Whether the mimes of Sophron were publicly represented or not, is a question not easily answered. It would however be singular, if a poetical work had been intended only for reading, in an age when everything was written, not for the public eye, but for the public ear. It is certainly more probable that these mimes were originally part of the amusements of certain festivals, as was the case with the Spartan deicelictæ, which they resembled more than any other variety of the drama.(1681) Indeed it can be easily conceived, that farces of this description, acted by persons who had a quick perception of the eccentricities and peculiarities of mankind, and a talent for mimicry, should have existed among the Dorians of Sicily, as well as of Laconia, particularly as the former were celebrated for their imitative skill.(1682) Even Agathocles the tyrant excited the laughter, not merely of his guests and companions, but of whole assemblies of the people, by ridiculing certain known characters, in the manner of an _ethologus_, or merry andrew.(1683) Accordingly the mimes of Sophron, by which these rude attempts were improved, and raised to a regular species of the drama, were distinguished by their faithful imitation of manners, even of the vulgar, and the solecisms and rude dialect of the common people were copied with great exactness;(1684) whence the numerous sayings and proverbs which were introduced.(1685) On the other hand, he was most skilful in seizing the more delicate shades and turns of feeling, and in preserving the unity and consistency of his characters, without which he would never have been so much admired by Plato, or the study of his works have been so serviceable in the composition of the Socratic dialogues, as we know on good authority to have been the case;(1686) and hence we should compare the scenery of Plato’s dialogues with the poems of Theocritus, which we know to be imitated from the female mimes of Sophron, in order to obtain a proper idea of those master-pieces. His talent for description must however have been supported and directed by moral considerations; which probably preponderated rather in the serious (μῖμοι σπουδαῖοι), and were less prominent in the common mimes (μῖμοι γέλοιοι). The tribe of Aretalogi and Ethologi, who originally spoke much of virtue and morality, but gradually sank into mere buffoons, appears to have come from Sicily, and was, perhaps through several intermediate links, connected with Sophron.(1687)