The Mask of Apollo brilliantly combines several major subjects that, stated boldly, sound absurdly incompatible: the Greek theater, the fortunes of Syracuse under tyranny and democracy, the politics of Plato's Academy, the ambiguous nature of virtue in men….

Miss Renault has been "touched by the god," as she might put it. For sheer inspiration must have prompted her to tell the story of Dion through the reminiscence of the actor Nikeratos….

[His] memoirs are a superb imaginative creation. The peculiar conditions of the Greek stage … are perfectly integrated, the natural setting for a man who shudders at the impious idea of actors appearing on stage without masks, as modernists are advocating and occasionally doing. Nikeratos is the eternal actor, vain, cynical, forever lapsing into recollections of stage gossip and former parts, measuring himself against rivals, concerned about money and career, and given to promiscuity. But he is also...