other transparent substance, through which the actor could see his way. This was necessarily the case in the part of the poet Thamyris,[1063] who, like our own Chatterton, had eyes of different colours, one blue, the other black, which, as Aristotle informs us, was common among the horses of Greece. ----- Footnote 1058: Scalig. Poet. i. 13.—Poll. iv. 133, sqq. Footnote 1059: Cf. Thucyd. i. 6, et Schol. Ælian. Var. Hist. iv. 22. Footnote 1060: See a beautiful head of Aphrodite with a pole of curls. (ὄγκος) Mus. Chiaramont. tav. 27. Cf. a tragic female mask, with the hair bound by a fillet, in the Cabinet d’ Orleans, pl. 52. Footnote 1061: It may be remarked that persons ridiculed upon the stage were introduced with masks exactly resembling their countenances. They seized, however, upon the ludicrous features, which any one happened to possess, as the eyebrows of Chærephon, and the baldness of Socrates. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 147, 224. This applies to living characters. The dead were protected from ridicule by the laws. Sch. Pac. 631. The Comic mask was said to have been invented by Mason. Athen. xiv. 77. The Comte de Caylus, however, attributes the invention of masks to the Etruscans. Recueil d’ Antiq. i. 147, seq. Footnote 1062: Cic. de Orat. ii. 46. See in Agostini Gemme Antiche, pl. 17, a representation of one of these masks. For examples of hideous masks see Mus. Florent. t. i. pp. 45–51. Footnote 1063: Poll. iv. 141. Dubos, Reflex. Crit. sur la Poes. et sur la Peint. i. 603. ----- The time of acting, as is well-known, was during the Dionysiac and Lenæan festivals, in the spring and autumn.[1064] The theatres being national establishments, in the proper sense of the word, were therefore open, free of expense, to all the citizens, who were not called together as with us by playbills,[1065] but for the most part knew nothing of what they were going to see till they were seated in the theatre, and the herald[1066] commanded the chorus of such and such a poet to advance. Previously to the commencement of the performance the theatre was purified by the sacrifice of a young hog, the blood of which was sprinkled on the earth.[1067] ----- Footnote 1064: Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 545. Acharn. 336. Cf. Dem. cont. Mid. § 4, et annot. Plut. Vit. x. Rhet. Lycurg. Footnote 1065: Winkelmann, however, supposes they had a kind of playbill, Monum. Ined. iii. p. 86, founding his opinion upon a misinterpretation of Pollux, iv. 131. Footnote 1066: Aristoph. Acharn. 10, sqq. Footnote 1067: Sch. Æschin. Tim. p. 17. Orator. Att. t. xiii. p. 377. Vales. ad Harpoc. 99, 296. Suid. v. καθάρσιον, t. i. p. 1346. a. Poll. viii. 104. ----- BOOK V. RURAL LIFE. CHAPTER I. THE VILLA AND THE FARMYARD.