Pantomimus

Pantomimus, name given to a performer popular in Imperial Rome, who by movement and gesture alone represented the different characters in a short scene based on classical history or mythology which was sung in Greek by the chorus accompanied by musicians—usually flutes, pipes, cymbals, and trumpets. The pantomimus wore the costume of the tragic actor—a long cloak and a silken tunic—and a mask with no mouthpiece, changing it when necessary. As many as five masks could be used in one scene. The most famous pantomimi were Bathyllus of Alexandria, Pylades of Cilicia, and Paris, who was put to death by Nero out of professional jealousy. The art of the pantomimus was considered by St Augustine more dangerous to morals than the Roman circus, since it dealt exclusively with guilty passions and by its beauty and seductiveness had a disastrous effect on female spectators, although unlike its rival the Roman mime it was never coarse or vulgar.