As might be expected from the characters introduced, the Mimes were appropriated to a representation of the lowest follies and debaucheries of the vulgar. “Argumenta,” says Valerius Maximus, “majore ex parte, stuprorum continent actus.” That they were in a great measure occupied with the tricks played by wives on their husbands, (somewhat, probably, in the style of those related by the Italian novelists,) we learn from Ovid; who, after complaining in his _Tristia_ of having been undeservedly condemned for the freedom of his verses, asks— “Quid si scripsissem Mimos obscœna jocantes? Qui semper juncti crimen amoris habent; In quibus assidue cultus procedit adulter, Verbaque dat stulto callida nupta viro(543).” We learn from another passage of Ovid that these were by much the most popular subjects,— “Cumque fefellit amans aliquâ novitate maritum, Plauditur, et magno palma favore datur.” The same poet elsewhere calls the Mimes, “Imitantes turpia Mimos;” and Diomedes defines them to be “Sermonis cujuslibet, motûsque, sine reverentiâ, vel factorum turpium cum lasciviâ imitatio, ita ut ridiculum faciant.” These Mimes were originally represented as a sort of afterpiece, or interlude to the regular dramas, and were intended to fill up the blank which had been left by omission of the Chorus. But they subsequently came to form a separate and fashionable public amusement, which in a great measure superseded all other dramatic entertainments. Sylla (in whom the gloomy temper of the tyrant was brightened by the talents of a mimic and a wit) was so fond of Mimes, that he gave the actors of them many acres of the public land(544); and we shall soon see the high importance which Julius Cæsar attached to this sort of spectacle. It appears, at first view, curious, that the Romans—the most grave, solid, and dignified nation on earth, the _gens togata_, and the _domini rerum_—should have been so partial to the exhibition of licentious buffoonery on the stage. But, perhaps, when people have a mind to divert themselves, they choose what is most different from their ordinary temper and habits, as being most likely to amuse them. “Strangely,” says Isaac Bey, while relating his adventures in _France_, “was my poor Turkish brain puzzled, on discovering the favourite pastime of a nation reckoned the merriest in the world. It consisted in a thing called tragedies, whose only purpose is to make you cry your eyes out. Should the performance raise a single smile, the author is undone(545).”