GREEK PLAYS IX GENERAL. 249 {^^ersona a personando^) ; hence also the strong expressions (/3o/x- ^wv, TrepL/SofilScov) used by the grammarians in speaking of the voice of the tragic actor. As the holes for the ejes must have been opposite to those of the actor, the mouth would fall below his chin, and some contrivance must have been adopted, after the manner of a speaking-trumpet, to produce this striking effect. The 'persona muta^ or dumb actor, was furnished with a mask in which the lips were closed, as in the accompanying illustra- tion from a painting at Pompeii. Fig. lo. The greatest possible care was bestowed on the fabrication of masks ; and the manufactm-er of stage costume got his name from this part of the actor's equipment^ It is not certainly known of what material the mask was composed. The o^ko^ in the Cyrenaic pictm*e seems, in the case of all the three actors, to be a metal plate, and it is not improbable that this connexion of the mask and wig, on which they both depended, was of some stiff and solid sub- stance. Botticher has supposed^, on the sti*ength of a passage in Lucretius^, that the masks were made of clay ; but a mask of terra- cotta would have been much too heavy, and it is more reasonable to infer that the poet refers to the coating of chalk with which the 1 Gabius Bassus, apud Aul. Gell. x. 7. Earth derives the word from irepl cQifia, Voss from Trpbaonrov, Doderlein from irapaaalvw, Mr Talbot from Persephone, and an English theologian from irepL^u^viov I 2 Pollux, IV, 115: teal (TKevrj pLev i] tCjv vttokpitQv (Tto'i] (i] d' avrrj kuI awixarLOi' e<aKelTo), (TKevoiroibs bk 6 wpoauTroTroibi. 3 Fanemaske, p. i^.
- IV. 296 sqq. :
Ut si quis, prius arida quam sit Cretea persona, adlidat piljeve trabive, Atque ea continuo rectam si fronte figuram Servet, et elisam retro sese exprimat ipsa, Fiet ita, ante oculos fuerit qui dexter, ut idem Xunc sit laevus, et e laevo sit mutua dexter. It is quite clear from this that the mask was made of some substance fitted by maceration for receiving an impression and capable of being turned inside out, which would hardly be possible with a clay mould.
