The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

CHAP. V CONVENTIONAL FACES 159
have possessed that fatal influence which HeHodorus
records respecting the daughter of Calasiris. The
masks, whether worn by actors or painted on walls
by way of decoration, were commonly of hideous
grotesqueness. In Rome, certain of these by long
usage developed into conventional faces, just like
that of our modern
Punch, two of which
typified, respectively,
Tragedy and Comedy.
These latter are now
only used for decorative
purposes, on
theatres and such like
buildings, while the
Medusa, the prototype
of masks, has con-
tinued to be used as
a common ornament
down to the present
day. The very ugly
specimen depicted on
Fig. 67, p. 183 (Chap.
VI.) is one of the early
Greek type, from a
Fig. 48.
terra cotta in the Museum of Syracuse.-*^^ Others, also
showing the mocking split-tongue, are of probably
the same age. Fig. 48 is called by Dennis (vol. ii. p.
318) "the Anubis vase." It is Etruscan black ware
from Chiusi in the Museo Casuccini. It is 20 inches
high and has many grinning masks, some of which
are unmistakable Medusas. The rest of our illustra-
2''0 Theie are several similar ones, quite flat at the back, and, like this,
perforated with holes for suspension, in the Museums of Palermo and Girgenti.
They were evidently intended to be hung up against a wall or other flat surface.