which the rival poets had sent in. The furnisher of the chorus then collected men who could sing and dance to be trained for the chorus, chose the two or the three actors among whom the parts should be distributed, had scenes painted and dresses hired, and provided whatever else was needed for the due performance of the piece. It was a point of honour to do the whole as liberally and artistically as possible; and an ambitious man would gain popularity by introducing new stage-machinery, new effects in the music, or new inventions for making the gestures of the actors visible and their voices audible throughout the immense building. For it will seem most wonderful, if we consider the case, that any actor could make himself heard by thirty thousand people in the open air; still more that his voice, so elevated as to penetrate through all that multitude, should be able to preserve distinct the various tones of grief or joy, of submission or command. To meet this difficulty the Greeks contrived masks, which enclosed, it seems, the whole head, and were fitted with acoustic arrangements such as are unknown to us, by which the power of the human voice was wonderfully increased. In the same way, in order that the persons of the actors might not appear diminutive from the great distance at which most of the spectators saw them, they were made taller by very thick-soled boots, and broader by the judicious arrangement of their dresses; while the mask, no doubt, rendered the appearance of the head proportionate to this enlarged stature. There were, too, in the building of the wall which formed the back of the
