Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Pantomimus

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

PANTOMI'MUS (παντόμιμος). A word first used in Italy about the time of Augustus to designate a performer on the stage, corresponding with the ballet or opera dancer of the present day, who represented a part by dancing and dumb show, or, as the term implies, by all sorts of conventional signs and mimic gestures, without the aid of the voice; thus constituting a distinct class from the actor of comedy or tragedy. He wore a mask, and was dressed in a costume appropriate to the character impersonated, but studiously designed with the view of exhibiting his personal beauty and bodily development to the greatest advantage (though often indelicately scanty, according to our notions of propriety); considering that love stories and bacchanalian and mythological subjects furnished the majority of characters for the exercise of his art. Hence the scandal and corruption of morals superinduced by the ballet dancers of Rome compelled several of the emperors to banish them at various periods from Italy. (Macrob. Sat. ii. 7. Suet. Aug. 45. Nero, 16. Tac. Ann. iv. 14. xiii. 25. Plin. Paneg. xlvi. 4. Cassiodor. Var. Ep. i. 20.) The paintings of Pompeii exhibit numerous examples of this class of stage performers, from one of which the annexed illustration (Pantomimus/1.1) is copied; all more or less bearing testimony to the accuracy of the preceding account; yet proving by the originality and grace with which the groups are composed, the variety of the poses, the display of muscular power exhibited in the attitudes, and the animal beauty in respect of bodily form which distinguishes the performers, that the ancient Italians, or the Greek artistes employed by them, far excelled, in professional dexterity and gracefulness (its most essential requisite), the dancers of the operatic ballet in modern times.

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  Pantomimus/1.1