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 [Greek: SALPIÔN EPOIÊSE][1], and on one of Sir W. Hamilton's fictile vases[2].
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 Pompeii[3], 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 Society[4]. 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
[Greek: Messê d' eni pilos arêrei][5],
we may suppose [Greek: pilos] to be used in its most ordinary sense,
- ↑ Spon., Misc. Erud. Ant. § xi. art. 1.
- ↑ Vol. i. No. 8.
- ↑ Gell's Pompeiana, London 1819, pl. 76.
- ↑ Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, London 1809, pl. 51.
- ↑ 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.
