Aulus Gellius has also preserved the following verses of Porcius Licinius—

During the period in which the works of Lucretius and Catullus brought the Latin language to such perfection, the drama, which we have seen so highly elevated in the days of the Scipios, had sunk into a state of comparative degradation. National circumstances and manners had never been favourable to the progress of the dramatic art at Rome; but, subsequently to the conquest of Carthage, the increasing size and magnificence of the Roman theatres, some of which held not less than 60,000 people, required splendid spectacles, or extravagant buffoonery, to fill the eye, and catch the attention of a crowded, and often tumultuous assembly.

Accordingly, in the long period from the termination of the [pg 324]Punic wars till the Augustan age, there scarcely appeared a single successor to Plautus or Pacuvius. That the pieces of the ancient tragic or comic writers still continued to be occasionally represented, is evident from the immense wealth amassed, in the time of Cicero, by Æsopus and Roscius, who never, so far as we know, condescended to appear, except in the regular drama; but a new tragedy or comedy was rarely brought out. This deficiency in the fund of entertainment and novelty, in the province of the legitimate drama, was supplied by the Mimes, which now became fashionable in Rome.

Though resembling them in name, the Latin Mimes differed essentially from the Greek Μιμοι, from which they derived their appellation. The Greek Mimes, of which Sophron of Syracuse was the chief writer, represented a single adventure taken from ordinary life, and exhibited characters without any gross caricature or buffoonery. The fifteenth Idyl of Theocritus is said to be written in the manner of the Greek Mimes530; and, to judge from it, they were not so much actions as conversations with regard to some action which was supposed to be going on at the time, and is pointed out, as it were, by the one interlocutor to the other, or an imitation of the action, whence their name has been derived. They resembled detached or unconnected scenes of a comedy, and required no more gesticulation or mimetic art, than is employed in all dramatic representations. On the other hand, mimetic gestures of every species, except dancing, were essential to the Roman Mimes, as also the exhibition of grotesque characters, which had often no prototypes in real life. The Mimes of the Romans, again, differed from their pantomime in this, that, in the former, most of the gestures were accompanied by recitation, whereas the pantomimic entertainments, carried to such perfection by Pylades and Bathyllus, were ballets, often of a serious, and never of a ludicrous or grotesque description, in which everything was expressed by dumb show, and in which dancing constituted so considerable a part of the amusement, that the performers danced a poem, a chorus, or whole drama, (Canticum saltabant.)

It is much more difficult to distinguish the Mimes from the Fabulæ Atellanæ, than from the Pantomimes or Greek Mimi; and indeed they have been frequently confounded531. It appears, however, that the characters represented in the Atellane dramas were chiefly provincial, while those introduced in the [pg 325]Mimes were the lowest class of citizens at Rome. Antic gestures, too, were more employed in the Mimes than the Atellane fables, and they were more obscene and ludicrous: “Toti,” says Vossius, “erant ridiculi.” The Atellanes, though full of mirth, were always tempered with something of the ancient Italian severity, and consisted of a more liberal and polite kind of humour than the Mimes. In this respect Cicero places the Mimes and Atellane fables in contrast, in a letter to Papyrius Pætus, where he says, that the broad jests in which his correspondent had indulged, immediately after having quoted the tragedy of Œnomaus, reminds him of the modern method of introducing, at the end of such graver dramatic pieces, the buffoonery of the Mimes, instead of the more delicate humour of the old Atellane farces532.

These Mimes, (which, with the Atellane fables, and regular tragedy and comedy, form the four great branches of the Roman drama,) were represented by actors, who sometimes wore masks, but more frequently had their faces stained like our clowns or mountebanks. There was always one principal actor, on whom the jests and ridicule chiefly hinged. The second, or inferior parts, were entirely subservient to that of the first performer: They were merely introduced to set him off to advantage, to imitate his actions, and take up his words—

Some writers have supposed, that a Mime was a sort of monodrame, and that the partes secundæ, here alluded to by Horace, meant the part of the actor who gesticulated533, while the other declaimed, or that of the declaimer534. It is quite evident, however, from the context of the lines, that Horace refers to the inferior characters of the Mime535. I doubt not that the chief performer assumed more than one character in the course of the piece536, in the manner in which the Admirable Crichton is recorded to have performed at the court of Mantua537; but there were also subordinate parts in the Mime—a fool or a parasite, who assisted in carrying on the jests or tricks of his principal:—“C. Volumnius,” says Festus, “qui [pg 326]ad tibicinem saltârit, secundarum partium fuerit, qui, fere omnibus Mimis, parasitus inducatur538;” and to the same purpose Petronius Arbiter,—

The performance of a Mime commenced with the appearance of the chief actor, who explained its subject in a sort of prologue, in order that the spectators might fully understand what was but imperfectly represented by words or gestures. This prolocutor, also, was generally the author of a sketch of the piece; but the actors were not confined to the mere outline which he had furnished. In one view, the province of the mimetic actor was of a higher description than that of the regular comedian. He was obliged to trust not so much to memory as invention, and to clothe in extemporaneous effusions of his own, those rude sketches of dramatic scenes, which were all that were presented to him by his author. The performers of Mimes, however, too often gave full scope, not merely to natural unpremeditated gaiety, but abandoned themselves to every sort of extravagant and indecorous action. The part written out was in iambic verse, but the extemporary dialogue which filled up the scene was in prose, or in the rudest species of versification. Through the course of the exhibition, the want of refinement or dramatic interest was supplied by the excellence of the mimetic part, and the amusing imitation of the peculiarities or personal habits of various classes of society. The performers were seldom anxious to give a reasonable conclusion to their extravagant intrigue. Sometimes, when they could not extricate themselves from the embarrassment into which they had thrown each other, they simultaneously rushed off the stage, and the performance terminated540.

The characters exhibited were parts taken from the dregs of the populace—courtezans, thieves, and drunkards. The Sannio, or Zany, seems to have been common to the Mimes and Atellane dramas. He excited laughter by lolling out his tongue, and making asses’ ears on his head with his fingers. There was also the Panniculus, who appeared in a party-coloured dress, with his head shaved, feigning stupidity or folly, and allowing blows to be inflicted on himself without [pg 327]cause or moderation. That women performed characters in these dramas, and were often the favourite mistresses of the great, is evident from a passage in the Satires of Horace, who mentions a female Mime, called Origo, on whom a wealthy Roman had lavished his paternal inheritance541. Cornelius Gallus wrote four books of Elegies in praise of a Mime called Cytheris, who, as Aurelius Victor informs us, was also beloved by Antony and Brutus—“Cytheridam Mimam, cum Antonio et Gallo, amavit Brutus.” It appears from a passage in Valerius Maximus, that these Mimæ were often required to strip themselves of their clothes in presence of the spectators542.

As might be expected from the characters introduced, the Mimes were appropriated to a representation of the lowest follies and debaucheries of the vulgar. “Argumenta,” says Valerius Maximus, “majore ex parte, stuprorum continent actus.” That they were in a great measure occupied with the tricks played by wives on their husbands, (somewhat, probably, in the style of those related by the Italian novelists,) we learn from Ovid; who, after complaining in his Tristia of having been undeservedly condemned for the freedom of his verses, asks—

We learn from another passage of Ovid that these were by much the most popular subjects,—

The same poet elsewhere calls the Mimes, “Imitantes turpia Mimos;” and Diomedes defines them to be “Sermonis cujuslibet, motûsque, sine reverentiâ, vel factorum turpium cum lasciviâ imitatio, ita ut ridiculum faciant.”

These Mimes were originally represented as a sort of afterpiece, or interlude to the regular dramas, and were intended to fill up the blank which had been left by omission of the Chorus. But they subsequently came to form a separate and fashionable public amusement, which in a great measure superseded all other dramatic entertainments. Sylla (in whom the gloomy temper of the tyrant was brightened by the talents of a mimic and a wit) was so fond of Mimes, that he gave the [pg 328]actors of them many acres of the public land544; and we shall soon see the high importance which Julius Cæsar attached to this sort of spectacle. It appears, at first view, curious, that the Romans—the most grave, solid, and dignified nation on earth, the gens togata, and the domini rerum—should have been so partial to the exhibition of licentious buffoonery on the stage. But, perhaps, when people have a mind to divert themselves, they choose what is most different from their ordinary temper and habits, as being most likely to amuse them. “Strangely,” says Isaac Bey, while relating his adventures in France, “was my poor Turkish brain puzzled, on discovering the favourite pastime of a nation reckoned the merriest in the world. It consisted in a thing called tragedies, whose only purpose is to make you cry your eyes out. Should the performance raise a single smile, the author is undone545.”

The popularity and frequent repetition of the Mimes came gradually to purify their grossness; and the writers of them, at length, were not contented merely with the fame of amusing the Roman populace by ribaldry. They carried their pretensions higher; and, while they sometimes availed themselves of the licentious freedom to which this species of drama gave unlimited indulgence, they interspersed the most striking truths and beautiful moral maxims in these ludicrous and indecent farces. This appears from the Mimes of Decimus Laberius and Publius Syrus, who both flourished during the dictatorship of Julius Cæsar.

In earlier periods, as has been already mentioned, the writer was also the chief representer of the Mime. Laberius, however, was not originally an actor, but a Roman knight of respectable family and character, who occasionally amused himself with the composition of these farcical productions. He was at length requested by Julius Cæsar to appear on the stage after he had reached the age of sixty, and act the Mimes, which he had sketched or written546. Aware that the entreaties of a perpetual dictator are nearly equivalent to commands, he reluctantly complied; but in the prologue to the first piece which he acted, he complained bitterly to the audience of the degradation to which he had been subjected—

The whole prologue, consisting of twenty-nine lines, which have been preserved by Macrobius, is written in a fine vein of poetry, and with all the high spirit of a Roman citizen. It breathes in every verse the most bitter and indignant feelings of wounded pride, and highly exalts our opinion of the man, who, yielding to an irresistible power, preserved his dignity while performing a part which he despised. It is difficult to conceive how, in this frame of mind, he could assume the jocund and unrestrained gaiety of a Mime, or how the Roman people could relish so painful a spectacle. He is said, however, to have represented the feigned character with inimitable grace and spirit. But in the course of his performance he could not refrain from expressing strong sentiments of freedom and detestation of tyranny. In one of the scenes he personated a Syrian slave; and, while escaping from the lash of his master, he exclaimed,

and shortly after, he added,

on which the whole audience turned their eyes to Cæsar, who was present in the theatre548.

It was not merely to entertain the people, who would have been as well amused with the representation of any other actor; nor to wound the private feelings of Laberius, that Cæsar forced him on the stage. His sole object was to degrade the Roman knighthood, to subdue their spirit of independence and honour, and to strike the people with a sense of his unlimited sway. This policy formed part of the same system which afterwards led him to persuade a senator to combat among the ranks of gladiators. The practice introduced by Cæsar became frequent during the reigns of his successors; and in the time of Domitian, the Fabii and Mamerci acted as planipedes, the lowest class of buffoons, who, barefooted and smeared with soot, capered about the stage in the intervals of the play for the amusement of the rabble!

Though Laberius complied with the wishes of Cæsar, in exhibiting himself on the stage, and acquitted himself with ability as a mimetic actor, it would appear that the Dictator had been hurt and offended by the freedoms which he used in the course of the representation, and either on this or some subsequent occasion bestowed the dramatic crown on a Syrian slave, in preference to the Roman knight. Laberius submitted with good grace to this fresh humiliation; he pretended to regard it merely as the ordinary chance of theatric competition, as he expressed to the audience in the following lines:—

Laberius did not long survive this double mortification: he retired from Rome, and died at Puteoli about ten months after the assassination of Cæsar550.

The titles and a few fragments of forty-three of the Mimes of Laberius are still extant; but, excepting the prologue, these remains are too inconsiderable and detached to enable us to judge of their subject or merits. It would appear that he occasionally dramatized the passing follies or absurd oc[pg 331]currences of the day: for Cicero, writing to the lawyer Trebonius, who expected to accompany Cæsar from Gaul to Britain, tells him he had best return to Rome quickly, as a longer pursuit to no purpose would be so ridiculous a circumstance, that it would hardly escape the drollery of that arch fellow Laberius; and what a burlesque character, he continues, would a British lawyer furnish out for the Roman stage551! The only passage of sufficient length in connection to give us any idea of his manner, is a whimsical application of a story concerning the manner in which Democritus put out his eyes—

According to Aulus Gellius, Laberius has taken too much license in inventing words; and that author also gives various examples of his use of obsolete expressions, or such as were employed only by the lowest dregs of the people553. Horace seems to have considered an admiration of the Mimes of Laberius as the consummation of critical folly554. I am far, however, from considering Horace as an infallible judge of true poetical excellence. He evidently attached more importance to correctness and terseness of style, than to originality of genius or fertility of invention. I am convinced he would not have admired Shakspeare: He would have considered Addison and Pope as much finer poets, and would have included Falstaff, and Autolycus, and Sir Toby Belch, the clowns and the boasters of our great dramatist, in the same censure which he bestows on the Plautinos sales and the Mimes [pg 332]of Laberius. Probably, too, the freedom of the prologue, and other passages of his dramas, contributed to draw down the disapprobation of this Augustan critic, as it already had placed the dramatic wreath on the brow of