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From the dawn of the Christian era, comedy gave place to a perfect craze, first for the mime, and then for its offspring, pure pantomime. But, finally, the mimetic art as a standing entertainment of the Roman public, came to suffer neglect in favour of circuses; then, together with the circuses, it was opposed by the Churches. There were spasmodic revivals in the fourth and fifth centuries, but from the fifth century mime and pantomime practically ceased to exist in Constantinople, to which the seat of the Roman Empire had by that time been removed; and the arts both of the dancer and the mime fell upon a period of obscurity, though they went into retirement with all the reluctance of a modern “star.”

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It is a truism of history that opposition towards the amusements of a people only increases the desire for them, and that the undue pressure of a law, or of a too rigid majority, only stimulates the invention of evasions. In dramatic history there is ample proof of this.