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 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).