The Mimes of Herondas, trans. M. S. Buck (Privately Printed for Subscribers, New York, 1921, #919/975)
7″ X 4 5/8″, 119pp, hardbound no DJ, paper boards with beige cloth spine, top edge gilt, others deckle, good condition, lightly soiled
Herodas was a Greek poet and the author of short humorous dramatic scenes in verse, written under the Alexandrian empire in the 3rd century BC. Mimes were scenes in popular life in South Italy and Sicily, written in the language of the people, vigorous with racy proverbs such as we get in other reflections of that region. The Mimes of Herodas have been known to us only since the discovery and publication of the “Kenyon”, M. S. Buck, by the British Museum in 1891 (from a parchment containing 7 legible mimes half of the 8th and a fragment of the 9th).