y were silenced, but on account of
the action of the theater upon Christian mores. Chrysostom denounced the
theater on account of the manners of actresses in the _mimus_, on
account of false hair, paint, exposed bodies, uncovered heads, melodies,
gross language, gestures, strife, representations of adultery and other
sex vice, and because it was the school of intrigue and seduction. This
became the attitude of the church towards the theater.[2050]

+638. Popular phantasms.+ Although the crowd likes to see realistic
representations of life, and also likes to see in the drama that
ridicule of the cultured classes which seems like a victory over them,
yet it also loves fantastic scenes, and acts in which the limitations of
reality are left behind and imaginary luck and joy are represented,--such
as magical transformations, fairy tales, and realms of bliss. Extremes
of realism and phantasm meet in the folk drama. After the fifth century
the sense of societal decline and loss was strong in the popular mind.
It was felt that the world was failing. There was a contempt for
life.[2051] Pagan society was ennuye. "It wanted to laugh. It wanted
games and dances to make gay the last hours which separated it from its
fall."[2052] Salvianus says that the Roman world died laughing.[2053]

+639. Effects of vicious amusements.+ Vicious amusements provoke all
kinds of vicious passions. Excitement, sensuality, frivolity, and
meanness go together. Lecky[2054] points out the contrast between the
conduct of the Romans of the time of Marius, who refused to plunder the
houses of the opposing faction when Marius threw them open, and that of
the Romans of the time of Vespasian, who enjoyed the fun and plunder of
his war with Vitellius in the streets of Rome. "The moral condition of
the empire is, indeed, in some respects one of the most appalling
pictures on record."

+640. Gladiatorial games.+ The mores of the Romans of the third century
B.C. (sec. 624) seized upon the gladiatorial contests as something
suited to the genius of the Roman people, and, as the Romans gained
wealth and power by conquest and plunder, with numerous war captives,
they developed the sport of the arena to a very high point. Then the
sport reacted on the mores and made them more cruel, licentious, and
cowardly. It required more and more extravagant inventions to produce
the former degree of pleasure. The Romans were fond of all torture and
showed great invention in conn