For the great masses, the theater can never have the same vulgar appeal possessed by its two rivals; on the other hand some men of intelligence and rank do not hesitate to dismiss the latter as “for the mob” and affect a great contempt for charioteers and “Thracians.” Even the most sophisticated Romans, however, never are true Athenians. Tragedies dealing with profound human problems, such as won trophies for Æschylus and Sophocles, would fall absolutely flat beside the Tiber.[205] There is even a growing distaste for the better kind of comedies. What delights the Roman audience in the theater most is some kind of elaborate horseplay. [Illustration: THEATER AT POMPEII.] The stage as a rule is long and narrow, some 120 by 24 feet, and is raised only about three feet above the orchestra where a chorus can dance and parade.[206] The rear of the stage has a fixed background painted to represent the front of a palace; it is pierced by three doors, and is adorned with columns and niches for the inevitable statues of the Muses, of Apollo, and of like deities. A large curtain, not dropped from above but rolled up from the bottom, can uncover the most amazing spectacles upon this stage. Long ago Horace complained of how a Roman audience would depart discontented if the play did not require in its middle “either a bear or a boxing match.” For four hours and more the curtain is “kept down” while “squadrons of horse and bodies of foot are seen flying, while luckless kings with hands tied behind their backs and chariots of all kinds and even ships go hurrying along, and while spoils of ivory and Corinthian brass are borne by in state.” There are, however, two kinds of performances more certain to crowd the theater than these very cheap spectacular plays--they are the mimes and pantomimes. =322. The Mimes: Character Plays.=--The mimes are a native Latin product, although they have a certain kinship with the Greek “New Comedy.” They are character plays of everyday life without the actors’ masks and buskins; and they are always coarse, vulgar, and in the nature of roaring farces. The language is often exceedingly gross and the situations frequently match the language. The actors wear a kind of harlequin costume, extremely grotesque, and along with the chief _mimus_, who takes the leading part, there is usually a second actor who draws thunderous applause from the upper benches. He is the _strepidus_ or _parasitus_, a kind of pantaloon, a clown with puffed cheeks and shaven head, who has to stand a great amount of boisterous slapping from the chief actor.