The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

FELT BY THE ANCIENTS. 423
for the handkcrcliicf, and sometimes for the purse. Others
wear tlie red skull-cap, or fcss.'^ The Lycians, as we are in-
formed 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 form*.
The cap worn by the Persians is called by Greek authors
Kvp.Saaia 01 riapaf, and scems to liavc had the form now under con-
sideration. 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 tliat tiie Cissii wore a mitra instead (vii.
61, 62, 64). On the other hand he says, that the Sacee wore
cyrbasiiBi which were sharp-pointed, straight, and compact.
The Armenians were also calletl "weavers of felt" (Brunck,
Arial. ii. p. 146. No. 22). The form of their caps is clearly
shown in the coins of the Emperor Verus, one of which, pre-
served in the British Museum, is engraved in Plate VIII. fig. 14.
The legend, surrounding his head, L. Vervs. Avg. Akmeni-
Acvs, refers to the war in Armenia. The reverse shows a fe-
male 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 Per-
* Fcllows's Discoveries in Lycia, Plato 35. Nos. 3, 7. Tlie " Phrj-gian bon-
net" is seen in the bas-reliefs brought from Xanthiis by this intelligent traveller,
and now deposited in the British Museum.
t Herod. V. 49. According to Moeris, v. 'Kvp/Jaoia, this was the Attic term,
Ttapa meaning the same thing in the common Greek. Plutarch applies the latter
tprm to the cap worn by the younger Cyrus : 'AT07r(Tr£i Si rijf Kcc^aXijj ^ napa too
K.ipov.—Artaxerxes, p. 1858. ed. Steph.
The " P5ir}'gian bonnet" is called Phrygia tiara in the following linee of an
epitaph (ap. Gruier. p. 1123)
:
Indueris teretes manicas Phrygiamque tiaram?
Non unus Cybeles pectore vivet Atys.