mors and their applause, as often as they were
entertained with the hunting of wild beasts, and the various modes of
theatrical representation. These representations in modern capitals
may deserve to be considered as a pure and elegant school of taste,
and perhaps of virtue. But the Tragic and Comic Muse of the Romans,
who seldom aspired beyond the imitation of Attic genius, [62] had been
almost totally silent since the fall of the republic; [63] and their
place was unworthily occupied by licentious farce, effeminate music, and
splendid pageantry. The pantomimes, [64] who maintained their reputation
from the age of Augustus to the sixth century, expressed, without the
use of words, the various fables of the gods and heroes of antiquity;
and the perfection of their art, which sometimes disarmed the gravity of
the philosopher, always excited the applause and wonder of the people.
The vast and magnificent theatres of Rome were filled by three thousand
female dancers, and by three thousand singers, with the masters of the
respective choruses. Such was the popular favor which they enjoyed,
that, in a time of scarcity, when all strangers were banished from the
city, the merit of contributing to the public pleasures exempted them
from a law, which was strictly executed against the professors of the
liberal arts. [65]

[Footnote 61: Juvenal. Satir. xi. 191, &c. The expressions of the
historian Ammianus are not less strong and animated than those of the
satirist and both the one and the other painted from the life. The
numbers which the great Circus was capable of receiving are taken from
the original Notitioe of the city. The differences between them prove
that they did not transcribe each other; but the same may appear
incredible, though the country on these occasions flocked to the city.]

[Footnote 62: Sometimes indeed they composed original pieces.

Vestigia Graeca
Ausi deserere et celeb rare domestica facta.

Horat. Epistol. ad Pisones, 285, and the learned, though perplexed note
of Dacier, who might have allowed the name of tragedies to the Brutus
and the Decius of Pacuvius, or to the Cato of Maternus. The Octavia,
ascribed to one of the Senecas, still remains a very unfavorable
specimen of Roman tragedy.]

[Footnote 63: In the time of Quintilian and Pliny, a tragic poet was
reduced to the imperfect method of hiring a great room, and reading his
play to the company, whom he invited for that purpose. (See Di