In earlier periods, as has been already mentioned, the writer was also the chief representer of the Mime. Laberius, however, was not originally an actor, but a Roman knight of respectable family and character, who occasionally amused himself with the composition of these farcical productions. He was at length requested by Julius Cæsar to appear on the stage after he had reached the age of sixty, and act the Mimes, which he had sketched or written[546]. Aware that the entreaties of a perpetual dictator are nearly equivalent to commands, he reluctantly complied; but in the prologue to the first piece which he acted, he complained bitterly to the audience of the degradation to which he had been subjected—
“Ego, bis trecenis annis actis, sine notâ,
Eques Romanus lare egressus meo,
Domum revertar Mimus. Nimirum hoc die
Uno plus vixi mihi, quàm vivendum fuit.
Fortuna, immoderata in bono æque atque in malo,
Si tibi erat libitum, literarum laudibus
Floris cacumen nostræ famæ frangere,
Cur cum vigebam membris præ viridantibus,
Satisfacere populo, et tali cum poteram viro,