I found the old gentleman very entertaining. He said a little later on:
“My friend, your profession is a thousand years old, and you may well be proud of it.”
This interested me immensely, and I asked him to tell me where I could find out some facts about its origin.
“If you will read your Roman history you will find much to enlighten you about the beginning of your work.” Then he told me that he was a professor at Harvard, and soon after he left the car.
The next day I went down to the Boston Public Library and got some Roman histories. Although I found nothing about clowns, there was a great deal about pantomime, which I have always held was the real forerunner of clowning. Pantomime dates back to the Jews and early Egyptians. The early Greek drama partook of it, and it was introduced into Rome during the reign of the Emperor Augustus. Mæcenas, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, and other great literary men of the period, enjoyed the work of the pantomimists. The early pantomimes, so I discovered, expressed love or the exploits of the gods and goddesses. At one time the Romans went mad on the subject of pantomimes. Nero was one of the most ardent patrons. When he asked Demetrius what gift he most wanted, that worthy answered:
“A pantomime, because it needs no interpreter.”.
“TO BE A GOOD CLOWN A MAN MUST BE A STUDENT AND IN EARNEST.”
The pantomimist spoke a universal language, because he talked with his hands. The Roman pantomimist worked in the great open-air theaters, and also in the homes of the rich. In the latter places he was called upon to carve the meats, which he did with many flourishes. Thus he made himself both useful and ornamental. In later years, however, I might add that the clown has lost his ornamental features. The Roman pantomime died with the decay of Roman glory, and it was not until the fifteenth century that it was revived in Italy