Esopus and Roscius had been, from their excellence in declamation, the delight and admiration of Rome. But on their leaving no successors to their degree of merit; the taste for dramatic poetry which was no longer supported by actors equal to them, began to decline; and the theatrical dances under such great masters as Pilades and Bathillus, either by their novelty, or by their merit, or by both, made the Romans the less feel their loss of those incomparable actors. The gestual language took place of that which was declaimed; and produced regular pieces acted in the three kinds of tragedy, comedy, and farce or grotesque. The spectators grew pleased with such an exercise of their understanding. Steps, motions, attitudes, figures, positions, now were substituted to speech; and there resulted from them an expression so natural, images so resembling, a pathos so moving, or a pleasantry so agreeable, that people imagined they heard the actions they saw. The gestures alone supplied the place of the sweetness of the voice, of the energy of speech, and of the charms of poetry.[*] [Footnote *: Hanc partem Musicæ disciplinæ Majores mutam nominârunt, quæ ore clauso loquitur, et quibusdam gesticulationibus facit intelligi, quod vix narrante lingua, aut scripturæ textu possit agnosci. _Cassiod_, var. 1. 20. Loquacissimas manus, linguosos digitos, silentium clamosum, expositionem tacitam. _Idem._] This kind of entertainment, so new, though formed upon a ground-work already known, planned and executed by genius, and adopted with a passionate fondness by the Romans, was called the _Italic dance_; and in the transports of pleasures it caused them, they gave to the actors of it, the title of _Pantomimes_. This was no more than a lively, and not at all exagerated expression, of the truth of their action, which was one continual picture to the eyes of the spectators. Their motion, their feet, their hands, their arms, were but so many different parts of the picture; none of them were to remain idle; but all, with propriety, were to concur to the formation of that assemblage, from which result the harmony, and, with pardon for the expression, the happy _all-together_ of the composition and performance. A dancer learned from his very name of _pantomime_, that he could be in no esteem in Rome, but so far as he should be _all the actor_. And, in fact, this art was carried to a point of perfection hard to believe; but for such a number of concurrent and authentic testimonies. It appears also clearly from history, that this art, in its origin, (so favored by an arbitrary prince, and who also made some use of it, towards establishing his despotism, nay even primordially introduced by Bathillus, a slave) could no longer preserve its great excellence, than the spirit of liberty was not wholly worn out in the Roman breasts; and, like its other sister arts, gradually decayed and sunk under the subsequent emperors.