Masked actors: mosaic from the House of the Tragic

ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE JOURNAL ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE Poet, Pompeii, Italy. 1st century BCE-1st c. CE. Naples 2 Archaeological Museum. [Credit: WikiCommons] Unmasking Ancient Colour ONLINEANCIENTPLANET JOURNAL

Colour and the Classical Theatre Mask

By Andrea Sinclair M.A.

he purpose of this article is to provide the reader with an overview of the characteristics of traditional T theatre masks from the Hellenistic Greek and the Roman Imperial periods. The primary literary source employed to illustrate this discussion is the Onomasticon of Julius Pollux, which will be examined from the point of view of the importance of colour to convey meaning in the creation of a theatrical mask.

Who introduced masks, prologues, the reconstructions of classical theatre when number of performers and such things is I envision ancient theatre performance. unknown. Perhaps this may be blamed on my own —Aristotle, Poetics, 1449b background in theatre design. But this assumption of austerity would be faulty, The idea of theatre performance in ancient for theatre performance in antiquity Greece and Rome conjures up a variety of was a different animal, less refined and images for me, one of vast semi-circular more diverse in its application and unlike auditoriums, layered schema with elegant contemporary theatre, all actors wore columns and facades, audiences dressed masks. in their ‘Sunday best’ reclining leisurely on steeped seating and, of course, the The intention of this article is to elaborate performers. Somehow I cannot help but on a topic relating to theatre from ancient Masked actors: mosaic from the House of the Tragic be influenced by the elegance of modern Rome and Greece that appears to be sadly Poet, Pompeii, Italy. 1st century BCE-1st c. CE. Naples 3 Archaeological Museum. [Credit: WikiCommons] ANCIENTPLANET | VOL. 4 [2013] ARCHAEOLOGY | GREECE AND ROME

Theatre masks: architectural relief from the Roman theatre at Side, Turkey. [Credit: Bruce Allardice]

absent. A factor which one could argue is qualities of these very visual theatrical tools as crucial to the nature of an object as its were an important feature of their legibility, form and texture: the colour of these masks but this legibility ought also to entail the worn by performers in early plays. Much use of colour. I consider this article to be an literature has applied itself to the physical opportunity to discuss this facet of ancient characteristics of masks from late antiquity mask and also, unlike academic publications, and their relation to earlier Greek masks to take advantage of the visual nature of a from the Classical and Hellenistic periods, magazine format by providing a range of with particular emphasis placed upon masks relevant colour images. from comedy. However, there appears to be little or no discussion of the nature of When we think of Greek and Roman colours associated with these highly visual theatre masks our own perception is highly objects. ‘coloured’ by the extant material that we have available to us as representative of these Classical masks were intended to provide early performance tools. Sadly, because strong visual cues to an audience in what the original masks were constructed from was, to all intents and purposes, a large degradable materials, such as leather, fabric performance space. This goal was achieved and fibre, we do not have examples of the by using full head/helmet masks with broad original artefacts. Instead, we are dependant and exaggerated features. The sculptural on imagery of masks from the visual arts ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE JOURNAL ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE

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The venue for masked drama: a Roman theatre from Bosra, Syria. [Credit: WikiCommons] and some (few) references in texts for the brief overview of the theatrical context with physical nature of these objects. which we are dealing. The performance of public theatre in Greece and Rome has The visual evidence consists of two a long and illustrious history which one primary sources: the two dimensional, could argue remains with us today with via wall paintings, ceramics and mosaics contemporary interpretations of the plays and the three dimensional, from sculpted of renowned tragedians such as Euripides, terracotta figurines and from architectural Sophocles, Aeschylus and comedic writers ornaments. Of the aforementioned types, such as Aristophanes, Menander and only mosaics and wall paintings employ Plautus. colour, and I would hazard that you, the reader, when thinking of a mask, conjure up In ancient Greece plays were an important a monochrome image most likely related component of public festivals and were to masks from architectural and sculptural designed to be performed by a reasonably sources. small group of actors. This troupe comprised three core actors who would perform all Theatre Performance in Greece and the speaking roles, in addition, there was Rome a chorus of up to fifteen performers who sung and danced and guided the audience To begin this discussion, I will provide a through the storyline. Finally there was the

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Three actors from Greek comedy: Apulian bell-krater. 2nd century BCE. National Archaeological Museum, Spain. [Credit: WikiCommons] potential for a non specific amount of non- 4th century Athenian drama and comedy speaking roles, such as attendants, slaves, would have been constructed to suit the guards or citizens. All characters, actors, requirements of a given play and playwright. chorus and extras were masked, and all It was not until the second half of the fourth parts were performed by men. century and the plays of Menander and his contemporaries that costume and mask Within the theatre space, the action proper types became clearly defined. The grotesque would take place on a raised stage, while padding and phalli of the Old Comedy were the chorus would sing and dance in the dispensed with and masks too were adapted semi-circular orchestra at the front of this into more rigid characters. This does not stage. It is worth noting that with the mean however, that a playwright could not limited number of actors performing all still adapt or invent masks to suit his own speaking roles, the use of mask would requirements. have been a convenient device to facilitate scene, character, and particularly, gender What is a mask and what was a changes in a performance. But this may not classical mask? be considered the sole motivation behind the choice of mask for performance. In any dictionary a mask may be defined in a variety of ways: as the likeness of a The earliest use of mask was not bound face, a covering for all, or part of a face, an

ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE JOURNAL ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE to character types and thus the masks of object worn as a disguise, or to amuse, or

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Tragic actors: Roman fresco. 1st century CE. Archaeological Museum of Palermo, Italy. [Credit: G. Dall’Orto, WikiCommons] frighten others. When employing this term a mask that may be worn in performance ‘mask’, I am referring to the head coverings are the presence of eye sockets, breathing in the likeness of beings (divine, human holes and suspension holes. They also must and animal) that were employed in the be light and durable. There is absolutely no performance of theatrical plays in Greece point in describing a ceramic mask as a per- and Rome in the classical period (500 BCE- formance mask, these on the contrary, must 300 CE). I use the term ‘head coverings’ be either ornamental copies of an original, intentionally, since it must be emphasised or replicas perhaps intended for votive use. that a mask in the context of classical drama was not simply a covering for the forepart of The term used in Greek literature to describe an actors head. Rather, it was a combination a mask was prosȏpon (πρόσωπον). This noun of hair, headdress and the face. may be literally translated as ‘something which is (placed) before the eyes’, that is, For the intentions of this work I clearly dis- a covering for the face, but it can also be tinguish between a mask that is designed used to refer to the face proper. Another to be worn on a human head and a repro- word which may be used in the discussion duction of a human face. And it is worth of masks in antiquity is protomȇ, (προτομή) noting that the features required to identify which actually refers to a reproduction of a

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Satyr mask: marble (source unknown). 2nd century CE. ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE JOURNAL ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE 8 Capitoline Museum, Rome [Credit: WikiCommons] ARCHAEOLOGY | GREECE AND ROME

bust, head, or face, and may therefore, not From the fact that these sources are often ONLINEANCIENTPLANET JOURNAL be considered crucial to this discussion. (It employed in literature to describe mask is however, of value to an examination of characteristics from Greece and Rome the origins of masks). may lead you to the realisation that our information pool is indeed small. However, The sources for masked performance we have one detailed account by a classical author left to discuss. It is a considerable disadvantage to mod- ern scholarship that we have only limited The primary textual source employed textual evidence for the use and descrip- in literature for mask in antiquity is the tion of masks in antiquity. While we do have Onomasticon (Ονομαστικόν) of Julius Pollux secondary sources, we are casting about in of Naucratis, (2nd century CE). Now this text the dark with regard to the original objects. is a form of thesaurus and was intended Aristotle in the Poetics, his discussion of by its author as a general description of 4th century Greek theatrical practice, refers a variety of topics from geography to sparingly and somewhat dismissively to the astronomy and so forth. Therefore, the use of masks in Greek theatre and with a few discussion of theatre and theatrical masks sentences he passes laconically over them. is necessarily concise and most probably functions on the assumption that the A direct example (of this) is the comic reader has a basic awareness of the topic. mask which is ugly and distorted yet This applies particularly to his discussion of without (being) distressful. the characteristics of masks. For each detail —Aristotle, Poetics: 1449 provided, there appears to be much that is absent, or assumed. Somewhat later in the Roman period, we have another brief but colourful reference to This text is nonetheless our best literary mask characteristics in Lucian’s Anacharsis. source for the description of masks in antiquity and for this reason I too have used I have seen those tragedians and it as my source, but I would emphasise here comedians of whom you speak, if they are that this article is naturally biased towards those individuals wearing heavy raised the late 1st millennium before the Common shoes, with costumes decorated in gold Era (BCE) and the early Common Era (CE). and quite ridiculous head-dresses with This time frame is governed by the period enormous gaping mouths from within contemporary with Julius Pollux (2nd which they shout out mightily, and I century) and on the understanding that do not know how they cannot fall over his information is considered to be derived in those shoes when walking. I believe from an earlier 3rd century BCE Alexandrian at that time the city was celebrating source. Discussion of the nature of 5th a festival of Dionysus. But comedians century Attic theatre masks shall therefore are shorter than them, use their feet, be considered a topic for another article. are more human and bellow less. Their head-dresses are more comical and the The Masks in Pollux: the Satyr Play entire theatre laughed as one.’ —Lucian, Anarchasis: 23. In antiquity there were three specific

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varieties of theatrical performance and each was masked. In the Onomasticon of Pollux these three are duly listed as masks that were used in the performance of Tragedy, those for Comedy and those belonging to the Satyr play.

We shall begin with the Satyr play since it has been argued that it is from these that later theatrical performances were derived (Aristotle, Poetics). The Satyr play was a risqué rough and tumble farce which (much like that of tragedy) revolved around anecdotes sourced from traditional mythology. The costumes somewhat reflected the animal nature of these followers of the god Dionysus and consisted of horse tails, erect phalli and masks.

The Satyr masks described in the Onomasticon pose the least challenge to us and contain only four clearly defined characters: an old satyr, a bearded satyr, a clean-shaven satyr and one that was worn for the god Silenus. Pollux is sparing with detail for these masks, but describing their characteristics is not difficult, since we have adequate resources for the characteristics of satyrs and of satyr masks from antiquity.

The satyr mask may be identified by the bestial characteristics of the classical satyr: the presence of horns on the upper fore- part of the mask, elongated and pointed goat ears framing the face and unkempt, shaggy hair. Colour is not indicated in the text with the exception of the use of Above: Silenus mask: fresco from Villa of Fannius polios (πολιός) or ‘grey haired’ to describe Synistor, Boscoreale, Italy. 1st century BCE, the old satyr, and Pollux is emphatic that Metropolitan Museum of Art. [Credit: WikiCommons]; the distinction between the four rests Below: Old man: encaustic painting from Solunto, with their names: old, bearded, beardless Italy. 1st century CE. Palermo Archaeological Museum. ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE JOURNAL ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE [Credit: G. Dall’Orto, WikiCommons] and the god Silenus. 10 ARCHAEOLOGY | GREECE AND ROME

The Masks in Pollux: Tragedy and ONLINEANCIENTPLANET JOURNAL Comedy

In the Onomasticon the categories for masks from both tragedy and comedy have been arranged into four groups: those for old men, young men, male servants and for women. In addition there is a description of ‘equipped’ (ἔνσκευα) or ‘extra` masks belonging to tragedy. These were masks with unusual features, such as animals, deities, demi-gods, or monsters (nymphs, gorgons, titans, sea monsters, giants, centaurs); forces of nature (rivers, mountains, cities); and abstract concepts (justice, death, persuasion, deceit, envy). It is worth noting that Pollux states that any one of these masks may also be used for the performance of comedy.

The following is a brief list of the names for characters that are given by Pollux.

Old Men Six tragic masks: Shaved hair, White, Greying, Black, Yellow, More yellow. Nine comic masks: 1st Grandfather/Pappos, 2nd Grandfather, Leader, Old man, Hermeneios, Brothel keeper, 2nd Hermeneios, Peaked beard, Lycomedeios. Young Men Eight tragic masks: All purpose young man, Curly haired, More curly, Delicate, Dirty, 2nd Dirty, Ochre, Faded Ochre. Eleven comic masks: Above: Young man: mosaic from the House of Masks, All purpose, Black, Curly haired, More curly, Sousse, Tunisia. 3rd century CE. Sousse Archaeological Delicate, Bumpkin, Wavy haired, 2nd wavy Museum. [Credit: Wiki Commons]; Below: Comic haired, 1st Parasite, 2nd Parasite, Foreigner, servant: mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii. 3rd Parasite. 1st century BCE-1st c. CE. Naples Archaeological Museum. [Credit: WikiCommons] 11 ANCIENTPLANET | VOL. 4 [2013] ARCHAEOLOGY | GREECE AND ROME

Masks of women: mosaic from the House of Cicero, Pompeii. 2nd-1st centuries BCE. Naples Archaeological Museum. [Credit: WikiCommons]

Servants domestic, Talking, Curly haired, Girl, False girl, Three tragic masks: 2nd false girl, Grey talking, Mistress, Hetaira (prostitute) at the end of her career, Hetaira in Leather, Peaked beard, Snub nosed. her prime, Golden hetaira, Diademed hetaira, Eight comic masks: Hetaira with torch hair-do and two serving Grandfather, Leader, Lower 3rd or 4th girls. attendant, Curly haired, Middle attendant, Tettix (cicada), Wavy haired leader. Perhaps the one notable detail for women’s masks is that they mostly differ by hairstyle Women and, excluding the mention of specific Eleven tragic masks: characteristics, may therefore be viewed as Grey old woman, Freed old woman, Old having reasonably regular features. In fact, domestic servant, Domestic (medium hair), this observation may be made for all the Leather, Ochre (long hair), Ochre (medium masks listed in Pollux. Where facial features hair), Medium cropped, 1st sallow maiden, 2nd are absent, we must assume that they are sallow maiden, Young girl. in fact there, but in each example relatively Seventeen comic masks: regular, such as aquiline nose, level brows and so on.

ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE JOURNAL ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE Lean old woman, Fat old woman, Old

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Marble relief of tragic masks showing the onkos headress and curly beard (this would have been real hair in antiquity), Rome. 2nd century CE. Museum of Art History, Vienna. [Credit: WikiCommons] And this brings us in a roundabout way to — Eyes: lazy, cheerful, severe, distorted. the issue of the characteristics for these — Nose: hooked, snub. masks. I do not feel that I can throw you — Mouth: flat lips. headlong into a discussion of mask colour — Battered ears and snaggle teeth. without some brief explanation of the features of the masks in Pollux. There are Finally we have descriptions of the complexion actually a limited range of features listed which may be ‘good’, wrinkled, lined or of a in the text and they may be summarised as specific hue, and thus we come to the discussion follows: proper.

— Hair: straight, curly, wavy. Colour for Masks: Age and Gender — Hairstyle: various for women: for men: waving forward, bald, receding. On examining the characteristics above, — Headpieces: onkos, stephanȇ and speira. it could be argued that the distinctions — Beards: long, short, curly, peaked, between masks in classical drama were beardless. based on stereotypes: a character’s age, — Brows: knitted, raised, lowered, their social standing and their gender. In asymmetrical. addition, it has been asserted in the past

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Gender expressed by using light and dark complexions, tragic female and comic servant: mosaic from Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli, Italy. 2nd century CE. [Credit: WikiCommons] that due to the auditorium distance, only such as wrinkled skin, or varying shades age and gender would be easily recognised of grey through to white hair on both by an audience and that there was actually men and women. In Pollux white hair is little distinction between the characteristics indeed reserved for the oldest characters. of individual masks. For the complexion, age is conspicuously indicated by lack of pigment and older It is not this writer’s intention to support characters have whiter skin than younger. such a claim, for while costume, hair, and Facial hair on men is another criterion for physical features do provide enough scope distinguishing age, as after the Hellenistic for identifying a character, mask colour could period it became fashionable for young also provide similar important visual cues to men to shave. Thus the absence of a beard a distant audience. Nonetheless, these three infers youth (although in earlier periods this basic distinctions: age, status and gender would have been used to convey a notion are reasonably apparent from the evidence of effeminacy). Older, respectable men are of extant plays and the description in the correspondingly to be recognised by the Onomasticon and it is worth noting that various styles of beard. they are still basic distinctions for a modern audience. Gender distinction is consistent with Greek artistic convention and is characterised by Age distinction for a mask could be the use of dark and light skin tones. Thus, a

ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE JOURNAL ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE conveyed through a variety of methods, male character will have a darker complexion

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Tragic woman: fresco from the House of the

Golden Bracelet, Pompeii. 1st century CE. 15 [Credit: WikiCommons]. ANCIENTPLANET | VOL. 4 [2013] ARCHAEOLOGY | GREECE AND ROME

than a female, whose ideal colouring was referring to an individual who is ‘clad in white, no doubt from a notion of seclusion leather’. I am not entirely satisfied with this in the domestic environment (but this may solution, as only two characters, both from apply more to women of higher social tragedy, bear this name, an old male servant standing). For young male characters the and an old woman, both are endowed with complexion is generally described by a little description other than with onkos verbal form of μελάς, ‘black’, here more and I am aware that the choice of name in appropriately translated as ‘dark’. Ideally Pollux often appears to reflect the nature of a healthy active Greek or Roman man was a mask. One has to concede that ‘leathery’ athletic and tanned, thus masks of young does conjure up a specific (perhaps modern) men are described as dark and in some notion of texture and age. instances, ‘flushed with red’ (υπέρυθρος). Colour and Mask Character For male characters this convention could also be manipulated to express character To turn to the broader colour terminology nuances, and a man could indeed have a pale encountered in Pollux, we have a limited mask, but this could convey specific visual range of colours used to describe theatre cues to the audience. Thus, a paler mask masks. These may be divided into two could be effeminate, sickly, dying, pining groups: the first is ‘pure’ colour terms: away from love, or of delicate constitution. black (μέλας), white (λευκός), grey (πολιός), On the other hand, a pale mask on an older yellow (ξανθός), red (ἐρυθρός) and ochre man conveys a notion of advanced age and/ (ὣχρα). The second consists of shades: or physical weakness. Finally a pale or white greying (σπαρτοπολιός), flushed red mask on a male character could also be used (ὑπέρυθρος), fire red (πυρρός), pale ochre/ to indicate a ghost or a spirit of the dead. sallow (ὕπωχρος), faded ochre (παρωχρός), pale yellow (ὑπόξανθος), slightly white For female character masks the opposite (ὑπόλευκος), faded white (παράλευκος, ought to apply and the presence of colour literally: ‘beyond white’). in a mask could be said to infer absence of social standing, since only women of lower There are two contexts where the colour of status would necessarily have extended a mask is referred to in the Onomasticon: exposure to the sun. This is not as clearly one describes the colour of the hair (both illustrated in the Onomasticon where most beards and head hair) and the other female character masks are described as appears to refer to the complexion, or skin white or sallow. No female mask is described colour of the prosȏpon, and it is worth as red, and only one prostitute past her noting that the Greek stem used to indicate prime is described as flushed, none is of a complexion, chrȏma (χρῶμα, also χροία) dark complexion. may be translated as, ‘skin’, ‘complexion’ or indeed, as ‘colour’. In fact χρῶμα is the One tragic old woman mask is named etymological source for the English terms ‘leather’ (διφθερίτις), and the question chrome/chromatic. would be whether there was a colour significance associated with this epithet. There are five colours used to describe hair

ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE JOURNAL ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE Most dictionaries translate this term as for masks, black, grey, white, yellow and fire

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The mask on the left is a good example of gender ambiguity. The image could be described as ‘two women’, but I would suggest we may instead be looking at a delicate young man and a woman. Note the masculine moulding of the brow. Fresco from the House of the Golden Bracelet, Pompeii. 1st century CE. [Credit: WikiCommons] red. Brown is conspicuous by its absence The skin colour of individual masks is defined from this list, but I would suggest that from by these terms: black, white, ochre, sallow, the visual evidence it is subsumed within pale yellow, ‘livid’, red and flushed red. Dark, ‘black/dark’. As already discussed, white livid and flushed red are colours specifically hair is used for the oldest characters in associated with healthy male characters and tragedy and comedy, both male and female. I would suggest that where flushed is used Grey hair is applied to older characters, but it may not necessarily describe the entire not the oldest. Black hair is characteristic of mask, but rather could refer to gradation middle aged and young men, both athletic of colour, or additional colour over another and for less than worthy individuals like hue. This is best illustrated by the hetaira parasites. Although one prostitute from past her prime who has a sallow yet flushed comedy is black haired, the rest appear to complexion. be fair. Yellow hair was fitting for young men and young women, while flame red hair is As you may observe, there is little attempt at employed only in comedy for male servants obtaining actual flesh tones for these masks. and for one old man. Rather, we are dealing with quite highly

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Left: Ochre old man: fresco from the House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii. 1st century BCE. Naples Archaeological Museum. [Credit: WikiCommons]; Right: Flushed old man: encaustic painting from Solunto, Italy. 1st century CE. Palermo Archaeological Museum. [Credit: G. Dall’Orto, WikiCommons]

visible pigments that span a reasonably proposition regarding the choice of colour limited range of hues: white through off- for mask in classical theatre performance. white, pale yellow, sallow, ochre yellow to This is that mask colours may have provided red and finally to black. And this brings an audience with effective visual signals us finally to another possible motivation beyond those of gender and age. In the behind this use of colour for masks. Onomasticon the colours employed to describe masks also reflect the Hippocratic The Hippocratic Theory of Humours theory of the four humours associated in philosophy with the elements and with the The followers of Pythagoras call the types of human temperament. These four family of colours white, black, red and humours or personality types are based in ochre. And the differences for colours the spectrum of black, white, red and ochre derive from the mixtures of the elements and are summarised in Table (1). involved. —Aëtius, (Diels, Doxographi Graeci) On examining these four humours and their corresponding colour associations

ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE JOURNAL ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE I would like to leave you with an interesting it becomes abundantly clear that there is

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Colour Humour Temperament

Μέλας/black Μελανχολή/black bile/melancholic irritable or despondent

Λευκός/white Φλέγμα/phlegm/phlegmatic calm and unemotional

Ἐρυθρός/red Aἷμα/blood/sanguine courageous and amorous

bad tempered and easily Ὡχρός/ochre Χολή/yellow bile/choleric angered

Table (1): The four humours or personality types based in the spectrum of black, white, red and ochre potential here for an additional set of visual with less self control, such as ochre, sallow, clues for an audience seated at a distance or flushed red. from the stage in a large auditorium. Indeed, this idea of human personality based on What this template provides is yet another humours will not have been unknown to means for the ancient playwright to give Pollux in the 2nd century. In fact, we are his audience clear visual cues regarding aware that such theories did contribute the characters he presents and with to the comedies of both Menander and of these there is scope for combining these Plautus. Therefore, to apply these ideas to cues to create characters of reasonable the masks of the Onomasticon is no great subtlety and complexity. In this case the leap of logic. mask of a disreputable young man with dark hair and dark complexion could be And they do apply. Without much effort it is easily differentiated from that of a delicate relatively easy to associate the colours cited young man whose skin was paler and hair by Pollux with the masks he lists. Old men was yellow. Perhaps it is reasonable to may be dark or pale and therefore could argue that with these broad colours and either broadcast a message of irascibleness exaggerated features masks could be easily (black) or dignity (white). Younger men manipulated by the ancient dramatist to could be volatile and aggressive (ochre), convey a range of character nuances to his courageous (red) or weak and passive audience. (white). Male servants may be a range of colours, but favour the irascible reds and I would hope that this article has introduced ochre. Women are predominantly restricted some new perspectives on our current to white and pale hues and therefore perception of mask in antiquity. It would convey a notion of passive temperament, not be out of place to point out that the but may lean towards colours associated foregoing only describes the potential for

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Actors with masks: mosaic from the House of Masks, Sousse, Tunisia. 3rd century CE. Sousse Archaeological Museum. [Credit: WikiCommons]

visual expression that may be contained Benson, J.L. ‘Chapter 2: Greek Color Theory’. Greek Color Theory and the Four Elements. Paper 6. (2000). in a document on theatrical mask from http://scholarworks.umass.edu/art_jbgc/6 the 2nd century CE. One can only look at Bieber, M. The History of the Greek and Roman the range of visual examples given here to Theater. Princeton University Press. (1961). realise the diversity of masks produced in Marshall, C.W. Some Fifth-Century Masking antiquity. So, rather than considering the Conventions. Greece & Rome. 46 (2), (1999). 188- nature of masks as static and monochrome, I 202. would advise you to instead shift your focus Pollux, J. Onomasticon. W. Dindorf: Leipzig. (1824). towards a livelier, meaningful and, most of Pollux, J. Extracts concerning the Greek theatre and all, polychromatic image of ancient theatre. masks, translated from the Greek of Julius Pollux. Gale Ecco. (2010). *** Sommerstein, A.H. Greek Drama and Dramatists. Routledge. (2003). For Further Reading Webster, T.B.L. The Masks of Greek Comedy, Bulletin The English translations of the Greek are the of the John Rylands Library, (1949). 97-133. author’s. For lexical citations see the Greek-English Wiles, D. Greek Theatre Performance: An Lexicon by H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, or the online Introduction. Cambridge University Press: database: Perseus Digital Library: http://www. Cambridge. (2000). perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collection?collection=Pe rseus:collection:Greco-Roman. *** ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE JOURNAL ANCIENTPLANET ONLINE

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