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It may be that it was here, after all, that Quintus Laberius fell, and that here he was buried so that the ancient earthwork known as Julaber's Grave, though certainly far older than Caesar, was in fact used as the tomb of the hero whose immortality Caesar insured by naming him in his Commentaries. Who knows?
On the other hand, he took his revenge for the prologue and other allusions by bestowing the prize on Syrus, the slave, and afterward the freedman and scholar of Laberius in the mimetic art. Of the Mimes of Syrus we have still extant a number of sentences, which, in matter and elegant conciseness of expression, are deserving of a place by the side of Menander's.
XIII. LABERIUS HIERA was bought by his master out of a slave-dealer's cage, and obtained his freedom on account of his devotion to learning. It is reported that his disinterestedness was such, that he gave gratuitous instruction to the children of those who were proscribed in the time of Sylla.
Laberius replied, alluding to Cicero's lukewarmness as a political partisan: "I am astonished that you should be crowded, as you generally sit on two stools." Another writer and actor of mimes was Publius Syrus, originally a Syrian slave. Tradition has recorded a bon mot of his which is as witty as it is severe.
Caesar awarded the prize to Syrus, saying to Laberius in an impromptu verse of polite condescension, "Favente tibime victus, Laberi, es a Syro." From this time the old knight surrendered the stage to his younger and more polished rival. Syrus vas a native of Antioch, and remarkable from his childhood for the beauty of his person and his sparkling wit, to which he owed his freedom.
The two persons who are specially taken to task, and most harshly treated, are Demetrius Fannius, 'play-dresser and plagiarius, and RUFUS LABERIUS CRISPINUS, 'poetaster and plagiarius. In 'Satiromastix, Demetrius clearly comes out as Dekker.
The latter when dictator, by an imperial request, compelled Laberius, a Roman knight, to appear publicly in his own Mimes, although the scenic employment was branded with the loss of civil rights. Laberius complained of this in a prologue, which is still extant, and in which the painful feeling of annihilated self-respect is nobly and affectingly expressed.
That day, Q. Laberius Durus, a tribune of the soldiers, was slain. The enemy, since more cohorts were sent against them, were repulsed. But the system of cavalry engagement is wont to produce equal danger, and indeed the same, both to those who retreat and those who pursue.
When several actors took part in a piece, each was said mimum agere, though this phrase originally applied only to the single actor. Laberius appears to have been a more careful writer. Syrus was not a literary man, but an improvisator and moralist. Being little known, they are worth quoting as a popular denunciation of luxury
We may form a pretty accurate idea of the quality of these productions from the fact that Quintus Cicero, in order homoeopathically to beguile the weariness of winter quarters in Gaul, composed four tragedies in sixteen days. The Mime Laberius
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