The recitation was also accounted of high importance, so that the player who articulated took prodigious pains to improve his voice, and an almost whimsical care to preserve it[625]. Nearly a third part of Dubos’ once celebrated work on Poetry and Painting, is occupied with the theatric declamation of the Roman actors. The art of framing the declamation of dramatic pieces was, he informs us, the object of a particular study, and indeed profession, at Rome. It was composed and signified in notes, placed over each verse of the play, to direct the tones and inflection of voice which were to be observed in recitation. There were a certain number of accents in the [pg 349]Latin language, and the composer of a declamation marked each syllable requiring to be accented, the grave or the acute accent which properly belonged to it, while on the remaining syllables, he noted, by means of conventional marks, a tone conformable to the tenor of the discourse. The declamation was thus not a musical song, but a recitation subject to the direction of a noted melody. Tragic declamation was graver and more harmonious than comic, but even the comic was more musical and varied than the pronunciation used in ordinary conversation[626]. This system, it might be supposed, would have deprived the actors of much natural fire and enthusiasm, from the constraint to which they were thus subjected; but the whole dramatic system of the ancients was more artificial than ours, and something determinate and previously arranged, as to quantities and pauses, was perhaps essential to enable the gesticulating actor to move in proper concert with the reciter. The whole system, however, of noted declamation, is denied by Duclos and Racine, who think it impossible that accentuated tones of passion could be devised or employed[627].
Both the actor who declaimed, and he who gesticulated, wore masks; and, before concluding the subject of the Roman theatre, it may not be improper to say a few words concerning this singular dramatic contrivance, as also concerning the attire of the performers.
From the opportunity which they so readily afforded, of personally satirizing individuals, by representing a caricatured resemblance of their features, masks were first used in the old Greek comedy, which assumed the liberty of characterizing living citizens of Athens. It is most probable, however, that the hint of dramatic masks was given to the Romans by the Etruscans[628]. That they were employed by the histrions of that latter nation, can admit of no doubt. The actors represented on the Etruscan vases are all masked, and have caps on their heads[629]. We also know, that in some of the satirical exhibitions of the ancient Italians, they wore masks made of wood:
“Nec non Ausonii, Trojâ gens missa, coloni
Versibus incomptis ludunt, risuque soluto
Oraque corticibus sumunt horrenda cavatis[630].”
Originally, and in the time of L. Andronicus, the actors on the Roman stage used only caps or beavers[631], and their faces were daubed and disguised with the lees of wine, as at the commencement of the dramatic art in Greece. The increased size, however, of the theatres, and consequent distance of the spectators from the stage, at length compelled the Roman players to borrow from art the expression of those passions which could no longer be distinguished on the living countenance of the actor.
Most of the Roman masks covered not merely the face, but the greater part of the head[632], so that the beard and hair were delineated, as well as the features. This indeed is implied in one of the fables of Phædrus, where a fox, after having examined a tragic mask, which he found lying in his way, exclaims, “What a vast shape without brains[633]!”—An observation obviously absurd, if applied to a mere vizard for the face, which was not made, and could not have been expected, to contain any brains. Addison, in his Travels in Italy, mentions, that, in that country, he had seen statues of actors, with the larva or mask. One of these was not merely a vizard for the face; it had false hair, and came over the whole head like an helmet. He also mentions, however, that he has seen figures of Thalia, sometimes with an entire head-piece in her hand, and a friz running round the edges of the face; but at others, with a mask merely for the countenance, like the modern vizards of a masquerade.
The masks of the regular theatre were made of chalk, or pipe-clay, or terra cotta. A few were of metal, but these were chiefly the masks of the Mimes. The chalk or clay masks were so transparent and artfully prepared, that the play of the muscles could be seen through them; and it appears that an opening was frequently left for the eyes, since Cicero informs us expressly, that in parts of high pathos or indignation, the actor’s eyes were often observed to sparkle under the vizard[634]. From a vast collection of Roman masks engraved in the work of Ficoroni, De Larvis Scenicis, it appears that most of them represented features considerably distorted, and enlarged beyond the natural proportions. A wide and gaping mouth is one of their chief characteristics. The mask being in a great measure contrived to prevent the dispersion of the [pg 351]voice, the mouth was so formed, and was so incrusted with metal, as to have somewhat the effect of a speaking-trumpet—hence the Romans gave the name of persona to masks, because they rendered the articulation of those who wore them more distinct and sonorous[635]. There are, however, a few figures in the work of Ficoroni, carrying in their hands masks which are not unnaturally distorted, and which have, in several instances, a resemblance to the actor who holds them. M. Boindin, on the authority of a passage in Lucian’s Dialogue on Dancing, thinks that these less hideous masks were employed by dancers, or pantomimic actors, who, as they did not speak, had no occasion for the distended mouth[636].
Roscius, who had some defect in his eyes, is said to have been the first actor who used the Greek mask[637]: but it was not invariably worn even by him, as appears from a passage of Cicero.—“All,” says that author, “depends upon the face, and all the power of the face is centred in the eyes. Of this our old men are the best judges, for they were not lavish of their applause even to Roscius in a mask[638].”