[1] The actors in the Atellanae not only wore masks but had the privilege of refusing to take them off if they acted badly, which was the penalty exacted from those actors in the legitimate drama who failed to satisfy their audience. Masks do not appear to have been used even in the drama until about 100 B.C.
[2] Second Philippic.
[3] Planipedes audit Fabios. Juv. viii. 190.
[4] "Or Jonson's learned sock be on." Milton here adopts the Latin synonym for comedy.
[5] The Pallium. This, of course, was not always worn.
[6] Ovid's account of the Mimus is drawn to the life, and is instructive as showing the moral food provided for the people under the paternal government of the emperors (Tr. ii. 497). As an excuse for his own free language he says, Quid si scripsissim Mimos obscaena iocantes Qui semper vetiti crimen amoris habent; In quibus assidue cultus procedit adulter, Verbaque dat stulto callida nupta viro? Nubilis haec virgo, matronaque, virque, puerque Spectat, et ex magna parte Senatus adest. Nec satis incestis temerari vocibus aures; Assuescunt oculi multa pudenda pati … Quo mimis prodest, scaena est lucrosa poetae, &c. The laxity of the modern ballet is a faint shadow of the indecency of the Mime.
[7] The passage is as follows (Ep. ii. 1, 185): Media inter carmina poscunt Aut ursum aut pugiles: his nam plebecula plaudit. Verum equitis quoque iam miravit ab aure voluptas Omnis ad incertos oculos … Captivum portator ebur, captiva Corinthus: Esseda festinant, pilenta, petorrita, naves … Rideret Democritus, et … spectaret populum ludis attentius ipsis Ut sibi pradientem mimo spectacula plura, etc. From certain remarks in Cicero we gather that things were not much better even in his day.
[8] This is what Gellius (xvii. 14,2) says.
[9] The whole is preserved, Macrob. S. ii. 7, and is well worth reading.
[10] Cic. ad Att. xii. 18.