The age of Laberius, P. Syrus, and Matius, was the most brilliant epoch in the history of the actors of Mimes. After that period, they relapsed into a race of impudent buffoons; and, in the reign of Augustus, were classed, by Horace, with mountebanks and mendicants(563). Pantomimic actors, who did not employ their voice, but represented everything by gesticulation and dancing, became, under Augustus, the idols of the multitude, the minions of the great, and the favourites of the fair. The _Mimi_ were then but little patronized on the stage, but were still admitted into convivial parties, and even the court of the Emperors, to entertain the guests(564), like the Histrions, Jongleurs, or privileged fools, of the middle ages; and they were also employed at funerals, to mimic the manners of the deceased. Thus, the Archimimus, who represented the character of the avaricious Vespasian, at the splendid celebration of his obsequies, inquired what would be the cost of all this posthumous parade; and on being told that it would amount to ten millions of sesterces, he replied, that if they would give him a hundred thousand, they might throw his body into the river(565). The audacity, however, of the Mimes was carried still farther, as they satirized and insulted the most ferocious Emperors during their lives, and in their own presence. An actor, in one of these pieces which was performed during the reign of Nero, while repeating the words “_Vale pater, vale mater_,” signified by his gestures the two modes of drowning and poisoning, in which that sanguinary fiend had attempted to destroy both his parents(566). The _Mimi_ currently bestowed on Commodus the most opprobrious appellation(567). One of their number, who performed before the enormous Maximin, reminded the audience, that he who was too strong for an individual, might be massacred by a multitude, and that thus the elephant, lion, and tiger, are slain. The tyrant perceived the sensation excited in the Theatre, but the suggestion was veiled in a language unknown to that barbarous and gigantic Thracian(568).