Page:The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, A Roman Slave.djvu/13

 species of exhibition more to the taste of the rabble than the regular Greek Mime, and better adapted besides to representation in theatres which admitted eighty thousand spectators.

As it was the chief purpose of the Mimes to raise a laugh, they were used to represent the failings and eccentricities of the higher classes, and the vulgar language and solecisms of the lower. Good imitation was therefore their perfection, and they were so pleasing to the Romans, that even in funeral processions, a band of mimics performed beside the chief mourners, whose leader (Archimimus) imitated the voice and gestures of the deceased.

Embolden by success, they soon began to act little scenes which has no connection with each other, it is true, but in which the author himself performed the principal part, and in which each of the other actors, who played barefoot, added to his part whatever his own genius might suggest. As there could be no final scene in a play without a plot, whenever an actor could not carry out his part, he took to his heels, and his flight put an end to the play.

The mimetic art was in this condition, that is to say, in its infancy, when Syrus composed his mimes. Laberius, a Roman knight, had just produced the first examples of mimetic poetry. Though aiming to amuse the people, he desired to instruct them, and therefore sought to blend useful truths and noble maxims with the pleasantries demanded in this species of comedy. He made the theater a school of morals, and a vehicle of political satire; and although he did not perform in his own pieces from a regard to his rank, he sprinkled them with biting epigrams designed to hit the all-powerful Cæsar.

Syrus followed him closely in this new path. He tempered the license of the mimes with many grave features, and a morality so severe, that Seneca, in his disquisitions on the Stoic philosophy, often cited their maxims as authority, and still more frequently made them the themes of lengthy essays.

Syrus traveled Italy for a long time, writing and playing by turns, every where applauded as a poet and as an actor. The fame