The number and variety of the masks used in tragedy may be seen from the accounts in Pollux. For the ordinary tragic personages there were regular masks of a stereotyped character. Pollux enumerates twenty-eight kinds.[735] His information was derived from Alexandrian sources, and his list represents the number of masks which were employed on the later Greek stage for the ordinary characters of tragedy. It is not likely that in the time of Sophocles or Euripides the use of masks was reduced so completely to a system as in the later period; but the descriptions in Pollux will give an adequate idea of the style of the masks used in earlier times. Of the twenty-eight masks described by Pollux six are for old men, eight for young men, three for attendants, and eleven for women. The principal features by which the different masks are discriminated from one another are the style of the hair, the colour of the complexion, the height of the onkos, and the expression of the eyes. To take a few examples. The strong and powerful man, such as the tyrant, has thick black hair and beard, a tall onkos, and a frown upon his brow. The man wasted by disease has fair hair, a pale complexion, and a smaller onkos. The handsome youth has fair ringlets, a light complexion, and bright eyes. The lover is distinguished by black hair and a pale complexion. The maiden in misfortune has her hair cut short in token of sorrow. The aged lady has white hair and a small onkos, and her complexion is rather pale. Attendants and messengers are marked by special characteristics. One of them wears a cap, another has a peaked beard, a third has a snub nose and hair drawn back. One sees from these examples how completely Greek tragedy was dominated by conventional rules, in this as in all other respects. As soon as a personage entered the stage, his mask alone was enough to give the spectators a very fair conception of his character and position. [Illustration: FIG. 17.]