or wild passion; every feeling is expressed on a large and usually dignified scale. The comic masks, on the other hand, always incline to caricature; and those used for the satyric drama, since they were meant for satyrs, naturally represent the physiognomy of animals. But, besides these general indications, there were a large number of gradations--some of them very finely marked--which proves to us that the old makers of masks, which was a special branch of trade, thoroughly understood their work and also human physiognomy. In olden times they seem to have made the masks specially for each drama, so that they might correspond exactly to the characters. This was the case in tragedy as well as in the older comedy, Aeschylus, to whom in particular innovations and inventions in this domain are ascribed, required quite new masks for his “Eumenides,” which had never before appeared on the stage; as did Aristophanes and the other poets of the older comedy for their fantastic characters--Frogs, Clouds, Birds, etc., as also for the real personages represented in their comedies, such as Euripides, Socrates, Cleon, and could only use the already existing masks for the usual typical figures of citizens and citizens’ wives, slaves, etc., as well as for the mythological personages, Hercules, Dionysus, etc. The newer Attic comedy, with its typical characters, very seldom required specially-constructed masks, and it thus became the custom for the properties of every stage or acting company to include a considerable supply of character masks of every kind, which in most cases were sufficient for the demand. Consequently, to speak simply of tragic or comic masks is to express ourselves rather superficially; for though an actually comic mask--that is, one whose absurdity excites to laughter--could never be used in a tragedy, yet there were serious masks which might be used in a comedy; and it would be wrong to suppose that all the persons in a comedy for instance by Menander, appeared in masks which could be designated as specially comic.