Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:

Mime and pantomime, popular theatrical forms since antiquity, are dramatic performances in which a story is told or a theme developed through expressive bodily or facial movement. The comic and satiric mimes of ancient Greece and Rome were popular performers whose bawdy masked presentations, alternating buffoonery with sentimentality, were accompanied by a chorus, musicians, and the speech of the mime actor himself. Although outlawed with the rise of Christianity, the tradition nevertheless survived in part among the court jesters and wandering minstrels of the Middle Ages and was drawn upon in the Masques and court ballets that developed in Europe in the 16th century. The Commedia Dell'arte, the Italian masked comedy of the 16th-18th centuries, which improvised with stockcharacters in standard situations, can be traced back to the wandering minstrels.

In France the Harlequin character from the commedia dell'arte became the white-faced figure Pierrot, played in the 19th century by the pantomime performer Jean Gaspard Deburau. Through his successors, Deburau's impact continued throughout the 19th century down tothe present, where his influence can be seen in the Bip character developed by Marcel Marceau. Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton haveinfluenced the work of Marceau and other modern performers.

As distinct from pantomime, the term mime has come to mean the 20th-century development of the art by Etienne Decroux, called the "father of modern mime," and Jacques Lecoq. Decroux studied mask exercises and physical training under Jacques Copeau at his theater school, Vieux-Colombier. Decroux's students include Marceau and the actor Jean Louis Barrault. Pantomime refers more specifically to the white-faced and illusionistic style derived from 19th-century sources.

... Why isn't it "pantomime?"

Mime and pantomime, popular theatrical forms since antiquity, are dramatic performances in which a story is told or a theme developed through expressive bodily or facial movement. The comic and satiric mimes of ancient Greece and Rome were popular performers whose bawdy masked presentations, alternating buffoonery with sentimentality, were accompanied by a chorus, musicians, and the speech of the mime actor himself. Although outlawed with the rise of Christianity, the tradition nevertheless survived in part among the court jesters and wandering minstrels of the Middle Ages and was drawn upon in the Masques and court ballets that developed in Europe in the 16th century. The Commedia Dell'arte, the Italian masked comedy of the 16th-18th centuries, which improvised with stockcharacters in standard situations, can be traced back to the wandering minstrels.

In France the Harlequin character from the commedia dell'arte became the white-faced figure Pierrot, played in the 19th century by the pantomime performer Jean Gaspard Deburau. Through his successors, Deburau's impact continued throughout the 19th century down tothe present, where his influence can be seen in the Bip character developed by Marcel Marceau. Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton haveinfluenced the work of Marceau and other modern performers.

As distinct from pantomime, the term mime has come to mean the 20th-century development of the art by Etienne Decroux, called the "father of modern mime," and Jacques Lecoq. Decroux studied mask exercises and physical training under Jacques Copeau at his theater school, Vieux-Colombier. Decroux's students include Marceau and the actor Jean Louis Barrault. Pantomime refers more specifically to the white-faced and illusionistic style derived from 19th-century sources.