- nance 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 head[1]. Fig. 11. is another representation of Ulysses from an ancient lamp[2]. 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 Salii[3] are said by Dionysius of Halicarnassus to have been "tall hats of a conical form[4]." 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 pi-*
- ↑ Montfaucon, Ant. Expl. vol. i. pl. 46. figs. 1. 2. 3; Mus. Florent. Gemmæ Ant. a Gorio illustratæ, tom. ii. tab. 40. fig. 3.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Smith's Dict. of Gr. and R. Antiquities, art. Apex.
- ↑ Ant. Rom. L. ii.
