The Mīmi were the most indigenous to the Roman mind, and have left their traces in the modern buffoonery of Pulcinello and Harlequin. It is believed that the Romans owed their first idea of dramatic composition to the Etrurians, and the effusions of a sportive humor to the Oscians; but all matured productions, of a higher order, came from the Greeks. Curtius, sacrificing every personal inclination to an absorbing love of country, was a truer exemplification of their national spirit, than any thing they achieved in elegant letters or art. They always betrayed that their first founder was not suckled at the breast of gentle humanity, but of a ferocious beast. Schlegel has well said of them, "They were the tragedians of the history of the world, who exhibited many a deep tragedy of kings led in chains, and pining in dungeons; they were the iron necessity of other nations; universal destroyers for the sake of rearing at last from the ruins, the mausoleum of their own dignity and freedom, in the midst of an obsequious world, reduced to one dull uniformity." The style in which the Roman theatres were built, and the means resorted to for the purpose of superficial excitement, indicate that whatever dramatic taste the people may have once possessed, it had come to be greatly decayed. The edifice erected by Pompey was so huge that forty thousand spectators could be seated at once, and must have depended upon something else than the human voice to instruct or please. The relation which Pliny gives of the architectural decoration of the stage erected by Scaurus seems incredible. When magnificence could be carried no further, they endeavored to surprise by mechanical inventions; two theatres, placed on pivots, back to back, were so made that they could be wheeled round and form one vast amphitheatre, thus sinking legitimate tragedy into the lowest clap-trap of melo-dramatic show.