The different characters who chiefly appeared on the Roman stage—the father, the lover, the parasite, the pander, and the courtezan, were distinguished by their appropriate masks. A particular physiognomy was considered as so essential to each character, that it was thought, that without a proper mask, a complete knowledge of the personage could not be communicated. “In tragedies,” says Quintilian, “Niobe appears with a sorrowful countenance—and Medea announces her character by the fierce expression of her physiognomy—stern courage is painted on the mask of Hercules, while that of Ajax proclaims his transport and phrensy. In comedies, the masks of slaves, pimps, and parasites—peasants, soldiers, old women, courtezans, and female slaves, have each their particular character[639].” Julius Pollux, in his Onomasticon, has given a minute description of the mask appropriate to every dramatic character[640]. His work, however, was written [pg 352]in the reign of the Emperor Commodus, and his observations are chiefly formed on the practice of the Greek theatre, so that there may have been some difference between the various masks he describes, and those of the Roman stage, towards the end of the republic. The matron, virgin, and courtezan, he informs us, were particularly distinguished from each other by the manner in which their hair was arranged and braided. The mask of the parasite had brown and curled hair: That of the braggart captain had black hair, and a swarthy complexion[641]; and it farther appears from the engravings of masks in Ficoroni, that he had a distended or inflated countenance. The masks, likewise, distinguished the severe from the indulgent father—the Micio from the Demea—and the sober youth from the debauched rake[642]. If, in the course of the comedy, the father was to be sometimes pleased, but sometimes incensed, one of the brows of his vizard was knit, and the other smooth; and the actor was always careful, during the course of the representation, to turn to the spectators, along with the change of passion, the profile which expressed the feeling predominant at the time[643]. Julius Pollux has also described the dresses suited to each character: The youth was clad in purple, the parasite in black, slaves in white, the pander in party-coloured garments, and the courtezan in flowing yellow robes[644].

It would introduce too long discussion, were I to enter on the much-agitated question concerning the advantages and disadvantages of masks in theatric representations. The latter are almost too apparent to be enlarged on or recapitulated. It is obvious to remark, that though masks might do very well for a Satyr and Cyclops, who have no resemblance to human features, they are totally unsuitable for a flatterer, a miser, or the like characters, which abound in our own species, in whom the expression of countenance is more agreeable even than the action, and forms a considerable part of the histrionic art. Could we suppose that a vizard represented ever so naturally the general humour of a character, it can never be assimilated with the variety of passions incident to each person, in the whole course of a play. The grimace may be proper on some occasions, but it is too fixed and steady to agree with all. In consequence, however, of the great size of the ancient theatres, there was not so much lost by the concealment of the living [pg 353]countenance, as we are apt at first to suppose. It was impossible that those alterations of visage, which are hidden by a mask, could have been distinctly perceived by one-tenth of the 40,000 spectators of a Roman play. The feelings portrayed in the ancient drama were neither so tender nor versatile as those in modern plays, and the actors did not require the same flexibility of features—there were fewer flashes of joy in sorrow, fewer gleams of benignity in hatred. Hercules, the Satyrs, the Cyclops, and other characters of superhuman strength or deformity, were more frequently introduced on the ancient than the modern stage, and, by aid of the mask, were more easily invested with their appropriate force or ugliness. By means, too, of these masks, the dramatists introduced foreign nations on the stage with their own peculiar physiognomy, and among others, the Rufi persona Batavi. Their use, besides, prevented the frequenters of the theatre from seeing an actor, far advanced in years, play the part of a young lover, since the vizard, under which the performer appeared, was always, to that extent at least, agreeable to the character he assumed. In addition to all this, by concealing the mouth it prevented the spectators from observing whence the sound issued, and thus palliated the absurdity of one actor declaiming, and the other beating time, as it were by gestures. Finally, as the tragic actor was elevated by his cothurnus, or buskin, above the ordinary stature of man, it became necessary, in order to preserve the due proportions of the human form, that his countenance also should be enlarged to corresponding dimensions.

I shall here close the first Volume of the History of Roman Literature, in which I have treated of the Origin of the Romans—the Progress of their Language, and the different Poets by whom their Literature was illustrated, till the era of Augustus. At that period Virgil beautifully acknowledges the superiority of the Greeks in statuary, oratory, and science; but he might, with equal justice, (and the avowal would have come from him with peculiar propriety,) have confessed that the Muses loved better to haunt Pindus and Parnassus, than Soracte or the Alban Hill. From the days of Ennius downwards, the literature and poetry of the Romans was, with exception, perhaps, of satire, and some dramatic entertainments [pg 354]of a satiric description, wholly Greek—consisting merely of imitations, and, in some instances, almost of translations from that language. We may compare it to a tree transplanted in full growth to an inferior soil or climate, and which, though still venerable or beautiful, loses much of its verdure and freshness, sends forth no new shoots, is preserved alive with difficulty, and, if for a short time neglected, shrivels and decays.

END OF VOLUME I.

James Kay, Jun. Printer,
S. E. Corner of Race & Sixth Streets
Philadelphia.

INDEX

	Afranius, his Comedies, vol. i. p. [170].
	Agriculture, advantages of Italy for, ii. 6–11.
	Antias, Q. Valerius, Latin Annalist, ii. 74.
	Antipater, Cælius, Latin Annalist, ii. 72.
	Antonius, Marcus, character of his eloquence, ii. 117. His death, 119.
	His death, 119.
	Arcesilaus founds the New Academy, ii. 208.
	Asellio, Sempronius, Latin Annalist, ii. 73.
	Atellane Fables, i. [229].
	Attius, his Tragedies, i. [214].