or invert everything in ordinary life. The _kordax_ was an
ancient dance of the old comedy, with indecent gestures, in which the
human figure was caricatured according to all the deformations which it
underwent by vice or sensuality. All the effects of gluttony and Bacchic
excess were caricatured in the figure of Silenus. The old woman fond of
wine lost all modesty under the influence of wine.[2027] The leaders of
the choruses, in a later time at Athens, offered reminders of primitive
barbarism and of the immolation of human beings, and a representation of
savage nudity, but they presented no image which was ridiculous or base.
Tragedy had a long struggle to become separate from lyric forms, but
AEschylus at last accomplished the separation. This was really the
separation of the high literary drama from the popular _mimus_. After
ten centuries of glory in Greece tragedy was lost again under the lyric
form.[2028] The popular drama, however, lasted on until to-day, and it
has never changed its characteristic elements.

+630. The _mimus_.+ The essence of the _mimus_ is in pantomime as the
name denotes. It imitates facts of life and behavior and is, therefore,
essentially realistic. It may well be derived from the mimetic dances of
nature peoples, in which beasts, warriors, and lovers are imitated, with
jest and satirical exaggeration of characteristic traits. In the folk
drama in its simplest forms nothing has ever been written. The actor,
assumed a role and improvised all which he had to say in trying to act
it out. His responsibility for the role was far greater than that of an
actor in a culture drama. The actor, by repeating a role, produced a
representation of it which was personal to himself and which he
perfected. The most interesting and marked characters became fixed. A
large number of them are now established in literature and have become
known all over the world. The latest instance of such a type is,
perhaps, Lord Dundreary. The word _mimus_ appears in Greece in the fifth
century B.C. The _mimus_ was a picture of life or, more exactly, an
unwritten parody of life. It was divided into grades and the actors into
castes. Women had previously appeared as jugglers and mountebanks. They
now appeared amongst the actors of the popular drama. This made the
exhibitions questionable according to Greek standards. The exhibitions
were given by wandering companies. While actors of the culture drama
always wore masks, those o