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Actors, again, from the neglected theatres, starving histrions, to whom the stage was prohibited by the Emperor and Bishop, singers and flute-players; hungry priests and temple-servitors expelled from the closed sanctuaries; lawyers, scribes, ships' captains, artisans, though but very few merchants, for Christianity had ceased to be the creed of the poor, and the wealthy attached themselves to the faith professed by those in authority.

Actors, again, from the neglected theatres, starving histrions, to whom the stage was prohibited by the Emperor and Bishop, singers and flute-players; hungry priests and temple-servitors expelled from the closed sanctuaries; lawyers, scribes, ships' captains, artisans, though but very few merchants, for Christianity had ceased to be the creed of the poor, and the wealthy attached themselves to the faith professed by those in authority.

But a certain number were, as might be said, professional pedestrians, peddlers with their packs upon their shoulders, anxious to dispose of ribbons and trinkets to gaping rustics, easily bubbled burgesses, and to the more wary histrions and mountebanks, for whom a different scale of charges ranged. A little after noon on the day in question the wayside Inn of the Three Graces was quiet enough.

Actors, again, from the neglected theatres, starving histrions, to whom the stage was prohibited by the Emperor and Bishop, singers and flute- players; hungry priests and temple-servitors expelled from the closed sanctuaries; lawyers, scribes, ships' captains, artisans, though but very few merchants, for Christianity had ceased to be the creed of the poor, and the wealthy attached themselves to the faith professed by those in authority.

The grammarian Athenaeus, who reports these facts in his "Banquet of the Sages," profits by the occasion to deplore the taste of the Athenians, who preferred the inventions of mechanics to the culture of mind and histrions to philosophers.

Cogolludo informs us these little shrines were anciently dedicated to the god of lovers, of histrions, of dancers, and an infinity of small idols that were placed at the entrance of the villages, roads and staircases of the temples and other parts. Even the breed of African dogs seems to be the same as that of the native dogs of Yucatan.

The direction passed more and more into the hands of the laity, who employed jongleurs, histrions, and strolling vagabonds, whose acting included gross buffoonery, and whose profanity completely choked the religious growth first implanted by these miracle plays.

It is probable that the accounts of their misunderstandings are considerably exaggerated, as the rehearsal of a tragedy by this pair of histrions would be taken by the servants for a sure-enough fight. And they were always acting often beginning breakfast with a "stunt."