After a time, when mimes became established as popular favourites, the dialogue or written part of the entertainment occupied a more prominent position, and was written in verse, like that of tragedy or comedy. In the dictatorship of Julius Cæsar, a Roman knight, named Decius Laberius, became eminent for his mimes. Respecting his merits, we have few opportunities of forming a judgment, as the fragments of his writings[447] are but few and short; but Horace[448] speaks of them in unfavourable language, and finds fault with their carelessness and want of regular plan. He was born about B. C. 107,[449] and died B. C. 45, at Puteoli, (Pozzuoli.) The profession of an actor of mimes was infamous; but Laberius was a writer, not an actor. It happened, however, that P. Syrus, who had been first the slave, then the freedman and pupil of Laberius, and lastly a professional actor, challenged all his brethren to a trial of improvisatorial skill. Cæsar entreated Laberius to enter the lists, and offered him five hundred sestertia (about 4,000_l._) Laberius did not submit to the degradation for the sake of the money, but he was afraid to refuse. The only method of retaliation in his power was sarcasm. His part was that of a slave, and when his master scourged him, he exclaimed, “Porro, Quirites, libertatem perdimus!” His words were received with a round of applause, and the audience fixed their eyes on Cæsar. On another occasion his attack on the Dictator was almost threatening:— Necesse est multos timeat quem multi timent. He appears to have been always quick and ready in repartee. When, on being vanquished by his adversary Syrus, the Dictator said to him with a sneer— Favente tibi me victus es Laberi a Syro, He replied with the following sad but true reflections:— Non possunt primi esse omnes omni in tempore, Summum ad gradum cum claritatis veneris Consistes ægre; et quum descendas decides; Cecidi ego, cadet qui sequitur, laus est publica. Cæsar, however, restored to him the rank and equestrian privileges of which his act had deprived him; but still he could not recover the respect of his countrymen. As he passed the orchestra in his way to the stalls of the knights, Cicero cried out, “If we were not so crowded, I would make room for you here.” Laberius replied, alluding to Cicero’s lukewarmness as a political partisan, “I am astonished that you should be crowded, as you generally sit on two stools.” The calm and feeling rebuke with which, in the prologue to his mime, he remonstrated against the tyranny of Cæsar, is singularly spirited and beautiful:—