PANTOMIME, among the ancient Romans, denoted not a spectacle but a person. The pantomimes were a class of actors who (as the name implies) acted not by speaking, but wholly by mimicry—gesture, movements, and posturings—corresponding therefore pretty cicsely to the modern ballet-dancers. When they first made their appearance in Rome cannot be ascertained; probably the histriones (Etrusc. Meter, a dancer) brought from Etruria to Rome 364 B. C. were pantomimes; but the name does not once occur during the republic, though it is common enough from the very dawn of the empire. Augustus showed great favor to this class of performers, and is `consequently supposed by some writers to have been himself the inventor of the art of dumb acting. The most celebrated pantomimes of the Augustan age were Bathyllus (a freedman of Mmteenas), Pylades, and Hylas. The class soon spread over all Italy and the provinces, and became so popular with the Roman nobles and knights (who used to invite male and female per formers to their houses to entertain their guests), that Tiberius reckoned it necessary to administer a check to their vanity, by issuing a decree forbidding the aristocracy to frequent their houses, or to be seen walking with them in the streets. Under Caligula they were again received into the imperial favor; and Nero, who carried every unworthy weakness and vice to the extremity of caricature, himself acted as a pantomime. From this period they enjoyed uninterrupted popularity as long as paganism held sway in the empire.
As the pantomimes wore masks, no facial mimicry was possible; everything depended on the movements of the body. It was the hands and lingers chiefly that spoke; hence the expressions, manes loguacissinue, digiti elamosi, etc. To such perfection was this art carried, that it is said the pantomimes could give a finer and more precise expression to passion and action than the poets themselves. The subjects thus represented in dumb show were always mythological, and consequently pretty well known to the spectators. The dress of the actors was made to reveal, and not to conceal, the beauties of their per son; and as, after the 2d c., women began to appearima public as pantomimes, the effect, as may easily be supposed, of the testhetical costume was injurious to morality. Some times these pantomimic actresses even appeared quite naked before an audience—a thing which could never have happened had the Roman communities not become thoroughly base, sensual, and impure. It was quite natural, therefore, that pantomimic exhibitions
should have been denounced by the early Christian writers, as they even were by pagan moralists like Juvenal.
Under Hant.Equar is described the character of the modern pantomimes, which word denotes not the pe.rfonners, but the pieces performed. A few additional facts are here given to complete that notice. The Christmas pantomime, or harlequinade, is, in its present shape, essentially a British entertainment, and was first introduced into this country by a dancing-master of Shrewsbury named Weaver, in 1702. One of his pan tomimes, entitled The Loves of Mars and Venus, met with great success. The arrival, in the year 1717, in London of a troupe of French pantomimists with performing dogs gave an impetus to this kind of drama, which was further developed in 1758 by the arrival of the Grimaldi family, the head of which was a posture-master and dentist. Under the auspices of this family, the art of producing pantomimes was greatly culti vated, and the entertainment much relished. Joseph Grimaldi, the son of the dentist, was clever at inventing tricks and devising machinery, and Mother Goose, and others of his harlequinades, had an extended run. At that time the wit of the clown was the great feature; but by and by, as good clowns became scarce, other adjuncts were sup plied, such as panoramas or dioramic views; and now the chief reliance of the manager is on scenic effects, large sums of money being lavished on time mice en scene. This is particularly the case as regards the transformation scene—i.e., the scene where the char acters are changed into clown, harlequin, etc.—as much as £1000 being frequently spent on this one effort. In London alone, a sum of about £40,000 is annually expended at Christmas time on pantomimes. The King of the Peacocks, a pantomime produced at the London Lyceum theater during the management of Mme. Vestris, cost upwards of £3,000. Even provincial theaters, such as those of Manchester or Edinburgh, consider it right to go to considerable expense in the production of their Christmas pantomime.