Of one Pontus, who had come on a visit to Nero, we are told that he was present at a performance, in the course of which a favourite Mime gave a representation of the Labours of Hercules. The Mime's gestures were so precise that he could follow the action without the slightest hesitation. Being struck by the performance, on taking leave he begged Nero to give him the actor, explaining that there was a barbarous tribe adjoining his dominions, whose language no one could learn, and that Pantomime could express his intentions to them so faithfully by gestures that they would at once understand.
The dress of the performers of Pantomime was made to reveal, and not to conceal, their figures. After the second century women began to act in their representations, and even down to the sixth century we find them associating themselves with Pantomime, and mention is made of a celebrated _Mima_, who was ultimately raised to the imperial throne. Through the lewdness of the _Mimis_ and _mimas_ in Pantomime, their dress, or rather lack of dress, Pantomimes were denounced, not only by the early Christian writers, but also by some of the Pagan writers, like Juvenal, as being very prejudicial to morality.
It has, however, always been a favourite topic of the Prynne's, the Jeremy Collier's and the Dr. Style's, and such like opponents of the theatre, to contrast the English stage with the purity of the Grecian and Roman Theatres. Now, without stopping to enquire whether this has any particular connection with the subject of their dissertations, or whether it is not in fact quite irrelevant to the question, it is impossible not to remark the crass ignorance which these assertions display of the manners and customs of the theatres of either the Greeks or the Romans. Without wearying the reader by entering into a long discussion upon the subject, it will be sufficient to recall certain passages in Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plautus, and Terence to induce them to hesitate in assenting to such vague assertions of the purity of either the Grecian or Roman dramatic writers. William Prynne, the English Puritan writer, in his violent attack on the stage in the "_Histrio-Mastix_" or "Players Scourge"--which book, by the way, for some unfavourable comments therein on the Queen of Charles I., and the ladies of her Court, for attending theatrical representations, was debarred his rooms (he was a barrister), by the Court of Star Chamber, sentenced to be imprisoned for life, fined £5,000, committed to the Tower, placed in the pillory, both ears cut off, and his book burnt by the common hangman; yet after undergoing all these pains and penalties, he published a _recantation of all that he had previously written in his "Histrio-Mastix_"--says "It seems that the Grecian actors did now and then to refresh the spectators, bring a kind of cisterne on the stage, wherein naked women did swim and bathe themselves between the acts and scenes; which wicked, impudent, and execrable practice the holy father Chrysostom doth sharpely and excellently declaime against."