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 family[1]. 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 Pasiphae[2]. 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 counte-*
- ↑ Montfaucon, Ant. Expl. t. i. pl. 46. No. 4.
- ↑ 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.
