Besides the regular masks, from which the actors chose those that suited their part, unless the poet had already prescribed what they were to wear, others were in later times adapted for extraordinary situations--for personages of quite abnormal figure, allegorical characters, etc.--and these could not be used for ordinary performances. Tragedy especially was often obliged to bring unusual masks on the stage; and the comedy of Southern Italy, which treated mythological subjects in grotesque fashion, may have occasionally required quite special masks. Thus, on the Pompeian wall-painting (Fig. 160), which, doubtless, was copied from a Greek picture, the masks relate to the legend of Andromeda; the one on the left belongs
to a youth with a brown complexion, whose winged cap and harp resting on the ground mark him out as Perseus; this is a special mask, and so is that of the monster in the middle, while that of Andromeda above on the right, and the others on the right below, which are not quite distinct, may easily have formed part of the ordinary supply.
Equally strange and different from the modern was the rest of the costume of the Greek stage. Speaking of tragic equipment, we may characterise the contrast between that day and our own by saying that Greeks, in the choice of their tragic costume, aimed at the type, while we desire to indicate the individual. In theatrical costume, as in art, we wish to represent everything with historical truth; the history of costume and fashion is a subject of special study for modern stage managers. Ancient tragedies very seldom