Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/326

 of Rome 306 THE DECLINE AND FALL imitation of Attic genius,''^ had been almost totally silent since the fall of the republic ; ^■' and their place was unworthily occupied by licentious farce, effeminate music, and splendid pageantry. The pantomimes,''^ who maintained their reputa- tion from the age of Augustus to the sixth century, expressed, without the use of words, the various fables of the gods and heroes of antiquity ; and the perfection of their art, which sometimes disarmed the gravity of the philoso}>her, always excited the applause and wonder of the people. The vast and magnificent theatres of Rome were filled by three thousand female dancers, and by three thousand singers, with the masters of the respective choruses. Such was the popular favour which they enjoyed that, in a time of scarcity, when all strangers were banished from the city, the merit of contributing to the public pleasures exempted them from a law which was strictly executed against the professors of the liberal arts.'"' Popnionsness It is said that the foolish curiosity of Elagabalus attempted to discover, from the quantity of spiders' webs, the number of the inhabitants of Rome. A more rational method of inquiry' might not have been undeserving of the attention of the wisest princes, who could easily have resolved a question so important for the Roman government and so interesting to succeeding ages. The births and deaths of the citizens were duly registered ; and, if any writer of antiquity had condescended to mention the annual amount, or the common average, we might now produce some 63 Sometimes indeed they composed original pieces. Vestigia Grasca Ausi deserere et celebrare domestica facta. Horat. Epistol. ad Pisones, 285, and the learned, though perplexed, note of Dacier, who might have allowed the name of tragedies to the Brutus and the Decius of Pacuvius, or to the Cato of Maternus. The Octavia, ascribed to one of the Senecas, still remains a very unfavourable specimen of Roman tragedy. [This play was not the work of one of the Senecas, as it contains a reference to the death of Nero, but it was probably written soon after that event.] ^ In the time of Quintilian and Pliny, a tragic poet was reduced to the im- perfect method of hiring a great room, and reading his play to the company whom he invited for that purpose (see Dialog, de Oratoribus, c. 9, 11, and Plin. Epistol. vii. 17). 85 See the Dialogue of Lucian, intitled, De Saltatione, torn. ii. p. 265-317, edit. Reitz. The pantomimes obtained the honourable name of xeipoo-ooi ; and it was required that they should be conversant with almost every art and science. Burette (in the Mt^m. de I'Acad. des Inscrip. torn. i. p. 127, ik.c.) has given a short history of the art of pantomimes. ••^ Ammianus, 1. xiv. c. 6. He complains, with decent indignation, that the streets of Rome were tilled with crowds of females, who might have given children to the state, but whose only occupation was to curl and dress their hair, and jactari volubilibus gyris, dum e.xprimunt innumera simulacra, quas fin.xere fabula; theatrales.