Mr. Wright tells us, in his book on the Chester Mystery plays (which work I shall again refer to later on), that masks were used in the Mystery series of plays acted in England during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Julius Pollux is still more ample in his account of theatrical masks used in Tragedy, Satyr, and Comedy.  Niobe weeping, Medea furious, Ajax astonished, and Hercules enraged.  In Comedy, the slave, the parasite, the clown, the captain, the old woman, the harlot, the austere old man, the debauched young man, the prodigal, the prudent young woman, the matron, and the father of a family, were all constantly characterised by particular masks.

Lucian and the other writers of the Augustan era, have handed down to us sufficient information to show how Pantomime in Rome was so highly thought of.  Cassiodorous, speaking of them, says:—­“Men whose eloquent hands had a tongue, as it were, on the tip of each finger—­men who spoke while they were silent, and knew how to make a recital without opening their mouths—­men, in short, whom Polyhymnia had formed in order to show that there was no necessity for articulation in order to convey our thoughts.”  Demetrius, a cynic philosopher, laughed at the Romans for permitting so strange an entertainment; but having been, with much difficulty, prevailed upon to be present at the representation of one of them, he was confounded with wonder.  The story represented was that of Mars and Venus, the whole performed by a single actor, who described the fable in dumb show.  At length the philosopher, wrought up to the highest pitch of admiration, exclaimed, “That the actor had no occasion for a tongue, he spoke so well with his hands.”

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.