Appendix C — On Felt
Manufacture and Use of Felting by the Ancients
Felting more ancient than weaving—Felt used in the East—Use of it by the Tartars—Felt made of goats’-hair by the Circassians—Use of felt in Italy and Greece—Cap worn by the Cynics, Fishermen, Mariners, Artificers, &c.—Cleanthes compares the moon to a skull-cap—Desultores—Vulcan—Ulysses—Phrygian bonnet—Cap worn by the Asiatics—Phrygian felt of Camels’-hair—Its great stiffness—Scarlet and purple felt used by Babylonish decorators—Mode of manufacturing Felt—Northern nations of Europe—Cap of liberty—Petasus—Statue of Endymion—Petasus in works of ancient art—Hats of Thessaly and Macedonia—Laconian or Arcadian hats—The Greeks manufacture Felt 900 B. C.—Mercury with the pileus and petasus—Miscellaneous uses of Felt.
There seems no reason to question the correctness of Professor Beckmann’s observation584, that the making of felt was invented before weaving585. The middle and northern regions of Asia are occupied by Tartars and other populous nations, whose manners and customs appear to have continued unchanged from the most remote antiquity586, and to whose simple and uniform mode of existence this article seems to be as necessary as food. Felt is the principal substance both of their clothing and of their habitations. Carpini, who in the year 1246 went as ambassador to the great Khan of the Moguls, Mongals, or Tartars, says, “Their houses are round, and artificially made like tents, of rods and twigs interwoven, having a round hole in the middle of the roof for the admission of light and the passage of smoke, the whole being covered with felt, of which likewise the doors are made587.” Very recently the same account of these “portable tents of felt” has been given by Julius von Klaproth588. Kupffer says of the Caratchai, “Leurs larges manteaux de feutre leur servent en même tems de matelas et de couverture589.” The large mantle of felt, here mentioned, is used for the same purpose in the neighboring country of Circassia590. One of these mantles now in the possession of Mr. Urquhart was made of black goats’-hair, and had on the outside a long shaggy villus. The Circassians sleep under this mantle by night, and wear it, when required, over their other dress by day. A similar article is thus described by Colonel Leake591: the postillions in Phrygia “wear a cloak of white camels’-hair, half an inch thick, and so stiff that the cloak stands without support, when set upright on the ground. There are neither sleeves nor hood; but only holes to pass the hands through, and projections like wings upon the shoulders for the purpose of turning off the rain. It is the manufacture of the country.” The Chinese traveller, Chy Fa Hian, who visited India at the end of the fourth century, says, that the people of Chen Chen, a kingdom in a mountainous district situated about the Lake of Lob, wore dresses like those of the Chinese, except that they made use of felt and stuffs (du feutre et des étoffes592).
In conformity with the prevailing use of this manufacture in the colder regions of Asia, scarlet or purple felt (such as that lately re-invented at Leeds, in England), was used by the Babylonish decorators for the drapery of the funeral pile, when Alexander celebrated the splendid obsequies of Hephæstion: for so we must understand the expression φοινικίδες πιληταί (Diod. Sic. xvii. 115. p. 251, Wess.). Xenophon (Cycrop. v. 5. § 7.) mentions the use of felt manufactured in Media, as a covering for chairs and couches. The Medes also used bags and sacks of felt (Athenæus, 1. xii. p. 540 c. Casaub.).
The process, by which wool is converted into felt, was called by the Greeks πίλησις (Plato de Leg. 1. viii. p. 115. ed. Bekker), literally a compression, from πιλέω, to compress593. The ancient Greek scholion on the passage of Plato here referred to thus explains the term: Πιλήσεως· τῆς διὰ τῆς τῶν ἐρίων πυκνώσεως γινομένης ἐσθῆτος, i. e. “cloth made by the thickening of wool.” With this definition of felt agrees the following description of a πέτασος in a Greek epigram, which records the dedication of it to Mercury:—
Σοὶ τὸν πιληθέντα δι’ εὐξάντου τριχὸς ἀμνοῦ,
Ἑρμᾶ, Καλλιτέλης ἐκρέμασε πέτασον.
Brunck, Anal. ii. 41.
The art of felting was called ἡ πιλητικὴ, (Plato, Polit. ii. 2. p. 296, ed. Bekker). According to the ancient Greek and Latin glossaries, and to Julius Pollux (vii. 30), a felt-maker, or hatter, was πιλοποιὸς or πιλωτοποιὸς, in Latin coactiliarius. From πῖλος (dim. πίλιον, second dim. πιλίδιον), the proper term for felt in general, derived from the root of πιλέω, came the verb πιλόω, signifying to felt, or to make felt, and from this latter verb was formed the ancient participle πιλωτὸς, felted, which again gave origin to πιλωτοποιός.
It may be observed, that our English word felt is evidently a participle or a derivative, and that its verb or root Fel appears to be the same with the root of πιλέω.
The Latin cogo, which was used, like the Greek πιλέω, to denote the act of compressing, or forcing the separate hairs together, gave origin to the participle coactus, and its derivative coactilis. Pliny (H. N. viii. 48. s. 73.), after speaking of woven stuffs, mentions in the following terms the use of wool for making felt: “Lanæ et per se coactæ (al. coactam) vestem ficiunt,” i. e. “Parcels of wool, driven together by themselves, make cloth.” This is a very exact, though brief description of the process of felting. The following monumental inscription (Gruter, p. 648, n. 4.) contains the title Lanarius coactiliarius, meaning a manufacturer of woollen felt:—
M. Ballorius M. L. Lariseus, Lanarius coactiliarius, conjuga carissimæ B. M. fec.
Helvius Successus, the son of a freed man, and the father of the Roman emperor Pertinax, was a hatter in Liguria (tabernam coactiliariam in Liguria exercuerat, Jul. Cap. Pertinax, c. 3.). Pertinax himself, being fond of money, having the perseverance expressed by his agnomen, and having doubtless, in the course of his expeditions into the East, made valuable observations respecting the manufacture which he had known from his boyhood, continued and extended the same business, carrying it on and conveying his goods to a distance by the agency of slaves. The Romans originally received the use of felt together with its name594 from the Greeks (Plutarch, Numa, p. 117, ed. Steph.). The Greeks were acquainted with it as early as the age of Homer, who lived about 900 B. C. (Il. x. 265), and Hesiod (Op. et Dies, 542, 546).
The principal use of felt among the Greeks and Romans was to make coverings of the head for the male sex, and the most common cover made of this manufacture was a simple skull-cap, i. e. a cap exactly fitted to the shape of the head, as is shown in Plate VIII. fig. 1. taken from a sepulchral bas-relief which was found by Mr. Dodwell in Bœotia595. The original is as large as life. The person represented appears to have been a Cynic philosopher. He leans upon the staff (baculus, βάκτρον, σκῆπτρον); he is clothed in the blanket (pallium, χλαῖνα, τρίβων) with one end, which is covered, over his left breast, and another hanging behind over his left shoulder; he wears the beard (barba, πώγων); his head is protected by the simple skull-cap (pileus, πῖλος). All these were distinct characteristics of the philosopher, and more especially of the Cynic596. The dog also probably marked his sect. Leonidas of Tarentum, in his enumeration of the goods belonging to the Cynic Posochares 597, including a dog-collar (κυνοῦχον), mentions, καὶ πῖλον κεφαλᾶς οὔχ ὁσίας σκεπανὸν, i. e. “The cap of felt, which covered his unholy head.” This passage may be regarded as a proof, that among the Greeks, though not among the Romans, the cap of felt was worn by very poor men. It also proves that this cap, which was the fess of the modern Greeks, was worn by philosophers, and therefore throws light on a passage of Antiphanes (ap. Athen. xii. 63. p. 545 a) describing a philosopher of a different character, who was very elegantly dressed, having a small cap of fine felt (πιλίδιον ἁπαλὸν), also a small white blanket, a beautiful tunic, and a neat stick. When Cleanthes advanced the doctrine, that the moon had the shape of a skull-cap (πιλοειδῆ τῷ σχήματι, Stobæi Ecl. Phys. 1. 27. p. 554, ed. Heeren), he probably intended to account for its phases from its supposed hemispherical form. A cap of a similar form and appearance, though perhaps larger and not so closely fitted to the crown of the head, was worn by fishermen598. In an epigram of Philippus599, describing the apparatus of a fisherman, the author mentions πῖλον ἀμφίκρηνον ὑδασιστεγῆ, “the cap encompassing his head and protecting it from wet.” Figure 2. in Plate VIII. represents a small statue of a fisherman belonging to the Townley Collection in the British Museum. His cap is slightly pointed and in a degree, which was probably favorable to the discharge of water from its surface. Hesiod recommends, that agricultural laborers should wear the same defence from cold and showers (Op. et Dies, 545-547). The use of this cap by seamen was no doubt the ground, on which the painter Nicomachus represented Ulysses wearing one. “Hic primus,” says Pliny (H. N. xxxv. 36. s. 22.), “Ulyssi addidit pileum600.” For the same reason the cap is an attribute of the Dioscuri; and hence two caps with stars above them are often shown on the coins of maritime cities and of others where Castor and Pollux were worshipped. Figure 3. of Plate VIII. is taken from a brass coin of Dioscurias in Colchis, preserved in the British Museum. On the reverse is the name ΔΙΟΣΚΟΥΡΙΑΔΟΣ. Figure 4. represents both sides of a silver coin in the same collection, with the legend ΒΡΕΤΤΙΩΝ. It belongs to Bruttium in South Italy. On the one side Castor and Pollux are mounted on horseback. They wear the chlamys and carry palm branches in their hands. Their caps have a narrow brim. The reverse shows their heads only, and their caps, without brims, are surrounded by wreaths of myrtle. The cornucopia is added as an emblem of prosperity. Figure 5. is from a brass coin of Amasia (ΑΜΑΣΣΕΙΑΣ) in Pontus. It shows the cornucopia between the two skull-caps. Charon also was represented with the mariner’s or fishermen’s cap, as, for example, in the bas-relief in the Museo Pio-Clementino, tom. iv. tav. 35, and the painted vase in Stackelberg’s Grüber der Hellenen, t. 47, 48, which is copied in Becker s Charicles, vol. ii. taf. i. fig. 1, and in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, p. 404.
A pileus of the same general form was worn by artificers; and on this account it was attributed to Vulcan and to Dædalus, who, as well as Ulysses and Charon, are commonly found wearing it in works of ancient art. Arnobius says, that Vulcan was represented “cum pileo et malleo”—“fabrili expeditione succinctus;” and that on the other hand Mercury was represented with the petasus, or “petasunculus,” on his head.601 This observation is confirmed by numerous figures of these two divinities, if we suppose the term petasus, which will be more fully illustrated hereafter, to have meant a hat with a brim, and pileus to have denoted properly a fessor cap without a brim.
Fig. 6. Plate VIII. is taken from a small bronze statue of Vulcan in the Royal Collection at Berlin. He wears the exomis, and holds his hammer in the right hand and his tongs in the left. For other specimens of the head-dress of Vulcan the reader is referred to the Museo Pio-Clementino, t. iv. tav. xi., and to Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, p. 589.
Plate VIII. is intended still further to illustrate some of the most common varieties in the form of the ancient skull-cap. Figure 7. is a head of Vulcan from a medal of the Aurelian family602. Figure 8. is the head of Dædalus from a bas-relief, formerly belonging to the Villa Borghese, and representing the story of the wooden cow, which he made for Pasiphae603. Fig. 10. is from a cameo in the Florentine collection. Fig. 9. is the head of a small bronze statue, wearing boots and the exomis, which belonged to Mr. R. P. Knight, and is now in the British Museum. It is engraved in the “Specimens of Ancient Sculpture published by the Society of Dilettanti,” vol. i. pl. 47. The editors express a doubt whether this statue was meant for Vulcan or Ulysses, merely because the god and the hero were commonly represented wearing the same kind of cap. Not only does the expression of countenance decide the question; but also the small bronze of Mr. Knight’s collection agrees in attitude and costume with many small statues of Vulcan, who is represented in all of them wearing the exomis, holding the hammer and tongs, and having the felt cap on his head604. Fig. 11. is another representation of Ulysses from an ancient lamp605. It exhibits him tied to the mast, while he listens to the song of the Sirens. The cap in this figure is much more elongated than in the others.
The felt cap was worn not only by desultores, but by others of the Romans upon a journey, in sickness, or in cases of unusual exposure. Hence Martial says in Epig. xiv. 132, entitled “Pileus,”
Si possem, totas cuperem misisse lacernas:
Nunc tantum capiti munera mitto tuo.
i. e.
O that a whole lacerna I could send!
Let this (I can no more) your head defend.
The wig (galerus) answered the same purpose for the wealthy classes (arrepto pileo vel galero, Sueton. Nero, 26), and the cucullus and cudo for both rich and poor. On returning home from a party, a person sometimes carried his cap and slippers under his arm (Hor. Epist. l. xiii. 15).
The hats worn by the Salii606 are said by Dionysius of Halicarnassus to have been “tall hats of a conical form607.” Plutarch distinctly represents them as made of felt. He says (l. c.), that the flamines were so called quasi pilamines, because they wore felt hats, and because in the early periods of Roman history it was more common to invent names derived from the Greek. On coins, however, this official cap of the Salii and Flamines is commonly oval like that attributed to the Dioscuri. We observe indeed continual variations in the form of the pileus from hemispherical to oval, and from oval to conical. A conical cap is seen on the head of the reaper in the wood-cut to the article Flax in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, which wood-cut is taken from a coin of one of the Lagidæ, kings of Egypt. Caps, regularly conical and still more elongated, are worn by the buffoons or comic dancers, who are introduced in an ancient mosaic preserved in the Villa Corsini at Rome608. Telephus, king of Mysia, is represented as wearing a “Mysian cap609.” This “Mysian cap” must have been the same which is known by the moderns under the name of the Phrygian bonnet, and with which we are familiar from the constant repetition of it in statues and paintings of Priam, Paris, Ganymede610, Atys, Perseus, and Mithras, and in short in all the representations not only of Trojans and Phrygians, but of Amazons and of all the inhabitants of Asia Minor, and even of nations dwelling still further to the East. Also, when we examine the works of ancient art which contain representations of this Mysian cap, we perceive that it was a cone bent into the form in which it is exhibited, and so bent, perhaps by use, but more probably by design. This circumstance is well illustrated in a bust of Parian marble, supposed to be intended for Paris, which is preserved in the Glyptotek at Munich. A drawing of it is given in Plate VIII. fig. 13. The flaps of the bonnet are turned up and fastened over the top of the head. The stiffness of the material is clearly indicated by the sharp angular appearance of that portion of it which is turned forwards. Mr. Dodwell, in his Tour in Greece (vol. i. p. 134), makes the following observations on the modern costume, which seems to resemble the ancient, except that the ancient πῖλος and πιλίδιον were probably of undyed wool:—“The Greeks of the maritime parts, and particularly of the islands, wear a red or blue cap of a conical form, like the pilidion. When it is new it stands upright, but it soon bends, and then serves as a pocket for the handkerchief, and sometimes for the purse. Others wear the red skull-cap, or fess.” The Lycians, as we are informed by Herodotus (viii. 92), wore caps of felt, which were surrounded with feathers. Some of the Lycian coins and bas-reliefs, however, show the “Phrygian bonnet,” as it is called, in the usual form611.
The cap worn by the Persians is called by Greek authors κυρβασία or τιάρα612, and seems to have had the form now under consideration. Herodotus, when he describes the costume of the Persian soldiers in the army of Xerxes, says, that they wore light and flexible caps of felt, which were called tiaras. He adds, that the Medes and Bactrians wore the same kind of cap with the Persians, but that the Cissii wore a mitra instead (vii. 61, 62, 64). On the other hand he says, that the Sacæ wore cyrbasiæ, which were sharp-pointed, straight, and compact. The Armenians were also called “weavers of felt” (Brunck, Anal. ii. p. 146. No. 22). The form of their caps is clearly shown in the coins of the Emperor Verus, one of which, preserved in the British Museum, is engraved in Plate VIII. fig. 14. The legend, surrounding his head, L. Vervs. Avg. Armeniacvs, refers to the war in Armenia. The reverse shows a female figure representing Armenia, mourning and seated on the ground, and surrounded by the emblems of Roman warfare and victory. The caps represented on this and other coins agree remarkably with the forms still used in the same parts of Asia. Strabo (L. xi. p. 563, ed. Sieb.) says, that these caps were necessary in Media on account of the cold. He calls the Persian cap “felt in the shape of a tower” (L. xv. p. 231). The king of Persia was distinguished by wearing a stiff cyrbasia, which stood erect, whereas his subjects wore their tiaras folded and bent forwards.613 Hence in the Aves of Aristophanes the cock is ludicrously compared to the Great King, his erect comb being called his “cyrbasia.” The Athenians no doubt considered this form of the tiara as an expression of pride and assumption. It is recorded as one of the marks of arrogance in Apollodorus, the Athenian painter, that he wore an “erect cap614.”
The “Phrygian bonnet” is called Phrygia tiara in the following lines of an epitaph (ap. Gruter. p. 1123):
Indueris teretes manicas Phrygiamque tiaram?
Non unus Cybeles pectore vivet Atys.
The coin represented in Plate VIII. fig. 15. (taken from Patin, Imp. Rom. Numismata, Par. 1697, p. 213) is of the reign of the Emperor Commodus, and belonged according to the legend either to Trapezus in Cappadocia or to Trapezopolis in Caria. It represents the god Lunus or Mensis, who was the moon considered as of the male sex agreeably to the ideas of many northern and Asiatic nations (Patin, p. 173). This male moon or month was, as it seems, always represented with the cyrbasia615. In another coin published by Patin (l. c.) a cock stands at the feet of this divinity, proving that this was the sacred bird of Lunus, and probably because the rayed form of the cock’s comb was regarded as a natural type of the cyrbasia, which distinguished the kings of Persia and was attributed also to this Oriental divinity. A lamp found on the Celian Mount at Rome616 represents in the centre Lunus with 12 rays, probably designed to denote the 12 months of the year, and on the handle two cocks pecking at their food. A head of the same divinity, published by Hirt (l. c.) from an antique gem at Naples, has 7 stars upon the cap, perhaps referring to the 7 planets.
Instead of the conical cap of the Asiatics many of the Northern nations of Europe appear to have worn a felt cap, the form of which was that of a truncated cone. Of this a good example is shown in the group of Sarmatians, represented in the wood-cut in Smith s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (p. 160), which is taken from the Column of Trajan. The same thing appears in various coins belonging to the reign of this Emperor, two of which, preserved in the British Museum, are engraved in Plate VIII. fig. 16. represents Dacia sitting as a captive with her hands tied behind her back, wearing trowsers (braccæ) and a conical or oval cap with the edge turned up. Figure 17. represents Dacia mourning. In each we see a Dacian target together with Roman armor. Each has the same legend, Dac. Cap. Cos. V. P. P. S. P. Q. R. Optimo. Princ. On the reverse is the head of the Emperor with the inscription Imp. Trajano. Aug. Ger. Dac. P. M. Tr. P.
According to the representation of Lucian (de Gymnas.), the Scythians were in the constant habit of wearing caps or hats: for in the conversation between Anacharsis and Solon described by that author, Anacharsis requests to go into the shade, saying that he could scarce endure the sun, and that he had brought his cap (πῖλον) from home, but did not like being seen alone in a strange habit. In later times we read of the “pileati Gothi” and “pileati sacerdotes Gothorum617.”
In considering the use of the skull-cap, or of the conical cap of felt, it remains to notice the use of it among the Romans as the emblem of liberty618. When a slave obtained his freedom he had his head shaven, and wore instead of his hair the pileus, or cap of undyed felt, (Diod. Sic. Exc. Leg. 22. p. 625, ed. Wess.). Plutarch, in allusion to the same custom, calls the cap πιλίον, which is the diminutive of πῖλος. It is evident, that the Latin pileus or pileum is derived from the Greek πῖλος and its diminutive, and this circumstance in conjunction with other evidence tends to show, that the Latins adopted this use of felt from the Greeks. Sosia says in Plautus (Amphit. i. l, 306), as a description of the mode of receiving his liberty, “Ut ego hodie, raso capite calvus, capiam pileum.” Servius (in Virg. Æn. viii. 564) says, the act of manumitting slaves in this form was done in the temple of Feronia, who was the goddess of freedmen. In her temple at Terracina was a stone seat, on which was engraved the following verse:
“Benemeriti servi sedeant, surgent liberi.”
In allusion to this practice it appears that the Romans, though they did not commonly wear hats, put them on at the Saturnalia.619 At the death of Nero, the common people to express their joy went about the city in felt caps.620 In allusion to this custom the figure of Liberty on the coins of Antoninus Pius holds the cap in her right hand. Figures 1 and 2 in Plate IX. are examples selected from the collection in the British Museum, and, as we learn from the legend, were struck when he was made consul the fourth time, i. e. A. D. 145.
In contradistinction to the various forms of the felt cap now described and represented, all of which were more or less elevated, and many of which were pointed upwards, we have now to consider those, which, though made of felt, and therefore classed by the ancients under the general terms pileus, πῖλος, &c.,621 corresponded more nearly to our modern hat. The Greek word πέτασος, dim. πετάσιον, derived from πετάννυμι, extendo, dilato, and adopted by the Latins in the form petasus, dim. petasunculus, well expressed the distinctive form of these hats. They were more or less broad and expanded. What was taken from their height was added to their width. Those already mentioned had no brim; the petasus of every variety had a brim, which was either exactly or nearly circular, and which varied greatly in its width. In some cases it seems to be a mere circular disc without any crown at all. Of this we have an example in a beautiful statue, which has, no doubt, been meant for Endymion, in the Townley collection of the British Museum. See Plate IX. Fig. 3. His right hand encircles his head, and his scarf is spread over a rock as described by Lucian622. He sleeps upon it, holding the fibula in his left hand. His feet are adorned with boots (cothumi) and his simple petasus is tied under his chin. In this form the petasus illustrates the remark of Theophrastus, who, in describing the Egyptian Bean, says, that the leaf was of the size of the Thessalian petasus623. For the purpose of comparing these two objects, a representation of the leaves of the plant referred to, is introduced into the same Figure (3); taken from the “Botanical Magazine,” Plates 903, 3916, and Sir J. E. Smith’s “Exotic Botany,” Tab. 31, 32. The petasus here shown on the head of Endymion, the original statue being as large as life, certainly resembles very closely both in size and in form the leaf of the Egyptian Bean, which is the Cyamus Nelumbo, or Nelumbium Speciosum of modern botanists.
The flowers of umbelliferous plants are aptly called by Phanias624 πετασώδη, i. e. like a petasus. The petasus, as worn by the two shepherds, who discover Romulus and Remus, in a bas-relief of the Vatican625, is certainly not unlike the umbel of a plant. See Plate IX. Fig. 4.
Callimachus ascribes the same head-dress to shepherds in the following lines:
Ἔπρεπε τοι προέχουσα κάρης εὐρεῖα καλύπτρη,
Ποιμενικὸν πίλημα.—Frag. cxxv.
The wide covering projecting from your head, the pastoral hat, became you.
This pastoral hat, if we may judge from the representation of the two shepherds in the bas-relief just referred to (Fig. 4.), was in its shape very like the “bonny blue bonnet” of the Scotch. Figure 5 in Plate IX. is taken from a painted Greek vase, and represents the story of the delivery of Œdipus to be exposed. His name ΟΙΔΙΠΟΔΑΣ is written beside him. The shepherd ΕΥΦΟΡΒΟΣ, who holds the naked child in his arms, wears a flat and very broad petasus hanging behind his neck. It is of an irregular shape, as if from long usage626. The shepherd Zethus wears a petasus hanging behind his back in a bas-relief belonging to the Borghese collection, published by Winckelmann (Mon. Inediti, ii. 85). See Plate IX. Fig. 6.
The Athenian ephebi wore the broad-brimmed hat, together with the scarf or chlamys627. Meleager, in an epigram on a beautiful boy, named Antiochus, says, that he would be undistinguishable from Cupid, if Cupid wore a scarf and petasus instead of his bow and arrows and his wings628.
When a young Greek conquered in the games, his friends sometimes bestowed a hat (petasus) upon him as a present629.
In consequence of the use of the petasus as a part of the ordinary costume of the Athenian youth, we find it in a great variety of works of ancient art illustrative of the religion and mythology of Greece. For example:—
1. In the inner frieze of the Parthenon, the remains of which are now in the British Museum, it is worn by many of the riders on horseback. Figure 7, in Plate IX. shows one of these horsemen (from the slab No. 54.) with his petasus tied under his chin.
2. It is worn by Theseus, as represented on a vase in the Vatican collection. See Winckelmann, Mon. Inediti, vol. ii. 98, and Fig. 8, Plate IX.
3. Also by Œdipus, as represented on one of Sir William Hamilton’s vases (vol. ii. Plate 24.), standing before the sphinx.
4. The coins of Ætolia exhibit Meleager wearing the petasus. Five of these have been selected from the collection in the British Museum, which are engraved according to the size of the originals in Plate IX. Figures 9, 10, and 11, are of silver. In each of them the petasus has the form of a circular disc with a boss at the top like that on a Scotch bonnet: on the reverse is the Calydonian boar, with a spear head beneath it, and the word ΑΙΤΩΛΩΝ. Figure 12, which is of gold630, and Figure 13, which is of silver, have the head of Hercules on the reverse. The hero, supposed to be Meleager, wears a petasus, a scarf, and boots, as we have seen to be the case with Endymion (Fig. 3), this being the attire of hunters. In these two coins he also holds a spear in his right hand, and is seated upon a shield (see Fig. 13.) and other pieces of armor. ΑΙΤΩΛΩΝ is written by the side. The gold coin (see Fig. 12.) represents him with a Victory in his left hand, and with a small figure of Diana Lucifera in front.
The broad-brimmed hat, or petasus, was more especially worn by the Greeks when they were travelling631. Its appearance is well shown in Fig. 14, taken from a fictile vase belonging to the late Mr. Hope632. It represents a Greek soldier on a journey, wearing his large blanket, and holding two spears in his right hand. This figure also shows one of the methods of fastening on the hat, viz. by passing the string round the occiput.
The comedies of Plautus, being translated from the Greek, contain allusions to the same practice. In the Pseudolus (ii. 4. 55, and iv. 7. 90,) the petasus and the scarf are supposed to be worn by a person to indicate that he was coming from a journey. In the prologue to the Amphitryo, Mercury says,
Ego has habebo hic usque in petaso pinnulas,
Tum meo patri autem torulus inerit aureus
Sub petaso: id signum Amphitruoni non erit.
Mercury and his father Jupiter are here supposed to be attired like Sosia and Amphitryo his master, both of whom had been travelling and were returning home. At the same time there is an allusion to the winged hat of Mercury, of which more hereafter. Again, in act i. scene i. l. 287, the petasus is attributed to Sosia, because he is supposed to be coming from a journey; and to Mercury, both because it was commonly attributed to him, and because on this occasion he was personating Sosia.
The Romans were less addicted to the use of the petasus than the Greeks: they often wore it when they were from home; but that they did not consider it at all necessary to wear hats in the open air is manifest from the remark of Suetonius about the Emperor Augustus, that he could not even bear the winter’s sun, and hence “domi quoque non nisi petatasus sub divo spatiabatur.” (August. 82.) Caligula permitted the senators to wear them at the theatres as a protection from the sun (Dio. Cass. lix. 7. p. 909, ed. Reimari). What was meant by wearing hats “according to the Thessalian fashion” is by no means clear. Perhaps the Thessalians may have worn hats resembling those of their neighbors, the Macedonians, and of the shape of these we may form some conception from the coins of the Macedonian kings. One of these coins from the collection in the British Museum is copied in Plate IX. Fig. 15. It is a coin of the reign of Alexander I. and exhibits a Macedonian warrior standing by the side of his horse, holding two spears in his left hand, and wearing a hat with a broad brim turned upwards. This Macedonian petasus is called the Causia (καυσία)633, and was adopted by the Romans634, and more especially by the Emperor Caracalla, who, as Herodian states, aimed to imitate Alexander the Great in his costume. It appears probable, nevertheless, that the turning up of the brim was not peculiar to the Macedonians, and it may have depended altogether on accident or fancy; for we find instances of it on painted fictile vases, where there is no reason to suppose that any reference was intended either to Macedonia or Thessaly. Fig. 16. Plate IX. for example, is taken from the head of Bellerophon, on one of Sir William Hamilton’s vases635; and the left-hand figure from a fictile vase at Vienna, engraved by Ginzrot636. This hat is remarkable for the boss at the top, which we observe also on the Ætolian coins, and in various other examples.
In connection with the above quoted expression of Dio Cassius it may be observed further, that besides the causia two varieties of the petasus seem to be alluded to by several ancient authors, viz. the Thessalian, and the Arcadian or Laconian. How they were distinguished, cannot be ascertained, but the passages which mention them will now be produced, that the reader may judge for himself. The Thessalian variety is mentioned by Dio Cassius, by Theophrastus, as above quoted (p. 427), and by Callimachus in the following fragment, which is preserved in the Scholia on Sophocles, Œd. Col. 316.
And about his head lay a felt, newly come from Thessaly, as a protection from wet.—Frag. 124. ed. Ernesti.
The frenzied Cynic philosopher Menedemus, among other peculiarities, wore an Arcadian hat, HAVING THE TWELVE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC WOVEN INTO IT637! Ammianus (Brunck, Anal. ii. 384.) represents an orator dedicating “an Arcadian hat” to Mercury, who was the patron of his art, and also a native of Arcadia.
Herodes Atticus wore “the Arcadian hat” at Athens, as a protection from the sun; and the language of Philostratus, in recording the fact, shows that the Athenians of his time commonly wore it, more especially in travelling638. Arrian, who wrote about the middle of the second century, says, that “Laconian or Arcadian hats,” were worn in the army by the peltastæ instead of helmets639. This circumstance shows a remarkable change of customs; for in the early Greek history we find the Persian soldiers held up as the objects of ridicule and contempt, because they wore hats and trowsers640. On the whole, it is very evident that “the Arcadian or Laconian hat” was one and the same variety, and that this variety of head-dress was simply the petasus, or hat with a brim, so called to distinguish it from the proper πῖλος, which was the skull-cap, or hat without a brim.
This supposition suits the representations of the only imaginary beings who are exhibited in works of ancient art wearing the petasus, viz. the Dioscuri and Mercury.
It has been already observed that the Dioscuri are commonly represented with the skull-cap, because they were worshipped, as the reader will have perceived, as the guardians of the mariner641; but on ancient vases we find them sometimes painted with the petasus; and if this was the same with the πῖλος Λακωνικὸς, it would coincide with their origin as natives of Sparta. In Plate IX. Fig. 16, an example is shown, on one of Sir William Hamilton’s vases, in which their attire resembles that of the Athenian ephebi. They wear boots and a tunic, over which one of them also wears the scarf or chlamys. They are conducted by the goddess Night.
In like manner Mercury, as a native of Arcadia, might be expected to wear “the Arcadian hat.” In the representations of this deity on works of ancient art, the hat, which is often decorated with wings to indicate his office of messenger, as his talaria also did642, has a great variety of forms, and sometimes the brim is so narrow, that it does not differ from the cap of the artificer already described, or the πῖλος in its ordinary form. These hats, with a brim of but small dimensions, agree most exactly in appearance with the cheapest hats of undyed felt, now made in the United States and Great Britain643. On the heads of the rustics and artificers in our streets and lanes we often see forms the exact counterpart of those which we most admire in the works of ancient art. The petasus is also still commonly worn by agricultural laborers in Greece and Asia Minor.
A bas-relief in the Vatican collection644, represents the birth of Hercules, and contains two figures of Mercury. In one he carries the infant Hercules, in the other the caduceus. In both he wears a large scarf, and a skull-cap, like that of Dædalus645, without a brim. This example therefore proves that, although the petasus, as distinguished from the pileus, was certainly the appropriate attribute of Mercury646, yet the artists of antiquity sometimes took the liberty of placing on his head the skull-cap instead of the hat, just as we have seen that they sometimes made the reverse substitution in the case of the Dioscuri.
Another bas-relief in the Vatican647, represents the story of the birth of Bacchus from Jupiter’s thigh. Thus the subject of it is very similar to that, which relates to the birth of Hercules, the infant being in each instance consigned to the care of Mercury. But the covering of Mercury’s head in these two cases is remarkably different, though from no other reason than the fancy of the artist. In the bas-relief now under consideration, Mercury holds the skin of a lynx or panther to receive the child. He wears the scarf or chlamys and cothumi. This was a very favorite subject with the ancients. It occurs on a superb marble vase with the inscription ΣΑΛΠΙΩΝ ΕΠΟΙΗΣΕ648, and on one of Sir W. Hamilton’s fictile vases649.
Figure 4. in Plate X. is from Hope’s Costume of the Ancients, vol. ii. pl. 175. The money-bag is in Mercury’s right hand.
In a painting found at Pompeii650, Mercury is represented with wings (pinnulæ) on his petasus, though not very ancient, is also recognized in the Amphitryo of Plautus.
Figure 5. in Plate X. is from the Marquis of Lansdowne’s marble bust, published by the Dilettanti Society651. In this beautiful bust the brim of the hat is unfortunately damaged.
Figures 6 and 7, Plate X., are from coins engraved in Carelli’s Nummi Veteris Italiæ (plates 58 and 65). Figure 7 is a coin of Suessa in Campania.
To these illustrations might have been added others from ancient gems, good examples of which may be found in the second volume of Mariette’s Traité des Pierres Gravées, folio, Paris, 1750.
Besides the application of felt as a covering of the head for the male sex in the manner now explained, it was also used as a lining for helmets. When in the description of the helmet worn by Ulysses we read
Μέσσῃ δ’ ἐνὶ πῖλος ἀρήρει652,
we may suppose πῖλος to be used in its most ordinary sense, consequently that the interior of the helmet was a common skull-cap.
Being generally thicker than common cloth, felt presented a more effectual obstacle to missile weapons. Hence, when the soldiers under Julius Cæsar were much annoyed by Pompey’s archers, they made shirts or other coverings of felt, and put them on for their defence653. Thucydides refers to the use of similar means to protect the body from arrows654; and even in besieging and defending cities felt was used, together with hides and sackcloth, to cover the wooden towers and military engines655.
Felt was also sometimes used to cover the bodies of quadrupeds. According to Aristotle656, the Greeks clothed their molles oves either with skins or with pieces of felt; and the wool became gray in consequence. The Persians used the same material for the trappings of their horses (Plutarch, Artax. II. p. 1858. ed. Stephani).
The loose rude coverings for the feet called Udones were sometimes made of felt, being worn within the shoes or brogues of the rustic laborers657.
In concluding this investigation it may be proper to observe, that, although πῖλος originally meant felt, and more especially a skull-cap made of that manufacture, it was sometimes used, at least by the later Greek authors, by an extension of its meaning, to denote a cap of any other material. Thus Athenæus (lib. vi. p. 274. Casaub.) speaking of the Romans, says, that they wore about their heads πίλους προβατείων δερμάτων δασεῖς, i. e. “thick caps made of sheep skins.”
Notes
584 Anleitung zur Technologie, p. 117, Note.
585 See Gilroy’s Treatise on the Art of Weaving, p. 14.
586 Malcolm’s Hist. of Persia, ch. vi. vol. i. pp. 123, 124.
587 Kerr’s Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. i. p. 128. See also p. 167, where the same facts are related by William de Rubruquis.
The account which Herodotus gives (iv. 23) of the habitations of the Argippæi evidently alludes to customs similar to those of the modern Tartars. He says, “They live under trees, covering the tree in winter with strong and thick undyed felt (πίλῳ στεγνῷ λευκῷ), and removing the felt in summer.” Among the ceremonies observed by the Scythians in burying the dead, Herodotus also mentions the erection of three stakes of wood, which were surrounded with a close covering of woollen felt (iv. 73). Also, in the next section but one (iv. 75.) there is an evident allusion to the practice of living under tents made of felt (ὑποδύνουσι ὑπὸ τοὺς πίλους).
588 Reise in dem Kaucasus und nach Georgien, ch. vi. p. 161.
589 Voyage dans les Environs du Mont Elbrouz. St. Petersburg, 1829, 4to, p. 20.
590 Travels in Circassia, by Edmund Spencer.
591 Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor, p. 38.
592 Ch. ii. p. 7, of Rémusat’s Translation, Par. 1836, 4to.
593 Xenophanes thought that the moon was a compressed cloud (νέφος πεπιλημένον, Stobæi Eclog. i. 27. p. 550, ed. Heeren); and that the air was emitted from the earth by its compression (πίλησις, i. 23. p. 484).
594 Pileus or Pileum (Non. Marc. iii., pilea virorum sunt, Servius in Virg. Æn. ix. 616.), dim. Pileolus or Pileolum (Colum. de Arbor. 25).
595 Tour through Greece, vol. i. pp. 242, 243.
596 See the articles Baculus, Barba, Pallium, p. 703, in Smith’s Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities.
597 Brunck, Anal. i. p. 223. Nos. x. xi.
598 Theocrit. xxi. 13.
599 Brunck, Anal. ii. p. 212. No. v.
600 Compare Eustathius in Hom. Il. x. 265, as quoted below.
601 Adv. Gentes, lib. vi. p. 674, ed. Erasmi. When Lucian ludicrously represents Jupiter wearing a skull-cap, which we may suppose to have been like that of the philosopher in Plate VIII. figure 1. he must have intended to describe the “Father of gods and men” as a weak old man; Διεῖλε τὴν κεφαλὴν κατενεγκών· καὶ εἴ γε μὴ ὁ πῖλος ἀντέσχε, καὶ τὸ πολὺ τῆς πληγῆς ἀπεδέξατο, &c. Dial. Deor., vol. ii. p. 314. ed. Hemster.
602 Montfaucon, Ant. Expl. t. i. pl. 46. No. 4.
603 Winckelmann, Mon. Ined. ii. 93. The skull-cap, here represented as worn by Dædalus, is remarkably like that which is still worn by shepherd boys in Asia Minor. Fig. 12, in Plate VIII. is copied from an original drawing of such a Grecian youth, procured by Mr. George Scharf who accompanied Mr. Fellows on his second tour into that country.
According to Herodotus the Scythians had felted coverings for their tents, a custom still found among their successors, the Tartars. Felting appears to have preceded weaving. It is certainly a much ruder and simpler process: and, when we consider both the long prevalence of the art among the pastoral inhabitants of the ancient Scythia, and the extensive use of its products among them so as to be employed even for their habitations, perhaps we shall be right in considering felting as the appropriate invention of this people.
604 Montfaucon, Ant. Expl. vol. i. pl. 46. figs. 1. 2. 3; Mus. Florent. Gemmæ Ant. a Gorio illustratæ, tom. ii. tab. 40. fig. 3.
605 Bartoli, Lucerne Antiche, P. III. tab. 11. There is a beautiful figure of Ulysses in Picturæ Antiquæ Virgiliani cod. Bibl. Vat. a Bartoli, tab. 103, taken from a gem. In Winckelmann, Mon. Ined. ii. No. 154, he is represented giving wine to the Cyclops: this figure is copied in Smith’s Dict. p. 762.
606 Smith’s Dict. of Gr. and R. Antiquities, art. Apex.
607 Ant. Rom. L. ii.
608 Bartoli, Luc. Ant. P. I. tab. 35.
609 Aristoph. Acham. 429.
610 Stuart, in his Antiquities of Athens, vol. iii. ch. 9. plates 8, 9, has engraved two beautiful statues of Telephus and Ganymede from a ruined colonnade at Thessalonica. In these the cap is very little pointed.
611 Fellows’s Discoveries in Lycia, Plate 35. Nos. 3, 7. The “Phrygian bonnet” is seen in the bas-reliefs brought from Xanthus by this intelligent traveller, and now deposited in the British Museum.
612 Herod, v. 49. According to Mœris, v. Κυρβασία, this was the Attic term, τιάρα meaning the same thing in the common Greek. Plutarch applies the latter term to the cap worn by the younger Cyrus: Ἀποπίπτει δὲ τῆς κεφαλῆς ἡ τιάρα τοῦ Κύρου.—Artaxerxes, p. 1858. ed. Steph.
613 Xenoph. Anab. ii. 5. 23; Cyrop. viii. 3, 13. Clitarchus, ap. Schol. in Aristoph. Aves, 487.
614 Πῖλον ὀρθόν. Hesychius, s. v. Σκιαγραφαί.
615 Hirt’s Bilderbuch, p. 88. tab. xi. figs. 8, 9.
616 Bartoli, Luc. Ant., P. II. tav. 11.
617 Jornandes, &c., ap. Div. Gentium Hist. Ant., Hamb. 1611, pp. 86, 93.
618 Hæc mea libertas; hoc nobis pilea donant.—Persius, v. 82.
619 Pileata Roma. Martial, xi. 7; xiv. 1.
620 Plebs pileata. Sueton. Nero, 57.
621 Plutarch (Solon, 179) says that Solon, pretending to be mad and acting the part of a herald from Salamis, ἐξεπήδησεν εἰς τὴν ἀγορὰν ἄφνω πιλίον περιθέμενος. Here πιλίον seems to mean the πέτασος.
622 In the Dialogues of the Gods (xi.), the Moon says in answer to Venus, that Endymion is particularly beautiful “when he sleeps, having thrown his scarf under him upon the rock, holding in his left hand the darts just falling from it, whilst his right hand bent upwards lies gracefully round his face, and, dissolved in sleep, he exhales his ambrosial breath.”
The recumbent statue, here represented, is of white marble, and is placed in room XI. of the Townley Gallery. It was found in 1774 at Roma Vecchia (Dallaway’s Anecdotes of the Arts, p. 303). It has been called Mercury or Adonis. But there are no examples or authorities in support of either of these suppositions. It is not sufficient to say that every beautiful youth may have been meant either for Mercury, who was never represented asleep, or for Adonis. We know that the fable of Endymion and the Moon was a favorite subject with the ancient artists. In the Antichita d’Ercolano, tom. iii. tav. 3, we find a picture, which was discovered at Portica, and which represents this subject. It is still more frequent in ancient bas-reliefs. See Mus. Pio-Clem. tom. iv. v. 8, pp. 38, 41; Sandrart, Sculp. Vet. Adm. p. 52; Gronovii Thesaur. tom. i. folio O; Proceedings of the Philological Society, vol. i. pp. 8, 9.
623 Πετάσῳ Θετταλικῇ. Hist. Plant. iv. 10. p. 147, ed. Schneider.
624 Apud Athen. ix. 12. p. 371 D. ed. Casaub.
625 Museo Pio-Clementino, tom. v. tav. 24. This bas-relief formerly belonged to the Mattei collection. See Monumenta Matthæinana, tom. iii. tab. 37.
626 See [Italian 469]Monumenti Inediti pubblicati dall’ Instituto di Correspondenza Archeologica, vol. ii. tav. 14.
627 Pollux, Onom. x. 164; Philemon, p. 367. ed. Meineke; Brunck, Anal. vol. ii. p. 41; Jacobs in Athol. Græc. i. l. p. 24.
628 Brunck, Anal. vol. i. p. 5.
629 Eratosthen. a Bernhardy, p. 249. 250.
630 This is engraved by Taylor Combe, Vet. Populorum Nunmi. tab. v. No. 23.
631 Brunck, Anal. ii. 170, No. 5.
632 Hope, Costume of the Ancients, vol. i. pl. 71.
633 Val. Max. v. 1. Extem. 4. Pausan., ap. Eustath. in Il. ii. 121. It is to be observed, that the causia and petasus are opposed to one another by a writer in Athenæus (L. xii. 537, e), as if the causia was not a petasus!
634 Plautus, Mil. iv. 4. 42. Pers. i. 3. 75. Antip. Thess. in Brunck Anal. ii. 111.
635 Vol. i. pl. 1.
636 Uber die Wägen und Fuhrwerke der Alten, vol. i. p. 342.
637 Diog. Laërt. vi. 102. See Gilroy’s Treatise on the Art of Weaving, American edition, p. 446.
638 Vit. Sophist. ii. 5. 3.
639 Tactica, p. 12. ed. Blancardi.
640 Herod. v. 49.
641 See p. 419.
642 Servius (on Virg. Æn. viii. 138) says, that Mercury was supposed to have wings on his petasus and on his feet, in order to denote the swiftness of speech, he being the god of eloquence.
643 These hats are sold in the shops for sixpence, ninepence, or a shilling each.
644 Museo Pio-Clementino, tom. iv. tav. 37.
645 See Plate VIII. Fig. 8.
646 See Brunck, Anal. ii. 41, and Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, lib. vi. See also Ephippus, ap. Athen. xii. 53. p. 537 F. Casaub.
It is remarkable that the person who acted the part of a Silenus in the Dionysiac procession instituted by Ptolemy Philadelphus at Alexandria, wore a hat and a golden caduceus (Athen. v. 27. p. 198 A.). In this case the imagination appears to have been indulged in decorating a mere festive character with the peculiar attributes of Mercury. It is added, that various kinds of chariots were driven by “boys wearing the tunics of charioteers and petasi” (Athen. v. p. 200 F.). This would be in character, being agreeable to the custom of the Grecian youth.
The following is from a sepulchral urn found near Padua (Gruter. p. 297):
Abite hinc, pessimi fures, * * * vestro cum Mercurio petasato caduceatoque.
647 Museo Pio-Clementino, tom. iv. tav. 19.
648 Spon., Misc. Erud. Ant. § xi. art. 1.
649 Vol. i. No. 8.
650 Gell’s Pompeiana, London 1819, pl. 76.
651 Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, London 1809, pl. 51.
652 Homer, Il. x. 265. Eustathius, in his commentary on this passage, says, that the most ancient Greeks always wore felt in their helmets, but that those of more recent times, regarding this use of felt as peculiar to Ulysses, persuaded the painters to exhibit him in a skull-cap, and that this was first done, according to the tradition, by the painter Apollidorus. The account of Pliny, who, together with Servius (in Æn. ii. 44), represents Nicomachus, and not Apollidorus, as having first adopted this idea.
653 Jul. Cæsar, Bell. Civ. iii. 44.
654 Thucyd. iv. 34. Schol. ad loc.
655 Æneas Tacticus, 33.
656 De Gen. Animalium, v. 5. p. 157. ed. Bekker.
657 Hesiod, Op. ed Dies, 542; Grævius, ad loc.; Cratini, Fragmenta, p. 29. ed. Runkel.