The subjects chosen for the Roman Pantomimes, like those of the Grecian mysteries, from which they doubtless were borrowed, were of a Mythological description, and they were of such a nature that the audience could follow them easily, even if they were not already previously acquainted with them.  Between the Roman Pantomime, and the Western ballet d’action, there is hardly any difference.  The Romans always liked to see their stages well peopled; and to help in the action of their Pantomimes, a chorus accompanied with music, formed part of the entertainment.  The Mimis and Mimas, like the ballet of the present day, provided the dances in addition to their Pantomimic Art of posing and posturing.

Mr. Isaac Disraeli, in his work, “Curiosities of Literature,” edited by the late Earl of Beaconsfield, thus distinguishes between the Mimi and the Pantomimi of the Ancients.  The Mimi were an impudent race of buffoons who excelled in mimicry, and like our domestic fools, were admitted into convivial parties to entertain the guests.  Their powers enabled them to perform a more extraordinary office; for they appear to have been introduced into funerals to mimic the person, and even the language of the deceased.  Suetonius describes an archimimus accompanying the funeral of Vespasian.  This archimimus performed his part admirably, not only representing the person, but imitating, according to custom, ut est mos, the manners and language of the living Emperor.  He contrived a happy stroke at the prevailing foible of Vespasian, when he enquired the cost of all this funeral pomp—­“Ten million of sesterces!” On this he observed that if they would give him but a hundred thousand they might throw his body into the Tiber.

The Pantomimi were quite of a different class.  They were tragic actors, and usually mute; they combined the arts of gesture, music, and dances of the most impressive character.  Their silent language has often drawn tears by the pathetic emotions they excited; “Their very nod speaks, their hands talk, and their fingers have a voice,” says one of their admirers.

These Pantomimists seem to have been held in great honour.  The tragic and the comic masks were among the ornaments of the sepulchral monuments of an Archmime and a Pantomimi.  Montfaucon conjectures that they formed a select fraternity.

The parti-coloured hero (Harlequin), with every part of his dress, has been drawn out of the greatest wardrobe of antiquity; he was a Roman Mime.  Harlequin is described with his shaven head (rasis capitibus); his sooty face (fuligine faciem abducti); his flat unshod feet, (planipedes), and his patched coat of many colours, (Mimi centunculo).  Even Pulcinello, whom we familiarly call “Punch,” may receive, like other personages of no great importance, all his dignity from antiquity; one of his Roman ancestors having appeared to an antiquary’s visionary eye in a bronze statue; more than one erudite dissertation authenticates the family likeness; the nose long, prominent and hooked; the staring goggle eyes; the hump at his back, and at his breast; in a word, all the character which so strongly marks the Punch race, as distinctly as whole dynasties have been featured by the Austrian lip and the Bourbon nose.