4), or even an actor on the stage (Cic. pro Sest. 54, 116: ille maximus ludius, non solum spectator, sed actor et acroama (an artiste), qui omnia sororis embolia novit). See Friedländer, Sittengesch. Roms, i.3 p. 334; Marquardt, Röm. Alterth. vii. p. 327; and it is sometimes used to designate the anagnostes (Nep. Att. 14). [ANAGNOSTAE]
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.