The Roman pantomime differed somewhat from the mime—it was a ballet of action performed by a single dancer. It was first introduced in its complete form in the reign of Augustus: and Suidas,[461] misquoting a passage from Zosimus,[462] groundlessly attributes the invention to the emperor himself. As the mime bore some resemblance to the Atellan farces, so the pantomime resembled the histrionic performances introduced by Livius Andronicus. In both, the person who recited the words (_canticum_[463]) was different from him who represented the characters. In the pantomime, the _canticum_ was sung by a chorus arrayed at the back of the stage. Until the times of the later emperors, when vice was paraded with unblushing effrontery, women never acted in pantomime; but the exhibition itself was sensual and licentious in its character,[464] and the actors of it were deservedly deemed infamous, and forbidden by Tiberius to hold any intercourse with Romans of equestrian or senatorial dignity.[465] Nero, however, outraged public decency by himself appearing in pantomime.[466] Fortunate was it for the dignity of Rome that the face of the emperor was concealed behind a mask which, unlike the performers in the mimes, the pantomimic actors always wore. The players not only exhibited the human figure in the most graceful attitudes, but represented every passion and emotion with such truth, that the spectators could without difficulty understand the story. Sometimes the scenes represented were founded upon the Greek tragic drama; but for its purifying effect was substituted the awakening of licentious passions. These were the exhibitions which threw such discredit on the stage—which called forth the well-deserved attacks of the early Christian fathers, and caused them to declare that whoever attended them was unworthy of the name of Christians. Had the drama not been so abused, had it retained its original purity, and carried out the object attributed to it by Aristotle, they would have seen in it not a nursery of vice, but a school of virtue—not only an innocent amusement, but a powerful engine to form the taste, to improve the morals, and to purify the feelings of a people. The principal actors of pantomime in the reign of Augustus were Bathyllus, Hylas, and Pylades. In the reign of Nero the art was practised by Latinus,[467] and Paris, who taught the emperor to dance, and subsequently was put to death by Nero when he became his rival for popular applause.[468] But those who attained the highest degree of popularity were another Latinus, and another Paris, who flourished in the reign of Domitian. Both have been immortalized in the epigrams of Martial.[469] To the former, Martial attributes the power to fascinate such stern and rigid moralists as resembled Cato, the Curii, and Fabricii. The epitaph concludes with these lines:— Vos me laurigeri parasitum dicite Phœbi, Roma sui famulum dum sciat esse Jovis.