Idadié Collection (today’s Old Philosophical School), found at the north part of the city.

Vertical tile that adorned the edge of the roof, possibly of some theatrical building in the city, the theater-stadium or the odeum.

Its front is cared into a theatrical mask, while the back is very roughly worked. It is made of white, coarse-grained marble, probably Thasian, and is about 42 cm. high.

The nose, lips and chin are broken, as is the back edge. Minor damage to the cap and cheeks. Surface erosion.

It depicts a beardless man with tragic features: large expressive eyes with long arched eyebrows, a horizontal forehead wrinkle and accentuated nasolabial folds. This is probably Astyanax, son of Hector and grandson of Priam, as declared by the carefully worked inscription on his tall Phrygian cap, a detail rendering this mask unique of its kind.

The mask’s closed mouth and the dating of the monument to the 2nd c. A.D. point to a character in a pantomime, a pre-eminently Roman theatrical genre that was hugely popular throughout the Roman world in the imperial age and survived into the early centuries of the Byzantine. In pantomime, one artist performed all the roles in the play without speaking, solely through dance and movement and changes of mask, accompanied by singers and musicians. The plays performed by the pantomime drew their themes mainly from Greek mythology, selecting those passages that could be rendered by mime.

This particular mask may refer to an uncommon variant of the Homeric tale, in which Andromache’s infant son does not suffer the tragic fate of being hurled to his death from the walls of Troy but survives to fulfil the destiny indicated by his name, that is, to become lord of his city.

The object is displayed in the permanent exhibition "Thessaloniki, the Metropolis of Macedonia".