As the features of the player acquired a more decided expression from the
mask, as his voice was strengthened by a contrivance attached to the mask,
so the cothurnus, consisting of several soles of considerable thickness,
as may be seen in the ancient statues of Melpomene, raised his figure
considerably above the usual standard. The female parts were also played
by men, as the voice and general carriage of women would have been
inadequate to the energy of tragic heroines.

The forms of the masks, [Footnote: We have obtained a knowledge of them
from the imitations in stone which have come down to us. They display both
beauty and variety. That great variety must have taken place in the
tragical department (in the comic we can have no doubt about the matter)
is evident from the rich store of technical expressions in the Greek
language, for every gradation of the age, and character of masks. See the
_Onomasticon_ of Jul. Pollux. In the marble masks, however, we can
neither see the thinness of the mass from which the real masks were
executed, the more delicate colouring, nor the exquisite mechanism of the
fittings. The abundance of excellent workmen possessed by Athens, in
everything which had a reference to the plastic arts, will warrant the
conjecture that they were in this respect inimitable. Those who have seen
the masks of wax in the grand style, which in some degree contain the
whole head, lately contrived at the Roman carnival, may form to themselves
a pretty good idea of the theatrical masks of the ancients. They imitate
life, even to its movements, in a most masterly manner, and at such a
distance as that from which the ancient players were seen, the deception
is most perfect. They always contain the white of the eye, as we see it in
the ancient masks, and the person covered sees merely through the aperture
left for the iris. The ancients must sometimes have gone still farther,
and contrived also an iris for the masks, according to the anecdote of the