In our own day, the French have returned to the original application of dialogue, and the inventions of "Gyp," of Henri Lavedan and of others, in which a mundane anecdote is wittily and maliciously told in conversation, would probably present a close analogy to the lost mimes of the early Sicilian poets, if we could meet with them.
As chief pontiff he inquired rigorously into the character of the vestal virgins, three of whom were buried alive; he enforced the laws against adultery, mutilation, and the grosser forms of immorality, and forbade the public acting of mimes.
The epics in general show a mixture of Homeric, Ionic and Doric forms. The Bucolics, Mimes, and the " Marriage-song of Helen" (xviii.) are in Doric, with occasional forms from other dialects.
It is extremely interesting to find a similar poem in the recently discovered mimes of Herondas, the fourth of which is termed " Women making offerings to Aesculapius" (Acranirly avar,OE2aat Kai Ovaci ovaac).
Herodas (Mimes, 4) gives a description of one of his temples, and of the offerings made to him.
